Anyone else wish RDM was a PURE support class?

[Jerbob]

I personally wouldn't like to see RDM as a pure support job, no more than I want to see it as a pure magic nuking role.

I strongly believe that RDM should be the hybrid it's always been in Final Fantasy. If SE aren't willing to do that in XIV, then I would rather not see RDM... ahem... "reinterpreted" like SMN, BRD, possibly DRK etc have been. I want them to do it right - or don't do it at all!

If, however, I were forced to choose between pure nuking and pure support roles for RDM, I'd think I'd find the support option much more interesting. I definitely understand where the OP is coming from.

Questionably relevant RDM musings

F: Some players might have been surprised with the fact that Red Mage will be DPS.
Y: I also have the image of the Red Mage being a hybrid job between Black and White Mage. However, we had to fit it into the FFXIV formula. Otherwise, it might turn out as a job that isn’t too useful. FFXIV is a standalone title in the FF series, so while keeping the essential roots of the Red Mage job in general, it will be unique to XIV, as well. You will see it as a new type of Red Mage.

I mean, this is pretty much the essence of it, isn't it. I'm not sure myself and the producer have the same ideas of what RDM's "essential roots" are. Why bother introducing RDM into XIV if it's a "new type of Red Mage", i.e. not Red Mage? I don't want to spend too much time wearing my tin foil hat, but it does feel a bit like they're using really popular job imagery to sell something completely different that people might not otherwise be interested in. I know a lot of people who are excited about it just because it has the Red Mage name and the pimp hat - would they be so interested in the expansion if it was just another generic nuker in both name and execution?

Of course this could all be explained away in the name of innovation, but as I said in a SMN thread a while back, if your car has wings and flies it's not an innovative car - it's something else.

However, we had to fit it into the FFXIV formula. Otherwise, it might turn out as a job that isn’t too useful.

I mean, I suppose this could be true, but... it's just all a bit boring this way, you know? Do it right, or don't do it!

Questionably relevant but nonetheless excited babbling about support jobs.

Thing is, I'm very much in favour of support jobs as a general thing. Actual BRD job, stuff like Green Mage - it's all there waiting to be used! I agree that there are a lot of hurdles in the way of implementing a real support job in a heavily restrictive environment like XIV, but I firmly believe it's possible with a bit of creativity.

Pure support jobs are just DD jobs that deal damage by proxy. They just need someone there for them to support, at which point they're (pretty much by definition) perfectly capable of pulling their own weight. If they can't pull their own weight, then they've been designed incorrectly! I mean, an AST giving someone The Balance is responsible for the extra damage dealt - that's theirs, just by proxy. Is there any real reason why a job couldn't be entirely constructed around that concept?

The only difficulty I see for pure support jobs in XIV is the fact that we're expected to solo our main quest. I don't have a problem with that as a paradigm, but it does require some creative workarounds for support jobs - a buffable, but rather lacklustre pet is one good solution. It'd serve the same purpose as Cleric Stance when you're forced to be on your own, and if you made it mediocre enough that buffing real players is always a better option when they're around, it should be golden. Each job could have its own, different "workaround", I'm sure. It seems like 90% of the time we have NPCs with us anyway.

As for the Duty Finder issue, is there any reason why there couldn't be a ruling that only 0 to 1 of the DD jobs in any given matched party was a support job? Then you'd either have the standard composition we have now, or one support job amongst a set of traditional damage dealers. No need for a new party slot that way either, so no extended queue times, and as support jobs tend to be less popular in general than direct damage dealers, you're unlikely to have an overload of them in the queue.

Or you could even give each individual support job its own mechanics for dealing with a "support overload" scenario! Maybe buffing one another's pets, to continue with the previous example. Something nice and creative if possible.

I dunno, there's probably lots of holes in my reasoning, but I really don't feel it's fair to dismiss the idea of pure support jobs out of hand. I think it's much more fun to think about it and theorise!

[Duelle]

As I've always said, give DRK its signature ability, which is to spend HP to deal more damage (the definition of a tank), not the drains, and keep it a tank. Let's see how tanky DRK has always been.

That and DRKs generally have paper-thin defense to compensate for their better attack scaling. You could make a case for Cecil, but he has plot armor on top of being the protagonist, and he eventually turns into a paladin. Gafgarion makes a slightly better case, but stats are a bit weird in FF Tactics (since HP mostly scaled with armor class and Gafgarion traded superior attack scaling for drains that let him live forever). I recall FFX-2 DRKs having lower defenses in exchange for drains and higher damage. And of course we have FFXI's DRK, which would get two-shot for pulling hate; Souleater simply made it a LOT easier to die in those situations.

If, however, I were forced to choose between pure nuking and pure support roles for RDM, I'd think I'd find the support option much more interesting.

To me, support has never fit the job's aesthetic. A guy in medium armor with a sword in hand that is able to cast spells is not what you picture when you think of support. That guy is better suited in the front lines, mixing sword swings and quickly-cast spells to do their thing. He's not going to stand back and let others do the work. I get that console FFs allowed for this sort of thing with your RDMs in FF1 existing only to cast Temper on your knight and ninja, but turn-based RPGs sort of require you to use character turns as efficiently as possible.

I mean, this is pretty much the essence of it, isn't it. I'm not sure myself and the producer have the same ideas of what RDM's "essential roots" are. Why bother introducing RDM into XIV if it's a "new type of Red Mage", i.e. not Red Mage? I don't want to spend too much time wearing my tin foil hat, but it does feel a bit like they're using really popular job imagery to sell something completely different that people might not otherwise be interested in. I know a lot of people who are excited about it just because it has the Red Mage name and the pimp hat - would they be so interested in the expansion if it was just another generic nuker in both name and execution?

I think people would feel gipped at that point. I'm currently on the fence, and which side I land on hinges on what the devs have exactly done to RDM. Trying to sell mobility as a gimmick is setting off alarms. The keynotes set off additional alarms. It's not fun to sit around with a gut feeling that they've messed up but you're not going to find out for real until June.

Pure support jobs are just DD jobs that deal damage by proxy. They just need someone there for them to support, at which point they're (pretty much by definition) perfectly capable of pulling their own weight. If they can't pull their own weight, then they've been designed incorrectly! I mean, an AST giving someone The Balance is responsible for the extra damage dealt - that's theirs, just by proxy. Is there any real reason why a job couldn't be entirely constructed around that concept?

Considering how Balance is seen as OP because of what it does to DPS output, I think if anything it proves that you can't have a buff oriented class because it becomes a mainstay for progression, and that trickles down to the people doing Sastasha for the first time. I'm sure your resident DRG/MNK/SAM/BLM would hate to get benched in favor of whatever buffbot ends up getting implemented. And that's not taking into account the potential for drama (see: princess BRDs and princess RDMs in FFXI).

[Jerbob]

To me, support has never fit the job's aesthetic. A guy in medium armor with a sword in hand that is able to cast spells is not what you picture when you think of support.

Definitely agree that RDM as a support job doesn't fit. All I was trying to say is that, given two options that both completely don't fit (XIV's RDM being a nuker vs. a hypothetical XIV RDM support job), I'd prefer the doesn't-fit Support to the doesn't-fit Nuker, just for gameplay reasons. Of course the best solution by a mile is to have neither, but sadly SE seem to be intent on ignoring that.

It's not fun to sit around with a gut feeling that they've messed up but you're not going to find out for real until June.

I know, it's horrible isn't it.

Considering how Balance is seen as OP because of what it does to DPS output, I think if anything it proves that you can't have a buff oriented class because it becomes a mainstay for progression, and that trickles down to the people doing Sastasha for the first time. I'm sure your resident DRG/MNK/SAM/BLM would hate to get benched in favor of whatever buffbot ends up getting implemented. And that's not taking into account the potential for drama (see: princess BRDs and princess RDMs in FFXI).

I think part of the problem here is that AST is primarily a healer with added skills on top. You can choose the healer that boosts damage output, or the one that doesn't - there's a clear optimal choice. Replacing a damage dealing job with a support job is a different matter - you can choose the job that deals damage, or the job that boosts it. The end result is still just damage.

I know that's oversimplifying to an extent, but I think the principle is sound.

I agree that there's a big question regarding whether SE are capable of balancing a support job so that it "counts" as one DD job regardless of the context it's in. There are certainly ways of limiting the amount of "buffs per second" a job is capable of throwing out, but it might take some creativity, and I'm not sure SE are willing to be creative at this point. If they can balance support jobs to be roughly equivalent to another DD job, though, then there won't be any demand for support - it'll be another playstyle, not another role.

[Duelle]

I think part of the problem here is that AST is primarily a healer with added skills on top. You can choose the healer that boosts damage output, or the one that doesn't - there's a clear optimal choice. Replacing a damage dealing job with a support job is a different matter - you can choose the job that deals damage, or the job that boosts it. The end result is still just damage.

I'd say it's more that they tried to use the buffs as an incentive to bring the job, but because buffs easily fall into that trap of being either useless or overpowered, we have the current problem.

As much as some hated the buff overlaps in WoW, I do know why they went that direction. For example, priests had a raid buff that lasted 60 minutes that increased the max HP of everyone in the raid. Except priests aren't the only healers in the game (since at the time you had resto druids, resto shaman and holy paladins), so the devs gave warlocks an aura buff called Demonic Pact that gave the exact same effect to everyone in the raid when the warlock had their imp summoned (the effects, however, would not stack). So even if you didn't have any priest healers in your raid, you had a decent chance of having that buff covered if you brought a warlock with you.

To put it into the current context, imagine if the devs calculated average uptime/DPS increase of Balance and gave SMN an aura that increased damage dealt based on that data when they have Ifrit-egi active, but anyone under the aura's effect cannot receive the benefits of Balance (if AST were to use it, the target players would receive no effect). In theory, your raid is no longer forced to bring AST and you're not kicking WHM to the curb because your buff is covered if you have a SMN in the group. Some may bring up the snag in my suggestion since Balance comes about via RNG, but I'd smugly reply that that's why adding RNG mechanics of that nature is generally a bad idea.

[Jim_Berry]

BRD, MCH, and SCH would need to be classed as Support as well, then. But since our system only allow for Tank, Heal, DPS, please look forward to it.

*EDIT*
Or how about changing BRD's and MCH's Limit Break 3 to gives an increase to all attributes, HP Regen, MP, Regen, TP Regen, Skill Speed, Spell Speed, Attack Speed.

[SaitoHikari]

*EDIT*
Or how about changing BRD's and MCH's Limit Break 3 to gives an increase to all attributes, HP Regen, MP, Regen, TP Regen, Skill Speed, Spell Speed, Attack Speed.

Would actually like this, but extend it to LB1 and 2 too. As it currently is, the BRD/MCH LB is completely inferior in every way to caster LB (why is it that the easier to aim LB also happens to inflict 10% more damage than the harder to aim one?), but this also lets you use carryover LB (for things other than using a ranged/caster LB to shave off 2-3% of the next boss' HP) before fights that would normally wipe the LB bars at the very start.

Maybe make it so that...

LB1: Increases all attributes by 10% and critical hit rate by 5%
LB2: Increases all attributes by 15% and critical hit rate by 10%
LB3: Increases all attributes by 20%, critical hit rate by 15%, and all abilities on cooldown are automatically reset

(No HP/MP/TP regen because that's healer LB territory)

[Tint]

i would have liked to see Red Mage as a healer class, because healers are the only role wich can switch between offensive and healing magic. on top of that the sword for meele attacks to further establish him as damage / heal hybrid class wich could hopefully replace Scholar.

[Ririta]

further establish him as damage / heal hybrid class wich could hopefully replace Scholar.

Why replace us?

[Ririta]

I wish it was a healer with lots of support like astrologian.

But I understand we needed another caster and red mage fits the role well.

[Donaria]

Regardless of the job if SE were to add a pure support class I see it as a endgame class only and would only unlock after you reach lvl cap. Let's say you beat stormblood story and are currently at lvl 70, you the player would gain access to the support class. This would bypass the need to lvl up a pure support class with limited dps skills and remain a endgame only class.

What do you all think?