Potential: A Support Class?
by JR Cook - 11 years ago show comments
In a recent interview over at Chinese gaming site QQ, there was a very brief Q&A about possibly adding a new class to buff other players.
This of course sparked speculation about a possible support class from many people on Twitter and on the forums, and I wanted to entertain the idea of what a ‘support’ class really means. I want to reference a blog post from a pal of mine over Twitter (@Aramisx) talking about the trifecta of roles in WoW, and where a support lies in between all of them.
Let’s look at fantastic image he cooked up for us:
Aramisx states that, “The center isn’t absent of a triangle, instead it is the force that binds all others. As such, it brings together all pieces and when all are working in conjunction, the resulting synergy makes for an unstoppable force.”
I think that’s a pretty interesting perspective on the idea of what a support is and really finds a good middle ground between defining what it does and doesn’t do.
MMO-History states that support classes, or rather, classes that lends itself support function can work in a raiding environment. Bards (as a prime example) exist in Rift, Final Fantasy 14, EQ, and in plenty of other MMOs and they work there.
The question is what holds such a class from existing, and working well, in WoW?
We have to ask ourselves what we, as players, would imagine a support class doing. Do they provide small bits of damage while providing buffs to allies? Do they tilt more on the side of sub-healers who provide substantial and tangible damage modifiers to the raid? The difficult part in finding a balance for such a class or spec more lies in the possible abuse that opens up when you have a single spec or class enhance everyone else’s role.
There are certain intangibles that really can’t measured in terms of potential power: Demonic Gateway, Monk/Discipline DPS, PW: Barrier, Stampeding Roar. How do you entirely weigh their potential value to a fight if it’s needed? That’s hard to do. Monks and Priests tilt more on the utility side of healers, having constant access to damaging abilities that are both effective in healing and DPS – but what occurs when you take that idea and instead of providing a defined role, you make the class about making your and my job easier?
A support’s power is not so much seen as it is felt. In a game where even the slightest nerf could mean a class isn’t played as much (not saying we necessarily agree with such extreme actions, but it happens) – how do you really fit a support in the middle of everything?
That brings us to the question on whether if a support class would be mandatory. We know that Blizzard is not a fan of making classes feel like their needed – that you’d want to bring a raider because he/she is very good at what they do. Is it possible for a class to not only be balanced within the parameters of what we already know as the “trifecta” of roles? Coming from the perspective from a raider, it’s difficult to say. What do you do in order to make a support class attractive? Do you give them abilities that say “Increases X for Y seconds for Z role?” Do you, perhaps, take a page from the Priest and Monk and have them do damage but with a healing outcome for the raid? How do you create something that’s, yes, beneficial for a raid but it only provides a benefit and nothing more?
I’d be eager to hear your thoughts and ideas on our forums, or you can visit the topic on the World of Warcraft forums to get in on all the support-chat goodness.
Isn’t this exactly what the Shaman class used to be? Support with it’s totems and they could deal some damage, do some healing, but people complained because they didn’t do amazing dps and just helped other people’s dps look great. This is why support classes will never work in WoW, because every player wants to be the best(best tank, best dps, best healer), and if you do get that one person who truly wants to be support, then unfortunately, odds are at least one of the other people will make some comment about how the person who is doing support isn’t doing great dps or healing, etc while their dps and healing look great and they are “carrying the group”. This mentality will eventually push those people away and eventually we will turn another support class into a straight dps, healing, or tank class.
Yes and no. You see, people complained, in the Shaman example you provided, because the design intent never existed to begin with. We sort of shoved them into a “support” category because of their lack of stellar role-leading performance. If a support class could be supported, now more than ever, would be a great time because Blizzard has taken many years to clearly define the roles and what specs can do what performance. Adding a support class and stating from the beginning THIS IS A SUPPORT CLASS people will understand that they aren’t meant to lead ranking boards. The challenge would be creating content that is playable, viable and can take into account the presence of such a support class (or lack of such presence).
I think it’s questionable to overstate that /everyone/ wants to be the best at their role. I think that when we look at classes back then we have to look at them in a vacuum with their entire design in mind.
While Shamans and Paladins were ‘supports’ they were only such because their other roles didn’t do as well as some others did. Back then, taking a paladin to buff the raid was fine because with 40 people you could squeeze one person in to do so, but that doesn’t mean that their design intention was to ever be stuck providing replenishment or say, for paladins, Blessing of Might.
I think that creating a support class that melds into all three roles as three different specs could be interesting though.
You could argue that they tried to do the same thing with Death Knights and having all three roles able to tank, however.
pleasebebardspleasebebards
I’m more of an Archon from “Rift” kind of guy, but Bards are right up there on my favorite support class designs. 😀
The support class idea is completely unworkable in WoW, just because of the team dynamics.
The 10 man raid group breaks down to:
2x Tank
2-3x healer
5-6x DPS.
This is pretty much set. There are exceptions to this(single tank fights, etc), but generally speaking this is the format you are going for. And so the question is “Where does the support fit?” If a support is replacing somebody, they have two options.
The support can either be designed to buff the raid up to the point where the loss isn’t felt, or the fight can be designed around the presence of the support. The first will see huge scaling difficulties between 5/10/25 man content, and the latter will see a return to the days of “Your group must contain a to get past this fight”.
About the only way I see this working at all is if they go back to existing classes(DK, paladin, shaman, warlock?) and add 4th trees for support roles to prevent the “You must have a warlock to ride this ride” type of thing”.
Instead of being a carbon copy of atonement/fistweaving, I’d like to see them similar to druids, in that they can switch forms/stances to either do healing or damage. Sort of like a constant Heart of the Wild option. The big problem would be convincing raid leaders that they are necessary, assuming their output in DPS or heal would be gimped compared with pures.