Support Classes/Jobs (Looking at BRD)

[Claire_Pendragon]

I've been a fan of support classes, such as RDM BRD and COR from FFXI.
I've taken up BRD and RDM, but do to lack of time, never got COR to 75.

After playing other MMOs extensively, such as WoW, I would wonder why a support role class was never really added.

Well recently, Yoshida mentioned he didn't want food to become Too good, so people would be forced to use it all the time. (Aka even outside of endgame, just to kill monster of exp range, you would need food.)

This made me think back to FFXI.

When Kirin was 1st released, allot of people had trouble with him, but over time, he became more and more manageable.

Then one day, everyone heard about the defeat of Kirin, that took less than 2 minutes.

What was it? Stacking on the buffs, and of course 2hours.

But remember all those times, your "moderately geared job" would miss miss miss, hit for some seriously bad dmg? (before updates)

If buffs that raise Attack, Accuracy, or Defenses are too good, they require all enemies to be balanced, so no one does a "Kirin Burn".

Now SE just makes more enemies have higher Evasion, Attack, and Defense, which makes you NEED that single buffing class.

This wouldn't be so bad, if it weren't for FFXIVs lack of classes atm. (Eventually jobs)
For the moment, things are decent, but upon the release of Bard, will this tread begin all over again?

Will every group be required to have a BRD?
What if balances are made, so it can buff, but only 1 BRD is needed? then what about all the other people who play BRD?

The current classes, can all at least DD, if someone else is elected to be the healer or tank role, except GLA.

Based on the fact ARC is becoming BRD, I would imagine SE is making BRD into a DD/support hybrid, like COR was in FFXI.

Now, this leaves us with the question, what happens if you have more than 1 BRD? Can they group together, w/o ruining the party?
Are their support abilities weak, and tied to their DD abilities? or are the strong and solely used to buff, like protect is?

The best options I could come up with, to keep as much balance as I could, w/o requiring enemies be made stronger, would be buffs equal to WHM or debuffs equal to BLM, and do not stack. (Which makes you wonder why have it?)

OR give them "Haste" (yes I know ppl don't wanna see TP burns again)
TP+ regeneration,
or HP regeneration. (weak, so as to not NEED a BRD, in order to keep a group alive in all endgame fights.)

Hitting often from haste, can make up for any lack of dmg the BRD does/does not do, it doesn't raise the attack per hit so much, that high defense is needed.
Maybe high HP, if SE ever wanted a potent Haste.

Over all, I would also not want to see Parties turn into NEEDING a support, like how FFXI required 4 roles, rather than 3, just to get exp.
(Granted we can solo, and grouping is easy, so this is most likely never going to happen, even if BRD WAS identical to FFXI BRD)

So out of all the class/job changes coming, (beating out my questions of "will GLA/PLD ever get an option other than to tank, in case of 2 friends both wanting to play the same class/job?" "Will PGL/MNK ever be raised back to optional tank status?" "Will MRD/WAR lose its tanking options come WAR?")
I figured this was the MOST important matter to address now, before its too late. (I'm sure it is, after this late into development.)

I know SE doesn't want to spoil anything, which is why I don't bog down the forums with the other questions I mentioned above (which I actually want to know about MORE, but it's nothing worth bringing up now.) but I feel this is too important to mention later than I already have.

Last but not least, Sorry if I missed any interviews on other websites, or missed anything in general, that makes anything above inaccurate.

EDIT: For Mantastics organized version of this post: http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post422308

I'm also curious as to what people think in general.
(So to do this, Thumbs up this post, if you are concerned over this possible problem, and thumbs up the following post, if you are not concerned.)

[Claire_Pendragon]

Thumbs up this post, if you are not concerned over this possible problem. and thumbs up the previous post, if you are concerned.
If not, explain why? Do you liek the old system regardless? Anything stand out why you did? Did I miss some info? etc.

EDIT: link to TL;DR http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...l=1#post422254

[Coglin]

It depend of what all the capabilities of a bard are. If they have any battery type songs (regen of MP and perhaps TP) no group will go out without one.

[Atoli]

So actually, you are concerned about..what?
Bard becoming too important? Or not important enough? Or mobs getting too strong? Or buffs being tied to DD? Huh? And what has food got to do with this?

Also, TL;DR version please.

[Charismatic]

So actually, you are concerned about..what?
Bard becoming too important? Or not important enough? Or mobs getting too strong? Or buffs being tied to DD? Huh? And what has food got to do with this?

Also, TL;DR version please.

He's concerned about Bard buffs being so potent that they are deemed needed for nearly every encounter and also concerned that the Bard buffs may not overlap with each other in a way that would make more than one Bard in a party useful. Like... say there's an attack buff from Bards that doesn't stack with itself or something, would you really have any use for two Bards?

[Atoli]

He's concerned about Bard buffs being so potent that they are deemed needed for nearly every encounter and also concerned that the Bard buffs may not overlap with each other in a way that would make more than one Bard in a party useful. Like... say there's an attack buff from Bards that doesn't stack with itself or something, would you really have any use for two Bards?

Thanks for explaining.
Well, I'm not concerned about that. I don't think balancing will lean into a direction where you will need a BRD for EVERYTHING.
But I hope they make this job needed for at least end game content. After all, we have jobs for players to use them, right?
And I guess BRD will still have Archer skills, so if two BRDs are in one party, one can play nice songs and one can shoot mobs to death as a DD.

[Charismatic]

Thanks for explaining.
Well, I'm not concerned about that. I don't think balancing will lean into a direction where you will need a BRD for EVERYTHING.

It's already happened once with a Square-Enix MMO so... I wouldn't be too surprised. And well, while they aren't NEEDED in FFXI, it's kinda like the whole ARC for Darkhold pre-1.19 and the LNC for Ifrit situation we have now. Sure, you don't need to do it that way but it's so much better than the other options we've come up with that most people will consider it a necessity.
We'll see what happens when jobs come out.

[Claire_Pendragon]

EDIT: holy karp this thread got quite a few replies between the post I'm responding to, till this.
Well for the TL;DR version. (I'll try but shortening it changes what I'm saying.)

***

I would like to point out issues in MMOs where a group of friends might have a tank (Choices of GLA MRD or maybe one day PGL) and a healer (Choices of CNJ or maybe THM). But will the choices of support be JUST BRD?
Now will BRDs buffs be SO good, that all end game enemies Require BRD? So one of us has to play something they don't enjoy?
What if we have friends who want to be a Ranged DD like Archer, but found BRD to deal no damage, was all that time spent wasted?
What if there is 2 friends, both ARC, originally thinking, "There's nothing wrong having 2 DDs in a group." and now BRD is set up, so only one is helpful to have in a group?

***

That is the best I can do, to TL;DR it, but it leaves out all the meat that would make it seem worth posting, rather than just waiting for the news to come.

[Betelgeuzah]

Yeah, bard will become a requirement for content that community considers 'hard'. SE will design these events so that bards are needed.

My only concern is that the job doesn't have enough appeal. I think people are looking for something more akin to COR with CC capabilities when they think of being buffers, not a sub-healer.

If they decide to give nukers a distinctive role as compared to dps jobs, there could be five archetypes total. I don't believe that it will become much of an issue in the long run though, as it's pretty easy to level in this game and people generally have access to multiple roles at all times.

[Betelgeuzah]

At the end of the day, if Bard is actually useful (which is, a no-brainer) the content needs to be balanced according to the assumption that it will be used in it. Otherwise this game will have no difficult encounters at all, as everything is balanced below the skills of an average group.