Meanwhile I’m here playing retri in a completely foreign guild, and I impressed them so much that I’ve been a core raider since day 1 of raiding with them. You shouldn’t look at hardcore guilds only - they will take a warrior instead of a retri so they can finish 30 seconds faster.
Not to mention, these “weak specs” completely dominate in other aspects of the game. Prot paladins are by far one of the best aoe farmer and dungeon tank, Paladin in itself on all specs is a complete beast in PvP, etc.
The point of hybrids is to be able to play the way you want.
if you do not get to play the way you want in a guild. find a new one.
or MAKE a new one where people can play the way they want.
i hear alot of how faceroll molten core is so letting players play their classes the way they want should not be a problem eh?
I mostly tank dungeons. I mostly heal in raids. I’m not respeccing in between.
Last ID I tanked one of Sulfuron’s and of Majordomo’s adds and healed after it was dead. I can also battlerezz and innervate.
I’m probably not getting feral items before phase 3 out of raids (except for maybe an onyxia head eventually) and most of my healgear (except for boots) are from dungeons too. So yes, there’s not much loot for hybrids and not much of what drops is good. But the same is true for mages, for example. A lot of items you get outside of raids are better than the drops you get in raids.
Anyway, I think hybrid classes are perfect for a more flexible raid setup. Fill the role that is currently needed and switch to another role when necessary. Different bosses require a different numbers of tanks or healers and if you don’t want to have 3 def warriors standing around and fake being busy during Geddon they have to basically be a bit hybrid.
You want to tank AQ40 or naxx as a paladin? or a druid?
Your guild will never get that far.
Can it be done when everyone has their naxx gear in order? probably.
But the point is that if you have a druid MT and think your guild is the head honcho, people will leave, join #2, and then who will carry your inadequate asses through the raids?
OK, Paladins cannot taunt and cannot be tanks until much later in TBC, I get it. But Druids can taunt from the outset, so what’s their problem? Genuine question, I only played Hunter and then Paladin in Vanilla and TBC, and did not pay much attention to other classes.
The consequence of being a hybrid class is that you suck at everything.
Pure classes can only do one thing. Imagine if hybrid classes outperformed pure classes at their one-trick. Raids would be exclussively hybrid classes due to the added flexibility.
Need 12 tanks for 4HM? NP my Hpala also happens to be the best tank. Need another 8 healers for Sapphiron? Paladins got you covered. Need more DPS? No worries. I’ve got retri gear.
If you absolutely want to play a memespec, just find a memeguild that accomodates your selfish needs and wants.
Why is this limited to hybrids though? I very much enjoy the playstyle of fire, be it as rolling ignites in PvE or PoM Pyro annihilating people in PvP every 3 min. Yet woe is me, I am forced to play arcane power frostbolt in this tier and the next because it’s optimal. Only one mage per raid gets to be deep frost, with at least ice block and ice bubble to have some measure of safety in outside world. Arcane frost has nothing. If hybrids are barely tolerated, can you imagine how a raid would treat a fire mage because he “enjoys the class fantasy”? When there are 10 mages in near pre BiS waiting to take my place at a drop of a hat?
Everyone makes sacrifices to get his/her paws on the sweet sweet purplez, deal with it.
BWL isnt that hard. AQ40 is harder but if you are BWL geared then AQ40 is a doddle. The only vaguely hard raiding content in vanilla is Naxxramas and I would put money you will see ret paladins dpsing in Naxx before vanilla end.
Good job proving you were not around for classic.
Hybrids were always called hybrids. they even had the HYBRID TAX. Which, surprise, was a term used in VANILLA design discussions.
The HYBRID TAX was WORKING AS INTENDED. They were never meant to compete with pure-dps classes.
The fact their non-healer roles were not raid-ideal was a design flaw, acknowledged by blizzard, not a “working as intended” thing. The problem is the hybrids did not have a “healer tax” the same way they had a dps tax. And they kept ALL their utility as healer spec. Also 1-3 hybrids could cover buffs for a whole raid (except for shamans who had their buffs restricted to 5 mans). So there was absolutely no incentive to bring a moonkin or an enhancement shaman to a raid, when a healer spec would have all the right totem or improved mark of the wild and innervate, while performing as well as a priest in most encounters.
TBC fixed this by giving the dps specs of hybrid classes way more specific utility: enh shamans, ele shamans, balance druids had strong, specific perks that resto shamans and tree-men did not.
Also tank hybrids were made more viable, to a point where paladins were the best 5 man tanks and, while raiding prot warriors had the most tools and mitigation, a few specific encounters favoured different tanks. Including Illidan being taken down by druid main tanks for the first kills.
