When was the last time rogue, mage, or lock didn’t have a good season? Good as in, a meta spec to choose from. the only pure dps classes i can think of that’s experienced really bad seasons are warrior and hunter, and even at their worst they haven’t been as irrelevant as some of the hybrid dps specs.
Meanwhile, hybrid dps specs are always in flux. When was the last time enhance or ret was good? Sometimes one is really good (like shadow priest is shaping up to be in SL) only to get nerfed at a later date. For the hybrids with multiple DPS specs like sham and druid, one is always significantly better than the other.
Is it a balancing issue? or is the logic “well, they could just heal” since healers are always in vogue? i know in classic, the philosophy was that they would be weaker in healing and dps since they could do both, but they’ve supposedly abandoned that philosophy long ago.
i know BFA arena is a bit of a meme, anyway, but if you look at the stats for rankins, some things really pop out. there are more ranked guardian druids, veng DH and prot pallies than enh shamans. the highest ranked hybrid dps is spriest and they’re at 4.6% of the bracket. the next highest is ww monk at 3.6%, and those are the only 2 hybrid dps specs in the top 10.
obviously, the meta is always changing. but it seems like every season, there are a handful of hybrid dps specs that are just doo-doo.
2 Likes
Yes, its called Hybrid tax.
They have to make sure that a class who can only fill one role will always excel at that role, though hunters are hit or miss. This balance philosophy easily bleeds into pvp.
Its just a game design issue. DPS classes with spammable CC and Rogues by their very nature will always be better suited for PvP. Getting kicked or having your poly/feared dispelled just isn’t as punishing as missing a trap (or having it stopped/eaten/grounded/dispelled) or getting your Hex dispelled for example as these have hefty cooldowns and CC is king in PvP.
what is a hybrid anymore anyway, a dps that can heal others and doesn’t have anything unique aside from bringing utility their healer counterparts bring away?
A class, not a spec, capable of performing more than one role.
Blizzard historically puts less effort into multi-role classes because, even if one role gets ruined for that spec, they still have recourse.
They have to keep pure dps top tier because there is no recourse for them.
Its flawed logic, but its Blizzard logic.
I feel like ret/dps sham/moonkin specifically are whiplash balanced specs really.
Demo is another spec they often seemingly experiment with and don’t forsee certain interactions and ground it
2 Likes
That whole idea that dps hybrids have less of everything because they can just hurr durr support heal and maybe even prevent a death when their partner is getting creamed by rmp or mlx is about as outdated as Blockbuster Video.
3 Likes
Well they don’t. Boomkin has some of the best defensives in the game, and WW monk isn’t a bad spec either. Feral has a great comp with jungle.
Ret kind of sucks, but I’ve seen quite a few doing well in PVP regardless of the fact it sucks. Enhance sucks, and I’ve seen like 3 this season. Ele does pretty good though still and pairs well with a myriad of other specs. Shadow priest has great representation and is a good spec too.
So these hybrid classes aren’t really that bad. Mainly just ret and enhance.
1 Like
I’m mostly saying that the offhealing is bad and not worth using outside of some very niche situations and setups yet blizzard still makes a lot of decisions based on the outdated/unrealistic idea that hybrids can just offheal and nullify kill attempts.
2 Likes
Ret is shaping up to be an early powerhouse in Slands.
it rotates, though. spriest hasn’t always been this good (though it’s about to be even better in SL), feral is still middling despite having a good comp. they’re always cycling in and out of relevancy, whereas most of the “pure” specs are usually at the top. namely rogues, mages, and locks. if you spun the wheel on an arena season, no matter where it landed, chances are those 3 classes will be good. whereas you could land on one season where ret and enh were good (enh was pretty good in bc lol) and another where they’re dog poo.
i feel like part of the reasoning is because those classes can heal. even the worst meta healers can find teams. ret is bad? just go holy. enh is back and you don’t want to be ele? just go resto. feral and boomkin are trash? resto.
Yeah but they also have all had viable healing specs too…
yes, i think that’s why. when those dps specs are bad, they can always revert to healing.
? arena is all about setups. those “niche” situations should be very much reoccurring if you’re playing properly and are definitely not worthless lol
It always is at the beginning of an expac. And then people cry about the damage and the damage gets irreparably nerfed without having defensive/mobility/utility assets reinforced.
I give it two weeks into the season, if it even makes it to the season in the first place before being nerfed.
3 Likes
Oh yeah the biggest threat to rmp/mlx scoring a kill is that meddling ret paladin casting flash of light on his partner or himself.
if the rmp failed to cross cc or you avoided it then yes why would you not help your healer keep your partner alive ?
also dude tbh ret would be a bad example because that rmp gotta be trolling to not be on the ret
Because the mostly instant damage is so high and the mostly casted offhealing so low that the globals can be considered wasted.
1 Like
not trying to be toxic but do you actually play this game? not every match starts at 70% dampening
No I don’t. You can tell by my lazy Mexican donkey no effort starter transmog.