Support is more than just healing. WoW lost a good design mentality when Jeff left. Support can be better group oriented buffs, how Shaman use to be. Support could be a better version of MC/Charm to attack as a pet for you. Support can be bard songs. The list can go on. Do not let yourself get stuck in a box, think outside it.
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Honestly? A minor buff to enhancement (or ret) end talents in their ability to buff the group’s damage during Vanilla would hame made them a defacto support class that was brought to raids because them existing in a group was a net positive for dps.
People didn’t bring them because their good buffs were easily secured at the top of the trees and ‘why should i bring a damage one of these when a healer fills a healing role AND brings the buffs.’ EDIT : While these kinds of builds were IMHO deliberately nuked because of their incredibly stupid ‘Hybrid tax’ back then.
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We’re in agreement here. The ‘healing’ role is simply too specific, especially considering every class in the game is capable of landing some degree of cleansing, healing, DPS, or mitigation. The roles need to be relabled so expectations aren’t made so narrow. HPriest is not a ‘healer’, it’s primarily support because its duties are wider than simply pumping out green numbers.
I miss the days of good totems with big windfury crits from myself and team. Todays version is just not the same.
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Yep. I personally wish Blizzard gave those specs either just a bit more damage so they could actually be a net positive for raid comps (and thusly while not topping charts being able to argue that they contributed meaningfully) back then because something like a support is something I love playing in games and why I predominately heal in this game to begin with.
I hear ya, I usually play supports like enchanters, bards, shaman, etc. I take pride in the group moving faster, not from pulling but from the team being beefed up from my support.
I agree, OP:
- we already have support specs and classes that have group wide buffs.
- what are they going to do, take those elements from the other classes?
- if they focus on support, and only support, how will they level solo?
Dumb idea. However, if they had thought of this at conception, it might have worked. But now as of right now.
Yep, enchanter and bard were my favorites. Healing is as close to support as you get in WoW, and it has just never really scratched the same itch.
For anyone reading this, if you’ve ever heard someone ask for ‘out-of-the-box thinking’… this is not what they were talking about.
There’s a difference between out-of-the-box thinking and impractical thinking.
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We don’t have support specs in the more traditional sense (akin to bards and enchanters)
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Taking elements from other classes in what way? Just because a class has a sheep/hex/cyclone doesnt mean that Blizzard couldnt create another spell that applies something similar. Remember that space is limited in a group. Support classes would likely do better in small group content like M+ rather than raids for obvious reasons involving encounter design but that doesnt mean that a class shouldnt be made.
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there is this wonderful thing known as off specs that healers and many tanks have utilized since ages past to ensure that solo content is able to be completed
Being told to spec for healing or be kicked is not “performing admirably”. Also, imagine being someone who knew paladins from Warcraft II, pick up WoW and learn that paladins are healbots and smashing faces with a hammer isn’t a thing anymore.
As for the people asking for “support”: I’ll start by saying you’re asking for something without understanding the ramifications. Support roles, historically, have been unpopular because people like being the ones making the big numbers, not the ones that prop up the ones making the big numbers. In other cases, support class gameplay is mindnumbing (yes, busy gameplay can be mindnumbing; it’s why healing puts me to sleep despite it being a busy and often stressful role) and often leads to a high burnout rate (see: FFXI’s Red Mage and Bard pre-Abyssea). This means parties and (most importantly) raids are beholden to support classes even more than they are to tanks and healers, and will have a harder time coming together as a result.
I’ve honestly seen support design that bucks the trends above only once in the time I’ve played MMOs, and that was with Lineage II’s Blade Dancer. That class was basically just a DPS with AoE buffs that needed to be renewed every 2 minutes. It didn’t need positioning like the FFXI Bard, and the gameplay was “hit things and renew buffs every 2 minutes”. It also had the “cool” factor of being one of only two classes that could fully benefit from dual wielding. Add that their buffs were in high demand (+attack, +crit rate, +crit damage, +attack speed). The result was that they were insanely popular, to the point you sometimes ended up in leveling parties that had two or even three of them. They outnumbered the actual DPS classes, which is insane given how support classes generally turn out.
So yeah, support classes are relics of a bad time and are better off buried and forgotten. And I’d hate to see specs get screwed over just for the sake of that role.
healer is a support it’s just been called healer so long that there is no point in changing the name. most healers do some modicum of damage.
The original support classes were changed because they didn’t work that well and were not fun to play.
The game simply just isn’t designed to accommodate a class whose main function is to support other classes.
Support is built into the classes we already have with their buffs that they provide other classes.
why is your head inside of a blue checkerbox?
Honestly, you could say the same for like 90% of the playable roster. The support role never had a chance to be modernized.
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IDK about you but I wanted to raid with my enhancement shaman during prog but our raid leader did the math and we discovered that the buffs I provided alongside the amount of damage I could do didn’t make up for me playing a different class doing actual damage and/or me just healing with my shaman instead.
It wasn’t that the game wasn’t designed for it to work but that these classes had to deal with the ‘hybrid tax’ design philosophy that inevitably leads to certain classes just not being viable in the raiding format where all the good gear was at the time without breaking their mechanics. Thus they were shifted away from the initial design of being able to provide strong buffs/support towards something more in line with how blizzard wanted you to play.
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Wtf are you talking about? Healers and Tanks are support.
Totems 
, oh wait the dream is fading
Yeah, they DPS too