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If they ever do a “support” role, they should morph it into some weird tank and healer two in one so dungeons can have 4 dps.
I’d find any experimentation in this stage of WoW’s lifecycle to be more than welcome. Especially if it meant the (re)addition of of preferred role into the game. I just find it supremely unlikely. The support role in WoW has been dispersed across all classes, with the most impactful aspects just being removed entirely. It’s not something that’s easy to reverse without affecting not only the new stuff, but everything that the role will need to recapture from existing classes.
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Healer was the support role but even if you have only 1 dmg ability the community will want you to dps. So I don’t see the difference between healer and support. You’re still going to be dpsing half the time.
That said, I’d love to see something like the painter from lost ark.
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If they go a little wild with making a third spec that’s not quite a DPS, nor a healer, I’m fairly confident it will get changed into a regular spec fairly soon.
DKs started having hybrid specs that could all perform (supposedly) both the Tank and DPS roles (in the same spec). Discipline at some point was redesigned to be a sort of Half healer/Half DPS. Both became traditional specs fairly soon after those experiments.
Eh, not really. It can literally play exactly the same. You just make personal DPS lower while actually “enhancing” your allies. Stormstrike now gives a stacking mastery buff, Lava Lash gives a crit buff, Sundering leaves a damage reduction zone, and so on.
And Enhancement has been reinvented almost as many times as there are expansions. It hasn’t had an identity in well over a decade. You’d survive. 
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That would make every dungeon only have 4 dps, because it would be obviously better and faster. So making the spec work like that would mean every other tank/healer becomes non-viable in m+.
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And if you want a “support” spec, then get another spec to do it, you’ll survive, and not screw over people that enjoy their spec.
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And you are providing a shining example of WoW’s target audience, clearly demonstrating why the support role would never work with the modern WoW gamer.
Never said I wouldn’t enjoy a new support spec for Shaman (edit: or any other class that it makes sense), as long as it isn’t changing and screwing over an existing spec. So way to be a shining example of making assumptions.
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Damage taken is auraed out into healing?!
yesssssss…
Yep. Hybrids don’t work in a modern WoW setting at all. Nor would a support hybrid - it would either be completely useless or absolutely essential, not to mention frustrating for the general WoW player who would now need to judge their own performance by the performance of others. A skilled support needs skilled party members to feel successful. Could you imagine the hate being spewed in groups with a skill disparity that is actively hindering the most skilled player there from actually displaying said skill?
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Eh, that’s more the “offtank” role than a support role. Honestly, it’s something that would be fun to revisit in WoW. But it’ll never happen.
Man I’m glad my Evoker never ever ever deals with that…
Healing is not support. I can see why people believe this without having the context of having played games with roles beyond the trinity, though.
A Support class is indirect. It might influence health bars, but it does so by making other players do more damage and/or healing, making enemies do less damage if any, or makes players take less damage.
They specialize in controlling the flow of a battle rather than direct intervention.
Think Battle Meditation from KotOR.
Id main the heckins out of a support role, buffing and shielding, having a brez and an interrupt, having a bit of heals too…that’d be amazing
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I wouldn’t mind a “support role” in the lite sense where you could have talents and such built for that(as opposed to traditional set ups for healing for example) but I wouldn’t want it to be a new role alongside healer,dps, and tank.
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Honestly unless we are about to get a crap ton of new specs it won’t be a new “role” It’ll be on of the 3 we already have the question is which one.
DAoC’s Bard was fantastic. A lot of the classes in that game, in fact, but it’s a little harder to define since “pure” classes were rare and most were hybrids of some sort. Bard was probably the “purest” support.
To come to think of it, EQ’s Shaman was probably the best realized Support class I’ve personally played. Complete focus on buffs and debuffs, very little in the way of tanking, healing, or damage. And it was glorious.