Hybrids and thier dps 'tax'

#0 - March 21, 2009, 12:42 p.m.

now...before i say anything...yes, i'm a warrior. yes, i'm saying these things from a warrior point of view. no...this is not a "dont nerf TG warriors belong at the top of the charts" thread nor is this meant to be any type of QQ at all.

now...my question is....why do hybrids have thier dps 'taxed' just for being hybrids?

according to what Blizz wants, the dps heirarchy should be...
pure dps classes
hybrids.

this seems to be the overall goal of dps balance in 3.1

but really....i think there should be much more than that factored into this. DPS is not the only thing that determines whether or not someone gets a spot in a raid. Raid utility is also a big factor.

so why is being a hybrid the only thing that warrants being 'taxed'? I'm gonna show how i think dps balance should be with a basic point system.

******PLEASE NOTE: would like to reiterate...this is not a QQ thread. so please keep any flaming remarks to yourself

imagine.....All classes and specs start completely balanced at 0, and we 'tax' their dps based on what they bring. now...i'm only going to go into general topics...these topics can be broken apart further.

hybrids: right now this seems to be the only tax, so it really doesnt need to be explained. But i will say one thing....maybe different hybrids should have a different level of tax. being ably to heal on the fly is much more useful than being about to tank on the fly. so maybe tank/dps hybrids should get -0.5 where heal/dps hybrids get -1. that being said is it reasonable that pallies and druids get a slightly bigger tax for being able to do all 3 roles?

CC abiltity: supposedly Ulduar trash will bring back strategy in trash so CC will be important(whether or not this was accomplished is yet to be seen). classes that can CC (mages, hunters, warlocks, rogues, paladins in some cases). Again...like hybrids, not all CC is equal. mages can spam sheep whereas rogues can sap once...then maybe blind, then they're done..so maybe this tax can be broken into seperate levels.

Buffs/debuffs: buffs are very important. a class with buffs will get a spot over a class without buffs no matter how hard you try to make these buffs less mandatory.

Raid Utility: Pretty similar to buffs. raid utility makes for more convenience to a raid...and something like a soulstone can bring a lot of convenience to a progression raid. (Things i would consider raid Utility..Brez, soulstone/healstones, mage tables, Hunter MD...etc.). now....this one i think should definately have a much lesser tax than some others because these are for convenience and will not necessarily make a difference in combat.

Range: Now i know i'll probably get some crap for this one, but as it is right now...many fights are just melee unfriendly and i cant think of a fight where ranged dps is at a disadvantage to melee. any fight can be done with all ranged dps...but i can think of a couple that would be much, much more difficult with all melee dps.

now lets do a couple comparisons with what blizz wants in 3.1. now...these will be done with a warrior compared to other classes because that is what i know best.

Warrior vs Mage: warriors are hybrids so they have the option to tank something in a pinch. Mages bring an Int buff (the only class that has this). Mages can CC. Mages are ranged dps. Mages bring food and water to the entire raid. do mages really deserve to have higher dps than warriors? lets say there's a 10-man raid with no mages, no warriors, and 1 spot open. if the mage is naturally one notch above the warrior in dps and he brings all that other stuff....who gets the spot? if mages were 2 or 3 notches below warriors in dps who gets the spot? now the warrior has a chance.

Warrior vs Paladin: both hybrids. both are dps and also have the ability to tank.....but pallies come with a blessing, an aura, and the ability to heal.... should fury warrior and Ret pally really be on the same level dps wise?

Ghostcrawler

#66 - March 22, 2009, 1:23 a.m.

Must... not... reply... to... thread....

Argh.

Then again maybe we need a "pure vs. hybrid debate" forum. :)

Our logic is actually pretty simple. If hybrid classes can do the same dps as pure classes, then why have pure classes in the game? So we design the pure classes to do slightly higher dps.

We try very hard not to define "slightly." I probably got cornered by a bunch of angry posters in a dark alley one evening and blurted out "5%!" Or maybe someone in the forums suggested 5% and it stuck.

Why don't we like to refer to very explicit numbers like 5%? Because look what happens. A fine guild like Premonition or Ensidia posts their Ulduar parses, and players jump on them and say "ZOMG that mage is below the warrior," or "ZOMG that rogue is 7% above the paladin." It just isn't going to turn out that way on every parse, folks. Encounters are very different from each other. Gear varies. Even for fantastic guilds, skill varies. Players have to deal with things like lag or whatever mods they use or just dumb luck. RNG exists in boss fights. Strings of crits for a Fire mage or strings of parries for a DK tank can change the outcome enormously.

Saying that pures should beat hybrids by 5% is like saying a penny should be tails 50% of the time. If you flip a penny infinite times, yes, it will be tails half the time. But if you flip the penny three time and don't get any tails, you shouldn't take the penny to the bank and tell them it's broken.

Our goal is to give every class reasonable raid buffs and utility. None of them should be so good that you earn a spot just because of that utility. Plenty of times, your utility isn't going to be as useful because someone else has already brought that buff. This is by design. However, if you feel your class just got boned in the buff department, that is a great thing to bring up (though probably not in this thread). We used to penalize classes who had excellent buffs. Now we try to spread the wealth of both buffs and dps a lot better.

We want you to get a spot because you know what the blank you're doing, not because your class is programmed to always do top dps or inflate raid dps through a miraculous spell that you impart by clicking a button every 30 min.

Play your class to the best of your ability. If you do so, you will be very high on the damage meters, even if you are a druid, priest, warrior, DK, shaman or paladin. You won't top it on every fight. Some fights are better for some classes than others. Some players have better luck. Over time, the trends will emerge and most raiding players will figure them out. For our part, we will keep jimmying the numbers to get the results we want.

P.S. Don't look for me to address this issue too often, because I have done it a few times now. Dead horse is dead. :)

Ghostcrawler

#194 - March 22, 2009, 5:26 a.m.

"Why am I a hybrid if I am only there to do dps?"

Here are two situations:

1) Your guild is forming the raid. The raid leader has all the dps slots full. The mage isn't going to come. The shaman can say "Hey, if I respec to heal, can I come?"

2) Imagine a rogue and warrior compete for dps slots. Imagine the rogue beats the warrior and for purposes of this argument assume the warrior cannot possibly improve his skill or gear. If the player is really frustrated, he does have another option. He can give up his dps career and be a tank. Yeah he'll lose some good gear, but it won't take that long to get another set. He may already have some pieces.

Now flip that situation around. The warrior does better dps and nothing the rogue can do will top that. The rogue's option: reroll.

Because of situations like these, we don't think there would be many pure dps players unless they knew that it was theoretically possible for them to "win the meters." The risk of being useless would be too great.

If you are a warrior who promises never to tank, or a shaman who swears you will never ever heal, then I am sympathetic. However, to flip things around still risks the above problems, which we think are the greater of the two evils.

Again, the difference is so small that realistically, very few of your guilds will even notice it. If you have bad rogues and good warriors, the warriors will be on top of the meters. For nearly all of the people reading this thread, you have many things you can do that will improve your dps by 5% or more, such as get good gear, experiment with a better spec, or just learn to play better. If you are in the top one or two guilds on your server, then you probably will notice dps differences among the classes. However, you are probably not the ones at all worried about losing your raid spot.