Looking over my personal usage stats and my clan's usage stats; and contrasting with the community usage stats, I noticed something interesting. One of the least-used archetypes, and one rife with frames with bad or polarising reputations, is the hybrid damage buffer/CC frame. Meanwhile these are really popular in my Alliance, as we have a few stalwarts spreading the good word. (I'm doing my part for Banshee propaganda.)
I can say that the usage stats reflect a sentiment I hear a lot: "just use ". In this case, Nekros and Octavia dominate this particular role at 3.2% usage apiece, reflecting community belief that Octavia is the best frame in the game and renders other CCs useless. Meanwhile there is a harsh dropoff in the buffer/CC archetype after Octavia (or Nezha if you count him). The next most used is Mag at 1.5%, then Frost and Zephyr at 1.1%. After this, the rest of the archetype all have less than 1% usage.
Other support archetypes are in a similar place: the healer/buffer is dominated by Wisp, and the damage/CC archetype by Khora.
A second factor is the "death spiral". If a frame has a bad launch or a rough patch as the meta shifts around them, they seem to never shake that bad reputation. For example, year on year, even with extensive positive coverage, Zephyr sees very little change in equip time. Yareli is Turbomurder Water Nezha now, but it's still a common sentiment that she's squishy and has poor damage potential. Everyone has an opinion about Sevagoth even though nobody plays him.
A third factor, and I think another kind of death spiral, is unappealing meta builds. For example, Nyx is dominated by Assimilate builds, Banshee by glass cannon builds, Caliban's meta being a complete mess, one-button Frost and Loki builds, and so on. People don't invest into the frame because it has been typecast and the builds ossify, and if the builds aren't fun to play, nobody invests or experiments, and the cycle repeats.
So, that's my take. I'd love to hear your opinions!
Supports are generally less popular across all of gaming for a variety of reasons ("it's boring"/"it relies on shit teammates"/"I want to carry" etc) but I think the biggest issue in Warframe is that supports generally aren't needed. It's very easy for people to build to be self sufficient. The game is fast paced with an end screen showing who did the most damage and got the most kills, so there's a lot of psychological incentive to be the DPS carry and get the happy brain juice
I don't like saying that supports aren't needed, because a mission with one or two supports tends to go better than without, but the majority of the playerbase is running public lobbies and not doing content that's super difficult, so there's very little conscious cohesion or even paying attention to what their teammates are playing
Support is a particular mindset, there's some of us that enjoy it and find it extremely fun and rewarding to play, but it's obviously subjective. The easiest and most fluid supporting in Warframe, imo, takes the form of providing buffs, debuffs, armour stripping, crowd control, and status priming to allow your teammates to pop off, alongside being quick to revive if someone goes down. There can be some very proactive "traditional" stuff like timing a Trinity Blessing, a Vazarin void sling, or a Protea Shield Satellite, but generally I find that the quick pace means people are expected to be responsible for their own health bars (even with a great set-and-forget like Oberon's Renewal with the Phoenix augment, the benefiting players have some personal responsibility to not fall off the map or kiss a Nullifier bubble and lose the heal)
So I do think the lack of support popularity in Warframe is entirely down to the kind of game it is - if you're buffing your teammates, you're also buffing yourself, so why wouldn't you want to do all the damage and get all the kills? But the style of support Warframe has is very fun and satisfying, imo. The stereotypical "watch healthbars" healer support of times past could be quite boring, but otherwise the greatest example of a support class I've ever known was the Protection Monk in GW1, because it was proactive and based on the player's reaction speed to be able to watch the field and prevent damage from occurring
GW1 is actually a really good example in another way: I think its Domination Mesmer was a fantastic offensive spin on the idea of a mezzer a la EQ's Enchanters. In general the idea of an offensive curse-slinger that CCs vulns enemies is where I've been gravitating more and more in Warframe since the big armour strip changes in September of last year.
On the happy brain juice, I think this is something people miss. I know my Sevagoth and Nyx are easily able to get top kills unless there's a dedicated murder machine like Gyre or Mesa. But I think I have a lot of bias due to having every weapon and almost all mods available to me, so I can easily configure a loadout to be highly performant. The gear-reliance is probably another factor deterring people from playing debuff frames, because it's not immediately obvious how much offensive potential they have. Even for me it took a while before the murder gremlin hiding in my brain was like, "wait, doesn't Nyx have a huge offensive potential?"
The GW1 Mesmer yes! Honestly, GW1 in its entirety was just an amazing game. The classes and general game balance was always pretty sublime. To date it still has my favourite pvp of all time
I think you're right also that there is probably a correlation with more experienced players with broader arsenals enjoying the "support" frames more than newer/more casual players. Warframe is a complex game and the debuffers have their power hidden a little deeper into their kit. Someone like Equinox takes a bit more effort to figure out than a Thermal Sunder Titania. Lots of the most commonly played DPS focused frames perform straight forward tasks with straight forward builds, which is perfect for anyone who doesn't have much time to invest
I know I'm getting off topic, but Mesmer was such a cool concept in general. Having a CC class focused on mindgames was a stroke of genius, because playing a mental game is a lot more fun than say, WoW style mezzers that take control away from the character. I enjoyed the fact that, aside from Elementalist knocking, hard CC also came at a cost to the mezzer too, in addition to typically being more tactical and of a short duration.
That said some people hate the whole "prison of the mind" thing too. I know zoners are typically pretty reviled in fighting games.
I agree the Mesmer was super cool! The way their spells forced the victim into their own tactical "do I or don't I" situations. Diversion and Backfire were iconic. The game was full of it even for other classes - I loved the Frenzy Warrior for the risk/reward too. Activating Frenzy to pull off a spike and then you, the heavy armour class, suddenly being vulnerable so needing to react quickly with a cancel stance if your opponents targeted you with a spike. Good times
I know Warframe is a very different game, but I would love any new missions DE could put out that have mechanics to put players into situations where they have to think on the fly and react quickly. Cascade and Flood are good examples of it on the macro scale, and the Eximus rework is a good example on the micro scale. RJ was a better example around release before it got somewhat watered down. It really is where the fun comes from, imo