All classes should be changed to hybrids (and how to do it)

When WoW was launched six years ago they had hybrid and non-hybrid classes which worked (more or less) well with the 40 man raid design back then. But there were a lot of changes since then and I think the non-hybrid classes don’t really fit into the game as good as every class should.

They’ve added dual-spec, removed the hybrid tax and made hybrids very inefficient when they don’t do what they are specced for. (Back in vanilla I’ve used to tank UBRS on my resto druid with (of course) blue tank gear. I doubt you could tank even a non-heroic with a resto specced druid in a PuG.) This changed the hybrids into “role changer”.

Now in Cataclysm we see the problem caused by the single role classes. There is the 45 minute LFD wait time. If you’re a “role changer” you can either change your role to the more sparse role and get an instant invite. Or you’ll accept the 45 minute wait time and play the role you like. And you can do that every time you sign up for LFD. Some role changer take advantage of that, luckily. Otherwise the queue would be even longer. I don’t have a problem with a kitty who stands in line to play what she wants. Not at all. But sometimes, when I’m short on time, I’d prefer to be able to cut the corner with my warlock. Of course I could reroll or play an alt but to gear up my warlock or collect reputation for my warlock, I’ll have to stand in line. I think the wait time could be reduced substantially if all classes were role changer which would improve the game experience of everyone who uses the LFD.

The other problem emerged from “shared raid ID” change together with the “10 man drop the same loot” change. I think there was a shift from 25 man raids to 10 man raids, at least that’s what I see on my server. Which is fine, if that’s what the player base prefers, that should be what the player base gets.

A 10 man raid cannot have a bench of the same size as a 40 or 25 man raid or you’ll have to sit out most of the time. But you still have to cover all the roles. Again, role changers are very convenient in a 10 man raid. Especially since you can gear up the off-spec of a role changer while raiding. In a 10 man raid with one of every class you would have 4 single role DD, 2 tanks/DD, 3 healer/DD and 1 DD/other. With two or three role change replacements you should be able to shuffle it around as you need it.

That is, of course, not talking about hardcore raids. But the majority of the player base, the non-hardcore raids where less than 100% attendance is the norm. The 5/3/2 distribution of 10 man raids even puts a hard cap on the single role classes of 5 which isn’t really in line with the “bring the player” mantra, methinks. It gets even worse if you have more single role classes on the bench because you have to also add role changer to the bench, increasing the rotation pool.

This problem wasn’t an issue during WotLK because everyone used to know someone from a 25 man raid who could replace the missing player in a 10 man raid, 10 mans therefore didn’t need a bench back then. That’s no longer possible with the shared raid ID.

And if every class would be a role changer Blizzard could add more interesting encounters. Imagine Valithria where Blizzard could assume that 6 out of 10 people would be able to role change to healing.

Warlock
Actually, I think someone at Blizzard had the idea that warlocks should be able to role change to tanking during the development of WotLK. Unfortunately that didn’t go through, probably because of the introduction of the DK. I hope they take another look at it and implement it in the upcoming 2013 expansion.

Here is why:

• Metamorphosis increases your armor contribution from items by 600% and reduces the chance you'll be critically hit by melee attacks by 6%. That’s basically the same talent druids had for WotLK and now every tank spec has the crit reduction talent. And it affects only melee critical hits, as spell critical hits don’t exist in PvE.
• There was a taunt in meta form, which was removed for Cataclysm. Still, it was a taunt for a single role DD class. Doesn’t make sense if they didn’t play with the idea of letting warlocks tank.
• In meta form you had “Shadow Cleave”. Inflicts weapon damage plus 15 to an enemy and its nearest allies, affecting up to 3 targets. Sounds like some kind of tanking spell.
• Meta has a charge.
• In the WotLK zone presentation media event video (at 0:55) you’ll see the warlock class mount and the rider is wearing a shield. Looks like at one point they might have played with the idea to let warlocks wear shields. That would only make sence for a tank. http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5cxfm_wrath-of-the-lich-king-media-event_videogames

• The warlock self heal talents would be in line with todays concept of self healing tanks.
• Meta could increase armor and reduce critically hit chance permanently and only change visual when active (e.g. for 50% damage reduction or something)
• Firestone could come back! :)
• Shadowflame for snap AE aggro.
• Soul Link could be used for damage reduction. Could redirected to damage to the nether with Voidwalker with talents or something.
• The warlock already has a Sta talent.
• Warlock could be some kind of “disease tank” with instant immolate and corruption, like DK.
• Pala could again be changed to a Spellpower tank with shared SP tank swords to distinguish from warrior.
• Mastery on cloth gear can be used as tank stat.
• Crit chance on gear could be used to have some defensive effect, like with druids.
• Neck/ring/trinkets could be shared with tank classes.
• Warlock could be allowed to wear the hybrid range thing (relicts) for tank items.

Rogue
Like a lot of people I loved the dual wield frost tank play style of the DK. This “tanking ninja” was about the coolest class Blizzard ever designed, in my eyes.

• They could bring back “DW ninja tanking” by giving a tank tree to the rogue. This could make people happy who don’t like the new blood tank DK style.
• Druids tank with leather, gear is already shared with bears. No additional itemization would be required.
• Frost DW DK tank was basically a rogue with its resource lockouts and mainly a single energy type (FU pairs). Should be easy to adjust this to energy.
• FoK would replace Howling Blast.
• Rogues already has tank utility like disarm or interrupts.
• Rogues already can wear tank guns.
• They already have cool cooldowns like “Cloak of Shadows” and “Evasion”.
• Having a stealth tank would be cool.
• A “life drain poison”, like Hadronox, could be used for the tank self healing. Scaling with vengeance would prevent PvP abusage.

Mage

• The concept of a “White Mage” for a healer already exists.
• Cloth healing gear is already available.
• Mages could get more interesting rotations because arcane spells could be woven into the elemental specs. More spells per damage spec, more fun.
• Arcane goodies could be split between frost and fire or be used in the heal spec like disc and arcane become the heal tree.

Hunter

• Hunters already have a tight connection to nature and its beasts. It would be a nature character which could use power of nature to heal. He already heals his pet.
• “Healing” pets could be introduced. Pet class(es) that do little damage or no damage at all but have positive effects on healing or damage taken. Hunters love new pets.
• Blizzard should be able to make “speccing heal” also replace focus with mana.
• Healing mail is used by shamans, no additional loot required.
• Give access to hybrid range thing (relic) for heal range item.

One thing though:

Blizzard introduced a 4th tanking class (and made druids and paladins viable tanks (don't start a flame war as to which classes are better tanks)) in WLK - the Deathknight. Lots of people rerolled because they were awesome and new. Many didn't play the DK as a tank.

You see lots of dps warriors, ferals, paladins and DKs in 5 man heroics. They prefer to wait half an hour so they can dps. They COULD spec and gear for tanking, but they don't want to for whatever reason they have.

Those that want to tank or heal have plenty of options already. there are 4 tank speccs and 5 heal speccs out of a possible 30. That is a third. I do not think that giving every tank the option to be a tank or healer will change much - those who insist on playing dps will continue to, those that already tank and heal do not need it.

It's an interesting concept. I would personally love it from a raiding perspective.

I feel like it would provide too much of a balance struggle for Blizzard, though, even if it has a lot of design potential. It's probably too dramatic of a design focus shift to really happen.

Meh, why don't blizzard let us make our own classes then...

It's not the classes and the specs that are the problem. It's the roles.

It takes a very specific mindest to choose the tanking/healing role in an MMO.
If I tank in 5mans then I also expect to tank in raids. I won't raid as DPS on my tank just to get the raidspot. You only need half as many tanks in raids as you need for 5mans. Well...

As for DPS tanking. Here's my thing. You raid. You get nice DPS lewts. Will you
a) use your Supreme Sword of Ownage of which there are only 3-4 on your server
b) use the Meh Sword Of Every Tank has it

It's also about ego. I may not know you but I very damn well wanted to show off my complete T10 and every drop a tank could have(non 25man heroic) in heroic UP. Even when I queued as DPS. Which is bass ackwards to my argument but you get my point.

If you are a bear than you are more a tank than a druid.
If you are a shadow pirest then you are more of a DPS than a priest.

Even within classes it is not that easy to switch roles. I know I'd rather spend 45m in the queue just to do my subtlety thing than tank on my rogue. I've got a warrior for that.

New tank specs won't change a thing. Tanking is the least casual role in Cata 5mans.

Because they would be OP. :)

It's easy to think about stuff to give pure classes to up either their survivability or to give them healing options. The real problem is to get rid of the dps potential they have. No heal spec can do competable dmg. Tank specs are closer to the dps specs but can only do comperable dmg when getting dmg and when multiple mobs are present. Maybe with the exception of bear/cat who can be a little bit closer, depending on actual spec. But even there the difference is big.

Pure classes would need the same. When speced to be able to do the tanking or healing they should not be able to just press a button and switch over to good dps. It has to be the same for everybody. And I doubt pure class players would like such an approach. Something like entering metamorphose or chosing another pet cannot be enough. Even when specced into it and with the need to change gear. SPriests cannot heal a heroic 5man even when taking everything they can healing wise and while wearing healing gear. (Maybe they can if everybody outgears it heavily but than no healer is needed anyway.)

Cat/Bear is an exception, but it looks like it is causing Blizz a lot of headachse to maintain it. They got lost of the dual-role-trees for DKs, because the idea was too hard to maintain. And because it just did not change much who tanked and didn't tank.

I'm not convinced new specs wouldn't change anything. I'm almost certain it would help a lot of cases.

Many people I know probably wouldn't mind tanking or healing if they could try it easily enough. For instance, a guildie is working on gearing up a Warrior alt for backup tanking in raids--but that's a lot of work. What if he could tank on his Warlock main? I'm sure he would have done it many times over the years.

The main problem is that it would be a nightmare to balance additional spec combos, and therefore is probably too big of an ask from the systems team. It's a large amount of work to get into the game and get right.

(Katzazi, about the gear issue--Blizzard seems to have specifically put in the Spirit -> Hit style stuff for Balance Druids and Shadow Priests to ease the cross-over gear usage among different specs of the same class. Same with Bear/Cat. While these differenciations still exist, it seems about 50/50 which route is being taken. Also the dual-role thing wasn't the problem for DKs per se...as much as the issue was trying to support dual-roles in three trees at the same time.)

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Originally Posted by Kojiyama

I'm not convinced new specs wouldn't change anything.

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It would certainly mean a lot of pissed off real DPS'ers when a ton of tanks are rolling on DPS gear...

Wouldn't the point of an initiative like that be to blur the lines enough that it wouldn't matter like it does now?

Nobody gets angry at Bears for rolling on 'DPS' Leather because 'DPS' and 'Tanking' Leather are, in fact, exactly the same thing. If anything it simply means less item waste.

I truly wish I could use my gear for both roles on my Warrior like I do on my Druid. :P

I agree it's a great idea. I've already talked to my guildies on vent about it and came to almost the same conclusion, thought I was thinking of beastmaster as a tanking spec as opposed to a healing spec.

I don't know if the balancing issue would really be that difficult, at least any more than currently. Currently each class has 3 specs that need to be balanced.

And I'd love it because it'd get rid of all the pure QQ and get people to focus on their role, not the fact that they magically should be more powerful because they chose a class with only 1 role.

And cross rolling on gear has existed since I started playing, and from what I've heard, has since vanilla (tanks wearing whatever had the most ratings ignoring armor).

For pug instances a priority need queue for rolls may be needed... For example, gear with dodge or parry, then tank need roll supercedes DPS need roll. But mastery/hit etc, need is need.

Be interesting... Metamorphaisis - while metamorphasized, 50% of spirit from gear become dodge, 50% of spirit from gear becomes parry, 50% of intillect becomes stamina (?) and 50% of intellect becomes mastery, or something like that? I think it'd be an interesting...

I'm all for it.

i think the idea is very boring. its a role play game. the distinct lines between roles is what makes the game unique. to make everyone a hybrid would take away a great deal from the lore and imo result in less quality players ( jack of all trades, king of none). also, from a gearing pov, there would be a lot less to choose from, again taking away from the lore of the game. I belive there was a post early in cata about this ( ill look for it), basicly a blue saying they dont want to blur the lines between roles for the reasons i mentioned.

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Originally Posted by Katzazi

Because they would be OP. :)

It's easy to think about stuff to give pure classes to up either their survivability or to give them healing options. The real problem is to get rid of the dps potential they have. No heal spec can do competable dmg. Tank specs are closer to the dps specs but can only do comperable dmg when getting dmg and when multiple mobs are present. Maybe with the exception of bear/cat who can be a little bit closer, depending on actual spec. But even there the difference is big.

Pure classes would need the same. When speced to be able to do the tanking or healing they should not be able to just press a button and switch over to good dps. It has to be the same for everybody. And I doubt pure class players would like such an approach. Something like entering metamorphose or chosing another pet cannot be enough. Even when specced into it and with the need to change gear. SPriests cannot heal a heroic 5man even when taking everything they can healing wise and while wearing healing gear. (Maybe they can if everybody outgears it heavily but than no healer is needed anyway.)

Cat/Bear is an exception, but it looks like it is causing Blizz a lot of headachse to maintain it. They got lost of the dual-role-trees for DKs, because the idea was too hard to maintain. And because it just did not change much who tanked and didn't tank.

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good point . . .immagine prot warriors able to do 20k dps single target... why would you even run with any other class/spec in a raid aside from healers....

Well Praetoria, The suggestion was not to make all specs be viable at everything--it was to re-purpose redundant specs on 'pure' classes to allow for hybrid options. e.g. instead of 3 DPS trees for Rogues that Rogues could have a tanking(/PvP?) tree and 2 DPS trees. Obviously when tanking they would have to sacrifice DPS to do so, just like Shadow Priests sacrifice healing and Bears don't do nearly optimal damage without a Cat spec. So I don't really view it as an 'OP' issue at all.

Again, it may not be a very practical idea from an implementation standpoint--but I think it's a cool one.

Not sure how it is a lore issue. Rogues have 'evade tanked' (in a general sense) in RPGs for a very, very long time. FF XI, for instance, uses Ninjas as a primary tank for many encounters. Warlocks have certainly 'tanked' on many encounters in the past as well.

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Nobody gets angry at Bears for rolling on 'DPS' Leather because 'DPS' and 'Tanking' Leather are, in fact, exactly the same thing.

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You'd be amazed....most people still don't seem to understand that there is no more "bear gear".

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I truly wish I could use my gear for both roles on my Warrior like I do on my Druid. :P

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I dunno, I've found this more frustrating than anything. Even when the items themselves are usable for two different specs, the reforging, gemming and enchanting are usually significantly different and I really don't want to go spending a couple thousand gold every time I go respec. Unless I just want to half-ass it for a 5-man heroic.

Yeah, that's certainly true when it comes to min-maxing.. however, using Druid leather which is primarily Mastery/Crit for instance is perfectly passable for DPSing even if it is reforged for Dodge.

Likewise, when I get big tanking upgrades (say Poison Protocal Pauldrons as an example), they are still often DPS upgrades even reforged to Dodge as my primary focus. Both specs love their Agility, which is one of the biggest gains from gear upgrades. It may not be an optimal situation, but it's still a lot better than not having anything to use at all--the items are probably still the best available option short of another of the same item with it not being reforged. :)

Given that both types of Warriors want Strength (Parry and AP) and Mastery to varying degrees, I don't actually think it's that far off from being practical to remove the pure avoidance stats. That's the only difference between the gear now anyway. Give tanks a bigger Parry multiplier in Protection spec and there you go. Basically becomes the same as the Feral gearing situation.

It's certainly not as frustrating as having to get 2 completely different sets to be a 'hybrid' and basically having a totally terrible alterative set while you do so. A Druid with 'improperly' reforged gear is still going to have 80-90% of the stats of a nice gearset while they work on getting dedicated items as opposed to the 40-50% one would have if they try to use DPS/Tanking Plate for the 'wrong' purpose.

i see your point, koji. I just like seeing dedicated classes in raids. I appreciate having a solid lock in the raid duel specing aff/demo rolling with eng/tailoring... I cant help but wonder how balancing would play out between classes. Im not discrediting the idea at all, but i certianly do not dislike the current state of role/class combinations.

When did they remove the hybrid tax? Last I read from Ghostcrawler within the last 6 months or so it was still there and, to cut off argument, he specifically said it's not 5%.

Might as well just let all classes be like Pallys or Druid have three specs, allow triple specing then no one really has to make a choice as to what they want to do, they can list tank in lfg so they have no wait and the sameness can just dull the senses.

This is the compete opposite of what Blizz's stated design goals are; GC has said consistently he wants the classes to be different and feel different.

but for that matter, couldnt we just have one stat.. call it "power", and eliminate stat crafting all together?..

To be perfectly honest, the hybrid tax was just a silly idea to begin with. It maybe had a role in the classic way of balancing--but back then there were also DPS niches and such. (e.g. Mages were best at AoE, Rogues at single-target, etc.)

In the world of trying to make all DPS classes as close together as possible, the hybrid tax feels quite arbitrary when over half the classes in the game are 'hybrids.'

(Then again, I've always personally had the definition of hybrid not being capability for respec, but capability in a single spec. DPS Warriors were hybrids back in classic because they could swap on a shield and tank trash if a tank died and still not wipe. Those days disappeared a long time ago. I know this doesn't agree with the Blizzard definition though.)

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Originally Posted by praetoria

but for that matter, couldnt we just have one stat.. call it "power", and eliminate stat crafting all together?..

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Wouldn't that make the game extremely boring?

This item has more ability power, therefore it is better.