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"Support" Class...Will We Ever See One?
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Post by
433093
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Post by
Lecks
See Paladins in early WoW, it didn't work. Playing a buffbot is not fun.
Post by
MischievousLoki
Basically you want a bard class.
Even TF2 Medics can shoot people. Pure support classes (no offensive abilities and no way to solo) don't work in WoW.
From what I hear, FFXII has this, but FFXII is mostly group content (to a much greater extent than WoW) most classes or class combinations need groups to do anything, even damage dealers..
One of the major class design principals in WoW is that every class should be able to solo.
Post by
392412
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Post by
MischievousLoki
Just an FYI, it's FFXI. FFXII was a terrible single player game. I'm captain Basch!
Dur, sorry. I don't follow FF numbering that closely :P
Post by
Raleandris
Basically you want a bard class.
Even TF2 Medics can shoot people. Pure support classes (no offensive abilities and no way to solo) don't work in WoW.
From what I hear, FFXII has this, but FFXII is mostly group content (to a much greater extent than WoW) most classes or class combinations need groups to do anything, even damage dealers..
One of the major class design principals in WoW is that every class should be able to solo.
Eschewing you called out the wrong FF game (:P) this sort of thing doesn't work in WoW, because FFXI is much more centered around group content. What you're looking for is something similiar (as one example) to a Red Mage. Primarily, a red mage focuses on debuffing the enemy in question, and buffing the party. Combined with what I still think is the most fantastic job system SE has come up with (and in MMOs in general), you can still DPS (sub Black Mage) or heal (sub White Mage) with some efficiency as well.
Post by
Arikan
There was a user-made entry on wowwiki in the speculative future expansion stuff (I can't seem to find it, might have been deleted) that I remember reading about before Cat was announced. Anyway, it was an actually not-that-bad idea for a future hero class that was pretty much support and utility.
Since I can't find it I don't remember a ton of what it was like, but their combat was based around weaking enemies, buffing themselves, and a lot messing with the enemy, like a rogue with less damage but more chaos.
Confuse spells that would cause enemies to attack random stuff or swing at nothing or even just wander off, making the enemy forget their own special abilities, temporarily stealing an enemy ability to use yourself (rogue with temporary casting would be awesome), make them fight really bad (like start casting a heal spell when they are at full health), and a bunch of other stuff
They had a whole list of abilities but that's all I can remember. Not exactly what you're talking about but one of the better ideas for a new class I've seen. Just utility/support to make a fight go easier.
Post by
127603
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Post by
Raleandris
the Shaman class is a support class, but no one wants to just stand there and cast buffs, so they gave Shamans melee dps, caster dps, and heals. You have totems, group and individual proc buffs (ex: unleashed rage), but you can do that AND help the other players rather than just taking up a raid spot.
Really? I love playing buff/support classes. In other MMOs, they are the key pillars to support, and I feel WoW missed out on a huge teamplay aspect by not including them. Oh well =/
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Post by
mccloud
It's came to mind before, and personally it seems like an interesting, but perhaps impossible idea for WoW. Could there be any possible, pure "Support" class?
I'm talking about someone who isn't under the category of tank, damage, or healing. I'm talking about that one guy you want in your raid because he brings the best buffs to the table. He would defiantly be more of a "Team Player" then many of the other classes.
Obviously it would be a little more than just a guy who comes in, buffs everyone and waits until he needs to rebuff everyone, but a class that instead of focusing on how much health he has, or damage he does, or how big his heals are, he is there to benefit everyone as a whole or individually.
Ideas for spells:
-Of course your typical buff target for x minutes with +x stat, but perhaps something a little more interesting or valuable than just stam, agi, int, etc.
-Perhaps some spells that act like paladin auras.
-He would obviously need some combat action so he could also have things like, "grants target play x stamina for x seconds" and others like it for helping out you tanks with stam/armor/defense/ect. and your dps with attack power/ArP/SP/ect.
-Things like the shaman blood lust (obviously not exactly like blood lust) would be very valuable.
-Not to mention that a class like this could have some amazing cooldown abilities for those really tough boss fights.
Just random thoughts I've had, there is obviously a lot of problems (leveling him comes to mind) with this kind of class and what not, but what's everyone's thoughts on a class in WoW that isn't necessarily tank/dps/heal?
Duh, I hope I don't see such class in game... Still remember the time when I played Lineage 2 and half of the server were Prophets (that is the exact implementation of what u describe) simply because everyone needed them. Their buffs were so powerful that the difference between not having prophet buffs and having them was literally... levelling/killing mobs >2X faster.
And this is leading to my point.... such class will be too desired and needed that it could ruin the game. I still remember these prophets standing near teleporters and charging everyone 1million gold for full buffs... And u gotta know, well, they had "clients". They were also called "buffbots" because that was the only thing they were good at... this is the most "bot-able" class ever. After u buff everyone up, u could either go into melee and do about 1/3 to 1/2 of the melee dps-er's damage or try to help with healing at ~50% of the pure healers' effectiveness... It's just not fun.
In WoW u got shammies - they can spec in 3 different ways and still can't reach the potential of the "pure" classes. Still every group/raid needs one because of Bloodlust/Heroism, totems provide similar buff to what other classes have, but as, for example DKs can buff u with
haste
shammies can achieve the same effect with only one totem for a constant (not a proc-dependant)
buff
and still give u 3 more totems to empower your party/raid.
TL;DR - l2 shammy
Post by
silverchip
Shammy's are biggest support as far as it can go in wow,
dont get me wrong, would love to see the bard class, not caring about damage or healing, just buffing people with amazing guitar solo's and such, but it would be a rare breed of people keeping them as main I think, I would sure enough have tried it :p
Post by
209234
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Post by
Astygia
Such a class existed in an old MMO I used to play.
Anarchy Online featured a class known as the 'Trader'. Standing idle in a given place they were not very powerful, but in combat they used a unique drain/funnel system to debuff (lower AP, SP, speed, weapon skill) of a target and temporarily transferring it to themselves, or to their party/raid. Essentially the fight would begin with them 'winding up' so to speak, stacking their many drains and funnels until they had stacked everything to the point where they could kill their target and move on (if solo levelling) or DPS/heal. Traders could never do as much DPS as, say, a Soldier, or a Nanotechnician (Hunter, Mage), or heal as well as a Doctor or Adventurer (Priest, Druid), but their raid buffs and group utility were amazing and irreplacable.
Not to rant about AO too much...between the two games, WoW is simply so much better in so many ways. But the Trader was a very unique and fun class, and a concept I've not seen anywhere else, and I'd like to see a support class in our game. Blizzard are a creative bunch of folks, if such a support class were in their vision I'd definitely love it, and it could be done to be a solo-play class as well.
Post by
Corilithon
It could be potentially interesting. Could treat buffs/debuffs like normal spells or dots, with a severely low duration so they require constant rebuffing. (So it ends up like a 'buff rotation', or you would have to decide what buffs/debuffs were more important to keep active...)
But to level at all by itself it would probably require a dps spec. Which means eeryone would probably just spec to dps. Not too hot an idea I suppose.
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