What if Support Role was Added to FFXIV?

[Shurrikhan]

ARR BRD was probably the closest to a support class we've had.

HW BRD (and MCH) no less so, unless you count being the go-to to do what few movement mechanics could be baited by anyone as a "Support Action". Those tools didn't get gutted down to simple use-on-cooldown CDs until Stormblood.

ARR BRD could debuff enemy magic defense, they could restore TP or MP as well as movement speed out of battle. With changes they made to the game over the last near-decade, all that's left is movement speed. Honestly, BRD's support kit was still bad, but it was possibly the "best" FFXIV had to offer.

Sadly true.

The holy trinity of roles simply doesn't allow for true support classes in this game - I'm talking about FFXI BRD or EQ1 BRD and Enchanter. Classes that focused mostly on buffing, debuffing and crowd control.

It... can. Just, not through the way XIV has increasingly come to imagine that trinity, nor with how content it's been to have so few undermechanics.

But if you imagine a bunch of buffs usually used on oneself rotationally but now available to be leveraged to greater effect by being used on others... yeah, that's doable, and that'd be pretty near to those "true" support classes. We just need more things available in game (under)mechanically to actually... do. At present not having the actions isn't even the bottleneck; there are scarcely any interesting mechanics to create them for nor encounters to leverage them in/with.