No, I am not telling you that. If you had bothered to read what I’ve posted you would know I’m not saying that.
What I am saying is that there is a difference between a group being viable and able to clear content and the non-meta members within that group being viable at their roles. You are trying to set the definition of a spec being viable as “A group with that spec in it can complete the raid.” The problem with that definition is that it is focused on the group’s viability and not the individual’s viability at the role they are filling. The way you know that doesn’t work is because you can fill in that spec blank with “AFK dead player” or “an empty slot” and it would allow you to conclude that an AFK dead player or a total void are viable DPS. That obviously isn’t true and so your definition is obviously broken.
You can play a non-viable spec and your group can still possibly succeed. I wouldn’t enjoy that, maybe you can…fine. If you find it fun to play your hardest and squeeze every drop of DPS and still only ever manage mediocre DPS, go nuts. No one is trying to stop you. That your group can succeed anyway and you are having fun does not mean that you are viable as DPS.
That’s especially true when we apply a more common sense definition of what it means for a spec to be viable. When DPS players say they want their spec to be viable, they don’t mean that they want it to be possible for the raid to succeed with them in the group. Literally no one has ever begged for their spec to not insta-wipe every group. They mean that they want to be competitive with other DPS specs played by similarly skilled players.
By that common sense, commonly understood definition of DPS viability, these meme specs are not viable. At their absolute best, played flawlessly, they can still barely manage to keep up with mediocre players of other melee DPS classes.
They also bring their own utility that is useful, which you cannot easily calculate the value of… other than the value decreases the more there are of that particular utility in the raid. Alive players do more dps than dead ones…
I hear what you’re saying as: all classes should be able to parse within a minimal (maybe 10%) variance to all other DPS.
With Ret Pallies at half the DPS of warriors, let’s double the damage of all their abilities. How’s that going to work out for PvP?
Same for Boomkin, they already do equivalent DPS as a frost mage, but let’s halve the mana cost of all their abilities so they don’t oom quickly. Now they’re a plate wearing frost mage who can shift out of all snares and has great heals.
Classes are not balanced in Classic the way they are in retail, and I’m sure you know this. If you want to exclude players from your groups, you’re free to do that. But you keep harping on viable as if only sustained raid DPS means anything.
However, from what I’ve read on the forums it sounds like it’s easier than LFR in Retail. Every boss is an easy and quick one-shot.
When the content is that easy, pretty much any spec works. However, it is still more fun when your DPS is at least competitive on the meter with other DPS of other specs. Being able to only do half the dps of someone else no matter how well you play simply because you chose to play the wrong class isn’t good design.
That said, when the content becomes TOUGH is when these imbalances really matter. If your raid is wiping on tough progression content, getting rid of the “dead weight” dps may mean the difference between actually being able to get past a boss, or having your raid group fall apart.
For those fights, being competitive matters quite a bit.
Back in Vanilla, progression raiding did follow such a curve. And raid groups often did get stuck on fights like Twin Emps in AQ40 and then fall apart.
On the other hand, it sounds like the difficulty of raiding in Classic is a joke. It is possible that Classic players will find even AQ40 and Naxx to be easy one-shots.
If that’s the case, then yes… any spec works. Players who want ezmode raiding will stick with Classic. Those who actually want challenge and a sense of accomplishment will raid in Retail.
I understand, you value numbers on a spreadsheet and I value people and experiences. My definition of viable is quite different than yours. Our perspectives and values are different, that’s perfectly okay.
I try to look at it from a D&D lens. You get the party that is given to you, and you make the best of it. This might take longer, might be a struggle, but you might persevere with working together as a group, and coming up with different strategies. I think this is what is lost with the numbers game. The game of fantasy, teamwork, win or lose, you make friends. Not some cold, calculated group that is only in for complete dominance. Let the dice roll, let there be randomness, and try to play the game with your brain, not with pre written stats and strategies.
No, we really really don’t. What if people die during the encounter? That’s just one example of a variable you don’t know.
So do their resto counterparts.
I’m not saying anything about how they ought to be tuned. I’m telling you that when DPS players ask for viability for their spec, they at least want to feel competitive when they are playing well.
I’m well aware of the lack of balance and I’m not trying to exclude anyone. You can bring non-viable DPS, but if they pull half as much DPS as other melee, then they aren’t viable DPS. That doesn’t mean you can’t bring them.
Please spare us the self-righteous nonsense. I value people, which is why I don’t want them to make the same mistake I made in Vanilla and end up regretting rolling their class. I want them to have reasonable expectations of what they can do.
Yes, my definition is consistent with what basically every DPS player has ever meant when they have said that they want their spec to be viable and yours is so fundamentally broken that it literally erases the meaning of the word.
The problem isn’t a difference in perspectives or values. The problem is that you are skewing what words mean so badly that they have no meaning at all and that isn’t perfectly okay. If your definition of “viable DPS” would allow someone to conclude that an empty raid slot is viable DPS (which yours does), then your definition is broken. It literally concludes that “nothing” is viable.
Sorry, but that cuts both ways. If your goal is to remove specs that don’t perform as well, all you’re left with is wars and mages and a handful of classes with needed buffs/debuffs.
In D&D, you do an encounter once. If you aren’t successful, you try something else. Maybe you bypass the encounter, or the party goes in a different direction.
In raiding, you do the same encounter over and over and over again. And there’s no bypassing encounters. If your raid gets stuck, that’s it… you can beat your face against it wiping over and over … or your raid group falls apart.
And it’s those tough encounters where bringing the “right” specs really matters. If too much of the raid is playing the wrong spec, your raid might never defeat an encounter bringing all progression to a screaming halt.
Take my current retail raid group for example: Right now we’ve been stuck on Mythic Ashvane for the last several weeks. We’re gradually making slow progress so hope to defeat it soon. But so far we’ve had 90 wipes on this one encounter.
Fortunately, it’s ok to play bad DPS specs in my Retail raid group so long as adequate performance is maintained. I play arcane in Retail, which is the worst ranked DPS spec in Retail out of 24 specs.
However, in Vanilla, the difference in output between the “bad” specs and the “good” ones was much, MUCH greater than it is in Retail. This isn’t an issue in MC since that raid is brain-dead easy. But it might become an issue for harder DPS-check fights like Patchwerk in Naxxramas.
It’s rather incredulous that you describe people who enjoy and respect other players to be “self-righteous”. I also think your rationalization for denigrating entire specializations is untenable. This is not 14 years ago. The content has been realized with all sorts of compositions. The entire premise being employed by many only makes sense when this is truly “progression”. This, however, is not progression. It’s a rerun. Live and let live. Quit casting shade on fellow players because they enjoy playing a certain class.
Claiming that you respect and enjoy other players and those who disagree with you do not is the very definition of self-righteous. You don’t respect other players any more than the people on the other side.
I’m not sure you even know what these words mean. I’m not rationalizing anything nor am I denigrating an entire spec. I’m pointing out what the logs show these specs are actually capable of achieving and what they are not. Setting reasonable expectations so that someone doesn’t level an enhancement shaman or ret Paladin expecting to put out competitive DPS at max level only to become disappointed and regretful when they find out that isn’t realistic is being far more respectful than you are by misleading them into believing that their spec can do things that it objectively can’t.
I’m not casting shade on any players. I’m acknowledging reality. You should try it sometime instead of sitting on your high horse using vocabulary words you don’t actually understand to make arguments that are nonsensical and self-righteous, but hey…you do you.
I feel like all the “meme specs” should rally together to raid content.
It would be like hard mode but my heart would be filled with joy to see boomkins dance with joy and go nuts in MC.
since you are so dead set on min/max and proving your epic abilities
I’ll await your showing that by rolling druid/paladin 40 man raid groups on ally side and druid shaman 40 man raid groups on horde side…
as you have all consistently stated " Teh content is too easy"
well perhaps you should create your own challenge and do it with the worst and use hybrids.
This isn’t actually a contradiction of what I said. DPS has always been the single most relevant facet of PvE, and that’s coming from an MT/OT perspective for the last 15yrs.
No one is stopping you from having slower kills, but you’ll have slower kills. That’s not in dispute.
I don’t think most anybody really cares about this… especially in 15 year old content. It’s not like the Bards will be singing tales of their feats for ages to come.
This odd comment comes up every so often. Is killing a boss 3 seconds faster really that important? I mean, is it a caffeine addiction or something that causes that obsession?
