February News/Discussion

[Mirajj]

Feb 7 News

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There is a pretty decent bit going on in the WoW world, but the biggest is that Blizzard has released some planned changes for 3.1!There are some pretty sweeping changes in there, including no more consumable ammo! Dive into the discussion and see some of what's gonna change in the next big patch!

A discussion, and it's one that I've had in /guild quite a bit. Do hybrids exist any longer? I say that they still exist, and are now more dangerous than ever to a 'pure' class. With DPS that matches or exceeds the pure in that spec, and a quick swap of spec and gear the ability to tank or heal quite well, hybrids are at a risk of putting pures out of business, as it were. Other guildies say that no, Hybrids no longer exist, at that their spec (not class, spec) deserves to keep pace with the pures in damage wihout batting an eye, sometimes doing even better. It's argued that a hybrid gives up so much to do one thing (dps, tank or heal) that they aren't really a 'hybrid' but should be considered a 'pure' spec of whatever they are doing. I find that, with the upcoming advent of dual specs, this to be a little on the crazy side. I do agree that if they want to fufill two roles, they do need to gear and spec for it, so they have to worry about 'more gear' than a pure. But then, they are doing 2 roles. A skilled hybrid player (and I know several) handle this with no problem, I know one druid who is geared for all three roles his class can perform, and is quite fearsome at doing all of them. DK's are another example. While getting one that wants to tank is hard, if you have one, he can swap up and do some pretty impressive dps.

So those are my thoughts. There are still Hybrids in the game, and they are 'dangerous' to the pures. This problem will exacerbate when dual specs (finally) make it into the game. What do you think?

[Taelas]

As long as pure classes do not do less damage than hybrids, I fail to see the problem. All classes have to compete with the others.

All encounters have tactics, and you go into an encounter with the understanding that you have X tanks, Y healers, and Z DPS. The ability to switch between tanking or DPSing or healing doesn't truly matter when you can't do it in combat. The only point to switching between roles in combat are to cover up a sudden lack -- if a healer or tank dies, for example, or if the tactics call for a switch due to a phase change.

For any role switch between tactics -- X tanks on one encounter, X -2 on another -- you could simply remove the players with unwanted specs from the raid and replace them (as has been done in hard-core guilds forever). Even if you refused to do so, you won't have enough role switches to claim all the spots in a raid.

Elemental shamans, Shadow priests, as well as Balance and Feral druids might be the only true hybrids at the moment, as they "can" switch between DPSing and healing (tanking for Ferals) within an encounter with minimal loss, as the primary stats -- mana, stamina, spellpower for the casters, stamina, armor, agility for Ferals -- are shared between the roles. The other classes simply lose too much.

A Retribution paladin cannot begin to heal, for example. He would run out of mana within a minute. A Fury warrior cannot simply equip a shield and begin tanking -- he would take far too much damage even with the shield.

Dual specs won't change this one bit -- it'll simply make it easier on the raid as a whole.

[Kevin]

A Retribution paladin cannot begin to heal, for example. He would run out of mana within a minute. A Fury warrior cannot simply equip a shield and begin tanking -- he would take far too much damage even with the shield.

Very true. Though a retribution paladin, if given the chance to change gear can heal or tank as I've done both in raids without a respec and I easily heal most heroics as ret spec (even before I had Naxx 10 gear) and have tanked heroics as ret spec as well (biggest issue with ret tanking besides having less avoidance is actually the loss of DPS, ret tanks do about 1K DPS while tanking since you need the sword and shield vs the 2+ K that prot tanks do and that slows fights down).

But I do agree that being hybrid during an encounter is only possible for a small handful of classes and in fact is less viable than it has been in the past. Fury warriors used to be able to just put on a shield and tank decently without a gear swap. Holy paladins in TBC, if they were in all plate gear with enough PvP gear with resilience, could actually swap to tanking pretty effectively mid combat as well though that would mean you lose a healer as well which generally meant you were in other forms of trouble.

I agree that I don't see dual spec having a huge effect on this and I've noticed they are adding things to some of the pure classes to give them more reason than just PvE and PvP to have multi specs. Hunters already have it with the choice of replenishment or AP buffs, they are doing that with mages and locks as well. Depending on the group you might want to be replenish spec or it might be better to have trueshot or it might be better to be beast and give the damage bonus because you are with a bunch of casters. While those choices can all be made pre raid dual specs still make it easier/faster. But encounter design could still say that you are better with the hunter going survival for replenish and that ret pally or shadow priest going holy for healing instead of DPS.

So it's possible that "pure" classes will will get more utility as well from dual spec.

I personally am playing my pally as my main now because I can tank, heal or DPS. If my druid would have been 70 and not 42 it would have been the druid instead so that I could have healed, ranged DPS, melee DPS or tanked. I used to have time to keep alts up to speed so I could do whatever but I don't anymore so the pally became the main just because it was a hybrid. I would still prefer to play my hunter most of the time but then I would never get to heal or tank because my alts wouldn't be up to the task (I've finally gotten another toon to 71). If there were no hybrid classes in the game I wouldn't be playing anymore.

[Concillian]

We are experiencing a scenario where the skilled players are doing more DPS than the players with lesser skill.

It doesn't matter if they're pure or hybrid so much as their gearing and capability of knowing what to do and when.

When hybrids brought very significant synergy (mana regen for shadow, totems that had no even approximate equivalent) they could justify them being lower DPS. Now, with significant synergies mostly replicated by multiple classes, there is no justification for DPS differences between "pure" and "hybrid" classes.

Additionally, Hybrids used to be able to actually act fairly hybrid. There were 51 talent points and trees were 31 points long. You could give up a minor amount of your max capability and pick up significant off-spec utility by the ability to go almost 2/3rds deep into the second tree, so you could perform 2 roles admirably with one spec.

Those days are gone, talents below the 20 talent point mark are so vital that you really can't perform any hybrid function very well without re-speccing. The lone exception to this seems to be Feral druids, which can do an admirable job tanking and DPSing with one spec.

So I guess the question should be, what makes a hybrid, hybrid. If it's the ability to perform multiple roles, they can't do that without a respec and a regear, so that's out. If it's providing unique buffs to complement the pure DPS, well that was TBC and Blizzard changed the design, so that's out too. So there isn't anything to make a hybrid actually hybrid unless they go out and respec. This doesn't really make them hybrid, this makes them able to be a pure DPS or a pure <something else> without having to level an alt. So yes, they should be treated as "pures."

[Pantalaimon]

So I guess the question should be, what makes a hybrid, hybrid. If it's the ability to perform multiple roles, they can't do that without a respec and a regear, so that's out.

Hence the mention of dual spec. Pretty much any hybrid should be able to, now, push a button and go from healer to DPS or whatever. The gear equation is pretty trivial, given how long people have had to farm (and we'll likely have a few more months, yet, anyways).

Instead of having to get people to park their main outside the instance and stay on vent, to be brought in when we finish the fight that needs 8 healers so we can swap people in and out, we can do it with the same 25 people and a few respecs between boss fights. Much faster - and an incentive to raid comp for a lot of hybrids for min/max flexibility on a fight-per-fight basis.

Is it too much? I personally doubt it. The "pure" that is suffering the most are rogues, and that's only because they do non-competitive DPS at the moment; which should be addressed in the same patch that brings dual specs.

[Frag]

The "pure" that is suffering the most are rogues, and that's only because they do non-competitive DPS at the moment; which should be addressed in the same patch that brings dual specs.

Tell that to RTM.

YMMV, but as Conc said, atm it's Player > Class for dps, unless you have 7+ people all performing at top levels where you can start to see trends. Hell, we had pre-3.0.8 Elemental Shammies in the top dps slot occasionally and everyone understood they were at a significant disadvantage.

Cheers,
~FragB)

[Mirajj]

So I guess the question should be, what makes a hybrid, hybrid. If it's the ability to perform multiple roles, they can't do that without a respec and a regear, so that's out. If it's providing unique buffs to complement the pure DPS, well that was TBC and Blizzard changed the design, so that's out too. So there isn't anything to make a hybrid actually hybrid unless they go out and respec. This doesn't really make them hybrid, this makes them able to be a pure DPS or a pure <something else> without having to level an alt. So yes, they should be treated as "pures."

Hence the mention of dual spec. Pretty much any hybrid should be able to, now, push a button and go from healer to DPS or whatever. The gear equation is pretty trivial, given how long people have had to farm (and we'll likely have a few more months, yet, anyways).

Instead of having to get people to park their main outside the instance and stay on vent, to be brought in when we finish the fight that needs 8 healers so we can swap people in and out, we can do it with the same 25 people and a few respecs between boss fights. Much faster - and an incentive to raid comp for a lot of hybrids for min/max flexibility on a fight-per-fight basis.

This is my point, Conc. ESPECIALLY when dual specs come in, and you can swap roles between fights. With Hybrids (or, as you don't like that term, "Classes capable of performing a completely different role via a spec change") being competitive/equal dps as those only capable of dps, I can see a big problem with folks deciding not to bother to bring those who can only dps.

The thing is, even currently, any class capable of tanking, can spec and do competitive damage to any pure class, in some cases, even beating them quite handily (Hello, DK...). Any healing class is capable of respeccing and doing competitive dps. So if you were in a min/maxing sort of mood, why would you bring along someone who can only dps and nothing else, when you can have DPS/tanks or DPS/healers as the fight demands?

Those who are the pure damage classes (those who can not respec into a completely different role) either need a significant dps advantage, or had better bring some very useful 'other' things with them. Right now, I don't see them with that good "bring me over a hybrid" item yet.

[Concillian]

This is my point, Conc. ESPECIALLY when dual specs come in, and you can swap roles between fights. With Hybrids (or, as you don't like that term, "Classes capable of performing a completely different role via a spec change") being competitive/equal dps as those only capable of dps, I can see a big problem with folks deciding not to bother to bring those who can only dps.

What folks?

Not the folks in the guilds Tal and I run. Not the guilds I imagine most of the people reading here are in (who are not in one of the two aforementioned guilds).

The hardcore min-max guilds seem to be too stuck on what's the best pigeonhole to put someone in to even think about any kind of dual-purpose raiders. The solution in the past for these raid-stacking guilds has been to bench people, then bring in someone else who fits into the "ideal stacked raid composition" for the encounter... is that really any better? IMO the hybrid solution is quite significantly less problematic better.

You only need so many "swing role" slots like what? 2-4 out of 25? There's plenty of room for single-role toons in a raid. I doubt there are more than a handful of raiding groups that have NO hybrids who will want to go /gkick some DPS only classes so they can recruit hybrids to work in a swing role. I believe most guilds that hardcore would instead recruit whatever they thought the "right classes" they needed, then alternate benching players to stack their raids ideally. (again, this is likely a much larger problem than worrying about hybrids stealing raid spots or whatever).

I believe any real issue here exists in theory only.

Someone else reading this who is in a guild where they expect this to actually happen can feel free to post and shut me up. But the kinds of guilds I see (including other guilds on our server who I have contact with) have significantly larger differences among player abilities than classes so they don't really worry about classes. Normal trends are such that you get a spattering of people interested in different things, so they have a few people who like swing roles, and a few who like performing one function. Whatever, like I said, I think this is a TheoryGuildCraft issue, not an actual one.

[Mavfin]

This is my point, Conc. ESPECIALLY when dual specs come in, and you can swap roles between fights. With Hybrids (or, as you don't like that term, "Classes capable of performing a completely different role via a spec change") being competitive/equal dps as those only capable of dps, I can see a big problem with folks deciding not to bother to bring those who can only dps.

This is a people issue, not a class issue. If you raid with people who would dump you just because you're not the right class, then I guess that's something you have to deal with. I'm not too worried about that happening to me where I raid, on either Alliance or Horde. You can't blame that on a class.

It's just like the guilds out there that still insist that a warrior must be MT. That's old, outmoded thinking. If a person sticks with a guild that thinks this way. or would kick 'pures' for hybrids, they have only themselves to blame.

[Pantalaimon]

This is a people issue, not a class issue. If you raid with people who would dump you just because you're not the right class, then I guess that's something you have to deal with. I'm not too worried about that happening to me where I raid, on either Alliance or Horde. You can't blame that on a class.

It's just like the guilds out there that still insist that a warrior must be MT. That's old, outmoded thinking. If a person sticks with a guild that thinks this way. or would kick 'pures' for hybrids, they have only themselves to blame.

That's a little bit of a strawman - it's not an issue of KICKING from a guild for hybrids, although we've been talking about that a lot. I know I might've started it off by talking about rearranging the comp within one raid, but let's consider another situation.

A longtime raider retires, and you're left with a spot to fill, what are you going to recruit? Say for the sake of an argument it was a warlock/mage that left. Now, not knowing what the next tier of raiding holds in terms of healer/dps mix, would you not take something that can do both... e.g. a boomkin or elemental shammy? First page of EJ, for example:

"We are recruiting, in order of need: one Death Knight, one Restoration Druid (who also can spec/play Balance), and one Holy Paladin (who also can spec/play either Ret or Prot, preferably Ret)."

Is specifying that you have to be multitalented something we would have seen before wrath? I sincerely doubt it.

Now, the sky is not falling. Skill > class, all that jazz, blahblahblah if you're in a guild like that you're better off elsewhere. But it happens - it always does. Do pure classes have a right to be concerned? Perhaps. I can sympathize and see where they're coming from, and it may be something blizzard should look at closely.

[Mavfin]

Now, the sky is not falling. Skill > class, all that jazz, blahblahblah if you're in a guild like that you're better off elsewhere. But it happens - it always does. Do pure classes have a right to be concerned? Perhaps. I can sympathize and see where they're coming from, and it may be something blizzard should look at closely.

I do understand your point, but, I still consider it a people issue, mainly in the small percentage of ultra-hardcore min/maxers who will do this. If you play in that segment, then yes, this will be a concern. However, I don't think that hybrids should be shackled to satisfty that segment of the population over (imo) a much larger part of the population that won't recruit in that way. Blizzard will do what they think will bring them the most money, and I think that's what is going on now.

For most of the population at large, it won't matter. A lot of guilds in the situation you outlined, if a lock leaves, will recruit a 'DPS' to replace him, unless maybe that was the only lock they had.

[Artega]

If we lost a raiding Mage or Warlock, I would probably replace them with a raiding Mage or Warlock.

[Kevin]

I do understand your point, but, I still consider it a people issue, mainly in the small percentage of ultra-hardcore min/maxers who will do this. If you play in that segment, then yes, this will be a concern. However, I don't think that hybrids should be shackled to satisfty that segment of the population over (imo) a much larger part of the population that won't recruit in that way. Blizzard will do what they think will bring them the most money, and I think that's what is going on now.

For most of the population at large, it won't matter. A lot of guilds in the situation you outlined, if a lock leaves, will recruit a 'DPS' to replace him, unless maybe that was the only lock they had.

And while this doesn't justify it, there was a time the only way you could raid on a paladin is if you were a healer. The only way you could raid on a shaman is if you were were a healer. So pures marginalized hybrids on the hardcore end. I'm not saying that is makes it fine that a hybrid might marginalize a pure (not that I think it's a big issue) but it's not a new issue. It's the same issue that has always existed in that segment of the population.

Priests rerolled paladins to raid heal. Hunters all had to spec one spec for raid DPS. Fire mages didn't raid. Frost mages didn't raid, etc, etc, etc. The really high end always has crap like that going on. The fact that there are so many more options for everyone looks like progress to me. Of course more options tends to broaden competition and with that comes other problems issue.

[Quark]

Hunters all had to spec one spec for raid DPS.

They still do! At least, the good ones. Right now there's only two classes that have competitive DPS with more than one spec. Mages and Shaman. Hell, the mages have a 3rd spec that's competitive to other classes (but not to their own).

[Kevin]

They still do! At least, the good ones. Right now there's only two classes that have competitive DPS with more than one spec. Mages and Shaman. Hell, the mages have a 3rd spec that's competitive to other classes (but not to their own).

Really? I thought the last patch evened out hunters pretty much and it mostly was which synergy you wanted to bring. But I admit my hunter is still only L70 so I don't follow the class as well as I used to. I thought warlocks had 2 pretty equal specs as well. Oh well, I guess Blizzard still hasn't gotten that right. Though if you are quibbling over 50 DPS more when we are looking at 4K + DPS specs we have a different definition of competitive.

[Quark]

Really? I thought the last patch evened out hunters pretty much and it mostly was which synergy you wanted to bring. But I admit my hunter is still only L70 so I don't follow the class as well as I used to. I thought warlocks had 2 pretty equal specs as well. Oh well, I guess Blizzard still hasn't gotten that right. Though if you are quibbling over 50 DPS more when we are looking at 4K + DPS specs we have a different definition of competitive.

Hunters: http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/clazz/dps/hnt/6/0/3
Not a single non-Survival hunter on the list. You go Survival for utility and DPS now. I could see MM being a raid DPS upgrade if you have no Blood DK or Enhancement Shaman and you have Replenishment covered by 2 others. Edit: Sorry, there's one Marksman #14 on Sarth+3. That's one non-Survival out of 340 results.

Warlocks: http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/clazz/dps/wrl/6/0/3
Gothik (massive pauses in DPS) is the only one where Affliction is not top, and straight burn fights have Affliction by far best.

[Kevin]

Oh well like I said I don't follow it that closely anymore. But I do find it interesting that if you switch to look at 10 man it's nearly all marks and beast for hunters. Other classes don't really change like like that when looking at 25 man vs 10 man.

[Mirajj]

Oh well like I said I don't follow it that closely anymore. But I do find it interesting that if you switch to look at 10 man it's nearly all marks and beast for hunters. Other classes don't really change like like that when looking at 25 man vs 10 man.

The last patch rather neatly flipped how hunter dps worked. Pre-patch, it was BM, MM, Surv. Post-patch it's Surv, MM, BM. And that's even still after Surv has taken a stealthy hotfix for a bit of nerfage.

[Frag]

The only way you could raid on a shaman is if you were were a healer.

Yet even during that period we had a shaman offtank for MC, Ony & BWL, and two Enhancement who to the best of my knowledge never even threw a chain heal. /shrug

It's a people thing. Superior players put out superior dps, even in 'crappy' specs.

~FragB)

[Kevin]

Yet even during that period we had a shaman offtank for MC, Ony & BWL, and two Enhancement who to the best of my knowledge never even threw a chain heal. /shrug

It's a people thing. Superior players put out superior dps, even in 'crappy' specs.

~FragB)

Yeah I'm aware, I actually raided as beast for early MC as well (back when even EJ said you couldn't use pets in MC which was so wrong it's not even funny and back when a lot of people still didn't understand the value of hit or the aimed shot cycles) and topped damage meters, not just hunters, but everyone in the raid (of course at that time my DPS was superior as beast than it was to marks or survival because of how gearing curves worked in vanilla WoW). I later changed to marks for a bit then to survival as my gear changed and I stuck with the higher DPS spec for what my gear had. But most of the time the spec I was playing, and topping damage meters with, was not the accepted top hunter DPS spec. I also remember out DPS'ing everyone in the supression room because I was that damn good with FD trap, used volley when I should and was awesome single target DPS. And I was not playing with scrubs. I also looked at reports from top guild and got to see that I would have out DPS'd mages and locks from top guilds in there too.

I agree that it's a people thing. My real point was that the issue only really exists for the very top end min/max guilds and even in those you can find a few exceptions to the rule. And that most of the playing population of WoW doesn't see it as a real issue. Hell right now as long as a spec is within about 300 DPS of another spec (given the same player behind the toon) I figure that it's pretty much viable.