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

[Couladin]

I really hate this idea. I see more ideas that evolve around making all classes "equal". Well, this just means you can stop using classes. Just create a "character" and after that choose which role you want...

WOW is bases around classes and roles. If you don't like that pure class, don't play it. People who like to play it don't want to play other classes and if they do, they created the wrong class.

If everything is generic it get's boring. These classes and roles also make it a challenge to max you're potential, to be better than others. If everything is equal or simple everybody can play it. That is boring...

I have a DK and a hunter. I mainly tank on my dk and dps on my hunter. This is because I prefer hunter dps above dk dps. I like it more. If I want to tank, I take my dk. I don't want that on a hunter, it's not "in character". A hunter has his pet for close combat, not his own fragile body.

But besides from what I think. This will never be implemented. I'm pretty sure of that.

[Gromblee]

The biggest problem with the whole "flip DPS to tank mode" thing is that it takes a very different mindset to tank then to DPS. As a tank I have to plan the pull enough as to not pull more mobs then intended, look after the healer and control the mob's behavior. As DPS I look out for my own health and keep an eye on the healer to see if they need help. Groups are very brutal on tank errors and I have not seen many DPS that have a thick enough hide to shrug it off. I do not believe that enabling other classes to tank would produce more tanks, imho tanking has more to do with the player mindset.

[Kojiyama]

Just because they have the option doesn't mean people should, can, or will do it. But that's kinda the point.

Not all Warriors tank, not all Paladins Tank or Heal. However, opportunity is opportunity. Right now a player who plays one of the 4 pure classes really can't be flexible at all. Additionally, since the gear requirements for tanking and healing are generally higher to be successful (doing slightly low DPS in a heroic is not a wipe, doing too little healing is) they are high-maintaince alts in terms of gearing up.

In my 10-man guild we are purposfully recruiting only hybrids to fill our 2-3 backup/short slots in our roster right now because they are considerably more flexible. Some nights we may be lacking a tank or healer, and our main-spec DPSers will respec for certain fights to help out. It does us no good to have a ton of Mages and Hunters online if we need another healer--so why not have Moonkin or Shadow Priest main spec DPSers who are willing to heal if we need it?

I don't see much problem with giving the 4 'pure' classes some other option to how they choose to play. I've seen bosses tanked by Hunter pets in the past and other than people laughing a bit about the unintended nature of it, I don't think the Hunter themselves somehow felt like their class was defiled by their tank pet being able to tank.

[Theotherone]

Watch that first step, the slope is pretty slippery; fortunately Blizzard is salting and sanding it.

http://eu.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/1710234234

[Kojiyama]

Pretty much like the other counter-argument, not really close to the same issue. Tri-spec would not just be a change for hybrids but also for pure classes. Blizzard wants people to making some decisions as to what spec they settle on, rather than having 3 variations available with zero respec or reglyphing cost.

It has nothing to do with flexibility. You can always respec. The thread linked has to do with making decisions with an associated cost of reversal, rather than having every spec you could ever want available at any time.

If anything, tri-spec would be a slope towards arguing the point of having respec costs/trainers to begin with, but has basically nothing to do with the topic of different meaningful spec options being added to classes without them.

[Theotherone]

Pretty much like the other counter-argument, not really close to the same issue. Tri-spec would not just be a change for hybrids but also for pure classes. Blizzard wants people to making some decisions as to what spec they settle on, rather than having 3 variations available with zero respec or reglyphing cost.

It has nothing to do with flexibility. You can always respec. The thread linked has to do with making decisions with an associated cost of reversal, rather than having every spec you could ever want available at any time.

If anything, tri-spec would be a slope towards arguing the point of having respec costs/trainers to begin with, but has basically nothing to do with the topic of different meaningful spec options being added to classes without them.

It has everything to do with the topic; it's about choices. Making every class at least hybrid removes choices, read the blue response. Having 1/2 the classes (yeah, I know 6 of 10 are hybrid, so over half of a small population) pure classes make people make choices. It makes people level and gear alts, which makes people eat time, which adds to the bottom line.

[Dedic]

Not constructive. Deleting post.

[kring]

Those that want to tank or heal have plenty of options already.

You only have plenty of options if you're willing to bench your main char with all it's achievements, reputations and memories. That's not unimportant in a 6 year old game.

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.

There are warriors who spend 45 min in the queue to do their fury thing. The idea was not to force every rogue to tank but to give everyone a choice.

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.

Yes, it's a role play game but when you create your character you choose a class. Like paladin. You don't choose a role. You don't create a protection paladin, you create a paladin. You can't change your class later on, you can only create a new character.

But your role is defined by which talents you pick. And you can redo that as often as you like. It would be different if you would have to choose your role when you create the character. Imagine that you have to choose protection, holy or retribution paladin while you create your character and then you're locked into this primary tree. No dual spec, no chance to ever change that. This would actually make a lot of sence for a role play game. It makes no sense from a role play point of view that a priest can worship all the holy stuff and then, for a single boss, switch to the dark corrupted side and distribute diseases, pain and suffering between his enemies just to switch back after the boss to the pure and untainted holy side.

The idea was not to remove the roles, but to give every class the chance to choose between multiple roles.

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.

There are warriors who dual spec fury/arms. Nothing wrong with that, why shouldn't a warlock have two DD specs if he doesn't intend to tank?

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%.

Now I'm unsure if the "not exactly 5% hybrid tax" is still part of the design or not. But even if it is it doesn't solve the inconvenience imposed on 10 man raids and 5 man dungeons by single role classes.

Now let's look back to TBC. In TBC you basically had a forth role between tank/heal/DD which was "raid support", things like shadow priests and shamans. Their damage completely sucked but you wanted them in your raid because of the mana regen or heroism/totems. These effects were group only and still more than made up for the lack of DPS of these classes. These support classes all got turned into real DD specs and their utility was spread between the other classes.

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.

At the moment the game has 3 roles which is tank, heal and DD. These roles are completely the same and every class who can fullfill a role should be completely replacable with another class capable of fullfilling this role.

But that has nothing to do with classes. Classes can and should feel different from each other, regardles of role.

You have 3 DD specs of a warlock which play all more or less the same and play more or less the same as all 3 DD specs of a mage. Now I don't see how these two classes would get less different if the warlock would have 2 DD and 1 tank spec and the mage has 2 DD and 1 heal spec. I think they would be more unique after that change.

[kring]

thought I was thinking of beastmaster as a tanking spec as opposed to a healing spec.

How would you do that? Turning yourself into a beast? Or using the beast to tank?

[Kojiyama]

It has everything to do with the topic; it's about choices. Making every class at least hybrid removes choices, read the blue response. Having 1/2 the classes (yeah, I know 6 of 10 are hybrid, so over half of a small population) pure classes make people make choices. It makes people level and gear alts, which makes people eat time, which adds to the bottom line.

No, making classes hybrid only adds choices. It does not remove them. Furthermore, the "choices" referenced in the thread are a sense of semi-permanence regarding spec variations within the same class. Note that he uses the term 'building' your character, not 'choosing' your character.

Not only is it apples vs. oranges, having more disparity between intra-class specs would only increase the variety rather than decrease it. I wouldn't be choosing just between two nearly identical PvE specs or PvE + PvP spec as a Warlock, I would be choosing between different roles and differing specs within those roles.

Rather than trying to come up with unrelated arguments as to why it shouldn't be done, why not argue based on the merit of the proposed change itself? Straw man + slippery slope arguments are neither terribly useful or interesting debates.

[Selene]

We do have one true Hybrid Spec/Class atm.
Feral Druid. They can spec for both DPS and Tanking without any real loss of dps or survival. All it takes is for them to Shiftform.

[Kojiyama]

Well, for the sake of this thread I believe we are using the Blizzard definition of 'hybrid', not the general RPG definition. They have defined it in the past as any class that can fulfill multiple roles in general--not specifically at the same time. (I personally agree with you, but that's just the terminology Blizzard has used in regard to the issue.)

[Malaegis]

No, making classes hybrid only adds choices. It does not remove them.

Actually, I would argue the opposite is true. Right now there is choice. If I want to play a DPS class, I can roll a DPS class. I ran a mage in TBC. I wanted nothing more than to do all the damage I could do. I did not want to heal, I did not want to tank. At the time, I saw some players of other classes who were asked to respec for emergencies. I was always happy that my class did not support it so I couldn't be asked. I focused on just doing all the DPS I could.

I think the original poster had some interesting ideas for classes. Personally, though, I think there should always be a place for single role classes. If that is what you want to do, roll a DPS class. If you want to do multiple roles on a single toon, you have that option as well.

[Kojiyama]

And if you want to play a DPS class you will still roll the same class. One chooses a class for its theme and playstyle. If you want to pewpew Mage fireball, you can still happily do that and ignore the fact that it has another tree. Plenty of people pick Priest because it has healing or shadow, ignoring the fact that there are other options.

Saying you prefer to play a pure class because you don't want to be asked to respec is a social question, not a mechanical one. Just say no if you aren't interested. Plenty of people who play Warriors, Paladins, etc. tell people 'no, I don't want to be Prot/Holy/whatever' on a regular basis. I know plenty of Priests that have never gone Shadow and probably never will. They rolled it to play as Holy/Disc.

More options is never going to remove choice. Plenty of "hybrid" players choose not to spec differently every day.

[kring]

It would make it boring. In the end, bottom line, this is a game and it's a game with a monthly fee, which means it needs time sinks to keep you coming back for more, one of those time sinks is leveling a new toon to try something different. I'm a sucker for it my 85s are DK, Pally, Priest, Hunter and Mage. Warrior is at 63 and I have a horde priest at 47 and on another server a horde DK at 69. I also have others waiting. If all classes could do all things, then why bother with alts?

Blizz is a business, a business who just shut down Guitar Hero because it had too many knock offs killing the market; it became boring, it became the same thing as everybody elses - sameness = failure in this industry.

You have 5 chars at max level and you're leveling 3 more chars?

• That's 8 chars for a total of 3 roles.
• 6 of your chars are hybrids, 2 are single role classes.

And if the 2 single role classes would be hybrids too, you would get bored and stop playing and Blizzard wouldn't get your monthly fee?

If all classes could do all things, then why bother with alts?

One of your 85s is a paladin, I think you just answered that question. :)

[Malaegis]

One chooses a class for its theme and playstyle.

My point is that I chose a pure DPS class, in part, because it was a pure DPS class. I didn't want to be in the middle of a run and have someone ask me to heal or tank or whatever so the run could keep going. I was new to the game.. I didn't want to explain, say no, etc. I just didn't want the question. If you change every class, now, after people have made their choices, you take that away.

Basically, I think the original post had some interesting ideas. Ultimately, though, I see absolutely no need to change every DPS class in the game into a hybrid. What is the gain? If there was a play style of healer or tank you really wanted to see, then I could see advocating that. Asking every pure DPS class to give up one of their spec trees is a drastic change, and I just don't see the upside. You can claim that it just gives more choice, but try explaining that to the hunter who's favorite spec just got turned into tanking or healing.

[Kojiyama]

Again, that's a pretty social reason rather than a mechanical one. It's not much different to people asking in a guild is someone can relog to their alt, either. 'Just say no' is the common way of handling it.

I don't really care if someone asks me to go healing on my Druid. I don't have a spec for it nor do I carry the gear, so it's not really an option on the table for me. People can try to ask (although I have never been asked) and will just get a 'no' from me.

The gain, really, is outlined in the OP. It adds more flexibility to groups and makes 'pure' classes more attractive to raids without having to have an arbitrary 'hybrid penalty' associated with non-pure classes. Considering at least one of the three trees for the pure DPS classes is either fairly redundant or totally crap at any given time (historically this has been the case), I doubt most players would be missing much either.

When was the last time you saw a serious BM Hunter in a raid? (The correct answer to that question is somewhere in the middle of TBC...so a long time ago.) It's just something Blizzard has chosen not to support and therefore has very limited use outside of solo or certain PvP applications.

This is not surprising, though. Outside of PvP trees like Frost and Sub, why should they really put all that much effort in making sure Fire and Arcane or Combat and Assassination are totally equal all the time? It's a constant battle to basically balance two totally different trees with such a similar end goal and playstyle. It's tons of work for very little benefit, especially when they know that most players will just gravitate towards the one which is marginally better than the other. Would seem a better use of the time to actually provide something with a unique playstyle than just trying to duplicate what the other tree does with different hotbar icons.

[Katzazi]

Even while I'm not a player who wants to focus on DPS, I understand the value of pure DPS classes. My main is a tank the main before my tank was a healer the one before that, too. But I always loved my warlock. It's because I have no choice but to DPS with her.

Since BC I discard my 1st main (shaman) as soon as she reaches max level, because I just don't want to heal with her anymore. I have bad memories to be forced to do that in vanilla. (I also was forced to heal with my priest later on, but I alwayes liked that much more). And since people see that I can heal quite ok with my priest, they will ask me to heal sooner or later with my shaman.

However I always come back eventually to my warlock. It's nice to take a break and not being able to heal or tank with her. To have the need to focus on DPS. With warrior, priest, paladin, druid I sooner or later just start to heal and or tank. And I probably stick to those roles, because they are easier for me since I do them with my main (or have done healing with my old mains) more or less all the time.

With the warlock it's a totally different experience. And with her it's much easier to decide to go farming or to catch up with quests. Because she can spend some time sitting in the queue while doning so. The queue will release me form those "tasks" eventually. It never does that for my warrior. I always have to decide between heroic 5man or farming/archaeology/questing, because I get instant invites. I never can go to do the usefull stuff until I get an invite.

Btw: I often enough dispise that my warrior is not a pure tank class. I don't like fury much and I dislike the idea of arms even more. But since Blizz cannot implement a raid without single tank encounters I have no choice. All paladins seem to have a heal off-spec, nobody needs in raids. So I'm asked to switch over all the time. It's probably as annoying as to be asked to switch over to tanking/healing just because your class gives you that option.


Playing a hybrid class gives you choices. But deciding to play a pure DPS class can be a good choice, too.


Btw: I get the argument with the need to do stuff on different toons if you want/need to fulfill another role. But I don't think it's completely true. I love to tank on my warrior and I love to heal on my priest. I have a paladin too. It's fun to tank (and probably heal) with her, too. But I like tanking on my warrior more than on my paladin and healing on my priest more than on my paladin. So if I have the choice to tank something I would prefere warrior. If I would have to heal later on I would prefere my priest. At least if it's something important in both cases. Even while I could do the same with just one character. It's just because of the different flavor of how the roles are done with the different characters.

So even when characters can do more than one role people would chose to have multiple chars for multiple tasks. I know more than one shadow priest who logs over to paladin or tree or shaman to heal. Or stuff like that. (Well I even know someone with 4 druids, each focussed on just one role.)

[Fetzie]

I have a paladin tank.
I prefer rogue dps to retribution
I prefer holy priest to holy paladin (tbh I prefer disc priest to holy priest)
I prefer hunter to shadow priest.
My druid will be feral cat/bear. It won't be a healer or a moonkin.

Of my high level characters (hunter is nearly there) 2 are hybrids. However they are only really geared for a single role out of the two/three they can perform. My paladin has retribution gear, but I just don't like it. I have not had holy paladin gear since august 2009 (when I sold it because I needed gold to repair and I never used it anyway). My priest does not have shadow gear (and I don't like it).

[swollenpickles]

I've played a pure class (Hunter) as my main since the day I first logged in. I chose the class before I had any idea of what roles there were in the game. I've played for years and logged countless hours on the guy and racking up some mind numbing achievements.

The issue I have with pure classes is that in only being able to fulfill one role in the game you are at the mercy of the buff/nerf merry-go-round games that patches bring. When putting together a raid, you can go from first choice DPS to last depending on your fortunes. When all you can do is DPS, where does that leave you when your classes raid viability comes into question? If you can fill two or more roles, you always have the option of switching over to another role until things change again (which they inevitably do).

At any point in time it's difficult to really see the hybrid tax in practice. Post patch 4.06 shadow priests seem to be out in front, and druids and DKs are still up toward the top. I guess the hybrid tax gets lost in all the 'balancing issues'.

Long story short, if i could travel back in time, I'd make sure younger me chose a hybrid. I wonder how many people start playing the game and come to a similar conclusion? I'd suspect that druids and paladins are the most represented classes in the game and their ability to slot into a number of roles would be one of the main reasons. Personally I'd like to be able to have an appetizing choice. To me, retiring my main (and all the history and achievements associated with it) and re-rolling is not really an appetizing choice.