Would Blizzard ever institute support specs?

[Teriz]

Does anyone think it’s possible that at some point Blizzard would give new specs for existing classes, and those specs would be support-based, like Bards and Dancers from Final Fantasy? Paladins, Monks, Shaman, Rogues, Mages, Hunters, Priests, and other classes could get new support roles.

More importantly, would those new specialization types be popular enough among the player base to warrant their creation?

I’m starting to believe that Blizzard might feel that the Trinity is outdated, and they may be looking to shake up the classes in some way. I don’t know how popular support classes are in other games, but people seem to love them, and are a bit bummed that they’re not in WoW.

[kranur]

Doubt. We had support specs in vanilla and tbc and moved away from it permanently. The current design as you can see is giving more tools to tanks and healer to do damage rather than group buffs.
The trinity does feel outdated but for me at least adding support specs would be lame and not something I care about. Can only speak for myself .. should have thrown a poll.

[DisRuptive1]

Maybe combine it with off-tanks.

[Teriz]

Doubt. We had support specs in vanilla and tbc and moved away from it permanently. The current design as you can see is giving more tools to tanks and healer to do damage rather than group buffs.
The trinity does feel outdated but for me at least adding support specs would be lame and not something I care about. Can only speak for myself .. should have thrown a poll.

While true, I do believe that Blizzard could modernize the role and make it better than it was in Vanilla and TBC. Part of the problem with the old version of support is that it occurred at a time where Paladin and Shaman were kind of multi-tasking instead of focusing on just support.

[VinceVega]

It will be a balancing nightmare between the different group sizes. (i don't count solo play. Switch to dps or tank)

A support spec MUST at least be worth one healer or one DD. I don't think they can take tanks spots.

Szenario 1: 20 man raid, one sup replaces roughly one dd/heal. This is with buffing 20 people. He goes into a mythic+ and suddenly is useless because he cannot buff enough people to make up for the lost spot.
Szenario 2: 5 man dungeon, one sup replaces one dd/heal. This is with buffing 5 poeple. He goes into 20 man raid and suddenly is worth 4 players.
Szenario 3: No matter what content, his abilities are only in his group even in raid. This is the whole PI situation on steroids. No one will be happy in the end.

I don't think support specs are worth it. And i don't think it will be taken well. Wow playerbase has a high... affinity for numbers. And sup will probably never me measurable. Otherwise it would just be another healer or dd.
(Not just wow before people jump on that, FF14 is no different. Nearly everyone in every game looks at their damage numbers)

And in the end i don't think you can make a support class really fun. You will never see your impact. Anywhere. Even if it exists.

Nice idea or dream but i don't think it is based in reality of gamers.

[Caerrona]

Does anyone think it’s possible that at some point Blizzard would give new specs for existing classes, and those specs would be support-based, like Bards and Dancers from Final Fantasy? Paladins, Monks, Shaman, Rogues, Mages, Hunters, Priests, and other classes could get new support roles.

More importantly, would those new specialization types be popular enough among the player base to warrant their creation?

I’m starting to believe that Blizzard might feel that the Trinity is outdated, and they may be looking to shake up the classes in some way. I don’t know how popular support classes are in other games, but people seem to love them, and are a bit bummed that they’re not in WoW.

The game would have to be completely watered down and homogenized like FF14 to have supports.

It just wouldn't work with wow's damage profiles/cooldowns and combat.

[Lochton]

I wonder if their statement that they made years ago would still stand today, about support classes not really being supported by their views and systems.

[bloodmoth13]

No, its completely redundant.
First off you need to define what support is and why its exclusive from the role of healer and tank, then you have to decide whether its mandatory or optional, if mandatory good luck getting healer, tank AND support all in a group, if its optional good luck getting a group as a support.

In vanilla they tried it with certain skills, paladins had blessings that they had to apply one at a time and shamans had totems, turned out that the gameplay was absolute garbage and completely unfun. you wound up being a buff bot that sucked at everything else.

With more modern design philosophy they could create something more interesting but you have to ask: why?

Its not necessary at all. What i would like to see however is DPS all get some support toolkits that work with the theme of the spec and create subclasses for different kinds of dps specs, like 'bruisers' that can assist with tanking (i have ideas for a complete threat rework to facilitate this but its just a complete other thing), healer specs can obviously assist with healing and pure dps can assist with group mobility and crowd control. The support i suggested all funnels into 'reduce group damage taken' which is effectively what support is going to do otherwise its just a dps.
Id like to eventually see pure healers and pure tanks as something optional for 5 man content where you could run 2 bruisers and 2 off healers in a 5man if you are skilled enough.
My idea is that these roles wont interfere with dps output so either add utility to rotational skills or have damage buff offsets when casting spells or put utility off GCD or something.
Also an opt out for players that arent interested where every spec can 'gift' their support power to another player (when used increase allies mana by 50% but reduce yours by 50%)
Also go go back to using mana for most classes (if not all) as a limiter for utility (with perhaps reduced CDs or double charges on utility spells) so dps specs can be balanced with finite mana pools etc.

This would create dps specs that provide support in unique ways and can help differentiate and justify multiple different dps specs.

If you are talking about a spec that buffs the damage output of other specs then i would suggest abilities that facilitate that gameplay but doesnt screw with dps, like casting a lightning shield on an ally where they are more powerful and are in control of the damage being dealt but it is attributed to the caster. Skills like that could be fun for healers who love the support fantasy but shouldnt be on dps specs and shouldnt directly improve dps classes but rather deal damage through dps players.

Im not opposed to support gameplay and i think there are ways to include it but i dont see any reason for support specs. Healing is a completely unique fantasy and gameplay style that justifies being included, same with tanking, but pure support is just far too niche in a game with 2 already unpopular niches.

[Caprias]

Class balance is finally in a good state from the beginning of an expansion (for 99% of players anyways), no thanks I'd like to keep it that way lmao.

We also already have the PI farce going on where the preferred PI target of the patch often get's nerfed the next patch or in a hotfix to feel double bad since they're not only nerfed mainly because of abusing PI but also likely not the prefered PI target anymore, this would likely happen even more with buff stacking "support" specs.

I'd be mighty sweating nowadays if I'd be playing unholy, sincerely a warlock-

[Tolinn]

I love the idea of having support characters in WoW in theory, but like a lot of other people have said, there are a lot of issues with the implementation.

- Say you're looking at M+. 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 DD, 1 support. That support would need to bring enough boosting to outweigh the damage loss.

- If they're only viable in Raids, they can take the spot of a healer or a DD. Again, it'd need to properly add enough to help those numbers. It's not as critical as in an M+, but it'll still have an impact on the group at higher levels.

- The opposite issue: if Supports are so strong that you HAVE to have one, it then limits the way you can build your raid or M+ group. Inevitably certain supports will boost some classes better than others. If they boost AAs, that won't help ranged. If it's about boosting spells, it won't particularly help melee.

I think thematically there's a ton you can do with it, but to have that support idea, you're almost better off calling it a DPS and it deals that damage through others. Even then, you're dependent on the other DPS being good as well.

[Unholyground]

Support is very easy to impliment in WoW's current ecosystem. You just have a spec that has medium cooldown large burst defensive/heal abilities. Allow them to do mediocre damage but have huge targeted short duration buffs that they can use fairly oftem.

[FossilFree]

All it needs is a new category on meter addons. Instead of tracking dps done, healing, or threat, it will track dps added to party/raid members. The more dps added, the higher you are on the meters. Simple, really.

[Caprias]

All it needs is a new category on meter addons. Instead of tracking dps done, healing, or threat, it will track dps added to party/raid members. The more dps added, the higher you are on the meters. Simple, really.

Gl figuring that out with haste buffs.

[Salmonface]

Does anyone think it’s possible that at some point Blizzard would give new specs for existing classes, and those specs would be support-based, like Bards and Dancers from Final Fantasy? Paladins, Monks, Shaman, Rogues, Mages, Hunters, Priests, and other classes could get new support roles.

More importantly, would those new specialization types be popular enough among the player base to warrant their creation?

I’m starting to believe that Blizzard might feel that the Trinity is outdated, and they may be looking to shake up the classes in some way. I don’t know how popular support classes are in other games, but people seem to love them, and are a bit bummed that they’re not in WoW.

The only additional spec I think needs to be reconsidered is Gladiator stance warriors. This needs to be a whole separate tree for them. Outside of this, I don't see any scenario where a "support spec" would have a place in a raiding environment. How would performance be measured? How would parsing work for support specs? You don't measure them based on healing done or damage. Would there be another metric? How useful would they be in a M+ setting?

I just don't see World of Warcraft ever getting support specs.

[Kralljin]

I don't think so, they shelved that concept after TBC.

The issue with a support spec is rather that it needs to be a "support role" and then you basically make into something that's mandatory, which would have massive ripple effects for Raids (bit of an issue due to flex size), M+ (the support spec will either be DOA or mandatory) and PvP (both Arena and RBG).

It works in a more freestyle version of WoW such as Classic where balance is whack, but in the tightly tuned world that is Retail, that shit doesn't fly at all.

[Gestopft]

It will be a balancing nightmare between the different group sizes. (i don't count solo play. Switch to dps or tank)

A support spec MUST at least be worth one healer or one DD. I don't think they can take tanks spots.

Szenario 1: 20 man raid, one sup replaces roughly one dd/heal. This is with buffing 20 people. He goes into a mythic+ and suddenly is useless because he cannot buff enough people to make up for the lost spot.
Szenario 2: 5 man dungeon, one sup replaces one dd/heal. This is with buffing 5 poeple. He goes into 20 man raid and suddenly is worth 4 players.
Szenario 3: No matter what content, his abilities are only in his group even in raid. This is the whole PI situation on steroids. No one will be happy in the end.

I don't think support specs are worth it. And i don't think it will be taken well. Wow playerbase has a high... affinity for numbers.

This is 100% my view. "PI on steroids" is a great way to put it. Now, perhaps a potential workaround for different group sizes could be to scale...pretty much every single support ability based on group size? You'd have to start there to even begin to attempt balance, but realistically that would probably feel waaaay too awkward to ever work as a sustainable model.

[Teriz]

It will be a balancing nightmare between the different group sizes. (i don't count solo play. Switch to dps or tank)

I don't think it would be a huge balancing nightmare. At the end of the day, a support spec just boosts the abilities of DPS, Healers, and Tanks.

A support spec MUST at least be worth one healer or one DD. I don't think they can take tanks spots.

Szenario 1: 20 man raid, one sup replaces roughly one dd/heal. This is with buffing 20 people. He goes into a mythic+ and suddenly is useless because he cannot buff enough people to make up for the lost spot.
Szenario 2: 5 man dungeon, one sup replaces one dd/heal. This is with buffing 5 poeple. He goes into 20 man raid and suddenly is worth 4 players.
Szenario 3: No matter what content, his abilities are only in his group even in raid. This is the whole PI situation on steroids. No one will be happy in the end.

Would it be conceivable for Blizzard to alter the size of raids and groups to accommodate this new role? For example, 6-man dungeons and 22-man raids?

I don't think support specs are worth it. And i don't think it will be taken well. Wow playerbase has a high... affinity for numbers. And sup will probably never me measurable. Otherwise it would just be another healer or dd.
(Not just wow before people jump on that, FF14 is no different. Nearly everyone in every game looks at their damage numbers)

And in the end i don't think you can make a support class really fun. You will never see your impact. Anywhere. Even if it exists.

Nice idea or dream but i don't think it is based in reality of gamers.

I believe it could be possibly worth it to draw in a demographic of players who enjoy that type of gameplay. There are players out there who like boosting party members but aren't into healing. I think the main issue is making that type of gameplay compelling.

Couldn't there be a way to measure how much damage and healing you've boosted? For example, couldn't DPS track when your damage is being boosted by a spell from support and attribute that bonus damage to the support?

Also tanks don't have flashy numbers, but people (albeit a minority) still love tanking.

- - - Updated - - -

I don't think so, they shelved that concept after TBC.

The issue with a support spec is rather that it needs to be a "support role" and then you basically make into something that's mandatory, which would have massive ripple effects for Raids (bit of an issue due to flex size), M+ (the support spec will either be DOA or mandatory) and PvP (both Arena and RBG).

It works in a more freestyle version of WoW such as Classic where balance is whack, but in the tightly tuned world that is Retail, that shit doesn't fly at all.

In terms of it being "mandatory" I don't see that as being any different than needing tanks, healers or DPS. All roles are essentially mandatory in group content unless you're overgeared.

- - - Updated - - -

I love the idea of having support characters in WoW in theory, but like a lot of other people have said, there are a lot of issues with the implementation.

- Say you're looking at M+. 1 tank, 1 healer, 2 DD, 1 support. That support would need to bring enough boosting to outweigh the damage loss.

- If they're only viable in Raids, they can take the spot of a healer or a DD. Again, it'd need to properly add enough to help those numbers. It's not as critical as in an M+, but it'll still have an impact on the group at higher levels.

- The opposite issue: if Supports are so strong that you HAVE to have one, it then limits the way you can build your raid or M+ group. Inevitably certain supports will boost some classes better than others. If they boost AAs, that won't help ranged. If it's about boosting spells, it won't particularly help melee.

I think thematically there's a ton you can do with it, but to have that support idea, you're almost better off calling it a DPS and it deals that damage through others. Even then, you're dependent on the other DPS being good as well.

Well like I said; Alter the size of groups to accommodate the new role. Also all roles are mandatory in group content, so I don't see Support as anything different than the existing roles. You can't raid without a tank for example.

If the specialization is based around support, it is conceivable that they would be able to boost holistically. For example, a Rogue support spec should be able to boost both ranged and melee, and both physical and magical. Perhaps for the sake of diversity one type of support does something slightly better than the other, but any support should be able to holistically bolster their group.

[Kralljin]

In terms of it being "mandatory" I don't see that as being any different than needing tanks, healers or DPS. All roles are essentially mandatory in group content unless you're overgeared.

The problem is obviously that you then need to offer multiple support specs as an option to players, else this will be extremely limiting.

It is in itself already limiting because you're imposing another factor onto group composition, which is something Blizzard has also moved away from over the years.
Yeah, in its early days you really wanted to have X,Y and Z even in a smaller group, nowadays it's a lot more flexible of just grabbing whatever fills that role.

And as alluded, you either need to add multiple support specs (which is a big task) or you need to forcibly retool certain specs into the suport role, which would be a massively controversial move.

[gd8]

Evoker is getting a support spec next patch so ya.

Also I think some specs could be changed over to support roles such as enhancement, discipline, maybe survival.

[Nymrohd]

I could see letting healers, including existing healers, have a lot more support abilities but have them require significant mana/other resources so the healer effectively has to pick what is best for different content/group compositions. D&D in its 4E tried to create roles and one of them was Leader; it was both healer and support at the same time and I could see that work for WoW as well.

But all those healers who loathe doing damage would hate it.