Rossi on Hybridization

Over on wowinsider.com, Matthew Rossi had a great post on hybridizing the pure DPS classes so that they could have more utility. He has great arguments, but ultimately, the suggestion fails because of design issues.

If every class brought even more utility then the encounters would have to be balanced around the idea that you will have some of that utility. If you don’t have that utility then your guild could run into progression problems.

We are talking about things like replenishment here. It is now an expected utility to have in the raid and if you don’t have it, you should expect to run into problems. We all know that GC has said this over and over recently, and it is the primary reason it was given to Destro Locks, Frost Mages, Ret Paladins, Survivalist Hunters, and Shadow Priests.

I always thought it would be nice if affliction locks brought the same sort of healing that a shadow priest brings. Hell, with improved blood presence (prior to the patch), you had another class bringing a heal based on damage. Blizzard ultimately decided that improved blood presence was OP and it is now relegated to only the DK that has it. Why though?

Well the simple answer is that a constant self heal based on damage done would change encounters. Though it may not seem like a huge amount of healing, a class that was doing 4K dps was also doing 160 (4%) HPS on themselves. That completely changes an encounter when the damage taken by the raid is now combated with everyone doing self heals of 9600 per min.

Instead of sharing what was a fantastic raid buff, like they did replenishment, they decided to remove it altogether. Affliction locks, shadow priests, blood DKs and maybe even another class bringing that kind of buff would alter the design of encounters and the buff would then be required in much the same way replenishment is.

Replenishment is the trade off that we all received since Blizz decided to take away chain potting, but how does this help balance the game when you already have mana pots? Well instead of a mana pot increasing your mana by a set number, you have replenishment that increases mana by a percentage. It can be inferred that a low mana pool class and a high mana pool class probably use about the same percentage of their mana to maintain their dps. This isn’t exactly true, I know, but the premise is at least expected. Some classes excel at mana management and others often suffer. I remember seeing the cool down reduction on evocation deep in the arcane tree and reading that is was indeed intended to help arcane mages with mana issues since they were the mage spec that seemed to suffer the most. The point here is that Blizzard at least tries to balance the game, even if I think it’s a worthless yet noble cause. Replenishment allows a 20K mana mage to get roughly the same return as a 5k mana paladin. A mana pot that provides 4K mana (20% of his pool) is useful to a mage, but will allow a paladin to refill almost his entire mana pool and go back into the fray.

So when compared with a similar like Blood presence, it can be inferred that there would need to be a trade off of game mechanics. The possible solutions to the new blood presence buff could be any number of things, but would ultimately go back to the healers. Bosses would hit the tanks harder meaning more main tank heals for the healers and less dealing with raid damage. I say less and not “not dealing with damage” because there is always going to be splash damage that is unavoidable. Blizzard has stated that they believe this is a boring encounter mechanic and would like to move away from them when they can. Implementing an improved blood presence mechanic for any class, much less more than one that would make it required changes end game dramatically.

Instead of more hybridization and utility, I would advocate less. 10 man guilds are already at a disadvantage when it comes to content if they have too many of one class. A 10 man group that runs with 3 druids (2 balance and a resto) only has MotW and the moonkin and tree auras. Try having a guild with no hunters, 2 paladins, one who heals and the other who tanks, and no spriests. That means no replenishment. If replenishment is really mandatory, then just make it a passive ability of all mana classes. Blizzard currently has all classes with their own mana regen mechanics whether it be water shield, or talents, or mage armor, and those all stack with replenishment. It stands to reason that if they expect everyone to have it, then why not just give it to them. I know there will be people that argue that this is making the game easier, but if you stop trying to stack buffs, and let it be every man for himself, the game becomes less easy and more about skill. You then don’t have to ask your hunter, if you have one, to go survivalist because you need the replenishment. He can now compete with the other DPS classes with the spec he enjoys.

I know that Blizzard has said that buffs help a fight feel more epic because it allows you to put out numbers that you wouldn’t be able to put out on your own, but doing so means there is still raid stacking occurring, though to a lesser degree I admit. Less raid wide buffs allow you to work within the parameter of the talent of your team and not within the mechanics they have to buff the raid. Shouldn’t that be the real goal of “bring the player, not the class?”

-Rhab