History Main / SupportPartyMember

* ''Series/{{Heroes}}''
** Ando's power is the ability to significantly increase the power of another person.

** Clerics in all editions are usually a support class. Their primary abilities are divine magic, which focuses on protection and healing, making them vital to any well-rounded party. They're also are a sort of JackOfAllTrades outside that, with decent hitpoints and good armor, moderate damage output in melee combat, and some decent spell-based damage options.

* Accordion Thieves from ''VideoGame/KingdomOfLoathing'' were initially bards with a slightly different flavor. They had no combat skills, only buffs, and they can only have three of their buffs running at a time. Being a primarily single-player game, this made the class somewhat unpopular until later class revamps gave them a few offensive skills.
** Also, this applied to people choosing to ''permanently'' stay an Accordion Thief. Due to the {{Metagame}}, practically everybody still spent a good portion of their time as one in order to learn the songs (which could then be used as another class, albeit less efficiently). And the class naturally tends to become more relevant in the less single-player portions of the game, as in situations where the playerbase is already coordinating, it's more practical to depend on an Accordion Thief to provide the buffs.

** Cryocopters and Cryo Legionnaires' attacks deal no damage, only slowing the target. However, a fully-frozen target becomes a OneHitPointWonder that dies to a single attack, even from an infantry unit. The Legionnaire can even kill frozen enemies by jumping on them.
*** The Cryocopter's Strong Homogenous Residual-Interactive Neutron Kinetic beam [[FunWithAcronyms shrinks]] a target, making it weaker but faster.

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' has the "Support" Classes, Medic, Sniper, and Spy, which consist of classes with unique and useful abilities, but who cannot effectively fight on their own- Sniper and Spy can't effectively defend themselves in a straight fight despite being able to OneHitKill anyone when acting within their specialty (Sniper's headshot and Spy's backstab), and while the Medic is a bit tougher, most of his powers are focused on doing things for his teammates, ''and'' he's a [[ShootTheMedicFirst prime target]] for the enemy team.

* In ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'', [[TokenBoy Spike]] typically fulfills this role for the rest of the Mane Seven by being the StraightMan, offering advice and emotional support, communicating with Princess Celestia, and offering support for the pony's schemes, while they play the direct role in fighting or saving the day. This is explored in ''[[Recap/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagicS4E6PowerPonies The Power Ponies]]'' when he assumes the role of Humdrum, the useless ButtMonkey ComicRelief powerless sidekick to the rest of the heroes, but proves himself to be invaluable thanks to his knowledge of the comic's setting, its villain, and the heroes' powers. Ironically, as a baby ''dragon'', he's probably the most powerful of the Mane Six next to Twilight herself as he's MadeOfIron and has a [[BreathWeapon fire breath]] capable of melting stadium-sized blocks of ice, shattering King Sombra's dark crystals, and even deflecting magic attacks from a powered-up Queen Chrysalis, but he only fights on a couple of occasions.

** The majority of 4-Star characters are designed to be support units or sub-DPS, especially those released since update 2.0. They provide buffs, healings or shields or crowd control. Sup-DPS like Fischl, Xiangling or Xinqiu require little field type, as their Elemental Skills and/or Elemental Bursts don't require them on the field. Several of the 4-Star characters that were released within 1.0 are still incredible support units that are capable of providing valuable assistance to this day, whereas later released characters are more specialized. 4-Star DPS characters like Razor are very rare nowadays.
** While most 5-Star characters are DPS or sub-DPS characters, some of the non-Archon characters are dedicated support units. Qiqi, Baizhu and Kokomi are healers, Shenhe (while also capable as a DPS) is most often utilized as a support for Cryo characters, and the Traveler themselves is most often used as a support unit rather than being a DPS, since their damage is too low.

** ''[[Anime/FutariWaPrettyCure Futari wa Pretty Cure MaX Heart]]'' has the [[SixthRanger new heroine]], Shiny Luminous, whose powers revolve entirely around hampering enemies and enhancing Cure Black and Cure White's attacks. Despite having SuperStrength like all other main characters in the whole franchise, the number of fights where Luminous throws punches or kicks can be counted on one hand.

* In ''Steven Universe: VideoGame/AttackTheLight'', Steven doesn't have any attacks (and is never attacked by enemies either, though {{Bandit Mook}}s can still rob him), leaving the fighting to Garnet, Amethyst, and Pearl. However, he can use his abilities and items to buff, heal and defend the Gems. The sequel, ''VideoGame/SaveTheLight'', makes him a full party member.

* In ''Franchise/{{Pokemon}}'', Shuckle has ''amazing'' Defense and Special Defense, but absolutely crap Hitpoints, Attack, Special Attack, and Speed. However, several moves it can learn remedy this, though some are only effective in a double battle. They include Guard Split[[note]]Averages a Pokemon's defensive stats with Shuckle's[[/note]], Power Split[[note]]Averages a Pokemon's offensive stats with Shuckle's, though its effectiveness is lessened by the fact that an opponent can just switch out and nullify the effect[[/note]], Helping Hand [[note]]Increases an ally's power by 50% for one turn[[/note]], Safeguard [[note]]Blocks most Status Effects for your team[[/note]], Sticky Web[[note]]Decreases the speed of any opponent that switches in[[/note]], and Infestation[[note]]Prevents an opponent from escaping[[/note]]. Unfortunately, Shuckle's ridiculously low speed and offensive power limit its effectiveness in this role.

* Ninten from ''VideoGame/MOTHER1'' is unique to the series as a whole, as he is the only character with PSI abilities that has no offensive PSI moves at all. Both [[VideoGame/{{Earthbound}} Ness]] and [[VideoGame/{{Mother3}} Lucas]] from later games in the series have most of the same moves as Ninten, but they are coupled with a powerful offensive PSI move PK Rockin' and PK Love, respectively. He has a powerful physical attack and good defense to compensate.