Introducing the support role to wow

[Deleted]

Blizzard doesn't want a class to be mandatory. That's why buffs were spread out over various classes after BC.

It's not a mandatory class, it's a mandatory role, the same way a tank is usually mandatory as well.

[Deleted]

And to add to that its not like a supporter would only be buffing or would just be there for his buffs. They would actually have some things that make them worthwhile.

A dps supporter for instance could have all kinds of procs on hit, when a dps supporter does 100k damage a buff would apply to the nearest guy standing to him increasing his crit by 2% for 5 seconds or when he does a special attack he has a beneficial buff that he could apply to himself would spread around the raid.

A healer supporter could draw debuffs from people to himself or could dispell them. He would be able to do bloodlust or reduce the cooldown of certain abilities by 30 seconds.

A tank supporter could have spells like mass misdirect, everyone standing in a place would get their threat directed to the tank. A tank supporter could also drag someone out of a nasty situation and reduce his threat or could reduce damage taken of the raid by 10% whenever he gets aggro from an add.

All kinds of cool stuff could be done with this supporter without making it a buffbot.

[Ihnasir]

I always loved Support roles and wish this would be implemented, but there are certain ways of playing currently to achieve that. The issue comes with people complaining about low dps, tanks going off on anyone who takes mobs away from them, and healers getting insulted if someone else heals instead of them. I personally welcome these when I'm doing any of my usual roles.

For Tanks: Hunters can be quite annoying with their pet growl turned on, but I never see one of them Mend their pet when it taunts. Warriors and DKs have no way of dropping threat (save Salv) and can easily pull threat and hold mobs, since they wear plate. The same conditions apply here, Warrior self heals are awesome, so they should be able to keep themselves alive with threat on one or two mobs. DKs have so many Defensive CDs readily available to every spec, but they never use them. Warlocks with the new Glyph of Demon Hunting is a great change that I love playing with on my Warlock, but I see randoms with it always taking threat away and then dying, without using CDs (properly or at all). Overall, I like that I have some relief from a mob or two, just as long as that person can take the hits they seem to crave.

As a Healer: everyone has mana issues. I welcome the Prot pally who can WoG and knows when to. (It seems to have been fully implemented as rotational in my experience playing Prot post-5.0) Again, Warriors have their self heals and defensives and should know how to use them. Monk selfhealing is great, as is Druid and of course DK. I just wish more tanks would be aware of what buttons they have and use them more leniently. I believe the active mitigation style has changed this a bit, and you can easily see who excels or sucks dingus when it comes to tanking now.

Onto the last bit of this wall of text: Everyone's a Metermaid. People only care about DPS, and if it's not up to par, they receive a kick. Most players I've encountered won't be checking CC, defensive usage, and various other ways that reduce damage in favor of utility and survivability.

TLDR; I like some relief as a tank, I enjoy tanks and dps who can heal themselves, and damage is always favored over usefulness. It's long beyond the time in WoW to introduce support roles.

[Perkunas]

During the majority of Burning Crusade I was an Elemental Shaman. I completed all content in that expansion as Elemental in a great guild that only asked me to respec one time when 2 other Shaman did not show up for an Illidan kill. As Elemental my DPS was gimp compared to pure casters, but the buffs I brought to our group increased the overall output of said group more than another pure caster would have. I loved this role and was very sad to see it go when Blizzard began to dumb the game down in Wrath.

[Daedelus]

be nice if there was a class that used its abilities to help others do a task they normally couldn't optimally do, like a melee dps tanking or spell dps healing.

haven't a clue how this would work but meh.

It used to be like this. For example, you'd have "melee group of death" in your raid which would be something like two rogues, two fury warriors and an enhancement shaman - the shaman was there mainly for the windfury and bloodlust it brought to that group only. In those days a lot of buffs were per group, not raid-wide, which meant sorting the groups was very important i.e. melee in one group, casters in another etc etc.

[Talen]

@ Talen, its like a hybrid role yes, but weaker. Its mostly a role to fill what is needed during a fight but also making others and himself do better. A support class would be a class that is viable to do anything depending on the needings of the fight and could be assigned the role of buffing with spells that increase damage or healing done for instance.

Which would be a Paladin. Or what a Paladin was. Able to step into any role as needed and provide buffs augmenting the abilities of others.

I'm not saying its a bad concept, but such concepts have been tried (to a limited degree) in WoW already. They proved hard for Blizzard to balance - especially since a lot of players found that the necessary sacrificies in effectiveness weren't worth it. The player ended up substandard in all roles so he could be balanced, and relied on buffs to ensure others got the glory.

What you would need to make the system work is allow the class to be effective at each role, but effectively allow him to change spec within a fight. A stance mechanic such as warriors use but with the stance, rather than spec choice, determining effectiveness.

EJL

[mickybrighteyes]

I was under the impression that "support" got turned into full on "healer" somewhere along the way between vanilla and cata.

[yjmark]

The problem with the suggestion (imho) is that most people don't want to play the support role. They want themselves to directly impact the encounter. Support roles don't directly impact anything. They indirectly allow others to do better. That makes them seem like a sidekick to the superhero. And most people want to be the superhero.

I wouldn't even want to get into the drama of people complaining if a support person boosts Player A instead of Player B, etc...

imho - they should just give people other things to do in encounters besides tank, heal, or DPS. I don't really see a reason to create a new role that Blizz needs to try and balance across all encounters.

[Deleted]

The problem with the suggestion (imho) is that most people don't want to play the support role. They want themselves to directly impact the encounter. Support roles don't directly impact anything. They indirectly allow others to do better. That makes them seem like a sidekick to the superhero. And most people want to be the superhero.

I wouldn't even want to get into the drama of people complaining if a support person boosts Player A instead of Player B, etc...

imho - they should just give people other things to do in encounters besides tank, heal, or DPS. I don't really see a reason to create a new role that Blizz needs to try and balance across all encounters.

Depending on how you do and implent the Support role people might want to, as the support role could be seen as the ultimate hero aswell, because without the supporter the heroes would not have prevailed.

Next to that it would bring a bridge between all three specs.

[Jon]

Vanilla WoW (and BC too) had support roles. Blizzard got rid of em, don't expect them back.

[Kevyne-Shandris]

Blizzard doesn't want a class to be mandatory. That's why buffs were spread out over various classes after BC.

WotLK we still had unique buffs and class perks.

But the support role is better played by healers, since they have to have some DPS to even do dailies.

In PvP that's already a given, as healers there just don't heal.

[BeastmasterGuardian]

I miss the old talent trees and 3 specs for Druids. It made going from Tank to DPS as easy as shifting forms. Now if I want my kitty DPS, I have to stop, activate, wait for mana, shift. Back to bear? Stop, activate, wait for mana, shift. Gone are the days of the Bearcat and the ability to support dungeons and raids on the fly.

[Grym]

I prefer a PROPER support role, the idea you have is more like a "jack of all trade, master of non" hybrid mix, that is more like a Druid that can do a bit of every form but not to max potential at the same time, but that is more a hybrid, NOT a support role.

A lot of other (especially older) MMO RPG has proper support roles. Like Bard in most games, and Red Mage in FFXI. They can heal, but they cannot heal as a main healer (whereas in your idea they can be used as healer is there isnt a healer). They are not expected to nuke, but they have some damage spells, but obviously nowhere near the damage needed to be used as a dps, so using them as a dps when missing a dps slot is also not viable.

However, Support Class can usually bring stuff to the table that boost OTHER people's performance (not your own), for example Bard songs that can increase people's attack speed (similar to a buff but much shorter duration that would need re-applying), attack power, mana regen, all sort. But it isn't as simple as just play the songs, as they need to choose to play AoE or single target (playing mana songs for healers and magic power songs for mages, while they all stacks up together can be problematic, so choose the song play style depending on the situation is needed). As well as constant power raid buff they also have some debuff that they can put on bosses, like attack power down, attack speed down, occasional random stun effect, (weak) DoT and such they can also do while all songs are still active.

I enjoyed playing Support Classes in other MMO, I was kind of surprised that there wasn't a support class role in WoW when I started. Give me a Bard (buff+debuff class) and I will be happy.

[ripponesan]

Well cant really decide.

On one hand we already had those supporters (Hybrids), and tehy did fine. Just think of paladins and shamans until wotlk.
I wouldnt call the concept as failed, but it was replaced anyway.

What i like about your idea is the naming and so knowing what you roled there.
I guess most of the hybrids back then didnt have a problem with the fact that they couldnt heal as good as a priest, or couldnt damage as hard as a rogue.
But some of them had this allmighty elemental shaman in mind whichs lightning bolts blew apart mountains if not continents. Beeing sad when they found out they roled a hybrid(Supporter).

But when you role a supporter from the scratch, KNOWING it will be a supporter, and KNOWING about the downsides, you will eventually having those playing that class/role that like it. There are enough of that people.

[Tastyfish]

In the age of, "max dps, max hps", wouldn't support specs and rolls just be overlooked the second you can overwhelm whatever it is you are doing, with gear, or mechanics like bubbles, invis, and so on?
It be great to have Buff/Debuff specialists but I think the players have a one track mind, and this kind of playing won't support it.

[Bigzumzah]

*cough* druid *cough*

[Moogie423]

I love the concept of support roles, however, like some others, I do not feel that it would fit in WoW anymore. The holy trinity has just been around for far too long. I so miss playing a bard in FFXI, every group wanted one, most groups wouldn't even start doing anything if they couldn't find a bard. They buffed the group, debuffed the enemies, had some of the best CC in the game, but could only do the damage of a wet noodle on a steel wall.

[yjmark]

Depending on how you do and implent the Support role people might want to, as the support role could be seen as the ultimate hero aswell, because without the supporter the heroes would not have prevailed.

Next to that it would bring a bridge between all three specs.

Even if you did that, the supporter is still the sidekick role. Yes, some people might enjoy the role of sidekick. However, I doubt that many people will. That is why a lot of people did not enjoy being buff bot paladins back in vanilla/early TBC, and hence why Blizz changed it.

[Otaka]

Back when 40 man raids were present, support classes were all hydrids. Paladins, druids and shamans.
They werent best in anything, such as healing or dps or tanking but they could supportively do it. And they had some sick powerful abilities that were more than welcome for raids.

Since they were buffed out from support-shells this game doesnt have anything that resembles a support class.

[Puri]

I don't see a benefit of this new role, unless the encounters are designed in so many different phases that changing from heal/dps/tank would benefit the raid.

If they would perform as well as "pure" roles, there would be no reason to bring pures anymore. And if they perform worse, it is highly dependend on the encounter if you bring them and instead of 2 healers and 7 dps or 3 healers and 6 dps you go with 2.5 healers and 7.5 dps.