All tanks are hybrids.

[orcstar]

I stumbled on a post by Ghostcrawler. World of Warcraft - English (NA) Forums -> "Hybrid tax"

I have long resented the way people speak of hybrids because I don't feel hybrid at all. If I spec tank I tank and if I spec dps I dps. The talentbuilds for characters in WoW are just too specialized to speak of hybrids in my opinion.

On my shaman however I felt more like a hybrid, because when specced healing, I could still put out nice dps when there were parts with low healing needs in the fight and when specced as elemental I could still heal quite nicely when the shit hit the fan.

Now in this post hybrid gets redefined and it resents me a bit. A hybrid is now a character that can respec to fullfill a different role. I don't dps on my warrior, I tank. I play other classes also, if I want to dps or if I'm not needed as a tank I bring in my rogue or sit one out for the team, have no problems with it.

How do you guys and girls feel about this?

Hybrid = can respec to fulfill a different role (damage, tanking, or healing).
Hybrid != can fill multiple roles at the same time.
Hybrid != has awesome, amazing buffs or utility.
Hybrid != pure. Beyond that, there are no shades of gray among hybrids.

[Tzobee]

I feel that he has a point and I have always felt that way. A paladin or druid should not be as good as a pure at doing damage because if they can then alot of the pure classes will start disappearing (which they have). Now you see a huge amount of hybrids as compared to say TBC.

[Ciderhelm]

If your view on hybrids is that pure classes should be able to outperform hybrids slightly, then the worst place to be is a hybrid with only two roles, since you are in effect being taxed for being a hybrid, but don't have the options available to you that other hybrids do.

To be clear, I believe all tanks should be equal regardless of how hybrid is classified. I'm thinking primarily in terms of DPS.

[Ion]

I for one welcome our paladin and druid overlords?

[swelt]

I really don't think this relates to the DPS that a hybrid does *when tanking*. Rather, this is about how much damage a fury/arms warrior/ret paladin/cat druid/moonkin does compared to a rogue/mage/hunter/warlock. Under this policy, a rogue of equivalent skill and gear is intended to do more damage than the warrior, because the warrior pays a small hybrid tax. Now the warrior still has his niche, cleave fights and encounters with a constant low level of passive damage feeding him rage. And this still depends heavily on the skill of the player. In my raid, we have some 'hybrids' that are doing insane damage, while some of our 'pure' dps are probably underperforming, but I largely put that down to gear/skill/commitment.

[Durandro]

The 'hybrid' debate is rather lopsided on GC's part. He points at Warriors mostly, ignoring that Death Knights and Druids are both Hybrids by his definition as well.

To me, hybrids are classes that can do two things at the same time (or rather, two things in one spec) reasonably well. This would include (in my mind):

Elemental/Enhancement Shamans (DPS and off/self healing)
Boomkin Druids (DPS and off/self healing)
Death Knights (DPS and tanking, though this is debatable)
Feral Druids (DPS and tanking, though again debatable*)

* Feral Druids are possibly more viable as a hybrid then Death Knights due to their animal forms and the fact Feral gear is designed to do both things. Very little difference in enchants for the most part (usually more stamina stacking for tanks, but not to such a lopsided degree).

One spec can do two things at once, with one being poor or very limited:

Retribution Paladins (DPS and limited healing)

And all non-dps specs can do a little DPS while doing their main role as well if required/desired.

So really, the hybrid tax would effect every single class bar Rogues, Hunters, Mages and Warlocks. Which Blizzard obviously isn't doing, so they should drop the whole issue and make all classes comparable in viability. Enough of pretending Warriors being 'hybrids' is the reason they can't be as good as other tanks - it's just silly.

[Tzobee]

Warriors are the least hybrids of all the four tank classes, perhaps DKs are somewhere around there aswell. But according to GC logic warrior tanks should be slightly better than druids and paladins since we only have two roles and we all know this is not the case right now. GC just picks on warriors because he hates the class. Thats my theory.

[Thaak]

I agree its odd that all "hybrids" should suffer the same tax, when some can only be dps/tank and some can be tank/melee dps/ranged dps/heals. That being said the problem I have with it is gearing. I can't dps in my tank gear. If I was a pally, I couldn't tank in my healing gear. So i have to work twice as hard as a "pure" to gear my self to be a "hybrid"(4 times as hard if i were a druid?). I buy twice as many gems, twice as many enchants, arcanums, shoulder inscriptions. I carry tank food and dps food, tank flasks and dps flasks. I carry DEAR GOD SO MUCH GEAR IN MY BAGS. And to be honest its not really that I have a problem with those things. I have a problem with the fact that even when I do all that I still pay this "hybrid tax", which I assume would be paid by me having to go through the trouble of building/maintaining multiple sets of gear and learning to play my class well in different specs.

All that being said I imagine most people that play WoW don't play their characters at a level where this tax affects them in anyway, because they aren't playing 100% optimally. On a regular basis you see lower geared hybrids beat over geared pures on the meters. However the fact that this "hybrid tax" is part of game design, troubles me.

p.s. My suggestion is that hybrid classes should get all specs of their tier piece for one turn in as opposed to having to buy each slot multiple times(meaning you buy tank shoulders and get dps shoulders for free). Non tier pieces its more complicated, but perhaps a system where when you get a non tier piece, you visit an NPC and receive an equivalent piece for your other specs. Then I would be ok with the "hybrid tax" in game design.

[Mačl]

True. If you are a warrior tank chances are you're sporting a second tank spec. And compared to the DPS other tanks can do wihle in tank spec we get the short end of the stick. No rage and even if we had some we'd still struggle to get over 2kdps on a single mob.

I think the most extreme hybrid has to be the druid. Those tank and can still do nice kittie dmg by simply changing form. They don't need a second tank spec so they are likely to have a nice kittie spec.

Damage/healing/tanking compares rather nicely to other classes.

But this hybrid discussion is rather pointless.
Fulfilling a role requires effort gearwise, in spec and in experience. If you want to switch roles chances are you'll have quite some gearing up to do.

[Tengenstein]

Have you seen the DPS holy paladins or priests put out when they switch mid fight to dps? sure they can switch weapons/auras and what not, but the DPS they do is mediocre at best, and will struggle to get above the tank's

I don't consider taking DPS that struggle to match the tank's DPS an asset to a raid, they're being carried.

If a class can switch between roles easily midfight and not suck in those roles then yes they ought to have a slight disadvantage over a a class thats stuck in a single role for the entire fight. but i really only think feral druids can change roles that easily mid fight

as to the whole respeccing makes you hybrid, i'm a warrior and i'm prot/prot, so do i gain from the prot talents in one build i don't take in the other? is glyph of taunt gonna help me if i'm tanking in the spec that doesn't have it? Not really is being prot/prot gonna me a better tank than the warrior whose also tanking, but whose offspec is arms? midfight?

I don't think it will.

[jere]

Warriors are the least hybrids of all the four tank classes, perhaps DKs are somewhere around there aswell. But according to GC logic warrior tanks should be slightly better than druids and paladins since we only have two roles and we all know this is not the case right now. GC just picks on warriors because he hates the class. Thats my theory.

I think he picks on the warriors because, traditionally, they have had the hardest time (as a class) accepting that they are hybrids. Paladins and druids obviously accepted their hybridness, and DK's are new enough that they didn't have that phase where all they did was X role.

But by GC's logic what you said isn't true. He made a pretty big distinction in saying he doesn't care how many roles you can fill. They way they see hybrid is if you can respec into another role (any number).

On my shaman however I felt more like a hybrid, because when specced healing, I could still put out nice dps when there were parts with low healing needs in the fight and when specced as elemental I could still heal quite nicely when the shit hit the fan.

Interesting. I levelled one of my two shaman resto, and I never once felt like this. My dps was pretty terrible as resto. I tried elemental on my other shaman for a while and had a much better time, but I eventually switched to enhancement cause I like melee dps better than ranged. Alternately, on my warrior, I actually made use of different stances without changing spec while levelling. It felt more like my druid (though not nearly as fun as the druid was to level. Warriors felt more limited than my druid).

[Synapse]

Isn't the whole point in GC stating "Hybrid = can fill different roles at different times" that a hybrid is only a hybrid until he enters the battle, where he is as much a <insert role> as any other <insert role>? Hybrids can pick multiple roles, not be them all.

[orcstar]

Isn't the whole point in GC stating "Hybrid = can fill different roles at different times" that a hybrid is only a hybrid until he enters the battle, where he is as much a <insert role> as any other <insert role>? Hybrids can pick multiple roles, not be them all.

THIS.

And that what bothers me.
You go into battle as a tank dps or healer, NOT as a hybrid.

Let's say Jack and Joe both played an elemental shaman, but jack is a good player and manages 6.5k dps on a boss and Joe is not a bad but an average player and manages 5k dps on a boss. Both want to raid and there's one spot left. Of course Jack gets taken because he's the better player.

Now Jack and Joe player warlock and Jack manages 8.5k dps and Joe manages 7. Of course Jack gets taken because he's the better player.

Now last: Jack plays the shaman and Joe the warlock. Now even though Jack is the better player, Joe gets taken. That kinda defeats the purpose of bring the player. And I'm afraid that with this philosofy and definition of hybrids, they're gona be put back in either tank or healing roles.

Interesting. I levelled one of my two shaman resto, and I never once felt like this. My dps was pretty terrible as resto. I tried elemental on my other shaman for a while and had a much better time, but I eventually switched to enhancement cause I like melee dps better than ranged. Alternately, on my warrior, I actually made use of different stances without changing spec while levelling. It felt more like my druid (though not nearly as fun as the druid was to level. Warriors felt more limited than my druid).

I raided as both resto and elemental shaman in tBC. the thing which often prevented a hybrid playstyle was the distinction between healing gear and dps gear with +heal and +spellpower were two different stats: if you were a healer in healing gear you would have less spellpower then a green geared elemental shaman. But I played high-end elemental shaman so I had a set stacked with spellpower which also worked good in healing.

[TomHuxley]

They've actually been pretty consistent about their definition of hybrids and the associated DPS tax since late in the beta period for Wrath. Classes that can only do DPS (rogues/mages/warlocks) are supposed to have a min/max spec and gear strategy that (with gear and talent being equal) puts them in the range of 5% ahead of the DPS of a min/maxed hybrid DPS spec (with equal skill/gear, etc.).

The idea is that otherwise pure DPS classes will disappear from raids (especially with the advent of dual spec) so there must be some advantage to bringing an excellent pure DPS player, yet the difference is supposed to be small enough that gear or skill advantages still results (for the most part) in the better hybrid player putting up equal or better numbers (in which case their utility will make it an easy pick). And you have to admit, the hybrid "tax" hasn't really stemmed the rising tide of hybrids in the game.

Notice in Orcstar's example that the numbers he uses have deltas waaaaaay larger than 5%. I'm not pointing that out to be pedantic, but because (according to GC) the difference between and equally skilled and talented lock and shammy both doing everything right should be more like 6500 DPS (shammy) and 6825 DPS (warlock). At that point someone may well pick the shammy for the heroism if they lack one in raid, and it certainly seems like a more skilled shammy DPS would be able to outdps a warlock who didn't have as good of gear, rotation polish, etc.

TBH this seems pretty fair to me. Now how well this has been implimented is a fair question, and the fact that the hyrbid tax is very clearly felt unevenly (spriests vs DKs) is a serious issue IMO.

[Bovinity]

Yeah, the way that the game works right now, it's hard to really call anyone a "hybrid". A feral cat that goes into battle pretty much stops being a "druid" and turns into "melee dps". Sure, I can become a tree or a bear or a moonkin...just not anymore.

Fights generally don't really encourage hybridization anyway. Lets say I went into a fight as a tree and by some magic I could change to cat DPS. I really couldn't because chances are we brought a healer because we needed a healer. With enrage timers and such the opposite is true too, if I was brought as a cat, even if I could just magically go tree mid-fight, it'd probably be silly.

[Synapse]

At that point someone may well pick the shammy for the heroism if they lack one in raid, and it certainly seems like a more skilled shammy DPS would be able to outdps a warlock who didn't have as good of gear, rotation polish, etc.

This is one point I've seen brought up often when the talk is "QQ HYBRID STOLE MY RAID" bitching: Very, very often they're not bitching about multi-role capabilities, but simply buffs that they have. Blessings, Bloodlust and the old vampiric touch are very clear examples of things that have nothing to do with "hybridism", they're just valuable buffs.

[orcstar]

They've actually been pretty consistent about their definition of hybrids and the associated DPS tax since late in the beta period for Wrath. Classes that can only do DPS (rogues/mages/warlocks) are supposed to have a min/max spec and gear strategy that (with gear and talent being equal) puts them in the range of 5% ahead of the DPS of a min/maxed hybrid DPS spec (with equal skill/gear, etc.).

The idea is that otherwise pure DPS classes will disappear from raids (especially with the advent of dual spec) so there must be some advantage to bringing an excellent pure DPS player, yet the difference is supposed to be small enough that gear or skill advantages still results (for the most part) in the better hybrid player putting up equal or better numbers (in which case their utility will make it an easy pick). And you have to admit, the hybrid "tax" hasn't really stemmed the rising tide of hybrids in the game.

Notice in Orcstar's example that the numbers he uses have deltas waaaaaay larger than 5%. I'm not pointing that out to be pedantic, but because (according to GC) the difference between and equally skilled and talented lock and shammy both doing everything right should be more like 6500 DPS (shammy) and 6825 DPS (warlock). At that point someone may well pick the shammy for the heroism if they lack one in raid, and it certainly seems like a more skilled shammy DPS would be able to outdps a warlock who didn't have as good of gear, rotation polish, etc.

TBH this seems pretty fair to me. Now how well this has been implimented is a fair question, and the fact that the hyrbid tax is very clearly felt unevenly (spriests vs DKs) is a serious issue IMO.

Did you even read the post I linked?

There is not a “5% rule” that says pures should be 5% higher than hybrids in every circumstance. Again, most of the time other factors such as the encounter specifics will have a greater effect. The “5% rule” was either something a player suggested that stuck or something we threw out at some point as an example. It isn’t a hard and fast rule. We aren’t going to provide a hard and fast rule because players would then attempt to invoke that rule every time they thought their damage was too low instead of exploring other ways to improve their character’s performance.

I've got rogue. Which I play. And one of my biggest joys is that as a rogue you will NEVER get asked to heal or tank. While my priest I rolled to explore shadowspec, 80% of the time I get asked to heal.

[Theotherone]

I have no issue with the hybrid tax and think it makes perfect sense. One thing that was said that is not really being given its due is that the "tax" is contingent upon "all things being equal".

Playing a Hunter and a DK, the "tax" makes perfect sense to me. My Hunter serves one purpose and one purpose only to deal as much damage as quickly as possible; and that it does. The only way I get invites is if I can top some noobs damage meter (which I can and will); my DK, on the other hand, because it tanks, has group invites come in faster then a prom queen's dress comes off. The pure dps class has only one way to get in raids and see content and that's by dealing damage; it should have some slight advantage.

[jere]

Yeah, there is no 5% rule. The only rule they have given officially, is that, given all things equal (gear, skill, spec type, etc.), a pure dps (warlock, hunter, rogue, mage) will out dps a hybrid dps. They are (very smartly) not providing a number.

[Synapse]

I have no issue with the hybrid tax and think it makes perfect sense. One thing that was said that is not really being given its due is that the "tax" is contingent upon "all things being equal".

Playing a Hunter and a DK, the "tax" makes perfect sense to me. My Hunter serves one purpose and one purpose only to deal as much damage as quickly as possible; and that it does. The only way I get invites is if I can top some noobs damage meter (which I can and will); my DK, on the other hand, because it tanks, has group invites come in faster then a prom queen's dress comes off. The pure dps class has only one way to get in raids and see content and that's by dealing damage; it should have some slight advantage.

Let's see... The DK is getting invites to..dps...because he tanks? If he's tanking, he'll be invited as a tank. If he's dpsing, he'll be invited as dps.
An advantage because you're a dpser? Count the amount of dps slots vs tanks slots and healing slots.