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!