What if Support Role was Added to FFXIV?

[Gemina]

I'll say this in regards to the card system:

Either remove the other 5 because they're worthless and rebrand AST as a Time Mage because there's nothing fun in giving out the same card in "three different flavors" for a crappy Seals System

Or do what you (SE) should have done in Endwalker if not all the way back in Shadowbringers and make the Seals give some of the buffs the old cards had on a toggle that we could control.

Bole was too RNG? How about getting 2 moons = a Bole like buff you can hold until you need it?

No, SE could have made support meaningful by upping mana costs and giving P. Ranged ways to keep you from Lucid Dreaming on Cool Down along with AST and the other healers if they wanted. Thing is, if they wanted. Its very obvious they don't.

Each of AST's six cards has a place in the lore, and they would have to redo all the class quests from 30-50. They can't just remove them. Your other suggestion just reverts them. The seal system is tied to Astrodyne, and only benefits the AST. This is exactly how it needs to be since it is based on RNG, as unlucky draws will not hinder the party's dmg output.

Again, encounter design of FFXIV removes the meaningfulness of these abilities, which is a big reason why they have been removed. Their removal has been staggered, and I would say a big part of that is because they wanted them to be meaningful during encounters. Just look at a skill like Repose/Sleep which players have been saying to just delete if skill/button bloat is a problem. They are still here though.

The issue that remains with the card system is the fact that they just won't let go of the player's ability to mitigate the RNG. Undraw and Redraw are still skills they have to deal with an unwanted seal. This just leads to a higher APM for the AST, and the benefit isn't really all that worth the effort. The seal system really should just be you take what you get, period. Play and/or Draw should also be on the GCD. Weaving these damn abilities just makes me want to cry. Not kidding.

[ASkellington]

Each of AST's six cards has a place in the lore, and they would have to redo all the class quests from 30-50. They can't just remove them. Your other suggestion just reverts them. The seal system is tied to Astrodyne, and only benefits the AST. This is exactly how it needs to be since it is based on RNG, as unlucky draws will not hinder the party's dmg output.

Again, encounter design of FFXIV removes the meaningfulness of these abilities, which is a big reason why they have been removed. Their removal has been staggered, and I would say a big part of that is because they wanted them to be meaningful during encounters. Just look at a skill like Repose/Sleep which players have been saying to just delete if skill/button bloat is a problem. They are still here though.

The issue that remains with the card system is the fact that they just won't let go of the player's ability to mitigate the RNG. Undraw and Redraw are still skills they have to deal with an unwanted seal. This just leads to a higher APM for the AST, and the benefit isn't really all that worth the effort. The seal system really should just be you take what you get, period. Play and/or Draw should also be on the GCD. Weaving these damn abilities just makes me want to cry. Not kidding.

"Lore" didn't stop them from removing Nocturnal Sect. Or Time Dilation. And the lv30-50 quests are already meaningless because the cards don't even do what the NPC says they do.

Astrodyne is trash and should be removed. Its a self buff on a party buffing class. Divination which was what Astrodyne used to be is already fixed at maximum damage. There's no reason for the Seals to not be a separate Utility buffing option other than they didn't want to put in the effort. They could have LITERALLY made Bole, Ewer and Spire into the Seals system akin to what we have in PvP and it would have been better than the garbage we have now. Because it is garbage. We don't need Mana - we have Lucid Dreaming. Haste also means nothing when we have short recast timers on everything that isn't instant except Ascend and who the hells cares about a 6% increase on the lowest personal damage healer in the game?

As for Undraw? This ability should have been removed at the start of Shadowbringers. There is 0 reason to Undraw a card now, there was 0 reason to Undraw then.

And NO to Play/Draw being on the GCD. Ninja Mudras feel awkward I don't want that on AST. At all if you can make it feel smooth. In fact the reason WHY Ast has high APM is because of the Seals system. Remove it and install the cards somewhat to how they used to be and look at that, you only have to draw once every 30s if you get rid of the second charge.

[Gemina]

"Lore" didn't stop them from removing Nocturnal Sect. Or Time Dilation. And the lv30-50 quests are already meaningless because the cards don't even do what the NPC says they do.

Noct Sect and Time Dilation do not have the same significance in the lore. The Bole, Ewer, Spire, Arrow, etc. are constellations, and the cards are representative of them. There are staples in the lore surrounding all jobs in this game, and if that is tied to an ability, or abilities, chances are it will never leave the game. Are you suggesting to remove the cards? Because that would be like removing SCH's fairy, MNK's forbidden chakra, WAR's inner release and so forth. The cards, and the card system will always be part of AST in some form or another.

Astrodyne is trash and should be removed. Its a self buff on a party buffing class. Divination which was what Astrodyne used to be is already fixed at maximum damage. There's no reason for the Seals to not be a separate Utility buffing option other than they didn't want to put in the effort. They could have LITERALLY made Bole, Ewer and Spire into the Seals system akin to what we have in PvP and it would have been better than the garbage we have now. Because it is garbage. We don't need Mana - we have Lucid Dreaming. Haste also means nothing when we have short recast timers on everything that isn't instant except Ascend and who the hells cares about a 6% increase on the lowest personal damage healer in the game?

Ok. this is just a rant. But ok.

As for Undraw? This ability should have been removed at the start of Shadowbringers. There is 0 reason to Undraw a card now, there was 0 reason to Undraw then.

And NO to Play/Draw being on the GCD. Ninja Mudras feel awkward I don't want that on AST. At all if you can make it feel smooth. In fact the reason WHY Ast has high APM is because of the Seals system. Remove it and install the cards somewhat to how they used to be and look at that, you only have to draw once every 30s if you get rid of the second charge.

Dude. Did you even play NIN when the mudras where off the global cooldown? Bunny Medium, bud. Bunny Medium all day, every day. Placing the cards/play on the GCD is just a suggestion. Don't lose any sleep over it.

[Alaray]

I'd like a genuine support role, although I'm not really sure if it would operate well with the way FFXIV works with its battle design.

With how many cooldowns tanks have, with how many powerful OGCD's and GCD's healers have access to, and the fact that any useful buff would only be something that increases DPS... it would probably play like a watered down DPS at the end of the day.

Since, as the nature of a support role, they generally are balanced to deal less damage than their DPS counterparts in most MMO's, and in XIV there's really no purpose behind offering bonus healing/bonus mitigation (most of the time). All they'd provide - that players would likely see as useful - are large DPS buffs, and those buffs would have to be large enough for the class to be taken in the first place (as, otherwise, there's no point in taking a Support over an extra DPS). Which, to that point, would basically make it just another DPS class with low personal damage output made up for by it's group contribution (And... providing just a push-and-forget damage up ability isn't really what I'd consider a Support in terms of the role/class design).

Almost all of the previous support concepts in XIV were phased out at this point. All of Astro's cards only provide bonus damage for a reason, even if I still preferred the interaction the cards had back in Stormblood (at least. Effects themselves were pretty niche, but being able to consume them to make another AoE, or increase it's effectiveness, etc... was kind of cool + time dilation). There's also not a lot of use for dispels in XIV, even since StB I can really only think of 1 fight where a dispel was relevant to have and use. Extra mitigation, maybe? But even then, it'd still feel little different from a class with addle/feint/tactician/mantra/crest etc...

I think, among DPS at least, the class with the most non-Damage related utility would be DNC between Curing Waltz/Improv/Shield Samba (not counting shared abilities - though I don't remember offhand if Shield Samba does anything different than tactician/troubadour).

But, ultimately, there's not really a resource in XIV that matters more to people than damage output. The change to AST's cards to all be the same card kind of speaks to that. So, a dedicated support role would end up feeling more like... a bad DPS, essentially. Or just a DPS.

I'd say BRD/DNC are likely the closest XIV will get to a support class, even if it's ultimately just a DPS class that doesn't really interact in a way more traditional support classes would. Granted, to be fair, support classes were generally difficult to find a healthy balance for (either they were too weak and not taken, or too powerful and too required).

[Gemina]

I'd say BRD/DNC are likely the closest XIV will get to a support class, even if it's ultimately just a DPS class that doesn't really interact in a way more traditional support classes would. Granted, to be fair, support classes were generally difficult to find a healthy balance for (either they were too weak and not taken, or too powerful and too required).

You're absolutely correct. Balance is a key issue here as the devs have made a considerable amount of effort to make all jobs viable in end game content. Instead of a support class, we have support abilities like SMN's rez, WAR's shake it off, DNC curing waltz, various mitigation skills disseminated across all roles, etc. Jobs that have zero support abilities, and just bring raw damage are actually very rare in FFXIV. This is what works for the current encounter design.

Healers are actually the game's closest to a true support class, as 90% of their kits are comprised of support abilities. They have no damage rotation, and very few ways to optimize the offensive skills they do have. At the end of the day, they are still healers though with the primary duty of keeping the party healthy. DNC/BRD are without question DPS jobs whose output has to be reduced due their ability to increase the party's damage consistently throughout the encounter.

[Neoyoshi]

Every job technically has a small handful of support abilities; it's just the jobs that have those abilities like Revive, Heal and some type of constant/semi-constant buff is widely looked at as the actual support jobs.

The rest of every job's support abilities that aren't the above mentioned fall into the utilities categories; which again, is something the community has decided and is a self-inflicted stereotype.

[hynaku]

Only support jobs I know of that we have here from other Final Fantasy games is the dancer and bard.

[MatGS]

I mean... they could move MCH to the physical melee DPS group and rename it to "physical DPS"
then rename the physical ranged DPS group to "support" and add a third class like "Gambler" (lady luck from ffx-2 comes to mind), "Chemist", "Juggler" or "Mime".

[ThaCa]

They should just bake the support stuff into Healers if they aren't going to give them any meaningful DPS abilities for downtime.

Remove party buffs from most or all other Jobs, replace with personals or up damage to compensate and shift the buffing to Healers. Give them debuffs and whatnot to fill pure support role.

[Gemina]

They should just bake the support stuff into Healers if they aren't going to give them any meaningful DPS abilities for downtime.

This is quite literally what they have already done to healers. They are extremely powerful in FFXIV in terms of their supportive ability. Their downtime is another issue entirely.