Something I often see come up when people are talking about new classes or specializations is the addition of a support role. Is that something you would like to see?
Personally, I would love to see it again, but I find it extremely unlikely. Paladin and Shaman once held this role, but it was taken from them, and they’ve never truly found a niche since. It was what initially attracted me to the class, but there doesn’t seem to be room for it in this game.
It is contrary to their vision of design. Support classes are, by design, weak alone, and pretty much required in any competitive group content - both aspects that Blizzard avoids in their design choices.
And no, “healing” is not support, no more than “tanking” is support. They’re both cornerstones of group content, necessary to any successful effort. Support is subtly enhancing your teammates to make up for your personal weakness, allowing them to excel in their roles. Through buffs and debuffs.
I miss it, but I doubt it will ever resurface here.
Yes I miss classes being there for buffs, and I miss shaman totems. I enjoyed that aspect of FFXIV. Dancers arent great dps, but they give amazing dps buffs to their partner and have a heal and other support.
I think support has turned into utility. What race/class combo has the best utility for content a person wants to do? For example, pandaren monks have pretty good utility in m+. We get leg sweep, paralysis and can talent into ring of peace, and one of our racials is a 4 sec incapacitate.
I don’t play a paladin but they seem to have incredible utility and all three specs appear reliable in content. I sadly don’t know anything about shamans.
I remember writing up my take on a Battlemage class where one of the specs was Runemaster, which was healing and support oriented.
The mechanic for Runemasters was their runes, and using, ‘Rune Circles,’ to share them with their party. There were three rune circles. Lesser (25 yards), normal (30 yards) and greater (35 yards). A runemaster could have 1 personal rune active to give him/herself a buff, and then three additional runes active that gave him/her a buff, but would also apply to one of the three rune circles.
So a rune to decrease damage or increase resistances could be one circle, a rune for DPS increase a second, a rune for increasing a specific secondary stat the third. Players could benefit from all three rune circles if they stood in an overlap position. So a Runemaster would want to focus melee-benefiting runes towards the middle, and ranged-benefitting runes towards the greater circle.
With enough of a selection of runes, you could have utility tailored for groups with certain classes.
Absolutely needed to break up this turd we call a meta currently. Right now, we go to a video game to escape the drudgery of capitalism and modernity, where all we are is a number to be added to the bottom line of a corporation… and in our virtual fantasy we are a DPS number, even if you pick tank or healer.
I just don’t think it would work in WoW. Not unless we got changes to how group content works.
A buff class would work incredibly well in Classic, as 40 people are more expendable.
In Retail, so few players in raids and dungeons, each slot is less expendable. Why have a buff class, when I can I have Mythic Geared Fire Mage aoe before buffs matter.
I never played Warhammer Online but I know I watched my friend play it when we hung out ages ago. Either way it seems like a fun way to provide utility.
Oh it was so amazing and at the time they had such epic beards compared to WoW dwarves. I really miss that game lol. I was so sad when it went under :c
It’s too bad every thread about there being too many raid difficulties and/or ilvl inflation in general gets drowned in cries of “elitism”. Too much damage and too much stamina stinks up the meta and makes everyone a damagebot who occasionally tosses out a taunt or heal.
That’s a problem to players who want to be able to solo. To some, it’s completely legitimate to say, “If you want to solo, don’t play this class.” Blizzard doesn’t seem to trust its playerbase, though. And for good reason, honestly.
Thats why I like FF14’s model, people complain but they also take the support classes to work together for ease of progression. It’s not perfect but its better than raw power lol
In LotRO they have the minstrel class. Generally a healing class. They have a toggleable ability called Battle Shout or something like that. It drastically increases their damage output so that soloing is possible, but makes all of their heals and support spells only target themselves so you never want to turn it on in group content. I could see a similar solution working for a support role.
Honestly with how classes stand right now it’d be hard to make soloing less fun anyway. For the past few expansions you can find people in the Priest forum who level as Discipline because they can’t stand Shadow outside of boss fights. If they added a buffbot spec to the modern Paladin, I can’t imagine it being any less effective solo than Holy using their full rotation of Crusader Strikes and Shocks.
