Anyone else wish RDM was a PURE support class?

[NocturniaUzuki]

While I agree that pure support - PURE support, is not really possible, there are creative alternatives that amount to 99% support and would fit the role system. I'll see about coming back and writing more when I'm not on my phone 2 minutes before I leave for work! :P

Now that I'm done work, I'll elaborate a bit:

First of all, looking back at what I said, pure support technically is possible within our current 3-role model, but in order for it to work, it would have to be a DPS class (a little strange, perhaps) and the duty finder would have to undergo a small modification to prevent 4-player parties from doubling up on the job. As a DPS, it would function as an offensive support class, with little to no defensive buff capabilities. The basic concept would be to have a DPS job that deals DPS via increasing its allies' damage output. It's not really that far-fetched, when you think about it. As for solo capabilities, the necessity of those is pretty low, seeing as Healers and Tanks don't do all that much solo damage as is. Just giving the job some Healer-level solo DPS capabilities while allowing it to buff the party would work.

As for the "99% support" that I mentioned, that was referring to a Healer job which is primarily support, instead of heals. At first glance, this might not seem possible, since Healers are supposed to heal... right? In reality, though, that's only partially true. The real job of the healer is damage mitigation - it just so happens that Healers accomplish this primarily through recovering HP after someone takes damage. Although it's not realistic to have a Healer that literally cannot heal (because giving a support class so much damage reduction power that everyone can survive solely on their own class' innate sustain would be overpowered), you can certainly have a Healer that inverts the current status quo.

The current status quo is that Healers are roughly 70-80% heals, and 20-30% indirect heals and/or support spells. For WHM, it has the most focus on heals, with powerful indirect heals via Regen. For SCH, it has its own powerful heals and has indirect healing via shields. AST has a bit of both WHM and SCH, plus the addition of more significant support skills via its card system. Therefore, inverting the status quo would give us a job that deals primarily in indirect heals, with less focus on direct healing spells.

Originally, I had envisioned such a class as functioning primarily on a system of simple percentage damage reduction buffs that could be boosted from their low values to higher values for short durations, essentially make it the ultimate preemptive healing class (cast a damage reduction spell shortly before a major attack lands to prevent most of the damage). However, I think that's a little boring and too straightforward. It also has many more potential flaws in its design. After seeing this thread before work though, I had a few new ideas spring to mind over the course of the day, which I think might be more creative as well as more functional. These are ideas like:

1. Damage Reduction via shared damage. For example, casting a protective barrier on the tank that absorbs 50% of the damage dealt and instead of that damage simply vanishing, it evenly distributes it across the rest of the party. If the attack usually deals 10000 damage to the tank, then it only deals 5000, then 5000 is divided across the remaining party members. On the flip side, there could also be a skill that absorbs 50% of the damage taken by the entire party, then redirects that damage to the tank or another target. In both cases, the damage could be subject to the new targets' defensive stats and buffs. So, by having a tank use one of its own damage reduction skills, then redirecting an AoE to the tank, the vast majority of the damage is mitigated.

2. An ability that causes DoT effects to become HoT effects.

Ultimately, I would envision such a job to heal primarily through regen effects, with virtually no powerhealing potential. Instead of power-healing targets through damage, this job would mitigate damage through a variety of creative means, not just straight damage reduction. The resulting concept is that, by maintaining regens on the party and/or a prime damage-soaking ally like an off-tank, then making smart use of damage redirection spells, the healer can keep the party's health up just by juggling who takes what damage, when, how much, and allowing regens to heal people as necessary.