Community Redesigns the Game - Ep. 2: DPS Spec roles

Community General Discussion
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Hello everyone.

This is the second episode of what I like to call “Community Redesigns the Game”.
This series of threads are a place meant to discuss and imagine how various aspects of the game should look like, in order for you to say “I like playing this”.

Episode 1: Community Redesigns the Game - Ep. 1: Mythic Plus

The topic for today is:
DPS Specs - do they deserve having a higher level of abstraction?

Classes and their specializations are sometimes unique, and sometimes - they blend. We often see specific abilities push a class way up in the meta - greatest example being the Priest’s Power Infusion and Mass Dispell. Makes one wonder - why are priests so special? Why is a Paladin’s position in the Group Finder defined primarily by their ability to survive, cleanse, and combat ress, traits that are shared between other classes, and the priest’s spot is semi-guaranteed, due to their unique traits? (at least it was in DF S2, take this as just an example to a larger point)

I believe that the following mechanics are what actually defines how a spec fits into a group:

  • Combat Ressurection
  • Bloodlust/Heroism
  • Dispell (or purge)
  • Mass Dispell
  • Mass Stealth
  • Soothe
  • Mass CC
  • Low CD Interrupt
  • Ranged Interrupt
  • Remove debuffs from players (remove curse, cleanse toxins, etc…)
  • Effects that increase group damage (auras, shouts, etc…)
  • Effects that increase group survivability (auras, power words, etc…)
  • Spell Reflection
  • Kiting abilities
  • …maybe others that I currently fail to list.

We can observe that some DPS specs possess a very small amount of the mechanics above (ex. Warriors), while others - have plenty of them. Hunters, for example, have at least 5 those.

A lot of content is done by strategically combining the traits listed above. Which leaves some having a hard time in certain encounters or certain weeks (ex Afflicted Affix in M+).
And most of those have very different values (ex. CR/BL are required, the rest are situational).

Have you ever felt that you are locked-out of playing a specific class/spec, not because that spec underperforms in damage in this season, but rather - the spec has too little or too niche abilities to offer to the group?

If yes, and if it was up to you to fix that problem, how would you do it?
Would it be adding talents to the base class tree, that offer more abilities with those mechanics?
Would it be a further sub-division of dps spec roles? (ex. Disruptors who get in the way of enemies, or Protectors, who cleanse and protect the group, etc.)

What do you think?

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At the moment it more goes about players can stay alive. So your example hunter with at least 5 of them will basically never be top tier. Top M+ players also claim they prefer better survivability and a comp that complements each other than actually bloodlust. It is meh but fine to use drums.

Comps that complement each other does indeed have certain dispells and battle resses. But also knowing there are classes with partybuffs. Like currently we have a VDH in the meta, that means you have a magic damage buff. So why would you go with a warrior in your group? DH and warrior do not complement each other.

Current meta VDH, resto druid, evoker, mage and priest or warlock just all makes sense. Combine magic specs.

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Hunters just die though.

I hate playing with hunters.

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Nope. I play whatever I like and feels fun, currently I am more focused on my ret pala than my warlock because this season is a meme and my warlock has already done the content in previous seasons.

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