What if Support Role was Added to FFXIV?

[R041]

I have never personally speak with any AST "at that time" said they love the card system.

I loved it and it's why it was my main in HW-SB but I no longer use is. But I can realize the system wasn't a good idea for high levels of play. We agree that it was bad for specific reasons, but it still had good to it. The bad was just RNG, doesn't mean we should have thrown all of the utility out just because their methods of obtaining the utility weren't liked.

That's been SE's stance anyway. "Oh, people don't like X? Remove it entirely!" - We act like the current card system is even remotely better, when it's just broken jank of an old system that people feel the need to fix with mods now. We'll see what the rework does in 7.0 I guess.

[ASkellington]

Yeah, every card doing the same thing sucks, but that's because there is nothing else that they can do meaningfully.

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.

[hydralus]

We've already got 2 roles with savior complexes we don't need a third.

[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.

[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).

[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.

[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.

[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.