Support

The support role helps their allies by providing buffs to the team, and debuffing the enemy when necessary.

What to Know
Support is a misunderstood role. Mostly interpreted as a hybrid healer and DPS, but that's not its job. Yes, the support roles can heal in addition to dishing out DPS. The main purpose is the buffs and debuffs it can provide. Its power scales up when it works in larger groups and against larger teams. The short term raid damage 10% CD most have can be enough to wipe out an entire enemy raid if timed just right.

Support is not a survival DPS. You can use its healing to keep you up longer, and the buffs and debuffs to give you the edge, but it's not designed for that. The edge gained by debuffing and buffing only one person is small.

Buffing and Debuffing
Support does not mix well with other support. Unfortunately the Rift dev team decided that having more than one support would be too overpowered, and likely this is true. Getting five damage buffs on a full raid would be an extremely unfair advantage, so the majority of support buffs cancel out each other. When casting a debuff on an enemy, it will overwrite any similar one. The types are % physical damage taken, % non-physical damage taken, damage taken per hit, reduced armor, healing received when attacked.

In addition the raid CDs that the group receives also cast a debuff preventing it from being received again for a duration. Bards and oracles have three short term buffs that heal, increase armor, and increase power, these also overwrite each over.

Therefore, it's important for a support to know which raid members are using which roles. This will prevent any confusion and conflicting buffs / debuffs. In addition some DPS have support type debuffs. This mostly includes the pet type DPS. They have x damage taken per hit.

For Dungeons and Raids

 * 1) Make sure you're ready:
 * 2) *The whole team has your raid buffs
 * 3) *Activate the right toggle buff for the job: speed, armor, or cost
 * 4) *Bard recast your motifs
 * 5) *Stand in the middle of the group
 * 6) Once the tank pulls, cast your debuffs. Prioritize tougher mobs. On short encounters, or weak mobs skip this step.
 * 7) Use your raid CD if you're expecting a long fight, but save it if a boss is up ahead.
 * 8) Help out the healer if he needs it. This includes any heal, healing raid CD, or armor raid CD.
 * 9) Otherwise attack and recast debuffs as they fall off.
 * 10) Between pulls toggle your speed buff.

For PvP
Again, follow the same general steps as dungeon, but with these exceptions.
 * 1) Always cast your speed toggle at the start. This helps your group get to the flags first.
 * 2) Follow the largest group. The more members that are buffed by you, the more effective you are.
 * 3) Stay on task. Your group gets points by completing the objective, not by tunnel-vision killing. If your group isn't on task, there's no point in supporting them, so switch to a DPS.
 * 4) Between encounters recast your raid buffs for respawning allies.
 * 5) Save your raid CDs for anything that helps complete the objective. Don't waste it when caught solo on the field.

Tips

 * Put your raid CDs in a macro with a yell indicating what they do. "Damage increase!".
 * Support works best in large groups.
 * Multiple supports in a group conflict with each other, and should be avoided.