Yes. I’d buy an expansion, level to cap and quit without doing much else.
The last one I played at cap for any length of time was Mists.
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It’s as hard as it was back then as far as I’ve seen, 32 lvl.
It might be easier later, but still people asking for easier mode, de facto means that it’s harder than what they want.
And you are a retail player 120 level.
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My highest level character is a 110 druid in greens
Also I didn’t know it was possible conflate “I know the game won’t change but I wish fewer bad specs would have been nice” with “this game is too hard,” but you really showed me.
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This is very much true, and the playstyle does work, but it cannot be ignored that hybrid healing spells were way overtuned and their damaging abilities severely undertuned.
The problem is that a hybrid can, and often will be, 100% healer if they gear and spec for it. However, if they gear and spec for any other role, they end up only being around 50% of it. That’s where the unfairness lies.
This is why the more “competitive” hybrids just go full healer, as they lose nothing important in doing so. In addition to this, healing in Classic/vanilla on most classes is so braindead easy that in order to make a mistake, you have to go out of your way to sabotage yourself. Naturally, given its potency and ease, that is what the majority will desire and gravitate towards.
Hence the acronym of meta: most efficient tactic available.
It is still very much possible to play a hybrid, as a hybrid, and for classes like paladin, it’s very obvious that was the intended gameplay(nearly all of the gear intended specifically for them has a mix of melee, tank, and caster stats. All except T3 as a matter of fact.) However, due to a kneejerk reaction towards EQ, WoW’s primary competitor, only having one good healing class at the time, hybrid healing was overtuned and their other capabilities were necessarily crippled as a result. Sort of a “look, jaded EQ players! We have more than one class that can heal!” sort of thing.
I don’t buy into the jargon that hybrids were designed to be nothing more than healers; the evidence for that is weak. Rather, I see it as a simple tuning mistake from a lack of experience in developing MMORPG’s. Over time, hybrids did improve. Their tanking and damaging capabilites, by 1.12, were no longer unplayably pathetic as they were early on, and they even had items tailored to these non-healing roles added over the patches.
However, their healing never got weaker, and given the rather short 2 and a half year lifespan of vanilla, it’s very easy to see why the stigma of memespec stuck around even after improvements/fixes to the problems. Once again, it’s just easier and more powerful to go full healer anyways, so that’s what most do and did.
One thing to always remember is that most efficient tactic available does not mean it is the only efficient tactic available.
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Why even bring it up? We all knew exactly what we were getting when classic was announced. Vanilla has been a solved game for 15 years and we know now exactly what has always been known: some classes and specs are simply unfinished/broken. A quick visit to youtube to sift through the plethora of content nitpicking the best and worst classes would have told you all you needed to know in case you have been living under a rock.
You picked a Druid knowing full well what you were getting yourself in to yet here you are “lamenting” about it. I just don’t understand this mentality and I never will. Play a “meta” class or try to have fun with your hybrid.
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Those of us plugging away on our hybrid classes are obviously not asking for it to be easier.But we do wonder sometimes what the developer was thinking.
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I’m actually playing a mage.
The developer was thinking there needed to be healers and tanks in the game.
The discussion of the hybrid tax, and those who lament against it, always revolves around the same thing: damage.
No one ever asks, for example, why palladins and shamans have a hybrid tax that hurts their ability to tank, or why disc doesn’t heal as efficiently as holy does.
The examples given always rotate around the specs in the hybrids aimed to give extra damage: boomkin, ret paladin, feral druid, shadow priest.
Other MMOs, they specifically label certain classes as a tank, dps, or healer. However, because tanks and healers still need to complete content outside instances, they are given things that help with damage to complete that content.
If that damage is then increased, on par with pure DPS classes, then you ultimately have some classes that can fill two or even three roles perfectly fine, while others can only handle one role. This then leads to people obviously rolling more often the class that can handle multiple roles because it gives them more freedom. As a result, the pure DPS classes suffers, which leads to a need to tweak those classes. To observe this in action, please examine the last 15 years.
Yes, it frustrates me as well. Before starting classic, I knew I wanted to be a healer, and if could come close to the notion of a support tole, even better.
I watch the videos and come to the conclusion that a palladin fits this.
To then see people say “hey, this ret palladin doesn’t do damage” is like watching someone fail a test because they didn’t pay attention to the instruction video.
I feel that if the end game was dungeon rather than raid focused hybrids would fair much better.
Ability to take a few hits or toss a heal is more common, rez a dead healer, not worry about hit cap, not worrying about ooming (biggest limiter of a lot of hybrid dps) because you can drink each pool, debuff limit not a concern, etc.
Once you priortize raids though, with so many slots and longer fights, it all get stripped away to sustained throughput
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Holy paladin is one of, if not the, most OP specs in the game. Shamans were nerfed in Vanilla because they were OP. I would rather bring a druid to my premade than a rogue.
Don’t see the problem here honestly hybrids are fine.
Spoiler - classic end game is already at retail LFR level.
At least leveling and dungeons are fun though.
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The problem isn’t how hybrids are balanced. The problem is how tryhards and meta-slaves value what hybrids bring to the table, and how mathematically optimal does not equal practically feasible.
The ability to hold or heal through a trash pack add in a raid isn’t quantifiable on the DPS charts. The ability to pick up a boss with 2 percent health left and hold it until the remaining DPS finishes the job isn’t quantifiable on the DPS charts. Clutch heals at just the right moment when the healer group gets swept by a bad fire breath isn’t quantifiable on the DPS charts. Totems, blessings, marks, innervates, they are subtle means of improvement that aren’t going to show up. But anyone who says they aren’t at worst, useful, or at best, vital, just hasn’t tried this game before.
Just look at all the hate that bear tanks got on the forums when Classic launched. Now almost every post is about how they are preferred by healers who are actually healing.
A progression raid isn’t going ever get to that ‘mathematical golden point’ in any practical sense. No warrior is going to join a progression raid that already has 6 other warriors. Let alone 10 or 12. That’s just more gear competition. Same for rogues and priests and whatever else the theorycrafters are trying to cram down our throat. Moreover, that raid is going to suffer when they’re sharding the vast majority of gear that drops (because they don’t want hybrids other other ‘sub-optimal’ classes ((ugh)) in the raid) and have to proceed with a baker’s dozen of under-geared fury warriors.
I get the feeling the people who talk like this has never tried to organize a raid. I’ve never seen a boomkin, elemental shaman, cat druid, ret paladin, or anything else be denied a spot on a raid - so long as they can follow directions and play the strengths of their class.
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What you are saying is kinda true.
But the issue is:
All that same sweet utility is brought by the healer version of the hybrid.
The chances of a hybrid making the difference on crazy what if scenarios is rare, and in a lot of cases would have been avoided by just dpsing harder and shortening the fight.
Dps warriors can equip a shield, pop defensive stance, and be the theoretical “last second save” while also bringing S tier dps.
Dps warriors and rogues in blues (ignoring very little BiS drops in raids) are already significantly higher dps than many hybrids even when they are geared. “Undergeared fury” is already amazing dmg.
Of course the content is so easy it doesnt matter. Its more a discussion of classes relative to each other not vs the content.
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That’s true, a DPS warrior can and should be prepared to OT when needed. (That was one of my jobs back in Vanilla)
The paladin or druid can, however, do more than that depending on what happens during the fight. As we’re taught, no plan survives contact with the enemy. The chance of anyone making ‘the’ difference on crazy what-if scenarios are rare. It’s a group effort.
The bigger issue that I think people are missing out is the numbers on the raid roster. If you’re running warrior light (because you’ve got a few bear tanks) then it makes sense to load up on a few fury warriors. It doesn’t make any kind of sense for a warrior hoping to progress their gear to join a raid that already has 5 warriors though.
The final roster is going to depend on who can come. Raids done by huge guilds that can field 2 full raids each with a full bench might be more picky. But the average joe raid will be about finding enough people to even get in and try. And those raids did succeed once mechanics were learned and instructions were followed.
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Hybrids get crapped on and the decks may be stacked against them perpetually.
And I don’t care, I’m still having more fun playing druid than any other class. Minmaxers can minmax all day and night, let ‘em. I’m here for a good time and I’m going to have it despite.
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Stay in retail then.
To be fair while hybrids aren’t as good, they are overcompensated in later expansions and made hybrids absolutely busted.
Example being Moonkins being the best ranged class in rbgs for multiple expansions while pressing 2 buttons
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Leveling is really fun though, and I missed a lot of quests.
So I’ll continue to play both.
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The roster boss is its own set of issues.
Thats not a great arguement other than “well they arent good, but finding people is hard so may as well take them”
But i agree with just playing what you want and having fun. Its left to finding groups with the same mindset.
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There are hybrid classes in classic?
People who think that way just don’t get it. You want to compare a druid to a rogue? Go a head and nail down some criteria for that one. You want to shrink an entire class down to your idea of what it compares with? A shaman is a shaman, it’s not a Kinda priest with some sort of mage and a little fury warrior. It’s not a hybrid of anything it’s it’s own unique class.
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