---

Q u o t e:


Stating druids have specs for both ranged and melee dps is probably not a good idea in this thread considering it is already full of people complaining you have more options than them yet are willing to overlook that Feral allows you to perform 2 roles all by itself.

---

Yes because just like Death Knights I merely need to change forms and I can top DPS and be a top tier tank.

---

Q u o t e:


Yes because just like Death Knights I merely need to change forms and I can top DPS and be a top tier tank.

---

No but you are one hell of a lot better at adapting at a moments notice than say a warrior or paladin.

---

Q u o t e:


No but you are one hell of a lot better at adapting at a moments notice than say a warrior or paladin.

---

So if I'm tanking and a DPS goes down, I can swap to Cat and help make sure we beat the enrage timer?

If it is one of those situations where my mob is dead now and I'm free to do whatever, I can bet that a fully dedicated Bear for progression is going to do about as much DPS in Cat as a fully dedicated Protection Warrior doing Devastate spamming for DPS.

Basically, a fully tank specced hybrid is worth not much at all when not actually tanking something. A DPS specced hybrid is not going to pick up anything that is worth a damn and live either.

Being more flexible yet still equally useful doesn't really make much sense to me.

---

Q u o t e:
General Vezak

---

---

Q u o t e:
heroic Abub

---

Are these typos or do you actually refer to the bosses as these names?

---

Q u o t e:


A few red flags that come to mind from this expansion are DKs on Sartharion, DKs and druids tanking pre-nerf General Vezak, druids tanking Thorim in PvP gear, and warriors tanking heroic Abub adds with lots of block. The paladin on the 3.2 PTR tanking multiple Patchwerks at once felt broken, but that situation almost never happens in "real life." (And we did nerf AD a little since that test.)

A counter example would be say a DK offtank on Malygos -- Death Grip is really nice to have, and it's arguably easier with a DK, but not so much so that other comps feel hopeless. Another would be a warrior tanking Stormcaller Brundir. The interrupts are nice and the quick movement can get you out of AE as needed. That's a good match for tank abilities and a particular encounter, but it doesn't cross the line. As I said, it's going to be subjective.

---

I'm certainly guilty of the bold section.

Here's a different but similar question then: I still tank Thorim in PvP gear, we still don't kite Vezax, and Warriors are still cheesing Anub adds. I'm sure you could have made Unbalancing Strike lower my Defense by a lot more to make Resilience a non-option, make Surge hit stupidly harder to force kiting, and change the interaction of the debuff on the Anub adds.

If those are such deal breakers, why leave them be? Is it because Druids soloing Thorim is uncommon? Is it because just about every single tanking roster has a Block tank, and more specifically a Warrior, for Anub? You said the red flag is raised but those things really haven't gotten a whole ton of changing to make us to them the "right way."

---

Q u o t e:


A few red flags that come to mind from this expansion are DKs on Sartharion, DKs and druids tanking pre-nerf General Vezak, druids tanking Thorim in PvP gear, and warriors tanking heroic Abub adds with lots of block. The paladin on the 3.2 PTR tanking multiple Patchwerks at once felt broken, but that situation almost never happens in "real life." (And we did nerf AD a little since that test.)

---

What about one tank outscaling/underscaling?

Specifically, druid health's insane scaling and their really low avoidance.

---

Q u o t e:


A few red flags that come to mind from this expansion are DKs on Sartharion, DKs and druids tanking pre-nerf General Vezak, druids tanking Thorim in PvP gear, and warriors tanking heroic Abub adds with lots of block. The paladin on the 3.2 PTR tanking multiple Patchwerks at once felt broken, but that situation almost never happens in "real life." (And we did nerf AD a little since that test.)

A counter example would be say a DK offtank on Malygos -- Death Grip is really nice to have, and it's arguably easier with a DK, but not so much so that other comps feel hopeless. Another would be a warrior tanking Stormcaller Brundir. The interrupts are nice and the quick movement can get you out of AE as needed. That's a good match for tank abilities and a particular encounter, but it doesn't cross the line. As I said, it's going to be subjective.

---

So basically the only way you're going to make balance changes are when it's take that tank or go home? LOL.. So the EH and threat imbalances that everyone is aware of are fine? That's good to know. I'm done posting, it really is pointless.

You may as well call it horseshoes and hand grenades. Close enough for government work.

---

Q u o t e:
your ability to be flexible doesn't shine DURING an encounter. it shines BEFORE said encounter. it shines when people are putting the group together and wondering "oh so and so isn't on today i guess we can't raid. but wait, XX has a healing set and DPS is a dime a dozen, huzzah hybrid saves the day!"

and as always, if you didn't want the hybridization, you could have picked a PURE(r) class to specialize and be better at what you DO decide to do. with the caveat of being unable to do another role.

it's a choice you make. when there isn't a disadvantage to making the choice, that's imbalance.

---

If they are considering me for a tanking slot, my ability to nuke/melee/heal have no bearing on that. And if the day does happen where "Hey Fasc we'll just have the DPS Warrior go tank so you can Heal and we can try to do this instance" then both the Warrior's hybridness and my own saved the day. And even then, I'm only coming in as a specific role as before, so I'm not using my hybridness at all, just my healing.

Until this game allows me to heal and DPS and tank effectively all at the same time, there is no reason to penalize us more than they already do in terms of Pure DPS vs Hybrid DPS. That's that.

---

Q u o t e:


So basically the only way you're going to make balance changes are when it's take that tank or go home? LOL.. So the EH and threat imbalances that everyone is aware of are fine? That's good to know. I'm done posting, it really is pointless.

---

The question is: Are they bad enough to bother with? They have a limited amount of time/people/resources. Things have to be "close enough"

---

Q u o t e:


again, saying the dps penalty is justified is distinctly hypocritical.

if pure DPS had the same damage as hybrid DPS you'd be singing "i don't DPS while healing, why should i do less DPS than the rogue!? blahblahblah <more useless blather>"

one is justified and the other isn't? sounds like you have no legs to stand on, sir

---

I most certainly do. Blizzard says so. Their game, their rules. /shrug

---

Q u o t e:
IMHO, Blizzard has a tendency to be dismissive of player concerns about balance. The easiest way to address this balance issue, particularly for tanks, would be to explain whey there are discrepancies amongst the tanking classes.

---

They've already addressed why they have the discrepancies.

I don't recall the exact thread, but GC said something to the extent of "All the tanks are going to die in three hits anyway it's only if the tank is always going to survive four that there will be an issue."

The current raid bosses hit like trains and most tanks are dead if 2-3 successful hits get through anyway, so what does balance matter?

At least that's the vibe I'm getting.

It's not really hypocrisy. The rules are simple:

If you can do only one role, you will do better than any class who can do more than one role.
If you can do more than one role, you will do as well as any other class that can do more than one role, and not quite as well as a class that can do only one role.

The fallacy is the assumption that because 1 to 2 is a decrease, 2 to 3 should be. It's only binary. It's one or many. That's the only distinction.

It's possible that there would be a 'pure' healer or a 'pure' tank at some point which could test this theory. But the fact is that they want all healers to perform within similar parameters, and they want all tanks to perform within similar parameters. Again, that's not hypocritical. It falls in perfectly with the one to many scenario, and it fits well within the notion that if you can perform more than one role that this is valuable with dual speccing - but giving added value by mutliple specs is not.

I suspect that if they allowed triple specs, classes with three viable roles would take something of a hit.

Tonytony ... Blizzard say there are 4 pure classes. They are all DPS classes. They say that if you are not a pure class you are a hybrid.

It doesn't matter if you can ...

Fulfill 2 roles:
- Priest: heal or DPS
- Shaman: heal or DPS (NO, YOU ARE NOT TANKS!)
- Warriors: tank or DPS
- Death Knight: tank or DPS

Fulfill 3 roles:
- Paladin: heal or DPS or tank
- Druid: heal or DPS or tank

You are a hybrid. Hybrids should be as effective as any other hybrid when they are spec'd for that particular role.

Extending your misguided thinking, the following should be true:

Fulfill 2 roles:
- Priest: heal or ranged DPS
- Warriors: tank or melee DPS
- Death Knight: tank or melee DPS

Fulfill 3 roles:
- Paladin: heal or melee DPS or tank
- Shaman: heal or melee DPS or ranged DPS (NO, YOU ARE NOT TANKS!)

Fulfill 4 roles:
- Druid: heal or melee DPS or ranged DPS or tank

It just doesn't work that way.

---

Q u o t e:
I suspect that if they allowed triple specs, classes with three viable roles would take something of a hit.

---

Raids aren't balanced around dual spec. They are, however, balanced around respeccing :P

And only the hard modes.

---

Q u o t e:
We only recognize two types of classes:

Can respec to fulfill a different role = hybrid.
Cannot respec to fulfill a different role = pure.

The roles are tank, healing and damage.

In our design, having two healing trees (priest) or half a tanking tree (druid) or three dps trees (DK) does not put these classes in different categories of hybridness. A hybrid is a hybrid.

It's the roles that your class lets you do that is important, not how those roles are organized into talent trees. The paladin is one way to organize the trees (a tanking tree, healing tree and melee dps tree) but not the only way. However, there is a reason we don't do this for every class -- it would be boring.

IMHO, the WoW community has a tendency to want to categorize things too much.

---

GC got trolled, screenshoted it for epic troll talent!