Group-DPS buffs aren't real "Utility" or "Support"

[GavynG]

They are superficial buffs to make you feel like you're buffing the group when they're really just their to offset your own low DPS. Red Mage's Vercure and Raising capabilities are a much better example of what support and utility is. Dancer and Bard's "DPS" songs and dances are not. Monk's Mantra ability is. I miss NIN's aggro tools a bit. They were fun. Trick Attack's effect is not.

These DPS-focused "support" and "utility" skills are boring and just keep the jobs feeling like DPS bots performing a rotation ad nauseum. I main and prefer DPS classes and don't understand why they can't give them 1 or 2 more hybrid-style abilities, or why they undertune the ones that do have them already. That way SE don't have to worry so much about a DPS job being able to do too much and nerfing a job's performance, because everyone will have their own unique tools (nothing drastic). It's kind of hard for me to explain it.

It's kind of the same issue I had back in HW when there were fewer movement skills to use with jobs. They were FUN and we needed more of them, and now that we do have more of them, lo and behold it feels great! No DPS having a skill like Vercure was also something I felt lacking in HW, people cried "OP!" at the suggestion on these forums (people here are so unopen to these ideas I swear), and then once again they added it when they brought Red Mage on board and it's been GREAT.

THIS is why I think they need to focus more on this kind of support/utility. Rather than just "muh deeps in savage!", I don't just want to play a role I want to play a job. I main a job because I love that particular class. I don't want to job-hop all the time. There's a lot more content than endgame raids. Let the jobs do more. Otherwise what's the point of even having a job system?

Even BLU could have been a normal job in the game with minimal sacrifices if they allowed jobs to be more varied to begin with. White Wind could've soaked half your MP to cast. Make bosses immune to death. Adjust their Kamikaze combo. Etc.

They just didn't want to make their jobs a little harder despite how much money this game makes. And they continue balancing these things anyway so that point is kind of moot.

ANYWAY. I needed to get this off my chest because it's the only thing that annoys the hell out of me in this game after so many years of playing. I don't care if you disagree.

[Rongway]

THIS is why I think they need to focus more on this kind of support/utility. Rather than just "muh deeps in savage!", I don't just want to play a role I want to play a job. I main a job because I love that particular class. I don't want to job-hop all the time. There's a lot more content than endgame raids. Let the jobs do more. Otherwise what's the point of even having a job system?

The thing is, this is really the only place where such abilities would make a difference, and they can't give us abilities that would make a difference in Savage because then the community mindset would be to prioritize the job that has the difference-making ability to the exclusion of others when given a choice.

[LeonKeyh]

The thing is, this is really the only place where such abilities would make a difference, and they can't give us abilities that would make a difference in Savage because then the community mindset would be to prioritize the job that has the difference-making ability to the exclusion of others when given a choice.

I mean, this pretty much nails the issue with that. Normal content is under tuned so much to be accessible to the most people possible. As a result, support skills like Monk's Mantra are nice to have, but if it's make or break then there are a lot of other issues that need to be dealt with.

Also, you're creating a really superficial definition of support, things that increase DPS are definitely support skills; more importantly, support skills which people will ALWAYS be happy to see at any time during any combat at any point in progression.

It definitely would be nice to see Peloton when cast in combat give a 5s run buff and start a 1m cooldown or something. That would be another nice support skill.

Overall though, other than that, "support skills" (even the stuff you mention) is just "Make Good Numbers Bigger" and/or "Make Bad Numbers Smaller." In that instance, there's no difference between the Dancer/Bard buffs and Monk's Mantra.

Edit: Also Also, if you're not careful with support/utility skills, you may end up taking a class and making it their identity (e.g. Rez Mage) and/or requiring the class to be there in certain circumstances. In general, support/utility balance lately has been more about rewarding people for bringing different classes for different ways of buffing DPS. For example, a crit buff on top of a +damage buff on top of a received damage debuff on the boss is exponentially better than 2-3 +damage buffs.

[Rika007]

Also, you're creating a really superficial definition of support, things that increase DPS are definitely support skills; more importantly, support skills which people will ALWAYS be happy to see at any time during any combat at any point in progression.

Thank you for saying it. DPS damage boosting is utility, and some of us very much enjoy boosting others numbers. I know sure as hell that a big reason why I'm not happy with bard right now if the loss of Foe's requiem, with nothing provided to make up for it's removal.

[ForteNightshade]

The thing is, this is really the only place where such abilities would make a difference, and they can't give us abilities that would make a difference in Savage because then the community mindset would be to prioritize the job that has the difference-making ability to the exclusion of others when given a choice.

A primary example being Ninja. Sure, Trick Attack played a huge role in its meta status through Heavensward and Stormblood but Shadewalker and Smokescreen cannot be underplayed. If you weren't running Warrior, it was downright necessary to bring Ninja otherwise whichever tank pulled needed to be in tank stance. Even Warrior could struggle for aggro off an overly aggressive White Mage or Bard in general. So when you factor in both that utility and Trick, why would anyone bring Monk or Samurai? They often didn't.

[Liam_Harper]

The thing is, this is really the only place where such abilities would make a difference, and they can't give us abilities that would make a difference in Savage because then the community mindset would be to prioritize the job that has the difference-making ability to the exclusion of others when given a choice.

From experience the community doesn't do this often, the attitude even in Savage being "play the class you enjoy, you'll perform better than trying to bring the top meta class". RDM as an example is perfectly fine, having Raise, Vercure and decent dps yet BLM having 0 utility still sees a lot of play too. As does WHM despite no shields or raid buffs. The community does get stuck into weird notions like "2 melee 2 ranged", "Always Noct AST with WHM" or "no doubles" even when they don't need lb3, but they're generally fine on class choice.

The fear of the community mindset shouldn't hinder class design. Players really aren't that bad. Sure some people exclude classes, but it's only a tiny handful really.

[LeonKeyh]

From experience the community doesn't do this often, the attitude even in Savage being "play the class you enjoy, you'll perform better than trying to bring the top meta class". RDM as an example is perfectly fine, having Raise, Vercure and decent dps yet BLM having 0 utility still sees a lot of play too. As does WHM despite no shields or raid buffs. The community does get stuck into weird notions like "2 melee 2 ranged", "Always Noct AST with WHM" or "no doubles" even when they don't need lb3, but they're generally fine on class choice.

The fear of the community mindset shouldn't hinder class design. Players really aren't that bad. Sure some people exclude classes, but it's only a tiny handful really.

Admittedly, I haven't done any high end content, but the "weird notion" of 2 melee 2 ranged seems to be a biproduct of both strategies being designed for that for balance, combined with the fact that you get main stat buffs by having Tank, Healer, Melee, Ranged Physical, and Ranged Magical in the group. That covers the 2 ranged for the bonus (1 physical, 1 magical) then you have an extra spot which just defaults to melee because of symmetry it seems.

As for the healers, typical they want 1 shield and 1 regen healer which, again, is not "weird." It's because both are good in certain situations and having 1 of each creates a powerful team (2 regen isn't as bad as 2 shield, but it still isn't as powerful as 1 of each, that's why there's "no doubles"). Fact of the matter is the game pushes people toward this "weird" notions by how it's designed, sometimes it does it explicitly (e.g. the main stat bonus for one of each job type) and sometimes implicitly (e.g. not allowing shields to stack, regens and shields being better in different situations, giving classes different kinds of group wide damage buffs), but it's the game that causes this, it's not some weird superficial rule that the community has come up with.

Also, the community doesn't do this _now_ because of how things are set up. Though I'd be surprised if people during progression or people competing for top kill times don't grab specific classes if all other things are equal (e.g. player skill). RDM/SMN for prog groups because of the extra rezzes for example. BLM/SAM with some good group buffs if they're looking for fast kill time, etc.

[Rilifane]

Admittedly, I haven't done any high end content, but the "weird notion" of 2 melee 2 ranged seems to be a biproduct of both strategies being designed for that for balance, combined with the fact that you get main stat buffs by having Tank, Healer, Melee, Ranged Physical, and Ranged Magical in the group. That covers the 2 ranged for the bonus (1 physical, 1 magical) then you have an extra spot which just defaults to melee because of symmetry it seems.

As for the healers, typical they want 1 shield and 1 regen healer which, again, is not "weird." It's because both are good in certain situations and having 1 of each creates a powerful team (2 regen isn't as bad as 2 shield, but it still isn't as powerful as 1 of each, that's why there's "no doubles"). Fact of the matter is the game pushes people toward this "weird" notions by how it's designed, sometimes it does it explicitly (e.g. the main stat bonus for one of each job type) and sometimes implicitly (e.g. not allowing shields to stack, regens and shields being better in different situations, giving classes different kinds of group wide damage buffs), but it's the game that causes this, it's not some weird superficial rule that the community has come up with.

Also, the community doesn't do this _now_ because of how things are set up. Though I'd be surprised if people during progression or people competing for top kill times don't grab specific classes if all other things are equal (e.g. player skill). RDM/SMN for prog groups because of the extra rezzes for example. BLM/SAM with some good group buffs if they're looking for fast kill time, etc.

As you said yourself, you haven't done any high end content so it's not surprising that your idea of how things should/ could work differs from reality. A lot of people think similiar until really getting into endgame content and notice that a lot of what gets thrown around in general is a lie. NN, party chats in DF content, reddit etc. is full of superficial knowledge or even outright false claims.

But a few things:
- as you said, one physical ranged, one caster and one melee is enough for the 5% buff. Locking slots to double melee because of "symmetry" makes no sense, it's completely arbitary and is the reason why it's a weird notion. There is no downside from a mechanical standpoint to having dbl caster or dbl physical over dbl melee. If the party has a RDM or an AST (or even both) then dbl melee nets those two a bit more rDPS/ less hassle with RNG but this is rarely the reason to go dbl melee, let alone in PF. The community is simply of the mindset that you have to go dbl melee because... reasons?
- dbl regen is in fact stronger than regen/ shield which is why it makes no sense to go Noct with a WHM co heal outside early prog. And I mean EARLY prog when everyone is standing there in crafted gear and there is a real danger of getting one shot through mitigation. Noct/ WHM is a really weak comp in almost every setting because it has a far lower free heal potency than Diurnal/ WHM, thus forcing both healers to heal more and drop dps. It absolutely 100% IS a rule made up by the community that makes no sense because they enforce something that is making the healers lives harder for "safety" reasons... which is completely backwards.

Speedrun/ rank log run parties will prefer certain combinations over others, like no RDM would ever join a single melee comp when going for ranked logs but those are outliers and there will always be a mathematically best choice. But this mathematically choice doesn't matter even the tiniest bit until the party as a whole took care of more pressing matters, e.g. keeping proper uptime, reducing rotational mistakes to a minimum, adjusting to more uptime friendly strats etc.
Right now, the comp matters relatively little beyond filling all 3 dps roles for the 5% buff and perhaps avoiding doubles whose buffs don't stack.

[ItMe]

From experience the community doesn't do this often, the attitude even in Savage being "play the class you enjoy, you'll perform better than trying to bring the top meta class". RDM as an example is perfectly fine, having Raise, Vercure and decent dps yet BLM having 0 utility still sees a lot of play too.

IDK man.
I only started at the tail end of Stormblood, but even then I ran afoul of parties "needing" a bard or a ninja all too often.
And in this expac we saw it taper off with the homogenization, but it still happens. The most prominent example being that for day 1 prog on TEA most groups were passing up RDMs. SMN was overturned and BLM is super lovely right now too, so if you were gonna bring a caster people were told to swap from RDM or GTFO.

[SpeckledBurd]

From experience the community doesn't do this often, the attitude even in Savage being "play the class you enjoy, you'll perform better than trying to bring the top meta class". RDM as an example is perfectly fine, having Raise, Vercure and decent dps yet BLM having 0 utility still sees a lot of play too. As does WHM despite no shields or raid buffs. The community does get stuck into weird notions like "2 melee 2 ranged", "Always Noct AST with WHM" or "no doubles" even when they don't need lb3, but they're generally fine on class choice.

The fear of the community mindset shouldn't hinder class design. Players really aren't that bad. Sure some people exclude classes, but it's only a tiny handful really.

That's because job balance this expansion has actually been fairly on point. The difference between the top performing jobs and the lowest performing jobs in a role has been pretty minimal, but in the past expansions that definitely hasn't been the case. In Heavensward Dragoon and Ninja were both significantly more powerful than Monk due to their raid contributions and by the middle of the expansion people were locking Monk out of PF groups. The same thing happened in Stormblood to Monk and Samurai though it was on a smaller scale.

For a non-dps example, in Heavensward when Zurvan Extreme was current and the skip soar or disband meme was reality, people started locking Warrior's out of PFs because Holmgang's duration was too short to allow it to cheese a certain mechanic that Hallowed Ground or Living Dead could. If there ends up being a big enough incentive to take one job within a given role over another people absolutely will block the other jobs out.