Could There Ever Be a Fourth Core Character Class?

Special thanks to Derfla, Jellypop, Jeezi, and St. Valentine for help recording clips seen throughout the video!
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[@eddventure6214]

This is a new direction for my content, so please let me know if you liked the video! Fighting Game videos aren’t going anywhere, don’t worry, but I thought it might be fun to branch out a bit :) P.S. I kinda sorta forgot to put Jimbulus in so don’t waste your time 😓

[@zaimrana2746]

No matter the subject if your videos are as good as your current ones I’m here for it! Also fuck brigitte

[@lurkathon]

RIP JIMBULUS... 300 BCE - 2024 CE

[@ScoutOW2]

As a game dev who doesnt just work on fighting games, yes! Id love to see more of these kinds of vids! (im biased though)

[@ironplague]

Great video

[@morgana4525]

i liked the video but can you source music as well.

[@actualgorilla5573]

Support feels way too broad for there to might ever be a 4th class

[@ReavenM1911A1]

Recon is just support in all those games where healing isn't really a thing. Information gatherers in Siege are closer supports than doc or finka really

[@atomicpenguin12]

I was thinking that too. There's a real risk when having this discussion of being a little to eager to categorize things and being overly broad in the process. Edd mentioned movement, specifically team-based movement like teleporters and jump boosters that the whole team can utilize, and wrote it off as just an extension of support, but I would consider the support class to be focused specifically on healing, buffs, and debuffs. In a game that is less focused on the actual fights and more focused on area control and other such objectives, being able to get people to where they are needed quickly is a big asset and I think it can qualify as its own class.

[@lessar2721]

Support is just ally to ally interaction. So its very diverse but all support.

[@atomicpenguin12]

@@lessar2721 See, that’s my point: the way you’re defining support is broad and diverse, but I question whether a definition that broad actually tells us anything useful and whether it might be limiting our ability to recognize a fourth class when we find one. I would argue that there is a substantial difference between a class that supports their team through healing and buffs and a class that supports their team by improving their ability to move across a large map or gain information regarding an objective. It depends on the game, and in some contexts, like a game where being a specific place in a large map isn’t super important, those two classes might collapse into one, but in a game like Overwatch where point control on a large map is the priority those two classes start to function very differently.

[@codyjacobs6899]

​@@atomicpenguin12 i think something to note is that the only role here that is ever doubled up for different purposes is support. Rarely is dps doubled up because you need something *different*. But for support you could have a multiple people filling very different purposes. In valorant you have info gatherers(sometimes sentinels, but sentinels could fall under the fps version of a tank), controllers and initiators. In pokemon you have speed control, fake out, intimidate, taunt, stat boosting, etc... The consistent line that I see when looking at it all though is that there are supports that enable allies to do things and then there are supports that prevent enemies from doing things and both are very necessary subclasses to fulfill in a game.

[@Fordeedoubleya]

If you look further back in gaming history, you find that originally (especially in RPGs) the three classes were actually four. That fourth class was known as the Mezzer. The tank, damage dealer and healer roles were far more specialized than they are today and that fourth class was a control and party efficiency class. Basically the Mezzer was a class that was responsible for controlling enemies and kiting them, and providing buffs, debuffs, positional advantage and exploitation of weaknesses. What happened over time is the Mezzer's role was distributed across the other three roles, which was a far more efficient model. It was found that you could play the games without the Mezzer in a slightly less optimal manner but it still worked. It also made the way of playing the other three roles far more varied and fun. This is why the sub-branches exist now, as you mentioned, because you can effectively reweight how much "Mezzer" abilities are in one of the three roles but still have it fulfill that role effectively and thus support varies playstyles in those roles. From that perspective reintroducing the 4th role may actually be a regression.

[@TraRobins234]

This pretty much. Mezzers were also considered "unfun" in many games because the impact they had wasn't obvious. You needed them to complete high end content, but their impact wasn't as immediately noticeable. Healers knew they were doing well when no one died. Same with tanks. And of course DPS gets the big damage numbers. But Mezzers only knew they were doing well if the content was finished.

[@bluetime78]

Sounds like a Bard

[@TraRobins234]

@@bluetime78 depends on what you are referring to

[@Dovahkitten]

While I agree it would be regression to bring it back, I really miss playing a dedicated mezzer with a team. I was never actually good at it, but I had a lot of fun.

[@rellikx7519]

Well in games like wow it was Damage, Tank, Healer, Support for a while (support being characters that didn't really lean too hard into the others but brought really useful niche things, like warlocks, mages, and shaman). Note about Mezzers though, plenty of games need unofficial Mezzers, Don't Starve Togethers Forge event is one of many games that doesn't have official roles but a Mezzers is clearly noticeable in various team compositions. Even some dungeons in WoW or ESO have damage characters on full time mez duty.

[@azuarc]

When you define the gameplay components as "dealing damage," "preventing damage," and "other," that other does a lot of heavy lifting.

[@naokaderapider4210]

To be fair, in most games the "other" is either "boosting damage" or "healing damage"

[@jc_art_]

​​@@naokaderapider4210so, split those into two separate roles. Have boosting damage be a role and healing from damage be a role. Medic in tf2 is very very different to spy and sniper, but they're all support, because none are focused specifically on moving forward dealing damage, or staying behind preventing enemy retaliation. Medic heals to "support", sniper and spy deal alot of damage or makes enemies weaker as their "support". So just have the new 4 roles be something like "offense, defense, healing, and support"

[@lancelindlelee7256]

​@@jc_art_ even if you do that. People will still refer to is as two sub classes of supports.

[@jc_art_]

@@lancelindlelee7256 well yeah, theres no shot people were ever going to change what theyre comfortable with, its just hypothetical

[@french_toast223]

​@@lancelindlelee7256 ow players get pissed that their supports are called healers even if every single supp hero does that. So i dont think it would be very hard to change the name of a role.

[@NaughtyKlaus]

Lawyer class - Doesn't really help you in battle, but sues the demon lord after for nearly killing you and causing emotional distress. He's the one you need to make your adventures profitable.

[@goggles-u4f]

💀

[@shaynedruz5038]

That's support class debuffer

[@spongeintheshoe]

Offense, Defense, Support, and Utility

[@malaficus]

So you want a lawyer vs lawyer fight?

[@wolffang489]

Jokes aside I was thinking of TRPG faces/social characters. In games with non-combat options the lawyer is a valid class.

[@timcox-rivers9351]

The problem is probably that support has become so broad a category. If you were willing to divide support into healing, buffing, and disrupting then you could have multiple classes right there. Back in earlier World of Warcraft days you would build your team around tank, support, hard CRowd control, interrupts, and raw damage. There could be some overlap, but usually you needed a mix

[@welkin7321]

honkai star rail do this now; they have 7 classes - 3 dps, 4 support. they split their dps classes into single target dps, aoe damage, and bezerker characters. they split their supports into tanks, healers/cleansers, buffers, and debuffers. i think its a really rich system because it makes you think more carefully about a teamcomp, you'll want different supports based on different types of dps. most single target dps would prefer a tank over a healer as theyre usually really squishy so they need someone to stop them from getting one shot. in comparison, a bezerker who is constantly draining their hp would prefer a healer who can keep their fluctuating health pool topped off. then they design dps who work better with stacking multiple buffs or who prefer shredding the enemies stats more

[@Captain_MelonLord]

But ultimately they all are only supporting the team and not dealing or tanking damage

[@screamingcactus1753]

@@Captain_MelonLord If you want to use the broadest possible definition of support, tanks are also support. Taking damage for your team could easily be described as supporting your team if you want to be as literal as possible

[@Graysett]

​@@screamingcactus1753 If you go even further, offense is support because dead men don't DPS.

[@kymaeraa8631]

yeah you could even argue that under that broad modern "support" banner, tank could be seen as a support class as well

[@Mr.GullibleCatVideos]

The fourth core character class is the loveable goofball that causes your teams demise.

[@Pika-sp9cs]

Ah yes, the troll

[@Aiharon]

Not lovable

[@ImagineelghaliOk]

@@Aiharonstfu they are rlly loveable

[@johannesneumayer6041]

Hooveys

[@pengasgaming1816]

And they are the most important

[@Joe_Himself]

fourth core class is Sol Badguy

[@eddventure6214]

How could I forget

[@sumonedum]

Unga bunga isn't a class, it's a MINDSET

[@walp8408]

Theres a fifth class which is Ky Kiske because he thinks hes special

[@sundevil34]

Sol Badguy

[@mrhalfsaid1389]

​@@sumonedum depends on the weapon, and the man

[@mridotprobably]

summary: literally every role that isn’t attacker or defender will always fall on support

[@munchatize_me]

When the only gameplay objective is deal damage/don't get dealt damage, there aren't really other roles to fill. Not too many locks for a rogue to pick in Overwatch, last i checked

[@shamusson]

​@@munchatize_me Would you consider The Spy to be support or something else?

[@tinymicrowave6821]

@@shamussonSupport/pick class Except that pick is a crossover between supp and damage

[@ericneuens]

I mean there is manipule as one other comment suggested but I wouldn't mind if there's still only 3 or maybe 4.

[@michaelmarkrealrumahorbo1075]

Scout? I know intel is support, but I mean it as a survivalist scout?

[@myklsteel8486]

I feel like gimmick characters are a good 4th character type. They don’t necessarily do good damage, take good damage, or support others, but they can do something unique to them very well. This is a character like the Spy from TF2 that sucks when revealed but is incredible in the right situations.

[@JobSChool-pw5ii]

He is more of a offens/support

[@Greggorto]

@@JobSChool-pw5iisure; if you're boring

[@JobSChool-pw5ii]

@@Greggorto wut🤔

[@LeMicronaut]

@@JobSChool-pw5ii You're right, Spy is a killer - and occasionally- a counter spy. Spy isn't listed as offense cause he isn't conventionally good in direct combat and is kind of encouraged to go wherever on the map, but much like the Sniper, he is about making opportunities through exerting the highest situational damage in the game while being incredibly vulnerable when caught. Medic is the third support option, and he's on the polar opposite, attempting to make people invulnerable.

[@literal-jk]

yep. its the mei/symmetras

[@TheInvisibleCanadia]

In roleplaying games, there are often charisma-based classes who specialize in non-combat interactions with NPCs, or stealth ones for avoiding combat.

[@michaelmamba1578]

Yea I was thinking that exactly.

[@gneu1527]

So basically the rizzfence class

[@Ze_Carrot]

Yeah but thats like disruption again which is a thing support does

[@cringelord7776]

Although the stealth ones often have sneak attacks, so that could be considered damage.

[@brokkoli3245]

Which classifies perfectly fine into the intel category.

[@sparky8689]

I think the main problem with adding in a Fourth Core Class lies in the Support Class. The Support Class is basically where you throw everything that doesn't fit in Offense or Defense, so if you want to create a new Core Class you'll often run into the problem of "That sounds like a Support thing." because yeah, you usually find it in Support! So in creating a new Class you're almost always going to be pulling something out that's usually linked to one the other classes and setting it in its own category.

[@JokerInTheCardDeck1273]

Yeah, if you try to limit enemy movement via cutting of way to be attacked, buff in anyways, support via resource supply,or even generally disrupting the enemy it can be considered a support (tf2 spy and sniper are prime examples of disrupting)

[@mariustan9275]

Honesyly that's true because support is such a broad roles because supports can be healers, pick assassins, dudes who make their teammates faster, buff allies, debuff enemies... so much.

[@audrey_in_black]

I think about this a lot, and that's always where I go back to. The Healer role exists, but there's still only a trinity because as things stand a game will have either a Healer or Support role, and very few have the balls to include both. I personally think that a lot of more HP based games could easily separate Healer and Support and have four healthy roles if they tried. However, many other games are designed in such a way that healing is less important (such as most of the damage being avoidable or the presence of objective based win conditions beyond "kill the enemy"), or they simply have less classes that heal because there's only so many ways to make a healer work within that game's framework. Either way, eventually you reach the point where Healer having an entire role to itself is no longer justified, so it gets lumped in with Support, and Support becomes "anything that's not Tank or Damage". Healing in many games doesn't need a role to itself, but Support as a role is too broad for the fourth role to be anything other than Healer.

[@kennethferland5579]

The key is that 'Support' as it currently exists means 'Combat support delivered activly from proximity to said fight'. Go outside of that box and you would be genuinly outside the trinity.

[@bugjams]

I think 'Disruptor' is a good candidate for a 4th class archetype. Neither truly support nor offense or defense, a disruptor (like Spy from tf2) instead focuses on messing with the roles of every other class. By definition, they're harder to predict and can switch up their playstyle on the spot to further, well - disrupt - the enemy's strategies. Also, I know Spy is labeled as a Support in Tf2, but let's just be real - TF2's class categories are pretty meaningless. Soldier is listed as offense when he's an incredibly solid backline defense class. Heavy is listed as defense when he's one of the best classes to have on offensive Payload maps. The Sniper is considered support when he's obviously a defensive character, they just wanted a neat 3-3-3 split and it would've been silly to have Medic alone in the support category.

[@TheWander-]

My only issue with a fourth class is that, Support is too vague. And it was named that way so developers can throw anything that’s helpful but not in the other two in it. So if it doesn’t fit in Attack or defense it fits in the support. Only thing I can think of is a sort of wildcard where it just is illogical like it’s either a complete joke, or just unpredictable.

[@ailurusfulgens1849]

Support isn't vague at all, there's only 2 things a support can do : make your team do more damage or make your team take less damage. Everything a support does inevitably falls into one of these 2 categories, sometimes both at the same time. There can't be a forth class because there isn't anything else you can do beside doing damage, taking damage or helping do more/take less damage.

[@TheWander-]

@@ailurusfulgens1849 the issue is doing anything for your team is support. Making them go faster, that avoids damage, making them more “tanky”, that prevents damage. Something that isn’t listed by your definition is something like a pick class, which are often put in support, like the spy in TF2. He supports his team by taking out the medic or dangerous enemies before they get to the front line. This is the issue, the spy doesn’t necessarily prevent damage nor help the rest the team take less, but if you say he does it means anything harming the enemy helps you. I understand your idea and I don’t have any other ideas but it’s just how it was named for the most of it.

[@ailurusfulgens1849]

@@TheWander- That's just because TF2's is weird like that. Spy isn't a support by any eans, it's a damage dealers that specialize in lurking, he has no supportive ability aside from sapping sentries. Same for Sniper, classified as a support when it most obviously isn't. They just needed a 3/3/3.

[@BestgirlJordanfish]

I think the “alternate win condition” is one of the best ways to describe a potential “fourth class”. If looking at Pokemon Unite, there are some that specialize in a “dunk”. That’d be like a moba character who specializes in tower destruction. In Splatoon, this is like those who super specialize in mobility and painting the floor. Some TTRPGs have “clocks” for a victory condition. Attacks become more about control and counter-support rather than straight victory through shredding. For each element of interaction beyond “do more damage to win”, the definition of “support” continues to stretch beyond convention.

[@eddventure6214]

This is very true, since almost all games have a reward system like HP offense defense and support almost always stick around, but a good reason as to why a 4th universal class hasn’t really stuck around is definitely that differing win conditions cultivate different builds of characters depending on the focus of said game

[@ThorDude]

You could actually argue MOBAs have been doing this since they were invented. Dunno much about DOTA, sorry, but League has the "hyper carry." As in a character who's whole job is to be a win condition. If they aren't given proper support by the team, they really struggle later. Think Nasus. Although not pitifully weak like some later hyper carries, he can really struggle if he doesn't build up stacks on his first ability later on. Though you can argue the "carry" is really more of a subclass of offense, I think there's enough distinction between the two, with those two having the most overlap on average.

[@TheDumbStupid]

mostly the class system can have more classes if there’s almost no form of defense/support other than regen/natural cover (splatoon), but that’s only for specific weapons that do specific jobs (AoE weapons, long/short range weapons, and gimmick weapons)

[@choriflanero]

Typed my comment and then read this. I absolutely agree, having different winning conditions or objectives is the closest to breaking the norm when it comes to roles. Though, I don't think mobas are a good example of this, as it will always come down to who destroys the principal structure of the enemy; the rest is the means of achieving that.

[@starmangalaxy2001]

Indeed. for a meaningfully different 4th class to exist, we need a win condition other than just beat the enemy back. Ironically enough despite saying that Splatoon's Painter is a good example of 4th class as I think of Sub weapons like sprinkler. It doesn't do damage like Splat Bombs, it has nothing to support the team with like Squid Beacons, and doesn't really have defensive or area denial of Splash Wall. It doesn't fall neatly into any of the 3 roles yet it has the valuable role of being spreading ink without a person to watch over it, which in casual matches spreading ink is the win condition so it still does a valuable role despite not enabling the team, protecting the team, or fighting for the team.

[@cloudmonkey6952]

I am unsure if you know this, but in dnd and in many other ttrpgs there’s actually a “4th class” called Utility, as dnd is an open-ended game that doesn’t necessarily always had the goal of kill every enemy, sometimes a party needs to find a way to solve something they can’t with usually abilities, such as a rogue sneaking into a palace, a wizard casting fly to catch up to a dragon or a bard charming a person to get information. It’s basically the “we need a solution to a problem that can’t be solved by fighting” class.

[@WheretheWillowsGrow]

This is definitely the rogue since a lot of their power comes in the form of flavor

[@darthmaul7434]

I think tf2 spy fit into this category, as they can sneak in the enemy team's side to allow the the other class continue their objective, the risk themselves into the battlefield.

[@freakofnature2435]

TTRPGs are hardly games at all.

[@thekrakenskrak4253]

@@freakofnature2435How do you figure?

[@bartofii]

@@freakofnature2435 the G literally means game.

[@Verne105]

What about The Disrupter? The class that makes it harder for the enemy to do their job. Ability lockouts, vision obscuring, slowdowns, fake info, displacement, and so on...

[@silversonome5360]

I like this answer. There is definitely some overlap with supports, but I feel like there's enough of a difference between the two roles (stay close to your team + help VS stay close to the enemy + fuck them over) to be worth considering as a different specialty altogether

[@draa0gon]

That sounds like defense or support to me.

[@silversonome5360]

@@draa0gon sure, if you're _boring_

[@christophobia6415]

The hexer definitely feels more like a hybrid between offense and support, an offensive support if you will. The way it achieves its goals is unique, but not enough to warrant its own category in my opinion.

[@jackmcnutt6435]

Really trying to poke a hole in this but alas I agree

[@luckyno.9371]

Me and my friends often talk about how frequently support should be split into support and healer in most games, with supports supplying non-healing based buffs and benefits whilst healers focus on recovering hp, this conversation was mainly based around how overwatch functions with it's new passives revolved around suppressing the healing meta

[@albino478gaming5]

Hell, even that can be split up into crowd control and buffer/debuffer(cant really put a non-game specific name on it)

[@sheicode3748]

But it would reduce the overall enjoyment of the player. Like in Overwatch having a pure healer would be boring to all hell. You would play a completely different game and have no agency of your own

[@versuzzero5335]

I have always thought healers and support should be different. But most games don't really have many healers. So it just falls into support.

[@luckyno.9371]

@renno2679 That depends on how arbitrary you're being with your definition of support, if it's "anything that contributes to the team winning" then every role is support and there's only 1 role. Whilst it's true that many characters from other roles have support abilities, generally speaking characters are classified off their primary focus.

[@matthewconnelly6821]

An information class role can actually go both ways. For example, TF2's spy can make call outs while invisible, but also poison the opponents' information space by disguising as allies/enemies and acting, fake dying (deadringer), or leading them into traps.

[@blehh_mae]

this is just playing spy as support though actually just googled the wiki and just as i remember spy IS a support class

[@mrosskne]

actually, spies just get killed by pyros instantly, they're a waste of a slot

[@Aryzo]

thats just support

[@soupcan]

the recon aspect of spy only really comes into play if you actively speak out in voice chat, you can see enemy ubers and health and spy on their backlines unseen but the information doesnt leave your brain unless you mention it...

[@GAB-vq7re]

​@@mrossknebro once upon a time I could get 25+ kills as spy. Take down any turrets and dispensers in the way. That was like 2006-08. F*** I loved that game

[@judeau5320]

A good shout here would be the Commander Class from Battlefield 4. This was a 1-player class (1 per team) that exclusively played the game like a top-down strategy game by supplying their teams squads with munitions, vehicle support, artillery, and general information (as well as issue orders in-game which gave bonus XP to teammates for following). They even made it so you could play the class on mobile devices with a specific app for Battlefield 4 (although hardly anyone used it, it was still pretty damn cool concept wise).

[@canadianketchupbottle4642]

A similar thing was used in PVZ GW with boss mode since you could see the map and drop support whether it be healing, res, or air strikes

[@dkcsi9256]

This is still support tho The three roles are just so broad that they cover every way you could contribute to the team. Either killing or, stopping killing, everything else falls under ‘supporting’ your team in some way or another.

[@paradoxicaloutcome1007]

@@dkcsi9256 The thing that feels frustrating is that if we put the other two classes under as wide an umbrella as Support, Defense could be argued to be just a multiclass between Offense and Support. After all, protecting your team from damage falls under supporting them, and slow moving damage is still damage. Rename Offense to Damage and now you have two classes, Damage and Support, with a lot of characters a multiclass of the two in different doses.

[@victorvirgili4447]

@@dkcsi9256Not if you change up the gameplay. Most molders (as I like to call them) change the battlefield in ways that can impact all teams equally, like barriers, damage zones, or other all-encompassing and multifaceted changes. For example, a sorcerer can create rain to boost everyone’s water damage, and it just so happens the enemy deals no water damage. Or, maybe they block off an important passage… important to everyone other than the party, that is. Molding the battlefield in general is either not an available option (such as in COD) or available in small amounts to everyone (such as in BattleBit, although it kinda has a molder in the form of the Engineer), but the real deal is when there’s a dedicated person who sits back, watches the battle and changes whatever parameters their team needs to win. Although, the definition of molders also means that they can easily betray their team and spawn everything bad on top of them, but that is a risk the devs will simply have to deal with themselves.

[@solsystem1342]

​@@dkcsi9256it sooo depends on the game. There's no way to pin down "damage, defense, and support" for every game. Like in world of warships are destroyers or battleships the tank? Which of them is damage? Is cruiser's ability to shoot down aircraft and use sonar scouring, support, or damage dealing? What even are aircraft carriers? Trying to categorize them as one of the main three things would be useless. Battleships deal the most damage and have the most armor but have the least maneuverability. Destroyers can do massive damage with torpedoes or create smoke screens to shield their opponents.

[@THExRISER]

Here are my two cents: Attack and Defense both interact with the opponent, and they're both mirrors of each other, one deals damage to the enemy, the other prevents the enemy from dealing damage to the team. Then there's Support, which interacts with the team instead, providing them with an advantage over the enemy team. So the fourth class should be a mirror of support: The *Interference/Hinderance/Disruption/Sabotage* class, which causes debuffs to the enemy team, giving them a disadvantage that their team can exploit. A few examples: -AOE projectiles that temporarily reduce enemy movement speed. -Projectiles that temporarily prevent enemies from using Ults or other abilities. -Reduce enemy visibility temporarily, either through an attack or a passive AOE produced by the sabotage character. There could be many more examples, especially ones specific to each game.

[@pedrocto9474]

from the way you explained it, it makes sense, but that still kind of overlaps with support, the whole idea of support is to help your team without directly dealing or absorbing damage, and making the enemy weaker still counts as helping your team. A "hinderance class" COULD work as a sub-class, but is definetely still a support

[@THExRISER]

@@pedrocto9474 Fair, though traditionally we always think off healing or buffs when we hear the word "support" so I still think a "sabotage" class can stand on it's own, but you are making sense.

[@pedrocto9474]

@@THExRISER It really depends on how you define it If your "Hinderance class" is all about applying debuffs, that's a support But if you tell me that it sneaks behind enemy lines, puts traps on their way, or even straight up change parts of the map, that's definitely its own thing even if it overlaps a bit with other classes

[@therandomcommenter6629]

​@@pedrocto9474you and people like you are why we're stuck in this situation support is healing and buffs all we need to do is just cut out the disruption from the support class and create its own class based from that then boom 4th class its really not that hard stop using technicalities to make "support" the most broadest term imaginable

[@Eo-ms3kw]

@@therandomcommenter6629 But if your support buffs your team to do 20% more damage while the disruptor debuffs the enemy to take 20% more damage then they're doing the same thing.

[@arjaycook7612]

The Admin/the spectator. They're such a specialized role, they aren't even on the field. They can't get kills, they can't keep the frontline steady, and they can't support the characters on the ground. But they can keep everyone in contact and see both sides. They can keep track of enemy and ally movements, but can't interfere. This is the role YOU play as in an RTS. Choosing to spectate a game of TF2, or be a Fighting Game Commentator. An Among Us Ghost can still complete tasks or perform sabotages, but cannot vote or stop impostors/kill crewmates A TF2 spectator cannot participate in the match, but they can type in chat, giving info to both sides.

[@Axyn01]

Pvz Garden Warfare 1 has this as a gamemode called boss mode, where one teammate plays as a spectator. Technically, you'd consider it a support role in terms of online games, but it's the best thing for a fourth core. I could explain it, but it'll probably be better for you to look it up if you have the time

[@iamerror1699]

Eh, there was something similar, commander mode from BF4, BF2142, BF2. And it basically was a support "class." A lot of what you said is just supporting your team.

[@angel_of_rust]

you mean the player? gamers are the fourth class?

[@Skeptycx]

Reminds me of dropped class of Commander that was supposed to be in TF2

[@Bingo_Bango_]

Several other games have game'd up this role in various ways. In Heroes of the Storm, Abathur is a RTS game wrapped up in the MOBA package, he's a "support" but all his mechanics are really focused on map pressure and peekaboo in a game that has relatively few other environmental interactions. More explicitly, the "AI" In Space Station 13 assumes the inglorious role of artificial intelligence controlling essentially the entire map - you have a set of laws to follow that complicate your manner of interacting with the world, plus or minus robot assistants that can interact more directly with fleshy inhabitants. As an AI in SS13 you are a door opener, a thermostat, an alarm system, a camera, and the worst possible adversary of anyone who catches your ire, but despite how esoteric the role is no one would ever describe the AI as "not part of the team." It's not exactly being a support either, you are supportive but you're also just kind of... the whole environment. The AI is the ghost in the machine making sure all wheels are greased but player-player interactions are a minority part of that job in truth. You spend as much time venting aliens or getting your borg army to arrest traitors as you do letting doctors without access into secure areas so they can rescue downed crewmates.

[@onthefence928]

if you think about it there's an argument to be made that there's actually room for LESS classes, rolling Defense into just a subtype of Support

[@johannesbrennan]

hell why not throw attack in there as well, having less enemies by killing them is supporting your team

[@dreamerwav698]

@@johannesbrennan but if everyone is support then what class with the damage dealers flame when they go 0/10

[@Lord_Drogothag]

@@dreamerwav698 the introspection class

[@kylezdancewicz7346]

The current trinary is already so broad it’s borderline not helpful without bringing sub classes in, especially support because like you point out basically anything can be considered support. Because teammates should support each other. With offense there is room for interpretation but you can still see they are close, same with defense they are pretty close. Support you have a unit the buffs movement, a cleric, and a unit that debuffs enemies all considered the same thing. Support should be broken up into for example Enchanter Saboteur Heal Recon Enchanter focuses on enhancing your teams abilities to achieve a goal Saboteur is limiting your enemies ability to achieve a goal Cleric is all things health Recon is about gathering information and possibly limiting enemy information. In this system recon is most likely to be folded into other categories and with the same being possible for cleric. You convey much more useful information if you say we need an enchanter than we need a support

[@willgloryo216]

Ive thought of this

[@SkyEcho751]

What you are looking for is the "Control" aspect of a game. If we were to move some of the stuff into a 'control' category, it might work. Support should be about 'tangible' aid to allies. Damage buffs, healing, cooldown reduction or ammo bonuses, that sort of thing. While tracking or manipulating enemies and allies would fall into a more 'control' aspect of a team. Gaining access to enemy information or disrupting their access to yours would also fall under 'control'. Ideally the 'control' member would be the leader/scout to a degree, feeding the team directions and information about what is needed.

[@_Carden]

True

[@WheretheWillowsGrow]

It’s interesting because Overwatch used to have this class. They then merged it with the DPS class. But it included characters like Mei, Widow, Junkrat, etc who are iconically known for controlling the map (ice wall, sight lines, spam a choke point and get kills). I guess they were too close to the damage class (especially bastion) to be especially distinct Edit: your last bit reminds me of old school overwatch, since Seagull was the Envyus team leader and was known for playing control characters

[@tarvoc746]

I thought of the term "Disruption", but that may be too narrow. "Control" sounds good.

[@SkyEcho751]

@@WheretheWillowsGrow Officially, the classes were 'offense' and 'defense' which just got merged into the damage class. Due to the line being blurred on what was offense and defense. The classes that were more 'hold down a position' were the defense class. Bastion counted because of the turret mode and repair power. They were likely nicknamed as control, because they 'controlled' the defense point.

[@woahdudeitsme9742]

I like this, especially how it encompasses the recon aspect that was brought up in the video.

[@nuggetmaster5181]

13:30 this is why it’s called support and not healer, anything that helps teammates is support. You could argue that healers and supports should be divided, but healing is just another kind of support

[@travioliraviolicanoli]

Plus in terms of visual awareness they are the most compared to others

[@wolffang489]

So someone that exclusively or at least primarily throws debuffs would be a 4th class by that definition of support. They're not helping allies directly any more than offense but you wouldn't classify them as offense any more than the defender with it's 90% shield and 10% gun. Personally as a tabletop player I'd consider the intelligence or social role to be the 4th or maybe 5th class depending on the game but for arena shooters debuffing could be considered the opposite of healing/buffing in the same way attacking is the opposite of defending.

[@jarlfenrir]

I haven't played online games for quite a time, but I would classify medic as a defense - it just allows the team to absorb more damage. For me supports are guys that can enhance your stats or block enemy abilities.

[@presidenttogekiss635]

One character in a table top RPG that explicetly follows this logic is Pathfinder´s Investigator, which is worse than most other classes at martial ability, tanking or healing, but is amazing at detecting weaknesses, learning about their sorroudings, all other kinds of recon.

[@KnakuanaRka]

Adam Millard The Architect of Games has a fantastic video on this. The core conclusion of that one is that the three types are each based on a certain type of interaction (DPS is self > enemy, Tank enemy > self, Support self > ally), and we can have more types by including more interactions and things to interact with. For example, terrainists create environmental effects that interact with other systemic events for positioning based strategies (fields of fire, walls, cold areas that chill enemies and freeze water, rain spells that can dispel fire/oil, enhance lightning, and combine with cold to freeze enemies, etc), some units in RTSs and MOBAs can focus on economic strategies, Speedsters in Pokemon Unite focus on advancing the victory conditions by scoring goals and positional advantage/ganking, etc. And as others have noticed, another part is that some of the possible types have been folded into each other, and could be split off from the others. Support in particular has turned into a catch-all, and you might be able to split up healing, buffs, debuffs, disruption, recon/scouting, etc, in different ways. Crowd Controller / Mezzer is probably the most distinct and easily pulled off from Support, with a bit also folded into Tank (would be enemy > ally interactions above), but there’s likely more.

[@achillesa5894]

That definition is good but too simple, for example what kind of interaction would be a recon character's abilities? It's self > ally for sure as you're providing your team with intel, but is it not also self > enemy if there's counterplay? Actually if there's counterplay isn't that an enemy > self interaction too?

[@octosalias5785]

I agree, there sort of are four when you split support into two separate functions, healer and control

[@cosmicspacething3474]

@@achillesa5894 there’s still multiple possible combinations

[@Learning-Porcupine]

what if you got to latch onto your teammates like with comfey

[@mrosskne]

a terrainist would be support

[@lejoueurfreetoplay]

Just imagine a character solely based on information, he's not even in game, he can't fight, but gives incredible information

[@derptron9862]

Bro is playing a single-player game with his team.

[@matt10y27]

SCP-079 in SCP Secret Laboratory (they also fill half support role though, but provides a lot of information)

[@sapphire6806]

Ultimate backseater role

[@saparapatepete]

"i'm mission control" XD

[@kelismaincharacter4925]

Valorant initiators?

[@HogFlamboli]

I feel like changing the class from "recon" to "information" would make it a better fit, because then it can include not only providing intel to your team, but denying the enemy intel. All during the video I was trying to think of my own concept of a 4th class, and either thought up the recon like you suggested, or an annoyance character, who is there solely to make things hard for the enemy team, without directly damaging them. That could entail throwing out smoke to disable visibility (something that's already common enough, I'll admit) or setting up decoys, even hacking the enemy's comms to get rid of their mini map or give them a false heads up

[@CuriousMike16]

+1 on this. I feel like recon and saboteur would go hand in hand here and could add a nice dimension to the typical trinity. Plus it allows for both close range and long range skills. Especially in multiplayer games that aren't purely fighting one on one.

[@kachosuffer7]

That's the same thing though?

[@tau-5794]

Without overcomplicating role dynamics I think it's best to keep them as a single information role. Recon/Sabotage is basically the same for info as Attack/Defend is for damage, one deals it out and the other prevents it, but then you need even more nuance to role interactions. For instance, how does a saboteur contribute to breaking through a strong defense when the ingress points past the defensive classes are limited and easily monitored, wouldn't a recon class just be strictly more relevant in trying to find weak points in the defense itself, or pointing out enemies so your team doesn't walk into a kill zone? For this reason they're similar enough that I think they should only be one role, with variants leaning to one specialization to be used depending on the situation.

[@FalconHgv]

you know, counter RECON is a thing.

[@izzo1036]

@@kachosuffer7i think he was saying recon is more giving info to your teammates, while INFO would be giving info to ur teammates and denying info from the enemy. good example would be like being able to ping enemies but then the enemy not being able to ping your teammates

[@BrysonConroy]

Damage-Tank-Healing-Scout-Defense Damage ( does damage) Tank ( Tanks damage) Healing (Heals damage) Scout ( recon/movement combined for intel and/or positioning) Defense ( Traps, Anti Intel, anti flank ) Breaking up support gives us the truth

[@harshthesharma]

A lot of games have that 4th assassin/scout role but it feels like everyone lumps them into dps

[@robertschwalb4469]

Agreed. A character who applies debuffs to enemies, and that's his whole character, certainly isn't a healer but would fall under the category of support. In the categories you mention here, I'd say there also room for an area denial class. With abilities like creating circle that does damage to enemies or slows them down. Or the ability to create a wall that you can't pass through but you can see through and shoot through (making it not a tank ability and not necessarily an anti intel ability).

[@IsmailShimau]

now where do we place characters who provide buffs or debuffs? or shields and charms? Support role is vague and covers everything

[@BrysonConroy]

@@IsmailShimau The term healing is a little to specific, but it would fall under that bracket. I dont know what a good term would be maybe "aid" Shields could fall under tanking, being a seperate type of tanking, Debuffs could be given to scouts as a way to get a quick kill like an assassin ( like a sombra from OW)

[@lolnt6103]

scout in mvm

[@irobot7565]

In Splatoon we do have four roles, even when it's fast-paced. When there's all four players alive on a team, we have a slayer (offense), skirmisher (forces fights and acts as a decoy), a support (paints and farms ult to buff other players) and an anchor (zones out the enemy and holds ground, acting as defense). The idea is your anchor secures the space your team already has, the skirmisher forces them to not play the objective, the slayer takes them out quickly and reliably, and the support provides any extra benefits the composition might need (there's no healing in Splatoon), and then you have more ground your anchor needs to secure so the process repeats. Only thing we sometimes switch roles depending on the circumstances, as the anchor is always needed for the whole thing to work, so a support might switch to anchor if that happens. I also think roles don't necessarily need to be designed by the developers, roles might instead emerge from different playstyles and in response to the current meta of a game, making them more natural.

[@drumstyx9456]

I came here to make comment about splatoon roles myself, but I'm happy to see you already did so! I think the reason Splatoon has evolved a slightly different set of roles is because it is first and foremost a game about territory control - the gameplay being built around the paint and swim mechanics ensures this. Combine that with, as you mentioned, the lack of healing and the fact every weapon can kill pretty quickly (just in wildly different ways), there is no place for roles built around dealing/preventing/healing damage. And I think more team games should try out different core mechanics like this of we want to see new kinds of roles and teamplay evolve

[@NoRecord-eu5ib]

splatoon doesnt seem like it has a support class but It acually has a pretty extensive one through painting, even if there's no healing or anything like that

[@definetlydidntchangenamethe2nd]

wouldnt a skirmisher count as a offense or support?

[@blackban4689]

​@@definetlydidntchangenamethe2nd The problem with this classification that makes this question so hard to answer is that we're trying to group everything that looks remotely similar into one class.

[@Gamer_59.S3]

Midline anchor player here (Bamboo onetrick) Splatoon has a really cool set of roles that can be fluid throughout the match. There isn’t really a skirmisher because every skirmisher needs to slay and vice versa and everyone farms special like support but it’s an awesome system that rewards fast decision making and reflexes and I absolutely love it

[@Фор-ы3е]

Debuff. The opposite of Support, that makes the enemy weaker, creating combos for the team's attacker. Examples: - TF2 spy: stuns and destroys enemy buildings, reversing the enemy supporter's work - Darkest Dungeon Occultist: Disrupts the enemy order, stuns, marks, weakens, exc - Area denial type classes like tf2 demoman, or heroes who can create smoke, airstrikes, fire

[@Jeff4theRaid]

My same thoughts with a character like Sombra built around stealth, temporarily increasing damage, disabling enemy abilities, but I reckon it might as well just be another potential indirect offense in the form of exposing enemy weakness and being annoying as an enemy... They sort of provide a combination of mixed mid range offence, offensive advantage, and support in the form of debuffs known as a general class of "flank" characters to something like paladins or I believe colloquially in League of Legends champions. Potentially a candidate, but they might as well be considered a weaker sub-class of offensive playing devils advocate, but I like the idea as it doesn't seem to be anywhere near overrated as a class and seems to be the pinnacle/ outlandish extent of game expertise for most players and is occasionally even considered unbalanced over time in the likes of TF2 spy. I just don't see them as a both simple concept of a complex character and more as a sneaky extension of run and gun gameplay were used to in offensive class characters to allow you to slowly disadvantage the enemy team to give yours the upper hand dependent on your finesse in performance and ability use.

[@festive1943]

It's still support though, just a different kind

[@concerningindividual629]

@@festive1943 Support is vague anyways, couldn't hurt to split it in half

[@UnfairDare]

for some reason this falls in support

[@Фор-ы3е]

@@festive1943 I believe support is something that dirrectly buffs a team. At least it should be seen as that

[@Sina-dv1eg]

When the classes are separated into "does one thing", "does another thing", and "everyone else", it's kinda hard to make a fourth class

[@unknownvariable2456]

support just covers everything outside of the main two roles people like playing, that being attacker and defender. it isn't a core class, it's everything aside from the core classes. you can't make more core classes, but you can easily split up the existing ones, plenty of ways to specialize.

[@IncoisaRadio87]

I think the problem is that, ultimately, these 3 roles transcend the way we typically think about them. Even in games without these traditional roles, you see their roots and likeness, because in truth, you don't have a "damage, defense, and support" role. You have a role dedicated to doing the objective, a role dedicated to keeping the opponent from doing their objective, and a role dedicated to assisting the other two. Damage and Tanking roles actually tend to swap which one of them is based around doing the objective and which one is based around ensuring your foothold isn't interrupted depending on the environment, with damage dealing classes usually being the playmakers when you're killing a boss in a PVE setting or attempting to break through a choke in a PVP setting, and defensive classes being the playmakers when you're the ones attempting to securely hold a position for your objective. This is also why support is so broad of a class, because ultimately the Healing Class, the Information Class, the Movement Class, and the Disruption Class are all subclasses of the idea of a character that is in no setting or gamemode a playmaker and instead lives to make the playmaker's jobs easier and/or stronger.

[@LeMicronaut]

Exactly, and succinctly delivered. I had similar thoughts that it's more appropriate to label the roles by doing/delaying/or assisting the objective. I ended up falling down the idea of support vs. anti-support, where a teammate actually can help the other team by playing the game as intended (i.e. Lost Soul from Iratus: Lord of the Dead). I made another long comment and eventually figured that a fourth class could be something like the King from Chess, where it's essentially trash in all aspects and doesn't really help anyone (Castling is about the only support it can do, and technically that's the Rook's doing). Trying to evade with the King is sort of delaying the objective, but what the King needs to really do is be aware of every player's positions, abilities, and goals in the game and voice those observations into pleas that keep the King alive or elucidate a way to dispose of the opposing King. Basically by having so little to effectively do on the board, it has time and the mental space to act through every other player/pawn - not with buffs or debuffs, but through socializing. As an aside, technically the "King" in Magic the Gathering is the Player/Planeswalker who only has their own life and deck build/card draw to drive the game. The cards are all the pawns that effectively interact with the board and determine the game, but the Player can spend/gain life much like how a King in Chess can try to control their exposure by moving one space in any direction.

[@VasiliyOgniov]

I mean, guys, a fucking football (the real one) have a Offense-Defense-Support triangle in its core - forwards are on offense, defenders and goalkeepers are on defense and midfielders are inbetween. Even out of the sports, even millenias ago we had somewhat similar structure in society - warriors who fought war, builders who constructed walls and farmers who kept everyone fed. So I do think, that this triangle is basically unescapable for human mind since it is so broad and robust that you either ditch the system altogether (like in Divinity: Original Sin - however even in here it is much more efficient to focus on one singular task) or you embrace it

[@pewpewdragon4483]

To rephrase and boil it down further: offense = specialized to increase win condition defense = specialized to decrease lose condition support = generalized to assist offense/defense But there is actually a 4th class: spectator = specialized to have no effect 🙃

[@alexanderticonuwu7591]

Yeah, you're right. The Trinity exists because it's essentially the broadest possible definitions of the roles. To make a new addition to them, you'd need to draw lines and make essentially new sub roles arbitrarily. And that depends on the context of the game. Different genres would have different sub-roles depending on the gameplay.

[@nickspencerfishingrodd2383]

Very much agreed

[@darthvaderreviews6926]

I definitely agree that the damage/tank/healer trinity is near impossible to break in an HP focused game, and that getting out of it will probably require interaction with positioning rather than damage directly. Both the movement and recon roles are essentially positioning focused. In fact, Team Fortress 2's playerbase has mostly stopped using official Offense/Defense/Support terms and switched to Power/Pick/Support because it more accurately describes how each class helps out their team. I will admit though, "Recon" being proposed as the 4th class role gave me some Evolve PTSD lmao. Being forced to play Tracker without any experience was genuinely one of the worst multiplayer experiences I've ever had and I wouldn't wish it on anyone. I don't think anyone could've designed a game to better facilitate in-team toxicity if they tried. It wasn't a problem with it being an information focused role, so much as it was a "win condition" role that meant either sink or swim for the entire team.

[@williamwoznack5312]

power/pick/defense/medic

[@Xastor994]

Support varies so much from game to game that the three categories are basically damage dealing, damage mitigation and other, so naturally it's impossible to add a new role when one of the roles already covers "everything else".

[@0ver1de89]

yeah a 4th class like recon could only work if the game is designed around it where healers rarely have those other utilities

[@legomacinnisinc]

I could also see recon taking on the dedicated "movement" class as well. Not just the ability to gain information, but also the ability to get to the place needed to get that information in the first place.

[@LinkThinks]

I'm sure you'll get other folks saying the same thing, but just wanted to point out in the XIV clip you show at 1:06 that the Warrior is a tank in game, and definitely falls within the defense category. If anything I'd argue that Warrior in XIV has stronger defensive tools than the other tanks in the game. Their "aggressive, high damaging" reputation is one more of aesthetics than actual combat function, since tank numbers and mechanics are all tuned pretty tightly at the moment. Granted, pretty much every class in XIV plays as a DPS of sorts most of the time, soooooo... Not saying this to debunk your argument, and it doesn't devalue the point you were making, just a little nitpick. This was a fun video! Cool to see you branching out!

[@eddventure6214]

I haven’t retired to the FGC retirement home of FF14 yet and I’m already paying for it.. smh

[@midorixiv]

I just assumed he was making the old joke about warrior being blue dps lol

[@NurseGundam]

I was checking the comments for exactly this kind of comment, thank you for pointing it out lol

[@that1crane]

I was going insane trying to find somebody mention this little tidbit lol

[@justawhim]

Basically once you cover enemy to ally, ally to enemy, and ally to ally interactions, the only interaction not covered by the trinity is simply interaction with the environment, dictating the rules the previous three interactions follow. You are interacting with the interactions themselves. But this kind of class is not essential the way the other three interactions are but not having them puts you at a severe disadvantage even if you can get the job done.

[@HumanZombie99]

Someone mentioned a disruptor class in another comment and I think that could be made to fall into (disrupting) enemy to enemy interaction. Doing stuff like enabling friendly fire or making it so an enemy can't heal/be healed

[@justawhim]

@@HumanZombie99 yes but such a role can also effect how allies interact with each other. And when focusing entirely on this aspect, it can act like a support that cannot support their allies without there being another support unit. Again, these type of classes do not do anything essential. They are fundamentally act like parasites that feed off the interaction of the other classes. A disruptor, mezzer, movement, recon, or whatever cannot interact with each other on their own, since these type of classes specialize in interacting with the interactions, not with each other. In some sense, they are even more passive than the traditional support.

[@dumb214]

So does triggering alternate win conditions (like say, hypothetically, a class that just gives you an "I win" button that wins the match if held for 60 seconds) count as ally to ally (since you're supporting your entire team by giving them a win), enemy to ally (since you're forcing the enemy team to target you, making you a tank even if you're not durable), ally to enemy (might be a stretch, but since you're harming the enemy team mentally by revoking their win), dictating the interaction rules, or...

[@badideagenerator2315]

An objective pusher class like the scout from team fortress classic

[@kennethferland5579]

That's why I think 'Builder' which speicifically interacts with the Environoment is the logical 4th class. If the things it makes are permanent and cover a broad enough range of functions then it would be viable. Also key is that Builders are best or even the only way to remove the creations of enemy builders (assuming an FPS type game) so Builders can acts as the equivilent of Combat Engineers or Sappers to open enemy defenses.

[@jibbs_aim]

This is the first video about game balance that I have ever watched that uses Overwatch as an example and actually understands the fundamentals of the game

[@DocPanda-dq3ks]

impossible. People do not understand OW Fundamentals... "Just have good aim and movement" lol

[@epicassassin8502]

Guy’s Ive played that game since launch, the fundamentals aren’t that hard to grasp and aren’t missed siege and tf2 are both similar and it’s fundamentals are just hero shooter fundamentals

[@dziosdzynes7663]

widowmaker player detected, opinion rejected.

[@epicassassin8502]

@@dziosdzynes7663 no I played everyone but I played bastion most often because he was just a tankier soldier 76 for my play style

[@CharlieJapan]

In classic RPGs there were actually more roles like for example: Tank: Characters who absorb damage and protect other party members. Warrior/Fighter: Typically the primary tank with high health and defensive capabilities. Paladin: Often combines tanking with healing and defensive magic. Healer: Characters focused on restoring health and curing status effects. Cleric/Priest: Specializes in healing spells and support magic. White Mage: Similar to clerics, focusing on healing and protective spells. DPS (Damage Per Second): Characters designed to deal damage to enemies. Rogue/Thief: Specializes in dealing high damage, often with critical hits or backstabbing. Mage/Wizard: Uses powerful offensive magic to deal damage from a distance. Archer/Ranger: Deals damage from a distance using bows or crossbows. Support: Characters that provide buffs, debuffs, or utility rather than direct damage or healing. Bard: Uses songs or music to provide various buffs and effects to the party. Summoner: Calls forth creatures or allies to aid in combat or provide various benefits. Hybrid: Characters that combine multiple roles or have versatile abilities. Ranger: Often combines aspects of DPS with utility skills like tracking. Monk: May deal high melee damage while also having some defensive or support capabilities. Spellblade: A fighter who uses magic to augment their melee attacks. Utility/Exploration: Characters that help with exploration or non-combat activities. Rogue/Thief: Often skilled in disarming traps and picking locks, aiding in exploration.

[@maxtomchris]

Something that comes to mind for a 4th class, "Objective" - A class focused on completing objectives beyond "kill the enemies" - In many games I've played I've encountered scenarios where my team loses while having almost double the kill count - just because no-one put any effort towards the objectives and just focused on killing/healing/tanking. Perhaps the "Objective" class could be weak, not deal much damage either - but have higher mobility and better stats related to objectives (such as being able to capture points faster) - or could do things other classes cannot (Maybe hacking terminals, or doing mini-objectives that will boost progress towards the main objective). Many players often end up so wrapped up in the fighting aspect, that they forget objectives. So having a class role oriented towards completing objectives would bring fourth a 4th vital class and help ensure someone is actually doing what needs to be done to win.

[@kennethferland5579]

Problem is your potentially recreated Quidich from Harry Potter and it's rightfully ridiculed as a terrible game due to the disconnected nature of it's side objective.

[@fierce1117]

I had the same idea but called it "economy;" I like "objective" better

[@RoDInTheHouseMF]

Jungle?

[@tantanthespaceman1923]

Scout from TF2 and Tracer are similar to this concept. Especially in capture the flag or point capture, Scout is almost pure strategy and objective oriented.

[@Mischievous_Moth]

@@tantanthespaceman1923 huh... so that's why I used to suck at Scout.

[@goombasinastack6625]

Okay I wanna talk about Splatoon now. Splatoon is Nintendo’s 4v4 movement-based team shooter. When you use your weapon, it leaves ink on the ground in your team’s color, which you can then swim through to move faster, heal off damage, and refill your ammo. Painting the floor is also the only way to fill your special gauge. Enemy ink damages you, so turf control is a main part of the game-and these games are very fast-paced, since most weapons kill in anywhere from 1 to 5 shots, with quick respawns and jump-ins to teammates that are alive. Splatoon handles classes by having fluid roles that you can embody: each player has (mostly) the same movement stats, it’s just the weapon you choose that defines how you (should) play. Some weapons are very ink-hungry (ammo-hungry) and have a lot of downtime but are very powerful at range, some are light and quick but short-range. Roles aren’t explicit in the game, they’re created by the community. Generally, there are four roles: Anchor (backline support) Skirmisher (taking attention/resources) Slayer (reliable kills) Utility (paint/special output) A weapon can play to many roles, but generally has one it’s good at. Each role has an important set of duties, and when things go wrong (things ALWAYS go wrong) the other players on your team need to flex and accomodate the numbers difference. When you Anchor, your main goal is staying alive-usually, this defaults to the person with longest range. Think of your snipers (chargers), machine guns (splatlings), etc.. You want to stay alive, give chip damage, threaten one-shots, but most importantly give jumps to the rest of the team as they die and respawn. Generally, you want to be as close to the enemy team as possible while still staying safe, so that you’re still in range to be valuable (nothing in this game has global range except for some specials). Skirmishers are the closest to initiators in Valo-they want to force fights. They want the attention on them-think longer-range or defensive options. They can outrange/outmaneuver/out-tank/play around the environment better than other weapons (brellas, dualie squelchers, gloogas, dynamo, 96 deco, tent, the rapid blasters, machine/vslosher). Skirmishers need tools in their kits and weapons to stay alive and tank resources. Skirmishers are also the ones that die the most because they have all the attention, and usually get the most assists. Slayers are the other half of the fighting pair (with skirmishers). They're your main damage dealers, able to take fights reliably and safely because of the rest of the team’s support (think most meta shooters, stamper, tri-slosher, etc.). Their job should be easy because the rest of the team disorients the enemy-for that reason, they shouldn't flank much, only taking the occasional off angle. You can tell a good Slayer by how little the rest of their team dies-a Slayer removes threats on the frontline. Finally, Utility: their job is to get rid of obstacles and/or provide distinct advantages for their team. This includes weapons that paint a lot and get a lot of specials, weapons that have favorable close-range AOE matchups, or other “support-y” type weapons. They’re distinctly *not called support*, because the word is too nebulous to have any real meaning. This is where the ubiquitous Tacticooler (a special that buffs movement speed, respawn time, and special % saved on death) falls. (brushes, rollers, and short-range blasters are Utility weapons for example) A well-balanced team comp has a weapon that embodies each of one of these roles, with room to flex to other roles as people die. Notably, your Recon role is an intrinsic part of the game-at any time, players can open the map to view the overhead bird’s eye view: this allows you to scan turf control, view your teammate’s position, view enemy gear abilities/weapons/kits, and see the locations of enemy players that are damaged or on your ink. In addition, the status of special availability for all players is viewable at all times (albiet in a binary Not Ready/Ready state) in the normal HUD. Some subs and specials are focused solely on information gathering: Point Sensor is an AOE sub weapon that marks the location of enemies that wander into it for six seconds. Wave Breaker is a special that marks enemies in a large radius, with expanding concentric circles that chip enemies. Information is important, and being marked influences how aggressive you can play, especially when facing competitive teams that have more than the native two comms options.

[@snorecaptain]

I was thinking about this almost the entire time I was watching the video and I'm so glad it didn't take much scrolling to find someone already mentioned it. Another thing I really like about the roles the community created are how fluid they are. While there's some weapons that are good at one role they may have to switch it up and play a different one if the situation demands it. Slayers/skirmishers are a good example, sometimes slayers have to poke and distract an enemy without a reliable advantage and end up skirmishing, mostly when up against weapons that are longer ranged than them. And while most anchors aren't very good at painting there's some with enough paint output to play as utility and gain some map control as your team comes back in to push again. Most weapons are flexible enough that you can play whatever role the situation calls for. Now I just wish Nintendo would give us maps designed with the old philosophy again, of allowing flank routes and more ways to get out of your spawn. Most maps now funnel you into mid for a fight as soon as the round starts which results in sub spam for the first 30 seconds.

[@simplecrowfigure]

Really good breakdown, but I do want to mention that there are key differences between Classes and Roles. Think of it like, ‘Classes’ are the tools and abilities you have available, and ‘Roles’ are what the players does with or without them. In the same way, Roles are defined by the community, but Classes are still made in development. (That being said, ‘Support’ as a Class really is too vague. It may as well be called ‘Other’ at this point…) Although weapons will have different things they are better for and inferior for, a weapon with ANY level of flexibility can be used for Roles other than their best suited. It just depends on the player’s preferred playstyle. This is how in other games for example, we get things like Tanks used as a DPS, Buffers used to Defend, and other odd or even niche uses of Classes and Roles.

[@leoperd3487]

Did you really just call the slowest weapon in the game a Skirmisher? Dynamo is an anchor, friend. I have fights with enemy anchors from the sniper position regularly! The rest of you comment was very well put together

[@maxrobles340]

Another Nintendo game with more roles is Pokémon Unite. It's a 2-lane fighting game, along the lines of league of legends, but you have to score on enemy bases. The roles are attacker, defender, speedster, support, and all-rounder. The names are self-explanatory, and there is some flexibility in what roles go where. It's a mobile game, so it's probably not popular with most gamers, but it's a fun lil game

[@source3nergy203]

Hmm

[@KiaAzad]

A name as broad as support will encompass anything that isn't dealing damage, or soaking it, but helps those two. Define the classes as: - damage dealer - damage soaker - damage fixer and you'll have a wide range of additional classes to explore, like: goffers, demolishers, builders, recon, crafters, taxi, control, etc...

[@diablo.the.cheater]

- damage trader

[@MrWhateverfits]

Attack/Defense/Support are only the foundation roles for making classes. Everything is built on top of that base just like how Recon is just Support.

[@marcobreedt1661]

So class 4 would be damage evader...or scouts and recon

[@KiaAzad]

​@@marcobreedt1661 Damage evader is damage soaking by alternative means. I think class 4 can be crowd control, if we don't chuck that into assist, or give that ability to every other class.

[@marcobreedt1661]

@@KiaAzad reasonable counter

[@alansmithee419]

I think I agree with recon being distinct enough that it can count as its own class separate from attack, defence, and support. Support is buffing allies/debuffing enemies (whether through healing, movement boosts, etc). Recon doesn't interact with these characters at all though, it gives you an advantage not through an effect on in-game characters or providing resources, but by giving the actual person sitting at the computer playing the game more to work with (information). I can see how, since "support" is such a broadly defined term, you could easily argue it's just another type of support, but I do think it operates in a unique enough way to justify making it a separate thing. I do also wonder if you could work a recon character into other types of games. Obviously (for most games at least) you can't just tack on a recon character to an existing RPG, for example. But I do wonder whether you could work one in in a satisfying way if you designed a game's mechanics partly around having a recon class. The issue becomes making the class interesting enough while keeping the other classes from feeling like they're being nerfed just to give the recon something to do.

[@Kawi31]

erm recon actually falls under support! the spy class is a support class :^)

[@eddventure6214]

🤓

[@williamwoznack5312]

@eddventure6214 spy is not a support the classifications made by the game are outdated the classifications in tf2 are as follows power= heavy, pyro, soldier, demo defense= pyro, engie, demo (sort of) support= medic pick= spy/sniper a "pick" class does what it says on the tin: It picks extremely important targets and eliminates them. What differentiates pick classes and offence/power classes is that pick classes will rarely frontline, and when they do, they cannot do it effectively (unless the other team is incompetent or the pick player is a god) example of pick classes in other games: Sombra & Widowmaker (hanzo doesn't count, he can frontline. but he borders on being a pick class)

[@OctovenderReal]

Engie is support too nitwit, scout is power too. Go play some highlander ​@@williamwoznack5312

[@electricheisenberg5723]

@@williamwoznack5312why is the distinction necessary? Pick reasonably falls under support.

[@brunitop4753]

​@@electricheisenberg5723it does not. Both pick and power classes could be described as "offense"

[@DEMERN]

I think a big reason you don't see a 4th core class is that just about everything that isnt dealing damage or absorbing damage can arguably be classified as support, which is why I see movement as more of a core class than recon. Giving a speed buff to your teammates is supporting them, but simply being fast or having mobility is a tool that doesn't fit into any of the other three categories. But then again, you basically never see a pure mobility type class. It's always paired with something else. Being fast and doing nothing else isn't exactly productive to your team. One idea for a core class that wasn't mentioned in the video is one that excels at completing objectives. Think Scout tf2 with his 2x capture speed, or junglers/splitpushers in league of legends. Characters who create threats not by targeting the opponent's health, but by targeting the win condition. Whether or not a character like this can exist really depends on the game though, like with recon characters. Very situational archetype.

[@dragonfishking]

"grass grows, birds fly, sun shines, and brotha, i hurt people"

[@michaelsorensen7567]

Split push in LoL is an attack type imo

[@DEMERN]

@@michaelsorensen7567 Fair enough. I was just trying to think of any examples I could.

[@DreamersOfReality]

How is absorbing damage not supporting your team. Logically, the Tank should fall under support. It doesn't, not because it doesn't fit, but because folk are too invested in the idea of the trinity to break it. It's dogma for the sake of dogma. So entrenched, people will twist and bend new ideas to fit into it, rather than allow them to stand uncategorized.

[@michaelsorensen7567]

@@DreamersOfReality by your argument attackers would be support too, because they help the team by taking objectives and removing enemies. Everything is support! Yay! To me it makes sense to have the distinction of "those who stay here and stop the other team from screwing us up" and "those who go there to screw the other team up". That's generally defenders and attackers, respectively. And then there's people who help attackers and defenders do their jobs better. Those are support. And just like you can have a variety of attackers, from high damage burst to slow burn, from melee to ranged, from single target pick to entire team takedown, so too you will find variety in how supports do their jobs.

[@Luckie_7]

In dnd I tend to split healers and support because there’s a social aspect to the game, healers tend to heal and do some buffing and support tends to be social and utility focused also with some team buffs. Some classes sit between classes like paladin where you can effectively combine dps or tanking with support or healing.

[@sipofsunscorchedsarsaparil6052]

DnD and TTRPGs had a much more diverse role system than the trio of "offense, defense, support". A Nuker and a Blaster/Striker work very differently from one another, even though nominally they are all damage dealers. Support is also way too broad to be its all encompassing role. Tanks could easily be lobbed in there (the "Leader" archetype comes to mind), or in DnD lingo Defenders and Controllers who could go both "defense" and "support". I think MOBAs show that a three tier role system is silly.

[@sharpshades]

I agree, when I first started playing I was confused when healing was apart of evocation rather than its own school or apart of a defensive school like abjuration. Then I realized that many illusion spells, enchantment spells, and pretty much all the schools have some support spells with the main support school being abjuration. Healing is much more separate than just being support

[@slitherdoodle]

My personal choice for a fourth class is the pick/assassin class. Basically any class that specializes in taking down a single high priority target, but fumbles when either: facing multiple enemies at once like with rushdown, fighting enemies at unfavorable ranges like with snipers, or fighting enemies who aren't caught unaware like with characters that can go invisible. I think it fits into a lot more games than 'recon' does, and if you think that it's just a subclass of offense because you're, uh, dealing damage, then I would direct your attention to how defense is actually the same as support because they both support your other team members to do the work for you. Hell, I'd argue that in most pvp team based games, pick/assassin is *more distinct* than defense.

[@wiegraf9009]

In actual military terms the classes are something like: -Striker: Burst dps with little staying power (air to ground strike aircraft (including drones), gunship helicopters) -Artillery: Sustained long range dps and suppression with limited mobility -Tank: Main battle tanks that can take some enemy fire -Interceptor: Dps unit with high mobility and some staying power. Used to prevent flanks. Usually only a dedicated unit in air forces. -Dragoon: Light armored cavalry that can recon, find and strike weak points, and maintain contact with a retreating enemy (Light tanks,IFVs,APCs) -Capable: Basically infantry, whether regulars or special forces. They can fight in the most complex environments and do a hundred other functions involved in seizing and holding objectives. They aren't very powerful on their own but are surprisingly durable and absolutely necessary to win. -Terrain: Engineering units that open paths for other units and maintain them. -Sustain: Logistics, medical, and maintenance units. They provide the goods and services needed to keep fighting. -Control: Command and communication units like AWACS. They deal with the fog of war and decision making at the big scale. -Debuff: PsyOps, sappers, and saboteurs. They weaken enemy morale, organization, defense, and supply So yeah there's a lot more than 3 classes, but this depends on engagements happening in large areas, over long periods of time, and with serious resource constraints. Many games don't include those factors for various reasons.

[@0ne0fmany]

lol, now I wanna try a game with classes and game mechanics you just listed XD

[@wiegraf9009]

@@0ne0fmany Hey thanks :)

[@duckpotat9818]

In games that would be a) SMGs and Shotguns b) LMGs c) ARs d) Recons, who are usually snipers and/or drivers too. e) Snipers f) All, mainly ARs g) Move support and drivers h) Healers/Medics i) Lead j) Saboteur, usually also recons, snipers and/or drivers

[@Aleck_Ultimate]

All this is just a question of definition. All theses classes can be defined by they orientation in the offensive/defensive/support trinity. We just need to ad a long-range/close-range factor. All in all, they are all sub-classes or mixed classes. They inflict direct dommages, they provide defenses and protection, and/or they support the allies or disrupt the enemies.

[@tumultoustortellini]

@@Aleck_Ultimate I disagree. The thing about support, offense, and defense, is that they don't account for all the neccesary factors. When you consider splitting long range and short range as the same thing, you are intentionally creating the problem you want to solve.

[@night_san03]

So, in referendum to a 4th class, there's actually 2 that we're missing because "support" sweeps over everything and leaves little left to be expressed. In fact, the same can be said about offense, too, as there are offshoots of each of these classes in games that could be considered a class of their own. Support - terrain manipulator - adjusts the terrain to create a more advantageous setting for yourself and allies. This class of character is a lot less common in games but sits in that exact point between defense and support that it is warranted to be its own class. Support - summoner - from creating minions and mobile equipment to reviving fallen allies, summoners go beyond the realm of standard support and typically dip into the defensive aspect by creating constructs. Though, the key difference that leans this class more to an offensive support role is that these constructs are usually made quickly and can move around to support the team. Support - leach - by taking resources from the enemy to return to your allies, you create a powerful, dynamic support that also dishes out some solid damage. Damage/offense - scouts Scouts have unique movement tools to allow them to move up past the front line and scan for the enemy weakpoints. They act as a solid counter to support roles even if their actual damage output is someone lacking. These characters typically have higher mobility or some way to vanish from enemy fire before they get killed. In a competitive environment, having a competent scout is pretty much life or death in any class-based shooter. This doesn't just encompass the roll of the scout from TF2, but it's also assassin type characters like the spy. This class is easily one of the most forgotten and slept on rolls in class-based. Really, what defines a class is just the level of detail you'd like to use with the rolls of different characters, but almost every game is more nuanced than just the classic triangle you listed. The infamous triage of support, tank, and dps comes from rpgs that only allowed teams of 3 since it was just the most straightforward playstyle producing the best results for the least effort

[@StarBeam500]

Well, yea, the class structure is more nuanced than the simple triangle. This was mentioned in the video. In fact, it's the main subject. The triangle is just made of the most common types of classes. Sure, the game by game may vary how each class works, but you've probably not played a class-based game that doesn't have some sort of damage dealer, tank, or healer.

[@jamzgatorbutyt6675]

i wanna add on to this by thinking of some classes: terrain manipulation: Meet the Trencher max health: 175 speed: 12.5 mph nationality: British personality: that of a dwarf, being small, witty, and a little rude primary: the earthgun launches balls of dirt that when they hit the ground, make a small barrier with 200 health, when it hits an enemy player, it temporally limits their vision along with 20 damage done secondary: the holepunch a melee style secondary that when used on a wall less than 4 feet thick (64 HU) it bores a small crouching heavy sized tunnel that lasts 5 minutes until collapsing, this can be accelerated by enemy players by "capping it" as if its a point, the trencher can melee the tunnel to reset the 5 minute timer, you cant damage players with this melees are shared with solider that aren't effected by rocket jumping (market gardener) summoner: Meet the Zookeeper max health: 150 speed: 13 mph nationality: American (Californian) personality: a famous and arrogant zookeeper that delivers the animals saxton uses in his yeti park, now that it is made for mercenaries, the zookeeper is off to help in the gravel wars primary, the dartgun: a simple dartgun (Like the syringe gun) that shoots high velocity 20 damage darts every 2/3 second secondary: the Y bone/African cherry seeds/the saxstalk Y bone: an exotic type of meat used to summon a 200 health Lion with 50% bullet resistance, it runs at 18 mph, and it does 70 damage with each bite, inflicting bleed ACS: a nigh extinct seed used to summon 2 crows that take health and ammo packs from the spawnroom all the way back to the frontlines (delivery area is set by zookeeper) the saxstalk: a recently discovered type of bamboo named after yours truly which summons a red panda that when in a 20 feet vicinity of it, gives 5% of the health back to players per second melee: the whip used to direct your minions to a certain target in order to complete the set task (healing, attacking, retrieving) Leech: Meet the thief max health: 125 speed: 15 mph nationality: brazilian personality: a mischievous young trickster that uses tactics like flashbombs and grapple hooks to swindle the enemy of their ammo or ubercharge default effect: 75% fall damage resistance, theres an extra ammo and uber meter that can be emptied into dispensers or directly onto a friendly player primary the grappling hook: used in modes like passtime or mannpower, nerfs for it would include no damage output, and a 3 second cooldown secondary flashbomb: used to stun/blind the enemy for 3 seconds, while stunned, they cant move, see, or attack, it can only be used on 2 people at once (the 2 closest to the impact), effects friendly players for 1 second, not including the thief(s) melee the sneaky snatch: a dollar store sticky hand that has the same range as the solider whip, it does 30 damage, and steals 50% of the receivers ammo and/ or uber

[@onyotubero]

dont forget offensive long ranged damage dealers, whether it be a sniper, long ranged magic, or just anything with a higher range than normal

[@jamzgatorbutyt6675]

@@onyotubero what if trencher walls have 80% bullet res?

[@onyotubero]

@@jamzgatorbutyt6675 its a fairly good counter for a class with high damage output over long distance

[@Gaminboi2864]

Offense, Defense, Support, Mobility, Recon, Utility. Offense: Dealing damage. Defense: Preventing or taking damage to protect teammates. Support: Healing or buffing your team, or debuffing the enemy team. Mobility: Moving quickly into positions to avoid attacks, reach the objectives, or flank the enemy team. Recon: Glean important information on the enemy team to relay to teammates, such as the enemies' location and weaknesses. Utility: Can fill any role that is missing on a team.

[@logandunlap9156]

mobility is a means for effective offense, especially when a win condition goes beyond "kill other dudes". support skills can be buffs that get dudes where they need to be quicker, like Lucio or Kiriko in overwatch, Soldier's riding crop and (iirc) conch banner in TF2. of course, mobility can also just be a part of a character's balance and archetypical role. in TF2, soldier can rocket jump and scout has the fastest movement speed and a double jump, these movement (or "mobility") options allow them to assume strategic positioning long before the rest of the team arrives or to carry out objectives more quickly than any other mate on the team. recon is another kind of support, anyone playing the game can do this, they don't need specialization to do so effectively. sniper and scout in TF2 are both capable of relaying insightful info, but anyone who's playing TF2 can say "spy killed me/disguised as me" and that's valuable info too. in every game where collaboration is key to success, especially games with "big three" design, there will be playstyles that crop up with significant overlap between any or all of the big three roles, hybrids if you will. these hybrids have flexible roles that can patch up gaps in team comp/team needs. sounds to me like utility may be intrinsically linked to roles. plus, any role can be put somewhere in a 3-way venn diagram of offense, defense, or support. mages and warlocks in WoW are definitely offensive classes, but they're not entirely self-serving classes. mages can drop a buff, food+drink, and portals to send everyone home to resupply/repair. warlocks have a buff, context-specific debuffs, insurance policy-type resurrections, sharable potion-like consumables, and the ability to summon back everyone the mage just sent to stormwind. they're team players. they have utility in that they have support as a sub-role. support is more than heals, buffs, and debuffs by the way. support is any action that isn't direct offense, isn't direct defense, but still makes an impact on the performance of either of those two roles. Counter Strike does not have teammate healing (to my knowledge) like Valorant, so players instead supplement each other's offensive and defensive plays with information. "he's in the rafters", "i'm dead, guy with an AK going down mid", "throwing smoke on east", etc. callouts are support. anything teammate-to-teammate is support.

[@Micha-Hil]

DIVINE

[@cevatkokbudak6414]

Destroy Mobility and Utility

[@Ramsey276one]

Nice one!

[@Jazzed-bee]

Perfect one

[@kournelious8265]

recon makes alot of sense but i do think it would need a different name. Just something like "information" Offense: damage enemy Information: gather information to know when to damage or protect from enemy Defense: protect team from enemy Support: sustain team from enemy As im sure most people know, real wars are mostly won with knowledge.

[@kournelious8265]

Just like how we have people in war that. Attack. Defend. Support. We also have people that gather information

[@DarkKiller-0]

Tbh support can be separated from strictly healing. Like a buff / debuff support class. DC universe online has the Controller role. You buff the teams damage and defense, debuff the enemies ability to heal, crowd control enemies with stun abilities, and replenish your teams power bar so they can use their abilities. It’s a pretty vital role in that game and can definitely be considered a 4th role.

[@metawarp7446]

That's pretty cool. It looks like it all depends on the game. In many games DMG and DEF are so prominent and easily distinguishable everything else is called SUP In games where there is clearly more classes, we still might see it as DMG.DEF.SUP because of other games

[@adambryant4149]

That's still support though. Support is just too broad of a category. It's basically just where "other" goes.

[@DarkKiller-0]

@@adambryant4149 it’s too broad because you could argue tank is support. Technically every non damage roles job is too support the damage roles.

[@metawarp7446]

@@adambryant4149 Only if you want it to be, really. If think look broadly enough, tanks can be seen as a supportive role to DMG :p

[@adambryant4149]

@@DarkKiller-0 Yeah, I was just thinking something similar. The support role in some games include both tanks and healers. It's a pretty broad term

[@polandsilver3419]

In model based on health and damage size we logically cannot add anything more than taking health from your enemies, regenerating health in your team and protecting your team from damage. We cannot add more classes to tank/dps/healer model if it's based only on health and damage size. We need new system which is based on something different than these two factors :) Thanks for reading and have a nice day!

[@satsujin-shathewitchkingof6185]

What about temporary damage? Like,you remove 20hp from an opponent but they'll get it back in a minute. Best used if an offensive is near and about to attack. Saving them time. Using it haphazardly will mean your team is caught by surprise when the timer runs out though

[@maurobrunno6032]

@@satsujin-shathewitchkingof6185 sounds like an alternative support, its like reverse Renata Glasc from LoL(she can give a fake health bar to one player in case they die, and if that ally gets a kill or assist, they regain their life back)

[@tumultoustortellini]

Range, speed, cost, heavy versus light, versatility, static versus active (usually applied to defense, but it can apply to at least support as well), stackable versus one of a kind. There are many ways to stack it, I think if his answer was that only 3 are possible, he was just missing out.

[@the0neBoio]

well, there are team games not focused around health, mostly games about real sport (soccer) or a fictional sport (Pyre, also technically some modes in Splatoon) Also, if games like Among Us count as Team Games, there are no HP and since a while there are the Roles (Engineer: Movement; Scientist: Information; Tracker: Information; Noisemaker: maybe Information(?); Guardian Angel: Protection; Phantom: not really a type of class, allows Impostor to turn invisible; Shapeshifter: Allows Impostor to shapeshift)

[@butlazgazempropan-butan11k87]

Tf2 has and interesti g one. It has pick power and support.

[@kisapniaq]

Aight I'll gotta say it, Paladins has a 4th class called Flanks! It's kinda a DPS role dedicated to divers that are more squishy, and have more burst but more falloff, or more mobility and really strong poke that's very skill reliant. Without role lock, its a very neat role, but multiclassing wuold be more logical!

[@williamwoznack5312]

those are called pick classes

[@zeppie_]

Interesting! League of Legends calls these assassins

[@taliaglass1874]

I was looking for someone else to mention flanks! It should also be noted that flanks can also fill a recon role as well as leading the enemy into set traps, and they also work to draw the enemy's attention away from the team, who can then complete objectives. I stopped playing Paladins a long time ago but I always felt their 4 class system felt pretty decent to play.

[@nickspencerfishingrodd2383]

The thing is, flanker class is just a more specific offense class

[@KatieGimple]

The problem is just that "Support" is way too broad and encompasses everything other than straight damage and defense. Buffing, debuffing, healing, recon, and movement all fall under the "Support" category, despite doing drastically different things. The way to increase the number of core roles is to break support into multiple components.

[@puppies3330]

like healing, debuff, stealth, recon, etc

[@marshtomp8]

I would currently say that Sableye in Pokémon Unite fits the bill of a Recon class. Much like Sombra, Sableye is always invisible until discovered and thus can provide info on the map on enemy positions, as well as set game energy that reveals their position when collected and damaged enemies. It's currently counted as a Support in Unite but does not fit the role at all and more closely fits this Recon role.

[@User_Here414]

True, maybe I should pick him up for a play

[@Ramsey276one]

The DUALITY of Support Abel: Here's a Band-aid Cain: BANDAGE that spike up your --! Abel: they won't trigger near friends, YOU'RE SAFE.

[@tale7955]

The only "Fourth" class i could think of would be the mapper. They have the ability to alter the map in such ways that they can change the entire course of the game. Take for example characters in games like Brawl stars, being able to break through walls creating new paths, or destroy grass to keep people from hiding. Some characters can create temporary lr permanent new walls that have to be dealt with. This is not support, as your actions don't directly support the team and could work against them in certain scenarios (breaking grass so nobody can hide or creating a shorter path for both teams), it's not defense or attack, because opening new paths or blocking them is not inherently defensive or offensive. It could work as a fourth class... But there's the issue. While I'd argue that being able to permanently change the map is not necessarily supportive, offensive or defensive; it can be used as such. You can create walls to trap the enemy and thus that's support, or you can wall off important places and that's defense, or you can block the enemy from scaping and thats attack. So, we would just have another "Support" guy.

[@FloatingOer]

The Control Class. If a support class role is to support the rest of their team then a Control class role is to disrupt the enemy team, binding, ice walls, fear, disable the ability to heal, flashbang, smoke, etc. This "class" already exist in some form in most games but the abilities are usually spread out among the other classes, the Trickster in Dragon's Dogma 2 is one of the most pure control classes I've seen.

[@Thanadeez]

It would just be an offshoot of support but i feel like it’d be nice. You’d have Offense - Defense Support - Obstruct

[@FloatingOer]

@@Thanadeez I don't think it would be an offshoot but I certainly understand why that argument could be made, even a Defense class will have offensive abilities without being considered an offshoot. In the same way a Support class will have control abilities without being a control class and vice versa. Though to be fair classes could be reduced to: 1. Physical 2. Mental. It's a very abstract subject and really no answer is incorrect

[@Thanadeez]

@@FloatingOer your right. to be quite frank it's easier to remove one class then add one i'd argue. Think like this: one class that deals damage, and one class that heals it defense should be divided between the two others. Either way, a fourth would be great

[@codyjacobs6899]

@@Thanadeez The problem with the off shoot argument is that support is used to broadly encompass anything that doesn't directly say dps or tank. Support shouldn't even be a term. It could easily be buffer and debuffer as 2 different roles.

[@creepeyredacted8914]

A (relatively) simple option would be something like tf2's scout and engineer, an "objective--doer". Think about it this way: dps- deal damage, score kills tank- stay alive, draw attention support- buff allies, debuff enemies [class name]- advance win condition, delay enemy win condition

[@cosmicspacething3474]

How would they work in a deathmatch game though?

[@Verses_Bon]

@@cosmicspacething3474 buffs and debuffs

[@paccie9689]

pl_carrier moment

[@ClockworkGearhead]

@@cosmicspacething3474 Nothing. The 4th class would be a player versus environment, while the others are player versus player. The objective would be out of their reach, unless a win condition was provided on the map only they could (arguably artificially) access that didn't include killing.

[@MingusAhUmmUhhhh]

@@cosmicspacething3474 Closest thing I can think of is maybe a "pick" class, exchanging their lives for one of a far more valuable opponent's life. It would help the team to win while not being classified as supporting or defending and the damage would not be consistent enough to classify it as an attack class.

[@spiritandsteel]

I’m really fond of the role distinctions in Lancer, a mecha tabletop rpg. In it, the mechs are categorized as Striker (close-range dps), Artillery (long-range dps), Defender, Support (including frames that reposition teammates as well as buff/heal), and Controller (mechs that specialize in debuffing enemies, deploying drones or traps, or area denial- basically anything that fundamentally alters the tactical/positioning elements of the game in their team’s favor). It’s interesting because -in this case- it’s a descriptor of what your “game plan” is, rather than necessarily being about what kind of numbers you’re throwing. A striker and an artillery mech are still just dps on paper, but their play stile and tactics are wildly different. It ends up feeling a little like actual military doctrines for mechanized warfare while still being a useful “gamey” distinction.

[@Zytotoxin]

I like the idea of having a defense, attack, support and summoner class in games, i just have a crippling addiction to watching people get overwhelmed by low tier mobs

[@boneyridges2379]

Terraria, epik

[@sasho_b.]

I remember from another video that put it well: the trifecta is simply the 3 core player interactions: aly to aly, aly to enemy, enemy to aly. As such, it there is no forth "general" class. But within games, understanding these 3 lines of interaction can give role diversity. Maybe dont allow for any interactions that deny enemy attacking potential (area denial, etc), maybe make it harder to support your team without engaging with the enemy (like, have your healing powers charge with damage), to either promote this or that playstile.

[@yjlom]

what about the environment in this?

[@sasho_b.]

@@yjlom you can consider that as well, but its not as omni-present as "do damage to enemy" and "have health". The environment is another axis of interaction, but its subservient to dying and killing.

[@C.A.D.D]

I’ve always considered a “leader” role. Someone capable of coordinating the team

[@gplus224]

It would be a support class

[@nosu5530]

Ain't no way someone in vc gonna tell me how I should play my game

[@Turtle-k5w]

Evil Dead: The Game

[@slinger3391]

defense does that 99% of the time already

[@jblazerndrowzy]

Defense definitely covers that category. Whether it’s a Tank in OW, or a Heavy in TF2, if the Big Guy(tm) is charging forward, people *will* be following them.

[@alexz8120]

A scout. That is what the fourth class is, a information based character that helps other players find enemies and know what they are doing

[@jblazerndrowzy]

Which can fall under Support since you’re helping your teammates find enemies for them to deal with

[@weilyonTOP]

@@jblazerndrowzy anything can fall under support if you give it the slightest reason, including recon, however i think of any scout typa character as their own class

[@dudi0_0]

That falls under the support class. A lot of things fall under support. Recon, artillery, medics, etc.

[@sxlproductions]

Which falls under offense for most, if not all shooters for the role to be viable(you have to have some power to fight when running into the front lines), or on rare occasions it's support(drones/cars that are very weak)

[@reetusbeetus]

Ah, yes. Valorant.

[@HaibaneKuu]

I feel like you are making a mistake when describing these roles in terms of how are they interacting with HP. It's kinda true in MMOs (and even then there's some quirks), but in FPS games it's much more complicated, and it's the most notable with "defensive" roles. An example: Overwatch has 3 roles these days, but it used to have four: Tank, Offense, Defense and Support. Defense was a role reserved to heroes such as Widowmaker, Hanzo, Junkrat, Mei, Bastion, Torbjorn - so essentially area denial roles, which are not the same as the tank. They were merged into DPS eventually, but you can still see the idea here. Even disregarding that, if you listen to how tank player's job is described in Overwatch, you'll often hear the words "creating space" - the role isn't to take or prevent damage, is to take space and displace the enemy from that area. A lot of times roles aren't defined as interaction with HP at all. You briefly alluded to it, but area denial isn't about preventing HP loss, it's about making sure that enemy doesn't enter a certain area - usually by making it extremely dangerous for them to do so. TF2 Engineer is defensive not because he prevents HP loss, but because if anyone enters the range of a Sentry gun, they will die very quickly. That's why Sniper is also arguably a defensive class in many games. It's not because it does a good job of preventing damage, but because it's very dangerous to play in a sniper's sight line. You can see it in Apex too: control role is not about preventing damage, it's about locking down an area, and make it hard for enemy to enter it. Support is another can of worms - in some games supports are healers, like in Overwatch (don't tell OW players, they hate when supports are called healers), in some games supports don't even have the ability to heal at all. Or like in Valo there's IIRC two characters that can heal teammates, but they aren't even in the same role. I don't play MOBAs, but as far as I know, support role in those isn't about healing either. So, recon hero could just be a support. Apex support heroes do have abilities that help with recovery - namely better rezzing, but they have an aspect of providing resources, especially Loba and Lifeline. Granted, some of these roles are not defined very accurately sometimes. Demoman in TF2 is "defense" due to area denial aspect, and yet it's one of the most powerful offensive classes. Pyro is "offense" and yet it's most useful as a support role due to airblast mechanics, and synergy with engineer. Assassin classes being designated as "support" in TF2, which... broadens the role quite a bit, if we accept that. Engineer is definitely a "defensive" role due to providing area denial, but he also provides healing and mobility via teleporter, so arguably Engineer deserves the name of "support" more than Sniper or Spy. In essense, I would say that it's not correct to say that the roles are always about interacting with HP, and many FPS games define their roles very differently already. You can try to shove the concepts kinda into the "trinity", but at that point it might end up being inaccurate, and despite having similar names, the role and the mechanics might end up completely different from the MMO trinity.

[@GildedSnail]

I always imagined the fourth class was like the fast, low damage-high mobility characters

[@grimmking7613]

So scout

[@planetcasual]

Speedster

[@Cloverbacon]

So a recon class?

[@gektoast4968]

@@Cloverbaconyes

[@augustday9483]

I've seen one or two games which took this idea and created the "Evasion tank" archtype. They mitigate damage by dodging attacks instead of soaking them.

[@CobaltW]

A bunch of other people have probably already said this but recon just feels like a support subclass

[@Luxalamander]

True, Recon is literally giving information to the team, so for example: he gives enemy locations, thats just giving them support.

[@WwZa7]

But when games create support, it's usually a character that does everything in combat but tank or attack, that would be healing, buffing, debuffing, crowd control, cleansing debuffs or revealing hidden enemies. However it rarely is an actual recon, as it requires game to work a certain way. True recon would be a necesity in games, where knowledge about the enemy, his position, what he is capable of, etc, would be invaluable to win. Such as in games that require stealth. Imagine if only one class would have access to a drone in Ghost Recon: Breakpoint. In fact I think 2 or 3 of the classes in this game could be classified as pure recon, having no skills for direct combat, but for searching and avoiding the enemy. In World War 3 game, one of the support you can call in game is a suicide drone, however since it has infinite fuel, you can just use it for recon and even ping enemies from it, as long as no one will shoot you down. Since time to kill is short, and there is no reviving fallen teammates, flying above your squad and finding enemies that might gank them, or checking a building before running in blind, can be more valuable than a UAV scan, since that one doesn't last as long as drone and isn't as precise. And honestly it's fun to lead your team like that! While not a multiplayer game exactly, recon vehicles were always necesary for all strategy games, whether it's RTS or turn-based strategy, knowing the enemy can make or break your campaign. Recon has a potential if you let it exist.

[@capofantasma97]

@@WwZa7 and in some other games there's no defense class. What's your point? It's still a type of support

[@WwZa7]

@@capofantasma97 Yes. What's YOUR point? Mine is that purely recon class would be cool to have. And I wouldn't count information obtaining as a support. Not everything that is helpful to team is a support. Are aggro skills support's job? No, they're tank's job. Is sniping out single problematic enemies a support? No, that's ADS's job. The way I think of support class is direct help to the team characters. Recon is direct help to the PLAYERS.

[@capofantasma97]

@@WwZa7 there are games that do an almost completely information oriented class, and some peculiar games even have a "guy in the chair/commander" role in place of a character on the field. It is a support role because it supports the team with intel.

[@xX-DogSama-Xx]

another thing to add to the conversation is the difference between the dynamic of fighting your enemy vs completing your objective, you can win without just kills. While it may be considered as a factor, it is rarely thought of as a core idea on it's own. TF2's scout is a good example of what I mean, he's very fragile, but he's quick and pushes objectives twice as fast as any other class. While he might get knocked down easily, he is exceptional at getting right back up in position on the point, having the option to focus on pushing the objective forward rather than just pushing the enemy back. Recon definitely fits this objective-forward category; you aren't affecting other players directly, rather you're providing a new tool to get the job done more effectively, information. Another objective-forward mechanic is resource management, this could be like how many RTS games use some sort of miner to gather you materials to make the other offensive, defensive, and healing/buffing troops for the front lines. They might not be fit for a fight but the amount of miners you had making sure there are more resources to complete your objective sooner played a pivotal role in the match. This is something Splatoon weapons actually considers. While Splatoon may not have explicit classes, you can definitely pinpoint what team roles weapons were built to fulfill. Shooters and brushes as offense, brellas and blasters for defense, and snipers for backline support, but each weapon has another aspect to them that needs to be considered when thinking about team composition, ink coverage. This mechanic is outside of just dealing with damage, it plays on your ability to get things done and makes you better at the things you already do. I think all of these sort of culminate into what i would consider a fitting 4th addition to the core classes, and honestly something that needs considered more often. You have the main 3 classes out in battle, with the attackers pushing in the front, defenders holding ground right behind, support keeping them both engaged from the sidelines, and finally our 4th which can go anywhere in-between that works as the backbone making sure the ship stays afloat I propose, The Manager, because it makes sure the job gets done

[@MacheTheFerret]

My take on what a "fourth class" would be: the "Anti-Support." In the broadest possible sense, Support and Anti-Support are like Hero and Anti-Hero; both "heroes" in a sense, but with differing methods. For me, the difference between S and AS lies in whether their support is direct or indirect; traditional S characters help their team DIRECTLY by healing, providing buffs, etc. The AS however helps their team INDIRECTLY by instead debuffing and sabotaging the enemy. To put it another way, S tend to be with their team, while AS tend to throw themselves into or behind the enemy team; in that regard, one could instead call these two sides of the Support coin "Defensive Support" (S) and "Offensive Support" (AS). If KZbin allowed embedding images I'd whip up a square diagram thing or an alignment chart. To tie in with the video, something like the proposed "Recon" class would probably fit as a subcategory of Anti/Offensive Support, in that their spying on the enemy could absolutely qualify as a debuff (to their privacy) and a means of sabotaging their plans. However, simply flanking the enemy as a fast offense class (ex: Scout) can often get that intel similarly. Flanking and thus getting info from flanking is something a variety of characters can do, but characters built to actively spy on enemies without being seen would absolutely fall under AS. The TF2 spy is a fantastic example that goes beyond the recon thing; not only can he infiltrate the enemy and gather info without being seen thanks to the watch, he can directly sabotage the enemy('s buildings) with the sapper and confuse the enemy (and sentries, and even dispensers) with disguises. Hell, he's the only class in the game that can use enemy teleporters. He's not built to be on the front lines like offense, he's not great at defending his team directly, and he doesn't really provide any healing or buffs to his team, so by process of elimination he becomes the quintessential example of an Antisupport. Probably not the most original way of looking at this thing, I'll admit, but it's been brewing in my mind ever since I first watched this video. And, of course, it's always good to keep in mind that while different characters might PRIMARILY be XYZ class, the actual role the character takes on when YOU play them is fluid and depends on what works for you and your team.

[@Paxterra0]

I mean, what he described was the perfect solution that Battlefield 1 came up with. Assault got you high amount of kills, great offensive anti armor and anti air but ran out of ammo quickly so needed support and died just as quick. Support kept the team supplied and repaired and provided great area defense with heavy mg's. Medic made sure people were in the fight long enough and healed up, with guns just enough to hold their weight but not primed for full on frontline combat due to DPS. Finally they had Scout for recon which unironically one of the most useful cases of sniper class because they had the ability to provide information through marking and flares whilst picking off incoming support or opposing snipers.

[@yamum1480]

battlefield does the 4 classes the best, but everyone here in the comment section keeps saying scout falls under the support but like... no. support can't be responsible for ammo, healths and intel like come on

[@SharkWithADrill]

@@yamum1480 providing ammo, hp, and info is literally supporting attack and defense

[@yamum1480]

@@SharkWithADrill ok and defence can support all of them too depending on how the defence plays

[@jared8515]

​@@yamum1480 multiple classes can provide support. You can provide support with large ammo and suppressive fire as (insert LMG guy from Battlefield game) or you can provide support with intel, spawn beacons, laser marking, spotting and long-range firepower as (battlefield game scout/sniper/recon guy)

[@yamum1480]

@jared8515 correct hence why in my opinion calling a class "just another support class" doesn't make sense because the whole point of each class is to play a different role and each role supports a different aspect of team play and the progression of a match. each class supports the others

[@soulezwan266]

I always thought the jack of all trades was the fourth class. It can do all the other class but not as good...

[@Bova-Fett]

That's just multiclassing. And falls within the 3 classes we have now.

[@muno]

In splatoon the "classes" / roles are split up a bit differently, since everyone has the same HP and there aren't traditional support mechanics - Slayer - can quickly kill a target with high, reliable DPS Skirmisher - distracting the enemy with gunfire so that a slayer can move in close enough to kill Anchor - long-range backline weapon, something like a sniper "Support" - focused on painting the map, giving zone control to the team as well as earning lots of special weapons (in splatoon you get your ult by painting) These classes are also more fluid and flexible than in some other games - if your weapon is a "slayer" weapon, you can still fill any of the 3 roles when needed. This flexibility depends on the weapon somewhat. The roles are unofficial so it's just something that players use to group things together

[@Boney_Paladin]

Shoutouts to Tent for being as unique as it is and being the closest thing splatoon has ever had to a tank weapon

[@Mad-Goose]

Ah yes, the three S’s of Splatoon: Slayer, Skirmisher, and Snipewriter

[@dragonlogos1]

You’re looking at this backwards. The roles are the three things you can possibly do. You can either be doing damage, preventing the opponent from doing damage, or provide some utility to help accomplish those two other things. To add another role you would have to add something to do that is neither offense or defense which means it would be neutral and you would be doing nothing. Instead think of unique ways to accomplish those roles. Like the RTS mechanics, in natural selection that functions as an incredibly powerful and complex support class. Or create scenarios in which different forms of them work better (vary between aoe and pinpoint damage, create opportunities to switch between for heavy defense lean and fast defense)

[@TF2BluSoldier]

I recall playing Rush on Battlefield 4's Naval Assault DLC. I had to get so many MAV spots in a life, a flying drone that allows you to destroy enemy equipment and doubles as a camera. The issue with the MAV is that it's very loud, so people will usually see it and shoot it. I, needing to spot a set amount of enemies with it, just flew it to the top of the map. All I did was keep spotting enemy players, pointing them out to my team and making them appear on their local minimaps. We absolutely ROLLED that match after I started doing that, having constant information made it far easier to push our advantage.

[@christophobia6415]

I think trying to come up with a fourth major class is extremely similar to trying to visualise the fourth dimension of space. Many attempts to make new classes have always ended up falling back into subclass or hybrid territory, kind of like how people have used fourth-dimensional sliders and other tools in order to get a glimpse of the fourth dimension, but not truly perceive it. The "support" category also feels like the third dimension in this allegory - it's almost too all-encompassing of game mechanics for anyone to be able to truly think of something outside it, akin to how impossible it is for us three-dimensional beings to perceive a higher plane of space. You want to heal? disrupt the enemy? boost team mobility? provide buffs? information? All of these still fall under the general idea of "supporting your allies". Until some divine intervention by some ascended genius is able to present such an unfathomable fourth class category to us, these mere imitations within our knowledge will likely be all we can use for now.

[@def3ndr887]

It’s like colors there’s only three primary ones (aside from black and white) that are exclusive to eachother and all other colors can be traced back to the primary

[@xraenon1664]

I want to bring up one game in particular for the role discussion: Splatoon. (college essay-level comment warning btw.) Competitive Splatoon breaks up its roles a little differently, due to the game’s mechanics and how the weapons function. - The attacking role is usually filled by “slayer” weapons that excel at sending the opponents to the respawn platform, or at least pushing them back off of objectives or other favorable positions. - “Support” weapons mainly aid the slayers in fights and guard the objective if they go down. Using sub weapons like explosives that force opponents out of small areas, or special weapons (this game’s equivalent to ultimates) that buff teammates or clear even larger areas. The other big role of support is keeping the map painted in their team’s color. One of the key mechanics of Splatoon is swimming in ink, and surfaces painted in your team’s ink allow you to move much faster, climb certain walls, and overall stay mobile. Whereas standing in enemy ink makes it nearly impossible to move normally, and significantly cuts your jump height. Having the terrain painted for you gives you a huge advantage, so it’s essential that it’s taken care of. Although, there is really no forms of healing in Splatoon, but it makes sense considering how fast the game is. (Most offensive weapons can kill in fractions of a second, and the respawn timer is usually only around 5 seconds.) - The last role is usually the team’s “anchor,” typically a long-range weapon meant to give suppressing fire and generally stay alive. Having a teammate on the field slightly removed from the action is important, since the objective is usually a good distance away from the respawn area, and the game has a sort of fast-travel mechanic that allows you to quickly jump to any of your teammates. Again, the speed of the game makes this important, because that difference of a few seconds can easily make the difference when trying to stop a game-winning push. I wanted to bring up Splatoon mainly because of how it splits up the roles differently than most other games. The idea of “defense” is usually split between the support and anchor roles, and even outside of that, a good number of weapons are good at swapping between roles, or even playing multiple at once. There are plenty of high DPS weapons that also paint the terrain quickly, so they can adapt to whether the team wants to play more aggressive of passive. Some long-range weapons are also good at providing ink coverage or high DPS, so they can hold a safe place for their teammates to recall to while threatening to immobilize or take out anything that comes within their range. This flexibility has even lead some high-level teams to experiment with “backless” team compositions, making up for the lack of an anchor or “back line” with a high output of specials and their power to rush down opponents when they give any sort of opening. Meanwhile, in some games, not addressing one of the main roles would leave a team hopelessly crippled. Ultimately, Splatoon really doesn’t do anything new in how the roles are distributed, more so remixes them by putting them in a fast-paced context that forces new priorities. Bit of a fourth archetype were to emerge, my prediction would be that it comes from a situation like Splatoon; a game that relies on core mechanics that set it apart from the norm. Coming up with a new role is definitely possible - the hard part is finding a way to distinguish it from just being a mashup of the others.

[@MrEel-dc4kh]

There are weapons in Splatoon that lack DPS, paint output, and range; for example, consider Undercover, or Tetras. I heard a fourth class defined as a skirmisher that starts fights but doesn't end them, leaving that role to the slayers.

[@xraenon1664]

@@MrEel-dc4kh I see what you’re getting (though I feel like Tetras are more of a slayer that just relies on mobility). I could see that working, but there’s a chance it would be miserable to play in uncoordinated settings, if the weapon is entirely designed to start but not end fights. (And when it comes to Splatoon, pure stalling power isn’t really enough to make a weapon better than a typical slayer. Undercover was good in Splatoon 2 for painting support and spamming specials, and in Splatoon 3 where it can’t spam Ink Armor it’s often considered one of the worst weapons in the game.) And also, when you think about it, what does a skirmisher do? Stay alive, draw attention, and stall until a slayer finishes the fight. What does a tank do? Stay alive, draw attention, and wait for a DPS to support them. A “skirmisher” is just a stall-oriented tank.

[@absalomdraconis]

Yeah, any "4th class" is going to depend on game mechanics to be distinct. "Scout" could be made distinct with differing terrain types and some sort of time limit. "Builder" could be made distinct to alter terrain in ways that aren't buff/debuff (e.g. a points-based game where building things is the best way to get points). Etc. "Three class" games only have three classes because of the game mechanics, nothing else.

[@TreeeQueen]

One addendum i would like to make is that, while in most other shooters the goal is simply to eliminate the other players, in splatoon, kills are only important in how they are able to suppress the enemy team and put them at advantage gaining you time and space to push the true objective. This makes the mechanics of damage less of the sole focus of the game and makes the roles much more unique

[@user-golos]

Support is far too broad. 1) Attacker (CQB, Frontal Assault) 2) Heavy (Equipment, Armour) 3) Medic (Healing, Repair) 4) Recon (Snipers and spotting, although there should be more emphasis on intelligence and counter-intelligence than just running around with a sniper) 5) Logistics? (Arguably the most important role in a conflict, though in a fast paced FPS game this role would likely be lacking)

[@t-mag3004]

My theory on how a potential fourth core class can be estblished is to specify one of the 3 classes more clearly, specifically the support class. Because the big problem is that anything you try to suggest will inevitably be compared to a support role, as support is the most generalised/broad of the class trifecta. However, I believe a fourth class can be created by splitting the basic support class in two, I am of course refering to "Healing" becoming its own separate core class. Because while healing your team mate's lost HP and gathering info useful to your team are both methods of support, I believe they're different enough for this separation to be possible. As one (healing) allows you to repair mistakes by acquiring lost HP, whereas support is collecting information thru reconnaissance that's tactically or logistically useful or even a form of support that doesn't heal your HP _per se_ but gives your team mate(s) a temporary boost (like a Super Mario Bros. powerup) are different enough from straight up "regaining lost HP by pumping you with healing juice". Taking Overwatch 1 as an example: Mercy would be a true Healer class, whereas Lúcio and Sombra would both be Support class, this distinction works well IMO because even if Sombra's main ability is to hack her opponents and Lúcio gives temporary boosts, that's still different enough from Mercy just pointing her healing stick at you and you gain HP back. Not to mention, everone is familiar with what a designated _Healer_ is like in a MMO or RPG or action shooter, which means the player audience are familiar with healers, allowing for the now distinct support class to be more "experimental", while still serving as the "everything else" dumping ground."

[@BlazenFlakes]

Erm actually 🤓, people mostly pick Mercy for damage boost, her healing isn't very impressive. Characters like Ana and Moira are more popular choices for healing. Your point about splitting the support class is still valid though.

[@audrey_in_black]

I think about this a lot, but I can't help but think many games are designed in such a way that healing is less important (such as most of the damage being avoidable or the presence of objective based win conditions beyond "kill the enemy"), or they simply have less classes that heal because there's only so many ways to make a healer work within that game's framework. Either way, eventually with those things you reach the point where Healer having an entire role to itself is no longer justified, so it gets lumped in with Support, and Support becomes "anything that's not Tank or Damage" like you mentioned. Healing in many games doesn't need a role to itself, but I fully agree that Support as a role is far too broad for the fourth role to be anything other than Healer.

[@lornastevens2110]

Support can be split in many ways, me personally I would full out say that due to how broad support is, it would be able to make multiple new classes from just being split. Classes that will be made and how things change: Support: This is your healing/buffing teammate purely just being healers or buffers. Mobility: Usually in some way of a really fast player who is restricted to melee play and if not then just has a weak rapid fire gun with tons of ammo. Recon/info: Usually will have an invisibility ability like the Spy from TF2, usually very weak but not very quick either depending on their invisibility to gather info for the team, if said recon/info is damaged by an enemy player they cannot use their invisibility for 5 seconds. Debuffer: Most of the time this class cannot attack but rather gives debuffs to enemy players by a ranged weapon usually giving said debuff for 10 seconds, players affected by debuffs cannot be debuffed again until 5 seconds pass This next one technically falls somewhere between a new subclass and defense but imma say it cuz i thought of it randomly while making this The engineer: This class is very similar to the TF2 engineer but basically this class cannot tank hits very well forcing them to place down defensive barriers, sentries/turrets and alarms (barriers act as defensive walls that have high HP but can be passed through with little damage) (sentries/turrets have low HP but high damage causing them to somewhat depend on barriers for defense and sentries/turrets cannot see people if they are behind them) (the alarm will set off if a player comes near it immediately alerting every turret near it to the enemies location for 30 seconds while alerting the team)

[@def3ndr887]

If you really think about it they’re all support in their own right

[@kennethferland5579]

That's not really adding anything though, just splitting existing catagories isn't going to cut it because were looking for something that is outside existing paradigms.

[@seansagley6103]

Sick to see ed branch out to different genres, Love the vids

[@ArcNine9Angel]

Out of all the discussions I've seen on the Holy Trinity of Gaming, if you want to expand out of it, there's three things you need to do: 1) you need a secondary and/or non-typical win/loss condition, 2) that role has to interact with it in a unique but established way that other classes can interact or be impacted by negatively and/or positively, and 3) your 'new' role must be vital to achieving that win, and preventing that loss. With almost every game with hp, the win/loss is consistently boiled down to zeroing your opponents hp, while keeping yours off zero. Recon can break out of the support role in inatances kinda like Deep Rock mentioned, because you have the timer to consider, so more information means better planning and decision-making which improves yield and success chance.

[@unluckybean2800]

it kinda sounds like the civilian from tf2 classic to me. 1) new win condition, escort the civilian to the objective 2) role interaction, civilian has to reach said objective and the rest of the team has to protect him, while the other tries to kill him 3) the new role is vital to achieve the win, he has to reach that objective, and for preventing a loss usually is about avoiding the enemies so the civilian kinda goes into that, but still kind of just for a specific gamemode.

[@Bova-Fett]

Well stated

[@Rowlesisgay]

The reason the holy trinity exists is because of a standardized set of systems (health as a resource mainly). If a game has more systems it can have more classes, but we usually call them subclass or support classes, but information seems weirder to us, it's not a resource or status effect, so it doesn't seem like support to us. Support is a goddamed mess of a class these days because of how broad it is, support being the "weird systems-interacting-class" has cannibalized most attempts at a forth class until by now it's a frankenstein-ish monster.

[@BlazeLycan]

There was a video about this topic that I watched a while ago which does raise an interesting point when combined with that Recon concept of yours. In the video I saw, it's pointed out that Tank, Damage, and Supports essentially fill all the player interactions in a team. Damage is ally to enemy, Tank is enemy to ally, while Supports are ally to ally. The idea being that the hypothetical new role could be ally to map, which combined with your Recon idea, I do see some potential. Instead of simply having tools to gain information about the enemy, they could also interact with the map to provide the team with tactical advantages or force the enemy to mix things up or deal with tactical disadvantages. This roll could also be locked behind those that have mics and are willing to use them as to promote voice communication to relay that information. Wouldn't fit OW2 without some major map redesigning to enable specific class/character kits, but it's a fascinating concept regardless.

[@def3ndr887]

Has there ever been a really good enemy to enemy?

[@blademasterzero]

@@def3ndr887if there are more then 2 teams then yeah but that’s just the enemies “ally to enemy” interaction or “ally to ally” interaction

[@alexanderticonuwu7591]

​@@def3ndr887 In PvP games, they're called Targets.

[@gabetiv4534]

Love this video. one big issue i have is if you are going to drop "movement" as a core class for being too support like, I think it would be logically consistent to also drop "recon" as a core class for the same reason. especially when a lot of recon mechanics rely on movement (movement defined as, the ability to reposition yourself or allies effectively) such as sombra and tf2 spy

[@Volvith]

Someone: "There can't be a 4th class." The Bard: >rolls an unmodified 21 in charisma, somehow< "Listen honey. _No cart is complete without 4 wheels. ;)"_

[@BierBart12]

The Strategist class. They see the map from above and issue orders for the team to follow like a strategy game. They can construct buildings like bunkers, gun emplacements and factories/airfields to make vehicles for the other players to use. Maybe they decide what classes other player spawn as?(Recruitment) They could also have some of the most powerful ultimates, like calling in an orbital bombardment, which is only unlocked after the ground units fulfill certain conditions. This probably wouldn't work for anything but an arma or planetside-esque game

[@luckyboy7294]

I'd like to add another potential idea: "blocker" My main example for this would be Guild Wars' mesmers, a class that specializes in preventing attacks, defenses and supports for the enemy team. But they also come up with penalties and some damage to the others. For example, you can run "Energy-Surge" to inflict damage and drain the enemy's mana (preventing them from using any skills), but you can also run "Panic" which will make it so that any enemy successfully launching an attack disables nearby enemies' attacks. You can have skills that removes enchantments or hex the others, therefore removing their ability to cast certain skills or make them cost more for example. Or you can simply just run "Shared Burden" which increases all the enemy team's charging cooldowns and attack speed. Can this be considered support ? Well in my opinion, I don't think they're the same. First of all, mesmers are meant to be blocking everyone else, whether it'd be a sword attack, a healing spell or just a buff on the enemy team. I do agree that they are supposed to stay "safe" and... well... support the team, but when you look at Guild Wars' other classes, supports would more like a Monk healing its teammates, a Necromancer that casts hexes and can summon minions, a Ranger that can create traps or a Paragon that gives buffs to its team. Mesmers on the other hand, they're not here to "help" your team, they're here to "mess" with the other team and have access to a large panel of skills to adapt their playstyle to the situation. There's this Warrior that wreaks havoc into your team ? Just give him "Ineptitude" and he can no longer do anything. You have this too powerful monk on the back that heals too much ? Use "Power Block" to prevent him from doing any healing. You have this Dervish with 5 enchantments that barely can take any damage ? A "Shatter Storm" and tadaa, he sudently begins to cry ! Oh your tank is getting hexes every 2 seconds and he can't do anything ? "Hex Eater Vortex" him and not only his hexes will be gone, but the enemy team will probably be almost dead with it. It's not healing, it's not defense, it's not offense, it's not support, it's not intel, it's about leaving a messa- ... it's about making sure the enemies can't play

[@Mischievous_Moth]

Good ol' Mesmer... Such a unique MMO class when I think about it.

[@ChillyUltraKill]

Defense

[@liamgryphon7942]

Hmm... I'm playing a game called star rail, and we have a unique triad. We have dps (destruction(general), erudition(aoe), hunt(single target)) Sustain(abundance(healing), preservation(shielding)) Support(harmony(buffs), nihility(debuffs)) However, within each "tribe", there are various different play styles. For example, DoT dps falls under nihility. I think that maybe one reason for the limitations of classes is team composition. It's very easy to balance a game if you limit the number of "team comp" roles required to be effective. But if you want to establish different types of team comp, that's where you run into issues. Like imagine a summoner gimmick team where one of the classes has a direct interaction with allies summons. Sure you can say they are a support, but more then that, they fulfil a specific niche in a team based on summons that make them very good. I guess you can also look at card games, like magic the gathering, where the idea of "dps, healer, tank" doesn't really make sense. Because it's all about team comp, and each card meets a specific niche in the deck.

[@goldenking2046]

more common term for this is "crowd control"

[@HouseLyrander]

Blocker sounds like what I call Crowd Control, which is more prominent in PvE games as AI controlled bots can't complain about how unfair it is to get debuffed and disabled. I'd argue that CC is closer to a Tank (or Defense as this video puts it) but is definitely distinct enough to feel like a different class. In fact, I've seen it outright replace the standard Tank role in a fair number of PvE games. Anyone who knows character optimization in DnD will tell you that outside of 4th Edition, there is no Tank in DnD, just various flavors of magic to debuff, stun, sleep, and brainwash the enemy. Even in 4th Edition where explicit MMO like Tank powers were added to Defender classes, debuffing and disabling characters were still separately classified as Controllers. Warframe is another good example as the most well known and prominent aggro manipulation mechanic is not some sort of "Come and get me" taunt from a big and beefy frame like Rhino, but rather a holographic duplicate used by the trickster frame Loki. Loki also has the ability to go invisible, swap places with an enemy or ally (including his hologram), and even disarm ranged enemies with a radial pulse that slags their ammo. I really like when CC gets and I'm glad you brought up the Mesmer from Guild Wars as it shows how CC and Tank/Defense can coexist.

[@MrGulible]

Banger video, as always. If this is a new direction for the channel, you did a great job on the first step. I find it interesting how broad the support role has become. It has been used for a catch-all for any class or character that can heal, weaken, strengthen, speed up, slow down, resurrect, disarm, etc etc. Comparatively, "do damage" and "take damage" is relatively straightforward, even if they way they "do" or "take" varies in complexity. If you want to get really pedantic, I think you can reduce healers specifically down to the same "undo damage" simplicity. But then we call everything else that isnt directly interecting with health as "support" and we run back into the same vagueness as before. It reminds me a lot of the debate around music or movie genres. People will debate if Green Day is punk, or if Alien is a slasher horror, just like they might debate that Spy is a support. Trying to fit things into rigid, generally well-defined boxes really satifies our monkey brains, but its not very realistic.

[@DaenaMichelle]

Support should also separated into Anti-support, or what I like to call it: The disruptor. Doesn't necessary deal damage or prevent it. Doesn't directly support the teammates. It's a saboteur, debuffer, disruptor.

[@scienceme9794]

I was thinking the whole time about the Thief or Rogue in DnD. It's literally a class designed to sneak around, locate important stuff, disable (or place) traps, and generally use their superior skills to interact with the world in ways that most other classes struggle to do. About half-way through, I also thought of the Scout from Stratego of all things, a piece which only serves the purpose of learning about the opponent's army. Both of these fit pretty nicely into this recon class you've described.

[@JasperoidCragnon]

One particular game that has an interesting fourth class is Pvz: Battle for Neighborville with the Swarm class. Swarm class prioritizes and rewards sticking together with other teammates. Especially with other Swarmers as it gives them all a defense boost. Not to mention that you can spawn minions and sentries in the game who are also affected by this defense boost mechanic. Basically, you're playing as a Meat Shield. That doesn't mean you should underestimate this class though. Swarmers are pretty powerful in high numbers and can easily take on an opponent or two and are especially helpful with carrying out objectives. It also has interesting tools such as a placeable respawn point so that you come back faster. And a walking controlled bomb which can put a dent into enemy lines. This works well with the upgrades that can further inconvience your opponents such as: exploding upon death, gaining more health each time you die, revealing bomb-damaged enemies' locations, etc... Essentially, the Swarm class boils down to being a constant nuisance for the opposing team that tries to inconvenience them as much as possible. It's an ever looming threat when it comes to objectives, but also shouldn't be underestimated due to the sheer strength it has in numbers and I feel like it's a very cool take on a new class. Shame they didn't expand on this idea, or the game.

[@angryfreak2720]

I know what you're talking about but the Swarm class role does also feel like the multirole class, especially since the Swarm role doesn't have unique role upgrades and instead reuses upgrades from the other 3 roles (though than again it could also be attributed to the game's ending livespan). With that said a case could be made that Swarm could be a definitive 4th class role since the main gimmick revolves around sticking together with other Swarm teammates and spawnable ai that can be used both offense and defense while the buff giving is supportive.

[@mikadosannoji553]

variants wouldve been so cool for the acorn and Tv head, they fumbled that game so hard

[@welkin7321]

what i think could be interesting that most games dont do is make "healing" and "support" two distinct classes. the healing class could focus on healing lost hp, cleansing debuffs, and applying overhealth to allies; while the support class could focus on buffing allies stats, debuffing enemies stats, and fast reposition of allies around the map. a game that i think does this really well is honkai star rail. its a turn based rpg that splits its supports across 3 classes (or paths as hsr calls them). "the abundance" is the class focused on healing allies and cleansing their debuffs; "the harmony" is the class of characters focused on buffing allies stats or giving allies more turns; and "the nihility" class focuses on debuffing enemies stats, applying damage over time effects, or skipping enemies turns in the turn order. i think it would be super cool for a 5v5 game like ow or r6 to split the game into 5 classes - and have one of each need to be present in every match like in league of legends. the 5 classes could be damage, tank, healer, supporter, recon. i think that would be super neat!!

[@truthseeker7815]

Oh shit, I really read a Honkai ad

[@welkin7321]

@@truthseeker7815 haha yeah i guess i went way too in depth in the honkais class system but i guess its bc i just think its rlly well done 😅

[@stego-]

if only honkai star rail actually followed its class system 😔

[@welkin7321]

@@stego- yeah but tbf it’s only rlly 2 or so units that don’t follow it (dan heng IL and huohuo), for the most part it’s pretty good

[@stego-]

@@welkin7321 jing liu (powercreeps hunt in single target), fu xuan (abundance and harmony), ruan mei (extending break effect is a nihility thing) and then there is jing yuan… who yes is AOE but the lightning lord works best in single target.

[@Fluffypancakes-o7q]

In fact, having more than three main role types in games have existed before, take beyblade with their "balance types" which is basically a bey that specializes in two or more abilities, botworld adventure take this further with their: Brawler(tankyer version of the chaser bots), evader bots, alongside the classic support bots :3

[@tauanwerneck3197]

Dragon's dogma 2 Trickster feels like a fourth type of class all together while having both tanking and supporting elements to it: The vocation is specialized in controlling the opponents, manipulating their AI to walk on fake roads, attack fake visages and even each other while being able to buff your party. It's such a different play style that a lot of people still find it boring and weak (it isn't, it's really damn strong.).

[@Peter-xj1wq]

The fourth class is clearly the division of healing and general support like recon and buffing, essentially having a pure healer and pure non healing support. The fourth class will always either be a division of the general support or a summoning type character of some sort. If their ever is a real fourth class it would be called something like “Control”, because it would either help you control your own team or the enemy team by blocking paths, creating paths and laying down poisonous smoke, fire, healing, or slowing down enemy’s speed or speeding up your team. Mainly focusing on manipulating either your own teammates or the enemy’s movements, making you either a sort of de facto general or a rogue Commando.

[@Dareeti]

I think one of the big issues is just how broad "Support" for MMO examples Guild Wars 2, and more recently WoW both have offensive supports. who's rolls are essentially buff DPS players/bring utility, but not heal. In the case of GW2 they also don't really have a dedicated tank, but whoever is geared with the most toughness holds agro. Surely both Offensive supports, are distinctly different in their roll from a dedicated healer, and a dedicated DPS. Also there's like a whole spectrum of utility in MMO's, and moba's for every character. An Ivern jungle in league will have a whole lot more utility than a twitch jungle, but both occupy the same roll in the game. I think in WoW, comparing something like a Feral Druid, and a DPS Death Knight might be a good example of this too, a DPS DK will bring far more CC, and protection than a feral druid might in exchange for a different damage profile, but both are technically DPS characters just with different types, and amounts of support.

[@duck_helper6024]

I feel like the fourth role (or any other roles) need to be focused on health only. Damage, Support, and Tank all came about from manipulating the health stat, so the fourth has to follow this rule too. Support = give health Damage = remove health Tank = lessen damage ??? = amplify damage Any action that directly amplifies damage output would fall into this role. It's the direct opposite of a tank's role and it even has some relevance to abilities in modern games today: Mercy's Damage Boost, Karthus's W, and Viper's Toxic Smoke are all examples of this. Recon shouldn't be the fourth because it brings in an unmentioned variable that not every game has, which is why it isn't seen in every game. This new role fits in every game that health exists in, making it a perfect fourth role.

[@heartwarden]

I'm inclined to agree with the sentiment in other comments pointing out that the "fourth role" in most games tends to be defined by what win conditions are available to that specific game (intel in shooters, destroying towers in MOBAs, etc.) I never played a game with a "Commander" role but that sounds amazing, honestly, even if it'd kinda count as "support". Oh, and btw Bloodhound from Apex Legends uses they/them pronouns, they're not a "he". Anyway, great video! Thumbs up.