The Hybrid Rule should be Abolished

#0 - Aug. 4, 2009, 3:31 a.m.

This is my only level 80 character, and has been for a long time. Anyone who has followed my posting history as well would know that up until now, I have always supported the current hybrid vs. pure design philosophy. In fact, I have been rather vigorous about putting an end to the massive amount of coddling I see most hybrid classes continuously get.

But in the back of my head I know that this design philosophy is severely flawed and detrimental. Just on paper the very idea that one group of specs should be penalized over others simply because they have the “option” to take up another roll sounds absurd. Still, I won’t be vague—so let’s get into the gritty details.

Flaw #1: Fudged Lines

The hybrid rule contradicts itself. It assumes that there is added value in having the ability to take up another role. Yet blizzard’s design philosophy does not recognize more than one role. It sees “one-role” classes and “multi-role” classes, and is blind to the possibility of having two roles versus three roles or even four roles. So wait, how can blizzard claim having more roles is advantageous but only in the case of one vs. many? It doesn’t make any sense. Three is still more than two in the same way that two is more than one.

Let’s be real though. Bucketing hybrids down further would only upset people and make a mess of balance—not much unlike the present hybrid design philosophy. And at any rate, blizzard is right. There is value to having the ability to choose another role. However, that value is completely subjective.

Flaw #2: Feeble justification

One of the major problems with the hybrid rule is that there just really isn’t any justification at all. In The Burning Crusade one could have said that hybrids brought powerful raid utility to make up for their dps, they were “support” specs if you will. But in Wrath of the Lich King the raid utility system has been overhauled. You only need one of each raid utility, encouraging you to take a variety of classes/specs while still having some flexibility in who you want to take.

So the argument had to change of course. And I was one of the many who championed this very argument on the wotlk beta forums when blizzard was first bringing hybrids in line with pures. I mean, let’s face it. Players like to feel like they are important. They want to be #1 on the meters—that’s why so many pures were gun-ho against changing the philosophy the first time around.

The idea was simple; you weren’t being penalized for your utility or the ability to use less powerful healing or tanking abilities—you were being penalized because you had the ability to change your role without rerolling another class! It was so obvious. And with enough outcry from this side of the playerbase—blizzard caved in.

But there is no back bone to this argument. It only sounds good on the surface. If blizzard is truly catering to a design philosophy like bring the player not the class then any advantage to changing your role is not enough to expect the average guild to exclusively recruit hybrid classes.

The worst case scenario would be that guilds in the top ~50-75 would look for hybrids rather than recruiting additional pures to fill up empty (non-raid utility) raid spots. And yet, many of those guilds already do this. They like having this kind of flexible advantage.

If blizzard does not want players to have the power to change role at the wave of a finger, then they shouldn’t have created a system where respecing is so trivial. Instead blizzard gave in to bad design for the sake of convenience, propped up an artificial tax that justifies nothing.

What is flexibility?

The fact is that at the character creation screen the players decide what the value of added roles is, not blizzard. And I can assure you that there is no shortage of players who want to be a warlock, mage, hunter, or rogue.

We claim that hybrids have more flexibility than pures. But there is no single reason a player chooses a certain class, spec, or playstyle. What I do know is that many people care greatly for their spec, it's part of what makes this game an RPG.

So why do we penalize the balance druid who is set on being a balance druid and not a resto druid or a destruction warlock? I use to say they should know what baggage comes with the class, but no—I don’t think the balance druid is much different from me who wants to be the arcane mage.

Ghostcrawler

#179 - Aug. 4, 2009, 6:42 a.m.

The "5% rule" isn't a rule we use. I'm not sure at this point if the community came up with it or we tossed it out as an example and it stuck. We generally don't like to offer players concrete "speed limits" like this because then as soon as they see their own dps not measuring up to the official mark, they generally blame us instead of trying to improve their own game.

Unless your dps is at the theoretical maximum for your class, which is unlikely, there are ways that you can improve your performance.

Utility or buffs are not something we generally use to define a hybrid class. It is solely the ability to respec from damage into healing or tanking. If you are a warlock, and you just can't catch another player's dps, there is nothing you can do (except come here and lobby for buffs it would appear). If you are a hybrid, and you can't catch another player's dps, you have a second chance to try your hand as a healer or tank. If a raid is full on dps classes, you might be able to still get an invite if you respec to another role. The warlock doesn't have that option.

All specs are currently raiding Ulduar, even among the most high-end guilds, with just a few exceptions, and those exceptions all have options to respec without changing role (I'm talking about the Demo lock who can respec to Destro, or the Arms warrior who can respec to Fury.) Not only that, but the raid comp used by various guilds varies quite a bit.

Despite all of that, hybrid classes can and do perform very well on certain fights for very skilled players.

Ghostcrawler

#233 - Aug. 4, 2009, 7:26 a.m.

Q u o t e:
Honestly, as far as I'm concerned that is not an option. I would rather not raid at all, log off completely, and go read a book than respec and perform a role I do not enjoy and had no intention of playing when rolling the class.

That's totally fair. But saying you have a choice and choosing not to make it is not the same as not having a choice. The mage, hunter, warlock and rogue don't even have the option if they think their dude sucks. They're just done.

Ghostcrawler

#241 - Aug. 4, 2009, 7:31 a.m.

Q u o t e:
The gap between hybrids and pures was much larger in TBC, so much so that you could not pass DPS-check bosses if all you brought were hybrids.

On the other hand, you could not pass DPS checks either if all you brought were pures, since pures needed hybrid buffs to unlock their full potential.

Here comes WOTLK, which spreads out buffs to such an extent that hybrids need pures to buff their DPS, and pures need hybrids to buff their DPS, and the gap between both is low enough (emphasis on enough) that you can pass DPS checks even if you bring more hybrids than what is absolutely necessary to buff the whole raid.

This all boils down to a raid's ability to look for people of a certain role, as opposed to people of a certain class or a certain spec.

Quoting Prinsesa. I think that says it pretty well.

Ghostcrawler

#279 - Aug. 4, 2009, 8:10 p.m.

Q u o t e:
I'm sorry, but the Arms Warrior you're referring too is not going to displace one of the tanks, nor is he likely going to displace the Fury Warrior without a good amount of drama.

I think you must have misunderstood me. With Fury vs. Arms, one spec is usually going to "win" (at least on a given encounter) because it's going to come down to math. The same is true of the DK specs and all of the pure classes. That's not ideal, and it's something we want to improve. My condolences if you just love the Arms playstyle. But if you want to play a dps warrior and Arms isn't cutting it, at least you have Fury. If neither Fury nor Arms is competitive, then we have a problem. I don't think that will be the case in 3.2 though.

We just don't think "I want to do two things and do each as well as the guy who only does one thing" is fair. We don't see why the latter guy would stick around in the game for long. I can understand how from any of your points of view what matters is that you picked your class for specific reasons and want to be the best you can possibly be with that class. I don't find that illogical. But we're worried that logic might not lead to the best game.

Q u o t e:
The only way I can rationalize your approach here, GC, is that you're catering to the casual masses ... which is fine, i understand that's a very significant portion of the game and that a Warrior can always re-spec to tank those 5-mans that he's getting left out of because there's dozens of 2H DPS in LFG.

We're catering to those guilds who had to cancel their Sunwell raids when they couldn't get the second Shadow priest or fourth shaman or whatever and had to cancel. We're catering to those friends who both just happen to play Balance druids and still want to raid together. We're catering to those guilds who could just never attract competent warlocks for whatever reason and still wanted to see Ulduar hard modes.

We want you to be able to get any 10 or 25 competent players with reasonable gear, and assuming you have the bases covered (enough tanks and healers and enough of the major raid buffs) we want you to go out and have a good time. For the most part, that's what raids are doing.