You’re the one that’s removing the RPG context from the term, so it becomes meaningless to use it in a discussion taking place in an RPG forum.
I’m not stopping you from using the term. It’s the correct, English usage. But when we’re using it to discuss an RPG class that fills the support role? You need to take the context into consideration.
It’s still cutting out a large portion of content they don’t get access to.
But at this point we are just spiraling. Access to legion content is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the problems adding a new class cam and likely will cause.
Its not worth doing to me.
I am using it in context.
The purpose of a DPS spec is DPS, but may fill a support role in tanking when needed.
How is that not in context of what we’re talking about?
It doesn’t fill a support role when tanking. It switches to a tanking role. That’s a hybrid.
Let’s put it this way - I have a bit of experience in the gold mining industry. We use the term “sludge” to refer to the electrolytically separated gold concentrate before it is smelted into ingots. Obviously the term has a broader usage… but I’m not going to be using it when referring to a mess of chemicals on the floor that needs to be cleaned up. Would I be technically correct if I used the dictionary term? Yes. Would I have people looking at me sideways if I used it outside of the understood context? Yes.
If I used the dictionary definition while speaking about things in an industry context, I would be confusing the contextual meaning of the word.
No, it doesn’t.
An offtank supports a primary tank. If he wasn’t off tanking he’d be a primary tank.
The off tank role exists to support the tank. It’s not there for any other reason (as you’d just take DPS at that point).
i rather have bard than tinker anyday lol.
You could say the offtank “assists” or “helps” the tank, too, using the dictionary definition. Some encounters, by design, require an offtank, which is generally a damage/tank hybrid.
That does not make a support class, just because that’s a word you can use to describe their role, since you can also use to to describe literally any interaction between two classes.
The same way a rock helps or assists a joist.
It’s exactly the same contextual interpretation of support.
Go to literally any forum for an RPG, tabletop or otherwise, that has support-type classes and ask what a support class is. I can assure you that you’ll get a very specific definition. And it will not apply to anything in WoW.
The trinity existing and “supporting” each other does not mean that WoW has support classes.
https://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/EQ:Classes/
Look at how allakhazam called it years ago. Nothing has changed in this regard.
Someone who shows up to offheal is supporting the healers. Their role within the raid/party is support in context.
Note how “support” and “heal” are separate categories.
From my own class, Shaman:
A priest of spirits who excels at weakening foes and empowering allies, particularly melee fighters. Also provides strong healing, has a decent pet, and deals decent damage with spells when no healing or support is currently needed. The only class that can [make potions].
The primary role was support. We could also do damage and heal, but primarily, we were there to support as a separate function.
Additionally, the description of Shadow Knight:
Necromancer/warrior hybrid. An unholy knight with the best aggro control among the tank classes. Can assist with healing self by draining health from foes, and has a weak but useful undead pet. In an emergency, can use Harm Touch to devastate a single foe.
Note the usage of the term “hybrid.” Not support, as you alluded to above. Because it doesn’t support. It performs multiple roles, but none of them support.
Healing was part of that support.
From a birds eye view that would mean hybrids such as paladins and shadowknights could primarily tank. They could not. Not until way later in the game.
The same was true of paladins in WoW up till Wrath I think.
Read your own link, dude.
They perfectly delineate the differences between roles.
Support is separated out for a reason.
It’s a tag. Not a definition.
Like tagging characteristics of anything. Multiple tags exist to neatly define it.
Let’s break that Shaman description down a bit more for you.
A priest of spirits who excels at weakening foes and empowering allies, particularly melee fighters.
This describes its primary support role.
Also
Note the usage of this word. It means that everything following is in addition to the above-described primary function.
provides strong healing,
There’s the healing, separated from support. This makes Shaman a hybrid class with a primary support role - not coincidentally how it was originally pitched for WoW!
has a decent pet, and deals decent damage with spells
Pointing out more utility and damage - again, separate from support.
when no healing or support is currently needed.
No healing OR support. Again, different concepts.
I thank you for that link. It perfectly breaks down EQ classes and clearly defines what the support role does. I know it’s illegal to be wrong on the internet, so you’ll continue to be deliberately obtuse (I’ve been guilty of the same, admittedly), but it’s perfectly laid out for you.
I guess they need something else to fix when they inevitably pull the ripcord lol.
I thought this same thing for Timewalkers when they had perfect roles laid out with the NPCs on Timeless Isle. Alas, these things don’t always come to fruition.
You’re saying that torpor is support but an off heal is not. Or clarity is support but off tanking is not.
That’s being deliberately obtuse. All of these things are support in context of what they do.
That the article doesn’t call them support is only because EQ had specific meaning of support for torpor, clarity and the like. But now say fortitude isn’t support. Or battle cry isn’t support.
It’s the lexicon of the game I suppose but in terms of how we use it in the real world all of these things are support. They needed a label to call something when it didn’t do damage or healing, so they settled on support. That doesn’t mean contextually other things didn’t also support.
And again paladins and shadowknights couldn’t primarily tank. So hiding behind the hybrid label is disingenuous. They wholly existed to support tanks.
Everything has some degree of support, but it would be cool if Bard was the first to be an actual Support role, as in their primary duty is to amplify the abilities of the group.
Precisely.
The only period in WoW’s history when we had Support as a legitimate role was during classic, with Shamans as the offensive support and Paladins as the defensive support. But even then… it was a secondary role to your primary role as a healer (or, ostensibly, DPS, but we don’t talk about DPS Shamans in classic).
And it was eventually phased out when we settled on the 1/1/3 default group build. There was no room for Support classes, so they either dispersed that functionality among the classes, or removed it entirely.
If there was one fundamental thing I could change about the path WoW took, I would have them embrace the Support role instead of discarding it.
Shamans, and Paladins to a lesser degree, still suffer from being gutted all those years ago. Without our Support, what are we? What is Enhancement if I cannot Enhance my teammates? We got a little taste of that identity back, and I love it, but still… I miss the true Support role.