A summary of healer issues

[Shurrikhan]

For the record, the role in Overwatch is explicitly and solely called Support, not Healer.

The difference is that while virtually all heroes in Overwatch have something that can be leveraged as support (a sniper, if otherwise uncontested, denies potentially the largest amount of space in the whole game which can then split or funnel the enemy to the advantage of flankers/divers/CQB heroes, and even when removing the hugely synergetic value of damage profiles... there's CC, ally-affectable healing, shared sight, barriers, etc., etc.), the Supports offer the least amount of value by themselves / are generally the most dependent upon others to exploit their full potential.

(Arguably tanks are just is bad in encountering a team capable of countering them, but, there's no more reason for a tank to 1v5 without some compensatory advantage than for Lucio to specifically hunt down a Tracer, etc.)

I.e., over there, every difference in profile actually matters, because TTK is tight enough, the undermechanics are many and varied enough, and the environmental contexts are significant. That's your biggest part of allowing for support (varied value based on coordination) in a general sense.

Of course, a healer in such a place --who taps into those allowances significantly-- especially when deaths are possible, as to allow for decisions of "Keep up A, over B", is pretty much bound to become a Support, not just a healer /heal-bot, if exploiting their kit to full effect.

But, that's also a PvP game. Having player-versus-player levels of available depth is PvE is... not easy.



Sidenote: I wish we could kind of scrap the clear-cut role breaks in FFXIV in favor of more of a spectrum, or at least allow greater divergence and versatile spread from those starting points.

Sure, every tank pair ought to be able to survive whatever tankbusters are thrown at it with, at most, a non-CD-gated barrier or a preemptive heal (landing after TB but before the AA immediately following it).

But, is there anything wrong with a Summoner being able to half-tank or half-heal by spending more time in and resource on Titan or Phoenix, respectively? A Monk rushing the CD on an empowered Mantra to allow for solo-healing? A healer with minimal 'free' healing being truly able to pump during raidbuff damage windows? Is there anything wrong with having a Stagger system (in the sense of suppression, not likely XIII/XVI damage multipliers) that could allow physical and magical damage each to suppress the enemy's physical movement or magical capacities, so that even Ifrit and Garuda, Drill vs. Empyreal Arrow, would feel different from each other, in a greater sense than just their relative potency?

[ForsakenRoe]

Oh now I see my confusion, there was a 'subrole' of heroes called 'Healer', but the actual role was called 'Support'. but everyone and their mother referred to them as 'the healers' because the heroes that were supports, were also healers, the two 'categories' were identical in terms of who was in them. Shoutout to the OW fandom for just refusing to use the official terms



Well, they took the last one away from us when SCH lost Virus, but I'd say we're 3/4 on 'doing support stuff in raids' here in FF14 land (AST actually had all four in HW, including a way to disable enemies literally called Disable), so can we stop trying to argue that 'because the role is called healer, it must be pigeonholed into having more healing tools than it needs', the two terms are basically interchangeable. The only thing that would be an issue if they renamed our healers to 'Support' is that we'd have to come up with a new term to mean 'tanks and healers' for callouts, ie if 'tanks and healers have a debuff to resolve' we say 'supports'

edit: wait scratch that, we actually do have all four still, because Repose still exists. It never gets used on bosses, but it exists

the small bit

This was the original plan I think in 1.0, since DRG and MNK could crossclass weird things like Savage Blade (the second step of the PLD aggro combo) and SkullSunder (same but WAR). A random uncombo'd Aggro generator skill seems very out of place, but I think the idea was that if the tank died, the melee would be able to pick the boss up and pseudo-tank it for a couple of GCDs to restabilize the tank HP. That got thrown out because A: it's kinda silly, B: there's no way you'd predict that the tank would die in the first place, so using it proactively to make sure you're 3rd on aggro wasn't really a good idea (it's a big damage loss), and C: boss autos clonk a DPS way too hard to survive. Maybe they were lower back then, or could survive easier because Keen Flurry existed, but it seems like just a relic of a bygone age of design, before Jobs became a thing

[Shurrikhan]

This was the original plan I think in 1.0

Kinda, yeah.

Sorry for the likely TMI, but back then, there weren't really class-set roles... period. There were... roles insofar as a thing people would do, but usually in rotation, as to maximally exploit their kits. Instead, there were simply... threads, for lack of a better term, with different components of each of what you'd usually expect to go into a tank, DPS, healer, etc -- never having all of them, and always extending in some pretty organic fashion into domains we'd usually consider a side-role.

For instance, GLD had... pretty shitty threat generation, but had the best counterattack damage. Taunt... was a Pugilist ability, and both PGL and GLD were built to some extent around tag-teaming (with GLD having more benefit on the swap-in and being more able to reliably and burstily soak damage, but with PGL having more of the snap threat and sustained mitigation).

Your sustained raid heals? They were arguably best on Lancer (via Life Surge who had an effect similar to WoW Paladin's Judgment of Light - healing for a flat amount per attack against the enemy), though that was on a shared cooldown with suppressing enemy TP (generated, at different modifiers per enemy, off of damage dealt, taken, and certain other factors -- similar to our LB gauge now).

What we'd think of today as "healers" were just "casters" with versatile kits, and practically each playing their own Challenge Mode of the game: one an all-elements elementalist (CNJ), and the other probably the craziest class XIV design has ever seen and would today look more like a whacky base-holding PvP build out of RIFT -- the selectively stat-stealing, HP/MP-stealing, HP-spending, debuff-shifting, CC-heavy, void-blasting Thaumaturge (think a Shadow Priest + Affliction Warlock with the optional ability to nuke heal).

Your 'pure' DPS? There kind of... weren't any, since the non-DPS value they brought to the table was always significant enough for those classes not to be interchangeable, and that everyone could pump, within their ideal circumstances.

A tank? Which kind? Dodge-tank, especially able to specialize against Earth, Wind, or Fire? Able to just soak up damage of any kind when that damage isn't yet predictable? To take big hits? To simply harass and keep in check the enemy while easing the job of everyone else? A kiting tank able also to interrupt casters and bind adds? A caster-juggernaut that fed off the most recent add wave to bolster stats to ridiculous levels? A stoneclad elementalist that can just keep drawing enemies in with mass heals and then repeatedly Flood them back? Pick your poison. There were some who could anchor that position easier than others, but the game seemed content to let every class carry a useful niche.

*Obviously, little of this got fleshed out to quite the point I may make it seem here, as the game basically lacked any significantly capable physics engine, even, but that the kits definitely show a tendency towards Classes first, with roles an afterthought left to the community to figure out (which... would mostly come down to wasting those class's potential in order to reduce gameplay/"stress", much like anyone asking that a Paladin in SB waste Sentinel and Rampart from the OT position just to get a slightly stronger Intervention).

[vetch]

Sorry for the likely TMI, but back then, there weren't really class-set roles... period. There were... roles insofar as a thing people would do, but usually in rotation, as to maximally exploit their kits. Instead, there were simply... threads, for lack of a better term, with different components of each of what you'd usually expect to go into a tank, DPS, healer, etc -- never having all of them, and always extending in some pretty organic fashion into domains we'd usually consider a side-role.

For instance, GLD had... pretty shitty threat generation, but had the best counterattack damage. Taunt... was a Pugilist ability, and both PGL and GLD were built to some extent around tag-teaming (with GLD having more benefit on the swap-in and being more able to reliably and burstily soak damage, but with PGL having more of the snap threat and sustained mitigation).

Your sustained raid heals? They were arguably best on Lancer (via Life Surge who had an effect similar to WoW Paladin's Judgment of Light - healing for a flat amount per attack against the enemy), though that was on a shared cooldown with suppressing enemy TP (generated, at different modifiers per enemy, off of damage dealt, taken, and certain other factors -- similar to our LB gauge now).

What we'd think of today as "healers" were just "casters" with versatile kits, and practically each playing their own Challenge Mode of the game: one an all-elements elementalist (CNJ), and the other probably the craziest class XIV design has ever seen and would today look more like a whacky base-holding PvP build out of RIFT -- the selectively stat-stealing, HP/MP-stealing, HP-spending, debuff-shifting, CC-heavy, void-blasting Thaumaturge (think a Shadow Priest + Affliction Warlock with the optional ability to nuke heal).

Your 'pure' DPS? There kind of... weren't any, since the non-DPS value they brought to the table was always significant enough for those classes not to be interchangeable, and that everyone could pump, within their ideal circumstances.

A tank? Which kind? Dodge-tank, especially able to specialize against Earth, Wind, or Fire? Able to just soak up damage of any kind when that damage isn't yet predictable? To take big hits? To simply harass and keep in check the enemy while easing the job of everyone else? A kiting tank able also to interrupt casters and bind adds? A caster-juggernaut that fed off the most recent add wave to bolster stats to ridiculous levels? A stoneclad elementalist that can just keep drawing enemies in with mass heals and then repeatedly Flood them back? Pick your poison. There were some who could anchor that position easier than others, but the game seemed content to let every class carry a useful niche.

This smells like Guild Wars 1 with aggro management sprinkled in.

[Renathras]

I think there's a misunderstanding going on here. Overwatch refers to their characters as Tank, Healer and Damage because Blizzard has a history of making an MMO. But the Healer could just as easily be called 'Support'. The Tanks could be 'Defender' or 'Guardian' or whatever synonym. Getting hung up on what 'being a support vs healer is' doesn't really get us anywhere.

This is an argument of semantics, and one that is arbitrary. A “healer” is any “support” that restores HP. “Support” characters/classes have low overall damage in exchange for brining utility—non-damage related effects that make encounters easier: healing, mitigation, crowd control, mobility, cleansing, dispelling…

They're relevant because they're distinct. It's like Tank and DPS. All Tanks in pretty much all games with a role system do DPS. Have rotations (or what in that game passes for one), etc. But they do less DPS, tend to have simpler rotations, but have more defensive (and often agro-generating) abilities, and thus slot into a different part in a party.

Look at Everquest Cleric vs Everquest Enchanter.

Clearly the two are not the same. There is very much a distinction. Calling them both "Healer" or both "Support" would be akin to calling a Tank "DPS" or a DPS "Tank" (hey, every DPS can tank at least for a little while! Sometimes "little while" means "one hit"). At that point, you may as well not have names or categories at all.

The difference isn't just "fills HP" and "does other things that are non-damage related"; again, Tanks and DPS must be the same role if we're using definitions that broad. Healers provide mitigation and recovery to party members, Support provide battlefield control (which is why Pantheon is using Control for the name of their fourth role, since they recognize that "Support" in their context can also include "Debuffing", which isn't very "supportive"; the role is more focused on control). It's a similar distinction like that which exists between "tactics" and "strategy", two words that initially seem similar, but are actually talking about completely different things that only seem similar to the uninitiated.

I will note that players who would prefer a Support playstyle often try to make this argument that they're the same - it would benefit them if we kept only three roles if one of the three was the one they'd rather play - but that doesn't make the two identical or just a difference of "semantics". A doctor dressing wounds in a combat situation and a logistics truck bringing in a supply of fresh ammunition are both "supporting" the front line troops, but they're obviously not performing anywhere near the same service, and one wouldn't expect the latter to do the former nor the former to do the latter.

The solution is clearly NOT to rename the entire role to Support.

The solution, honestly, is to institute an actual Support role. Besides, you can argue we use very little of our healing kit, but we use even less support, and all support spells in the game that aren't on DNC and BRD are also oGCDs: Chain Strat, Divination, Draw/Play are all oGCDs. At that point, you might as well rename your Support into DPS, if you're using the metric of "what do most of your GCDs do?" You'd also rename Tanks DPS, and the entire game would just be DPS. At that point, it'd be GW2, and then everyone would quit FFXIV to just play GW2...because it actually has the Trinity roles. XD

.

At its core - I've said this here before and been attacked for it, even though I wasn't the one that made any demands or anything related to it (that was Semi) and I didn't say it in any way disparaigingly - the problem is that the Trinity is a gimped Quaternary, and FFXIV encounter design isn't made to work with either. Tank, Heal, Support, Damage. Changing the names of the middle two doesn't fix the problem, and more poorly reflects what's happening (AST is the only arguably Support of the four; SCH has only Chain Strat, a 2 min oGCD, and WHM and SGE have no support abilities). But people still very much like that type of gameplay. I pointed out before that the Pantheon MMO polls routinely find between 20-30% of players want to play the Control/Support role (Enchanters, Bards), and in games without Support, try to find the "best fit" for themselves among DPS or Healer (and sometimes Tank) classes. In FFXIV, I'd wager PLD, AST, RDM, DNC, and BRD are favorites of those types of players.

The answer is for a game to actually embrace that. Pantheon seems to want to, we will see how it pans out if they ever get out of pre-Alpha...

Which, just like "make healing more demanding/interesting", would require a change to encounter design - something I fully support, obviously - so all paths to a lasting solution go through "change encounter design".

So we have a "Healer" class design, a DPS heavy Encounter design and with the flaw that support with utility will break it very fast so only DPS support will work properly
If we have this, then changing the current healer classes to support (aka dps with heal options) or "full heal" will not help or change it. In the end that means the encounter design is flawed and needs changes before we even can touch classes ?
Also does this mean "holy trinity" is not properly used in FF14? Because all this problems seem to stem from the idea of "holy trinity" but with a terrible execution.

Yes.
And...Yes.

...

I mean, solo Deep Dungeon runs are "difficult content", and CC there is pretty relevant. But I don't mean JUST crowd control.

I think once an expansion is over, overgearing is fine. During an expansion, it's limited based on the gear/ilevel inflation over the course of that expansion. If the overleveling is too much, it means the intra-expansion gear inflation is too much and needs to be reigned in. Once the expansion is over, there's no reason to insist the content maintain that, especially since players generally don't want it. Again, who here REALLY wants to do Aurum Vale circa 2013? A lot of people may be quick to raise their hand, but don't forget to add "...every day in roulette" to the end of that question. Maybe you still want to, but I would wager a majority - and I will actually use that term here as I think it does apply correctly - would really rather not do that.

Personally, I'm not a fan of "gotta go fast". Every time I suggest Tanks don't need to double pull here or on Reddit, though, I get downvoted into oblivion. CLEARLY the playerbase - including present company - have spoken on that issue, and people don't want slow/long runs of routine content (e.g. anything you do for tomes/roulettes). You have things like Criterion trying to break out of that, but those have been a total failure. "The rewards aren't worth it" is another way of saying "We don't want long content for the sake of long content; we only want it for rewards".

Me personally, I still love OG Blackrock Depths with the NPC bar inside the instance and the entrance to a raid tucked away in a dungeon the size of a Capital city...but apparently, I'm an old fossil MMO player. God forbid someone wants a dungeon craw to feel like crawling through a dungeon. <_<

I do agree with your last point, though; that content really needs to allow (and arguably require) Support (as well as Healing and Tanking) to make it valid. Heroics in Burning Crusade REQUIRED crowd control. You just couldn't do it without. Of course, this made DPS that could do it must-have (and those that could not, sidelined), so that's not so good. But one could argue that's because WoW didn't have a full on Support fourth role. Everquest was in the baby days of MMOs, and so wasn't exactly...designed...well; but games since that tried to carry on that style were. Granted, larger party sizes. In a 6 person party (also what Pantheon is going for), your party is 1 Tank, 1 Healer, 1 Support, 1 DPS, and 2 flex roles that you can fill to taste (or with whoever's available in /shout or /general); another Tank for extra defense, another Healer for extra safety, maybe one of each for a party that will be slow but more or less guaranteed not to wipe unless everything goes wrong, or maybe you carry 2 more DPS if you're camping a relatively safe area and just want to grind out levels quickly, or another Support for more control of situations in dangerous areas, etc.

You really need at least a party of 5, and ideally 6, to have another Role. And then you need to full on develop it. Then you need to design content to where it's expected you'll have at least one of each role in the party.

Semantic ? No, i try to make the diffrence clear:

You're perfectly clear. I'm not trying to start a fight, but I think the issue is there are a lot of people that prefer a Support playstyle that want FFXIV to have it, feel that FFXIV will only have three, and so want one of them (Healers) converted to their preference (Support).

The distinction is crystal clear and everyone in this discussion knows the four roles because it's part of MMO history. Everquest had them, WoW for YEARS talked about/flirted with adding them, most MMOs with a Trinity, when the devs are asked "If you ever added a fourth role, what would it be?" would answer "Support", and Pantheon, an MMO in development, is outright making the fourth role (they're calling it Control but recognize it as Support as well), is trying to follow after EQ's footsteps.

Anyone this deep in the weeds as we are here knows what the distinctions are. Some people just want to try and blur that line so they can get more of what they want. But it's not a failure on your part to explain, it's that some people don't want to accept the difference that we all know exists. It's the difference between knowledge and belief, where someone can know a thing, but refuse to believe/accept it if it causes them issues with their worldview or desires.

But in either case, you're right; whether we call it Healer or Support, or add both, the issue at the core is encounter design.

FFXIV already has a borderline Support role, it's the Ranged Physical (less MCH since the rework in ShB), and arguably RDM.

Granted, even there, they don't have to be absolutely solidly cut. In EQ, Shaman were healers that also had some buffing/debuffing. Paladins were tanks with some healing. Rangers were damage dealers with some (token) healing, and so on. Pantheon's classes seem to have 4 in each role (more or less) with each having a bit of a subrole they can shift to in a pinch. Of the Healers, Cleric has strong heals and barriers, and seems like it can do some Tanking, Shaman HoTs with some ability to dabble in Control, Druid seems like it's going to be a technical class like ARR SCH (complete with a pet of sorts), but be able to do decent Damage. Its other roles likewise seem to be similar (like Rogue is a DPS but can swap to a more Control posture at the cost of doing less DPS). Granted, pre-alpha, so take of that what you will, but EQ's versions were kind of like that as well.

...but someone above mentioned how these things can be a spectrum, and it is entirely possible to make that work as long as the game's encounter design and class design are made with that as the goal.

[ForsakenRoe]

FFXIV already has a borderline Support role, it's the Ranged Physical (less MCH since the rework in ShB), and arguably RDM.

Couple of people I've talked to said something similar actually. If they were to implement a Support role, it'd actually help fix the disparity in the DPS classes right now (apparently). What they said was to split the DPS not based on melee v ranged v caster, but selfish and support. So I guess you'd have NIN DRG BRD DNC RDM SMN moved to this new 'support' role, and the others double down on being more selfish. It'd at least open up the opportunity for interesting class design ideas I guess, like SMN getting additional support based summons, like Carbuncle applying a reflective barrier to bounce damage back, or RDM getting it's En-spells from 11 back. I don't think it'd go down well this point into the game's life though

IDK if I agree with the idea as I've not put much thought into it, DPS classes aren't exactly my thing

[Renathras]

Couple of people I've talked to said something similar actually. If they were to implement a Support role, it'd actually help fix the disparity in the DPS classes right now (apparently). What they said was to split the DPS not based on melee v ranged v caster, but selfish and support. So I guess you'd have NIN DRG BRD DNC RDM SMN moved to this new 'support' role, and the others double down on being more selfish. It'd at least open up the opportunity for interesting class design ideas I guess, like SMN getting additional support based summons, like Carbuncle applying a reflective barrier to bounce damage back, or RDM getting it's En-spells from 11 back.

Yeah, something like this. I've seen various takes on it, but generally BRD, DNC, and RDM make the Support list, with various other candidates (NIN, AST, and SMN are the next runners up, for example). MOST of these Jobs (RDM aside) are already balanced around this idea of bringing support leading to lower personal DPS. BRD and DNC completely rely on that, as does AST.

I think the general idea/pitch is that it fills the 4th party slot in 4 mans (being 3-6 Jobs, it would obviously have the representation to be worth that), and 1 or 2 slots in an 8 man party (1 a given, with the second being one of your choices for the 4th DPS flex slot like we have now). BRD has been "arguably Support" since ARR, if not 1.0. I think BRD could use Protect at one point, even, and used to use the Healer LB3. For all of FFXIV's life, it was treated as a de-facto Support by players. MCH when introduced had some support abilities with the Turrets (for the life of me I can't remember it now, but I remember it being a thing then), further cementing "Ranged Physical" as the Support role of the game.

And, as you say, it could open up a decent chunk of Job changes and gameplay styles, like SMN having various support Summons, like FF games tend to have between buffing/defensive/haste/etc Summons balancing out the offensive ones in a lot of iterations of the Job. Offhand, Tactics had 2 healing, a shield one, and something else. FF9 Eiko had Carby for all three barrier types (Reflect, Protect, Shell) and also Haste (changed based on what accessory she had equipped), etc.

It would also help out a lot of the players that really do yearn for that playstyle. I don't think it's coincidence that a lot of the players who want Healers to be Supports tend to main (or speak highly of) DNC and RDM. I think it's a design fault that SE doesn't decide to actually embrace that. RDM, for example, is the perfect vehicle for "DPS that throws support heals" due to its nature and lore, which is what a lot of people asking for Healers to become Supports are genuinely asking for. Granted, the encounter design would need to be changed so that HEALING ACTUALLY MATTERS, but if RDM had, for example, Vermedica (at a 1000 MP cost so they couldn't just outright replace a Healer as they'd OOM rather quickly), it would give RDM's the ability to stand in for Healers in a pinch or support healing in situations that actually demanded it.

...that does, of course, require encounter design to actually demand it.

Likewise, BRD and DNC getting stuff like combat Pelaton and enemy debuffs.

I dunno, I think it's something worth considering, at the very least.

[Shurrikhan]

Couple of people I've talked to said something similar actually. If they were to implement a Support role, it'd actually help fix the disparity in the DPS classes right now (apparently). What they said was to split the DPS not based on melee v ranged v caster, but selfish and support.

I really don't think theirs is at all a solid claim.

Neither support nor selfishness have a consistent complexity factor. Nor is the one necessarily harder than the other, especially in any context with both.

Without automatic sync, an exploiter would have to play around buffs just as much as a single-target buffer would want to play around that exploiter. Takes two hands to clap, and buffer and exploiter each have only one function hand, so to speak.

Limited range is consistently an additional factor of difficulty compared to unlimited range, even if to variable/contextual effect. Having cast times is consistently an additional factor of difficulty compared to not have cast times, even if to variable/contextual effect...

...But as long as you have a buffer, getting buffs out before potency and getting in potency after buffs... are just mirror images of each other.

Pseudo-exceptions: If you have single-target, unsynced buffs but a large disparity in average potency to be dealt within n seconds, the buffers decision can be made much more immediately and automatically, while the exploiter's decision (e.g., when to spend gauge and procs) can be a bit more tracking-heavy. Of course, if that best recipient varies, then the buffer will usually have more to be aware of, while the exploiter need only bank as able and up to the point they'd waste larger raid cycle potential.

[Aravell]

So I guess you'd have NIN DRG BRD DNC RDM SMN moved to this new 'support' role, and the others double down on being more selfish.

I don't think turning NIN back into a support would go down well with the current NIN players, most of them seemed to be thrilled when the Trick Attack changes occurred since they want to do more personal damage. NIN has also been stripped of a majority of their support abilities, in fact, MNK has 1 more than NIN atm. NIN's Mug against MNK's Brotherhood + Mantra.

MCH when introduced had some support abilities with the Turrets (for the life of me I can't remember it now, but I remember it being a thing then)

MCH had Hypercharge, which made the Rook turret give phys vuln and the Bishop turret give an AoE magic vuln. They also had Promotion, which stopped all turret autoattacks to pulse a restoration wave for TP (Rook) or MP (Bishop).

[ForsakenRoe]

I think the gist was meant to be that, raidbuffers can outscale 'selfish' DPS atm, because the raidbuffs are multiplicative and balloon out of control balancewise. With this change, the idea (I think) is that to reach 'the maximum potential', raidbuffers need a Selfish to take advantage of their buffs, and Selfish's need Raidbuffers to push them to the next level, in a symbiotic relationship. In such a balance that you'd presumably want 2 of each for Savage and such. You could still throw whatever comp at EX trials and lower, but yeh. I assume the buffs would be more... integral? to the gameplay loop of these 'supports', rather than being almost an afterthought as they are now. You'd still have your Battle Voices and your Emboldens for 2min windows, but having gameplay more revolving around buffing allies more 'actively' I can see. Like, instead of BRD just getting 'play this song for your rotation and it happens to buff your allies', having the old songs back which restore MP, restore TP, apply Vuln (how we miss you, foe's requiem), and giving the class MP management to try and keep the Foe buff up as much as possible (perhaps by having your song procs trigger an MP restore effect, if only that was still tied to DOT ticks). RDM having to enchant allies with En-spells which also grant Black/White mana, so it doesn't throw out your rotation or stop you from using 'the cool zorro moves' as much, stuff like that

This would also necessitate another minirework to MCH to fully cement it as 'the selfish P-Ranged', likely by giving it cast times on it's multitool hits and buffing their potencies. Though, a 900p Chainsaw with a 1.5s cast time would probably feel pretty good, thinking about it, especially with Reassemble

IDK it's just kinda annoying seeing the same song and dance play out every tier, SAM is at the top of the charts because it's personal DPS is highest, everyone feeds it the gear in statics, then 10 weeks later once everyone has BIS it drops off the charts as 'raidbuff stacking' takes over and scales past it

I don't think turning NIN back into a support would go down well with the current NIN players, most of them seemed to be thrilled when the Trick Attack changes occurred since they want to do more personal damage. NIN has also been stripped of a majority of their support abilities, in fact, MNK has 1 more than NIN atm. NIN's Mug against MNK's Brotherhood + Mantra.

MCH had Hypercharge, which made the Rook turret give phys vuln and the Bishop turret give an AoE magic vuln. They also had Promotion, which stopped all turret autoattacks to pulse a restoration wave for TP (Rook) or MP (Bishop).

I recall there being a massive outcry against the change to Mug/Trick, though that might be mostly because it was another 'make everything fit the 2min window' thing. I think NINs enjoyed their raidbuff being 1min, though that may also be a case of 'they enjoyed being meta for 'every raid tier since NIN was introduced', idk. Though you have to also remember that NIN did have utility in the past too, with Shadewalker and Smokescreen, Aggro manipulation tools. Aggro isn't exactly a thing now, but there can be room to give NIN some interesting thematic utility, like a buff to throw on tanks where the next X autoattacks are negated (they hit a shadowclone, or they do the log-substitute thing). I always felt like NIN was less 'direct' in it's damage thematically, rather working to sabotage the enemy, so maybe it's 'support' can be debuff themed, rather than 'buff ally' themed? Fair observation on MNK though

As for MCH, as funny as old Hypercharge was, it was also kinda just...there. It'd be like stapling a vuln onto Queen's Autoattacks. I feel like, as above, it'd be a better idea to just lean fully into MCH being, literally, 'the big guns' of P-Ranged and ramp their potencies up, with cast times to justify if needed. 900 might be too much, maybe 750 on AA/Drill/Chainsaw (since there's reassemble), and making Wildfire guaranteed to Crit/DirectHit (and therefore also able to scale off of Crit/Dhit increases like Battle Voice/Battle Litany)