Warlocks are kind of equally good at support and destruction. The latter being represented as poorly as it can possibly be with sparkler.
Warlocks are offensive/utility supports. They have spells like Conceal, which makes units harder to hit/see. There's also Enhance, which increases speed. Destructor is also meant to be more lethal, but it's pretty bad right now. Embolden is also a spell, but I can't remember what it does. Protect seems to be based on Preventor, which blocks all incoming fire at the cost of great exhaustion. Renewer and Jinx are made up.
In lore pretty much yeah but in TT they are very supportish, with heals, buffs and debuffs with destructor to lay the hurt, I believe when in lore they say offensive I like to think they mean how destructive they can be, manipulating armour turning 20 guardians into dire avengers or turning 10 marines into scouts, or terminators into power armour is pretty destructive from my point of view even if its not directly a threat. Oh here comes the Eldar gang above me and their knowledge galore! everyone has a different view on the matter which I find very fun Renewer comes with Destructor and heals 1 wound Protect gives +1 save while Jinx exists and gives -1 save (this spell is my waifu) Embolden is fearless At least this is what they are currently, I left 5th edtion with my Grey Knights so I dunno what they had beforehand Anyway back to reading JoJo!
Eldar don't really have medics per se however, with their plethora of psychic powers they have access to a wide variety of powers ranging from healing, stealth, debuffs, buffs and straight up damage. Sadly however the Eldar right now only have like what 3 powers for their warlocks right now? Warlocks have access to over 14 powers in the codex on tabletop so they have plenty to work with but sadly as stated many times before the Eldar are quite unfinished.
So funny thing, Warlocks use the Runes of Battle for psychic powers, which has Destructor/Renewer (more on that in a moment), where Renewer is one of the very few ways to actually regain a wound on TT (It Will Not Die being another). Apothecaries and Painboyz confer Feel No Pain to the squad they are with, which gives a chance to negate a wound on the turn you received it. Aspiring Sorcerers are a Thousand Sons squad leader who's been pulled into this as a suitable level of CSM support. There is a power under Biomancy called Life Leech that (if you couldn't guess) let's you regain a wound after inflicting a wound. So in terms of actual medic, Warlock take the cake. You'll note it's Destructor/Renewer, and that's because Eldar powers come as a set (mirrored very much in capabilities), something which you don't see in EC (although I would like, a kind of discounted bundle deal). Anyways, that's some Table Top talk about this. In regards to OP about CSM/Eldar having "superior support" there's a lot of power inherit to the apothecary, especially in being able to have so much going on at once. You can pre-apply buffs to your team (regen, mitigation, or melee damage), be active in the fight (melee or ranged tailored to your squad), and have a heal grenade out that can heal and revive teammates without your active input. When you do go to revive someone personally (because they stepped outside of the circle) you'll instantly bring them back to full health. The base ranged heal on Asp Sorc/Warlock takes time, and an enemy can out DPS it to keep someone on the ground, while the caster is tied up in the channel. None of their offensive options beat out a boltgun, and compete with their support powers for warp charge.
I know, but it feels extremely annoying when you constantly shoot the same dude because he is revived all the time and you can not get him finished off for good (and the healer is around the corner and out of sight). A true bullet-syphon if I've ever seen one, from my experience it takes around one full drum-mag on the Boltgun to win this kind of staring-duel.
While I actually love the idea of defensive and protective psykers in 40k, and this is actually the type of Space Marine class i most closely associate with, I just don't think we'll see this happening. Librarians, in every bit of the tabletop, seem to be portrayed as power-houses. Most of the skills are either offensive or either buff allies (or the librarian himself) or debuff enemies. I have not been able to find any instances of there being psychic healing, typically. In terms of space marines, this seems to be left exclusively to the apothecaries. Psyker healing in librarians is actually something I want, though. I'm kinda sad that this is extremely unlikely to be a thing.
On the subject of homogenizing the factions and giving everyone access to everything, NO. I want this game to celebrate asymmetrical balance between the factions, with each faction approaching their class designs in unique and interesting ways. Asymmetrical balance is something you don't often see in games, especially in shooters. You take that away and you're doing yourself a huge disservice within the industry. Just look at planetside 2 which is supposedly asymmetrically balanced. The differences are so minor and slight it's ridiculous (with the exception of their main battle tanks). All their medics heal the exact same way, all engineers are the same, etc. Some weapons may hit a littler harder or shoot a tiny bit faster, but it's nearly imperceptible. EC on the other hand isn't afraid to implement massive differences between factions. Warlock/sorcerer talk: Healing beam is indeed too hard to target right now, and the pointless half second spool-up time for it isn't doing it any favors. Remove the spool-up, and make the hitbox for healing freaking HUGE. It's just silly having to STOP right in front of the warlock just so he could finally lock on and slowly heal you. Not only do you have to click RIGHT on them, you have to hold it on them for a full half second too to lock on. And if the spool up time is really that important, at least make it so we lock on before the spool up delay, good grief. The irony that apoths and doks have to do this for their heals is not lost to me, but at least their heals are instant and powerful once applied (I also believe that apoth style syringe healing should be a little easier to administer as well, like slightly increasing its range and not force-stopping the recipient). I often don't even wait for the warlock and go straight to the equipment box to heal up.
Look at it this way, by engaging the quasi-Necron and his pocket Sorcerer you are effectively removing 2 Chaos players from the fight, the guy on the floor who cannot do anything and the Sorcerer who cant do anything but heal (if he stops, you finish the guy on the floor). Two players for the price of one, seems like a good tradeoff to me.
