Yes, you do, because that would be the appropriate balance move. Out of all the hybrids, the outlier is the warrior.
You can raise all the other hybrids, as you suggest, but then hybrids would be much more popular than pure dps classes that can only do one role.
Which in turn forces dps pure to be buffed, or hybrids lowered.
Blizzard has been playing this game for 15 years and failed at it. Just be happy playing something you know will remain static. Go roll warrior, for example, without the fear it will be nerfed.
Nochanges isnt a hindrance, it’s something that makes classic attractive. The alternative is a world of rerolling and checking out patch notes.
For hybrids, spec’ing one role won’t lock you out of doing your other class roles. In most cases, swapping gear is sufficient to hop from one role to another regardless of your spec. This true of warriors with tanking, shamans with healing, etc; the gear matters more than the spec most of the time. In that type of environment, hybrid classes would crush the game if there was no “hybrid tax”. In fact, we saw this in TBC when hybrids, namely druids and paladins, were revamped to be competitive in all roles with a deep spec; they used hybrid specs anyway and we’re 5 man gods. Watching a bear HoT themselves to the extent that the healer didn’t have to pay attention to them was a sight to behold.
This ultimately culminated in the hard locked specs of WotLK, where the 51 pointer was mandatory before investing in a new tree.
I think Hybrids should be gimped to some extent.
If you look at the 3 hybrid classes, pally, druid and shammy, they all bring big group buffs and support/utility abilities as well as the ability to fill multiple roles. Pallys and Shammys are the primary buff classes of the game, between Auras/Blessings and Totems, as well as have many utility abilities. And druids bring a great single buff and Innervate and the only Brez.
As others have said, if a Ret Pally (or boomkin/cat/elem/enhance) could do top tier dps as well as bring all their buffs and the ability to tank/heal in a pinch, then they would be very OP. They need to have reduced dps.
I think the hybrid balancing problem of vanilla/classic lies mostly in the tanking specs. Shamans are pretty much a joke. They have some random tank abilities/talents but its too incomplete to be effective. Pallys lack a taunt which makes them unsuitable for raids (MT or OT) and are too mana depenedent. Druids are actually pretty good, but could use a SB or HS short CD equivalent.
I think its fine that the game is set in a way so that Warriors are distinctly the best tank, but I think the 3 hybrids should be legitimately capable of tanking dungeons and OT raids.
For healing I actually think the hybrids may be too strong, at least Hpallys. I think it would be good if healing was set up similar to how I just said tanking should be. Priests being distinctly the best healers, but hybrids being legitimately capable and then also bring buffs and utility.
The big problem with hybrids is the players. Players undervalue the benefit of the buffs, utility and versatility of hybrids and demanded that they be equal in all roles to other classes.
Blizz responded over the next 3 xpacs by balancing the classes, but then had to remove most buffs, grant more utility to all classes, and reduced the ability to swap roles effectively in combat.
I don’t remember this at all.
Pretty sure In wrath you could put points anywhere at any time, ie. at lvl 12 you could have 1 point in the first tier or all 3 talent trees.
And then didn’t Cata completely replace the original talent trees with the current retail talent tiers?
I had my xpacs mixed up a bit. WotLK had really good 51 pointers, but cata hardlocked hybrid specs away because of PvP builds and nightmare balance scenarios; I usually blame druids.
This glosses over buffs that some dps bring, and ignore warriors and priests as hybrids.
Warriors bring armor debuff and AP buff, S tier damage, and can OT in a pinch mid fight in the same dps gear by tossing on a shield and going defensive stance.
Priests bring fort and if disc spirit. Shadow also brings Fort.
Warlocks bring hp buff, armor reducing curse, shadow/arcane dmg buff, frost/fire dmg buff, and healthstones. That is a lot of utility while also doing great dps.
Mages bring int.
Hunters bring AP buff.
All the totems and buffs dps shamans and paladins bring they also bring as healers.
Again, this discussion is mainly about raiding which is a small part of the game. And its tuned so low it doesnt really matter.
True, I honestly don’t really consider Warriors and priests to be hybrids, but they can fill more than 1 role so I guess technically they are.
As for buffs, yes other classes have buffs (some of them very strong, and utility in CCs and interupts and other stuff), but not anything close to the the amount of buffs (and to some extent strength of the buffs) that pallys and shammys bring.
Yes pallys and shama bring all their buffs no matter what role they are filling, I dont think I said otherwise. That is why I think they (at least pallys) might be overtuned when healing. They are strong healers AND bring those buffs.
Why would anyone play Classic for PVP? The best PVP’ers are literally people who played nothing but PVE and then stomped your rank 11 butt with Naxx gear.
Well, it really doesn’t much matter in the long run. I like to play a paladin, I like the idea when I solo whether in Tank spec or Ret spec, i can kill things and emergency heal same with holy but less so on the killing (takes a tad longer).
I’ll raid as ret/holy holy/tank or ret/tank (though not often) i’m a respec’er and in any given week i might respec twice.
If i’m ret and i can’t get into a group thats their loss since most 60 5 mans are undead specific and we kind of shine there as long as we bring mana pots.
But like i said, i play this game for myself and my pleasure if a group / raid doesn’t want me. shrugs no big deal really didnt want to deal with those types anyways.
I assure you that is not the case. I put down many, many pve scrubs, who thought they could just bring their superior raid gear to pvp and win easy, during my time back in original WoW.
Someone in BWL gear can absolutely compete against someone in Naxx gear. And that should be within reach of the majority of the playerbase if they actually want it.
LOL you didn’t get my point. To PVP you have to PVE. That makes the PVP a joke. In Retail, all you have to do is get to level cap and then you can just PVP.
K, answered your “needs” as best I could, I’ll only add, why can’t folks just get over that nothing is going to change from what the game was in Vanilla, No new items, No new stats, No new tunings… it is what it is… live with it or just stop playing it.
What does this mean? Can you tell me how all dps specs are the same in retail? How would you compare rogue to moonkin? Monk to retri paladin? Hunter to mage? Warlock to warrior? Hell affliction lock to demo lock?
The way they balanced hybrids is fine. The gogogo generation’s inability to accept anything other than “optimal”, and their desire to min/max everything (other than fun) is where it falls down.
I’ve always played mostly hybrids, because the versatility and utility they offer outweighs any “hybrid tax” that may be in effect.