I love Classic but I hate how they balanced Hybrids in Vanilla

[Greenshayna-argent-dawn]

Because if you had something that is simultaneously the best DPS and the best Tank, and heck, also the best Healer, then everyone will play that class and ignore the ones that can only do one thing. Why is it so hard to accept that some classes are meant to be healers or tanks?

And by who’s judgement is this that some classes are meant to be x or y… ? When i rolled my paladin back in Vanilla I wanted to be the Holy Warrior it said i could be depending on the Tree i chose, I should have been able to do the tasks with relative success, not on par with Pures but darn close. In essence if i was dressed and talented as Ret, and i was a Great Ret I should have been able to do the same if not better damage than an average Fury warrior. But thats not what happened was it…

So enough of a hybrid was meant to do “heal” or “tank” but not DPS… that’s just silly and you know it.

In classic, i know what my paladin “can or cannot” do but i choose to play it the way i want to regardless. For I am PALADIN!!!

[Greenshayna-argent-dawn]

Yes, exactly, but many people will read your post and only see “moderate DPS” because the complain is about their damage. Not seeing themselves high in the meters matters more to them than any of the other things you mentioned.

The Min/Max will always be like this… Nothing will change that, boggles my mind though that there are actually Min/Maxers on a game that’s 15 years old!!! Like we all don’t know the fights or what to expect in an instance now. LOL

[Skire-moon-guard]

1. No one is asking for the best DPS. I’ll even agree that hybrids having comparable DPS is bad design. I’m saying I wish those specs brought utility unique to them. But, the Vanilla design of “you do bad damage but at least you still have some portion of the utility offered by a full Restoration spec” is also bad design. And yes, the DPS offered by some of these specs is low and should be better, but not necessarily at Mage or Rogue levels. We just wanted a reason to be brought to a raid. You’re doing the same thing people used to do on the Vanilla boards. Someone says “it would be great if there was a reason to bring us to a raid” and someone else response with “well if you could do the same DPS as us why play a Rogue?” but that’s not what anyone is asking for and never was.

2. People talk about DPS specs more because DPS is a privileged class in Vanilla WoW. Doing high damage has a lot of benefits. You’re more self-sufficient while soloing, make money faster, perform better in PvP, can contribute a lot to the efficiency of a dungeon run in a way that a healer cannot, and so on. On top of all that, you still get to offer loads of group utility with CC, water, portals, whatever. Plus, only one of the tanking trees is even bad, whereas all of the hybrid DPS trees are pretty bad (in raids).

3. If you don’t think people complain about Paladin tanking you haven’t been paying attention.

[Greenshayna-argent-dawn]

If you don’t think people complain about Paladin tanking you haven’t been paying attention.

I’m 5 man tanking everything now as a Prot Paladin, I’ve had no complaints. Only time I’ve had bad runs has been with groups that think they can zoom zoom and have no patience not letting my concentrate get nice and gooey on mobs.

[Skire-moon-guard]

It works fine in 5 man dungeons. It’s not good in end game raids. There were actually a lot of attempts at making it work in Vanilla where Druids would innervate the paladin/he’d chug potions and so forth, and the mitigation and threat generation was okay, but you resource was finite so it was really challenging.

[Greenshayna-argent-dawn]

It works fine in 5 man dungeons. It’s not good in end game raids.

Actually its really really good as the offtank for adds in raids, probably the best tank for that purpose. There is nothing wrong with being designated the off Tank in a raid for adds, thats actually a very vital roll… MT will most always be a Warrior or a Good Bear. But neither of these will ever be able to pull in 5 or 6 adds as quickly as a Pally off tank can.

[Rougaroux-grobbulus]

No it doesnt. It has class homogenization and a complete lack of class identity and uniqueness. All DPS classed have self heals now. No one runs out of mana, ever. Too many classes have no real hard counter. Stuns and interupts are a complete cluster f$%# of seemingly nonstop CC. Stealth classes moving as fast as ground mounts…while stealthed. Retail is a sh!@ show and it sucks. Class fantasy is an after thought and balance is a complete joke.

[Skire-moon-guard]

And Moonkins were really good at tanking bosses with ranged physical damage in Burning Crusade, but that’s a niche thing that’s only useful on a few encounters. I get what you’re saying, but Warriors and Druids are good enough at dealing with adds that you probably won’t seek out a Paladin to do it. But okay, fair enough.

[Bandet-smolderweb]

Okay well I hate how they balanced hybrids in retail, so we are even.

[Greenshayna-argent-dawn]

Also keep in mind, the way paladin tanks are designed for our talents, when we are not off tanking in the raid, we can heal pretty darn good with just swap out of gear…

[Kayberz-whitemane]

You cant expect to do equal damage to a class that can ONLY do those things

You want to have good damage on top of having good heals and incredibly strong defensive abilities? You’re literally just saying "why cant i be overpowered? "

[Skire-moon-guard]

No one wants that

[Greenshayna-argent-dawn]

You cant expect to do equal damage to a class that can ONLY do those things

I certainly can, and where did i say equal damage, i said Better damage than an okay pure player if the Ret was great!!!, If you put points to heal as ret your not incredibly strong defensively, if you put many puts in prot as ret your can’t heal a wet noodle… So stop with the “Fake News”.

[Döt-grobbulus]

It has class homogenization and a complete lack of class identity and uniqueness.

Thats my point. Thats how you make classes balanced in pve. Thats what this whole nonsense leads to.

For pvp, classic is balanced fine. In PVE, different classes have different niches they can fulfill. Some are better than others at certain things, and that’s fine too. If you want to dps as a a Paladin, tough, you picked the wrong class. Same with druids and shamans.

If you think thats a problem, go play Retail where you got your wish. The PVE over there is fine. But the PVP is horrendous.

[Skire-moon-guard]

It doesn’t have to go that way.

If Moonkin Aura and Leader of the Pack gave a more substantial buff to group members around them (say spell hit or 5% crit), that alone would help a lot. If Windfury totem was at the end of Enhancement instead of Stormstrike (which doesn’t get much use because of the debuff limit) that alone would help Enhancement justify itself a lot. If healing spells were weaker outside of dedicated specializations and more utility was included in deep dps or tanking specs, that would help a lot too.

[Hidalin-pagle]

Because if you had something that is simultaneously the best DPS and the best Tank, and heck, also the best Healer, then everyone will play that class and ignore the ones that can only do one thing. Why is it so hard to accept that some classes are meant to be healers or tanks?

And by who’s judgement is this that some classes are meant to be x or y… ?

The developers. They even discuss on record how they expected certain classes to be able to serve the role of healers or tanks. Disc Priest was even considered as a tanking spec, but no one every discusses that because the hybrid tax is really people saying they want to do more damage.

[quote=“Greenshayna-argent-dawn, post:62, topic:335891, full:true”]

So enough of a hybrid was meant to do “heal” or “tank” but not DPS… that’s just silly and you know it.

It isn’t silly, nor is it a coincedence that all the hybrid classes are the ones that primarily tank or heal in a raid. No class has three tanking specs, nor do they have three healing specs. Pure DPS is allowed because damage can be used for all forms of content, whereas tanks and healers basically become DPS outside of raids.

Other games, where there’s just classes and no specs, will give the tank and healer classes some damage stuff so they can finish their outdoor content, but kept weaker than the pure DPS in comparison. In WoW, they have damage specs they can use, and are able to obtain some things from the other specs in order to balance their lack of damage with extra utility.

If a hybrid tax was removed, it would mean that you would in turn have less utility. Like in retail, where a shadow priest loses almost all of the healing potential of holy because to have both would be OP.

People often discuss the removal of a hybrid tax with the idea that damage will be increased and everything else kept the same, but that basically goes against video game development philosophy in an MMO.

[quote=“Greenshayna-argent-dawn, post:62, topic:335891, full:true”]

In classic, i know what my paladin “can or cannot” do but i choose to play it the way i want to regardless. For I am PALADIN!!!

and you can! Honestly, the content is simple enough that you can honestly pretty much play whatever with the right gear and group composition. I know many people grouping up and raiding as ret paladins. The only issue is whether you are more focused on the meters than what you are doing.

[Kayberz-whitemane]

Just because you dont spec for healing or tanking doesn’t mean you dont still have those traits and abilities inherently built into your class.

You’re literally just asking to a overpowered with no thought put into balance

[Myschf-myzrael]

This is the best write up of the differences between class design in Classic and Retail I have seen. Well done.

[Rougaroux-grobbulus]

True. Gotcha.

[Skire-moon-guard]

If a hybrid tax was removed, it would mean that you would in turn have less utility. Like in retail, where a shadow priest loses almost all of the healing potential of holy because to have both would be OP.

Try again. DPS classes still bring loads of utility. They can’t heal, but to say they give up utility is just false. In fact I’d argue that Mage, Hunter, and Rogue utility is at least comparable to anything a Shadow Priest or Cat Druid offers, if not better.