People wanting a support class. Why?

[Ayuhra]

Well let me ask another question then. Is Dancer the support class you’ve always wanted in the game, I.E you feel like you’re being helpful?

It's close but needs work, especially regarding the logistics of having two Dancers.

For example right now if I Technical Finish then another Dancer Technical Finishes the buff of the second TF overwrites mine on the raid (makes sense) AND makes me lose my personal Esprit gain buff, which is now being given to the second DNC. That should be looked into.

It would be cool if we could debuff targets with our dances too.

[gman1311]

It's close but needs work, especially regarding the logistics of having two Dancers.

For example right now if I Technical Finish then another Dancer Technical Finishes the buff of the second TF overwrites mine on the raid (makes sense) AND makes me lose my personal Esprit gain buff, which is now being given to the second DNC. That should be looked into.

It would be cool if we could debuff targets with our dances too.

Tanks got the debuff part covered with reprisal and arm’s length.

[MomomiMomi]

Well let me ask another question then. Is Dancer the support class you’ve always wanted in the game, I.E you feel like you’re being helpful?

Nope. It's a dps that happens to buff the team. It's basically in a similar spot to Ninja.

[Machi_Machiavelli]

Pretty every class in the game has some kind of support ability (expect BLM and SAM)

Tanks can reduce damage taken by the party, or use single target barriers and shields to protect team mates

Healers do the same thing when it comes to reducing damage. Though, Astro can increase player or party dps.

Certain dps increases the parties overall dps, better then others.

The devs kind of spread out the support abilities, so things stay somewhat balanced.

But I want to know, what do you actually want from a support class?

Not everyone wants to dps. Some want to just help others dps better. No one will care about your dps if your buffs double everyone else's dps or debuffs the boss severely.

[Allegor]

I just like assisting others regardless of what I'm playing, so having a role that specializes on supporting* the team would be awesome...But given how both the game and the playerbase go by the "best defense is a good offense" motto, I don't see it ever happening.

* Support can be a lot more than simply buffing DPS. I was and still am sad Mana Shift, Apoc, and RDM's Tether were removed - I don't care they don't do damage, or aRe A dPs lOsS, I liked having emergency buttons to assisting healers without being a healer.

[Barraind]

But given how both the game and the playerbase go by the "best defense is a good offense" motto, I don't see it ever happening.

* Support can be a lot more than simply buffing DPS.

It's more that 14 doesnt support it.

We run 4 man parties (instead of 5 or 6) and 8 man raids (instead of 10/20/25/36/48/54/72), which means a support class has to be able to cover for a significantly larger chunk.

If you look at the difference between how 14 and WoW work, even comparing 8 man vs 10 man, having a class that isnt hyper-focused is almost an impossibility.

Where one system let's you run (or used to. I havent kept up) what is essentially half and half specs to fill slots (running a shadow priest which was basically half of a healer and half of a dps that also buffed several classes damage as a kicker, or a feral druid who could dps unless they had to tank something and also provided passable crowd control if necessary), the other doesnt really allow that to work.

Similarly, having something like an EQ enchanter or Bard wouldnt work unless you redesigned the game around what they are capable of doing and reliant on, if you dont change them significantly (at which point you might as well not bother in the first place).


The only place 14 works like a more traditional MMO in this sense is Eureka, and it fails there because it requires twitch gameplay in a system that consciously avoided the idea of twitch gameplay.


True support classes will probably never viable in a game that requires high APM (north of 30ish in an MMO), because support classes are designed around controlling APM and maximizing APM differences.

For reference, bards in EQ, who are ALWAYS acting and have 0 downtime have an APM of 26-30 depending on AA windows. CoH supports hit maybe 15 or 20 APM depending on cdr. An enchanter CC'ing 6 things may have an APM sub 20, as they MUST be not casting unless required.

Supports are just designed for completely different systems.

[Kazrah]

There's always a mentality that favors being able to help others through means other than pure damage. That I think is the biggest reason why Dancer is so popular despite it not being a healer: it filled a niche that Bard mains found lacking with their previous job.

The problem is that I think support is being toned back to make job design easier, which is a shame, but if Astrologian proved anything, it's that support stuff is really hard to balance properly.

[legione]

beats me.

i capped dancer despite being a support class, i really wished it was the physical ranged blm counterpart.

bb

[Aladire]

Oh on a side note, look at how the bard was implemented in FFXI. I think that is a little more extreme of pure support for FFXIV, but people always welcome a bard in your party if you were good at managing your effects. What also helped to make it really fun is that they had buffs or debuffs based on elemental effects. So, if the mob is weak to fire and you reduce the fire resistance even more since you had a BLM, then it was extremely powerful combo.

The side thing though is that a true support class cannot solo while a lot of this game is designed that at least for the side quests and MSQs, you are supposed to be able to solo.

[Connor]

I love playing the kind of jobs that buff party members or help them out in some way so I’d love to see a support class. Though I don’t have any misconceptions that it’s something that would ever happen, both because of the lack of demand and because of the enormous amount of work it would take them.

I think my own ideas for a support class are based on my limited experience with MMOs. The only one I’ve played other than this was some grief forays into FFXI, and from what I understand that’s quite an outlier in how there were jobs that only did buffs / debuffs / healing. In general they seem to be entirely impossible to balance in any other MMO from what I’ve heard. But since most of my experience is with single player games, I’m more used to them having a wider scope in what they can and can’t do in terms of designing jobs etc because there’s less pressure to balance.

Dancer is great and very fun but it’s more like a ‘damage dealer who buffs the party’ rather than support. Which isn’t necessarily bad, but I wish it could’ve had that spot alongside Bard instead of taking it from them. Ranged DPS right now is described in the job guide as ‘supporting the party’ but it’s more like a sliding scale than a description of the role. Machinist has high damage and almost no utility, Bard has a bit less damage but some limited buffs, Dancer has less damage than the others but more active buffing abilities. I feel like they wanted ranged to essentially be the ‘support’ role of FFXIV, but right now it’s more like the ‘do you want lots of utility or none’ role, so maybe this is why some people are feeling like a ‘support’ role would be a welcome addition to the game