Quote Originally Posted by Morningstar1337 View Post
Okay I'm feeling like the Devil's advocate today and want to entertain the idea of removing (or tweaking so that they only work on the user) all the supportive skills form DPS and Tanks and having them be the domain of healers. As well as the side effects that this would entail.

I'm mainly looking at skills that (can) buff teammates and skills that can heal and res teammates. CC abilities and damage self buffs will be spared.
[LIST][*]Phys Ranged DPS: the changes will have the most apparent effects on them due to the whole "support tax" thing occurs mostly with them (though I think the real reason is due to mobility). The removal of the following would coincide with a potency increase for BRD and DNC.
  • Role-wise: Peloton (movement speed increase outside combat)
  • MCH: Tactician (an AoE defense buff with clones across the role).
  • DNC: Shield Samba (See Tactician). Curing Waltz (Aoe Heal). Devilment (Crit buff). Dance Partner (which enables most of the skills o affect teammates, Devilment in particular). As well as the finish and Esprit buffs
  • BRD: Wanderer's Minuit, Army's Paeon, Mages Ballad (all songs that increase the party's DPS), Warden's Paean (debuff remover), Battle Voice (Crit buff) and Nature's Minne (Healing buff)
Only going to speak on physical ranged (DNC and BRD, mostly).

For DNC: Standard and Technical Finish are more than just the buff—it’s also a gimmick for the job. Removing the buff would one thing. Removing the skills themselves would basically make DNC not a DNC at that point, because what would you be using the steps to. Esprit is a DNC-only gimmick. They just give the Dance Partner (and party during Tech Finish) a “buff” that gives them (the DNC) additional Esprit generation per weaponskill used (in addition to their own passive generation per the DNC’s weaponskill, which was theorycrafted to be 20~30%). It’s not really a benefit/buff to the party, but to the DNC itself. I don’t think repurposing those things for healers would work. You’d have to overhaul the job at that point.

Same for BRD’s songs. They each give BRD access to certain skills: Pitch Perfect in Minuet, Bloodletter/Rain of Death procs in Mage’s, and a bleh skill speed increase in Army’s. Plus, they affect the ability for you to gain Soul Gauge to use Apex Arrow. You have to have a song active to gain Repertoire, which is what builds your Soul Gauge—and you need the gauge to use Apex. (As much as I hate that skill, I can’t exclude it from this.) Removing these from BRD would be more than just “taking away the buff and giving it to the healer”. You’d likely have to redesign BRD (again), and I think it’s been through enough overhauls. Battle Voice is whatever, since D.Hit isn’t the substat king.

MCH doesn’t have any party buffs. It’s selfish. Tactician is kind of whatever—healers have an equivalent to Tactician/Samba/Troubadour already anyways: Temperance for WHM, CU for AST, and Sacred Soil for SCH.