The Triangle
There is always discussion, perhaps even controversy, about class abilities in World of Warcraft, especially in regards to the "hybrid" classes. The common argument goes something along the lines of "Class X can only do A, so class Y, who can do A, B, or C should be nowhere near as good at A as X." Substitute any relevant "pure" class for X and any hybrid for Y. Argument ad Mad Lib (I shall have to ask a friend of mine who is a PhD candidate in philosophy to write a paper on that).
At first glance, the argument is kind of true, isn’t it? If, say, a druid can tank or heal or dps, shouldn’t a warrior be a better tank? I wish I could argue against that, but, I can’t. If a druid could tank or heal or dps, they probably should not be as good at tanking as a warrior. However, that isn’t the case.
The concept of a hybrid class is a class that can fill multiple roles, though is not as effective in those roles as the base class. World of Warcraft does not have hybrids, it has "role-switchers." Though I don’t recall the source for that term, it is much more appropriate than hybrid. With the rather limited exception of Feral druids doing melee dps and tanking with enormously similar specs, the remainder of the "hybrid" classes have to spec almost completely into one tree to be effective in that role. A cookie-cutter enhancement shaman, well-geared, is going to put out mammoth melee dps and buff the raid nicely with Unleashed Rage. However, they can’t just start healing in the middle of combat and do well. At best, they can serve as a stopgap or pick up a tad bit of slack. The definition the spec gives, coupled with the definition and divide of gear limits the ability to cross the role line.
Some roles will have easier times: moonkin druids are going to be wearing spell damage and healing gear and have decent mana pools if they need to heal, as would elemental shaman. Shadow priests probably won’t because they would sell greater heal for a 10% better scaling Mind Flay (or maybe that’s just me) and focus on Shadow Damage to get better return on I-Level (but shadow priests are crazy anyway), again showing how deeply the gear divide separates roles. Could a shadow priest or a boomkin put on healing gear and bust out the hps? You bet (and I dare you to ask a shadow priest to do that). But they could not do it while in combat. They may not need a full respec to pass in that role, but they would need a complete gear switch.
Given this, this focus on one role at a time, shouldn’t a role-switcher be able to fill the role as well as a dedicated class? After all, for the length of that encounter, they are dedicated to that role with very limited ability to step outside of it. Well, yes and no. Clearly, classes that can fill multiple roles need some check to give room for the focused classes to exist. No need for rogues if feral druids can kitty dps just as well, after all.
I think this focus solely on numbers loses sight of the real method of comparing. People generally compare on the triangle: tank - dps - heal. The total area of each classes triangle should be roughly equal. A Rogue should be much further extended toward DPS than, say, a paladin: rogues only DPS, paladins do all of them. But how should that rogue compare to a dps-spec paladin who has little stamina gear, virtually no +healing, and has a two-hander of doom? Why should the rogue get to be that far ahead of the paladin in that case.? Said paladin has traded abilities of breadth for depth.
I suggest we add a fourth axis to the triangle: we must consider the amount of options the class/spec has as the height of a solid figure and compare the total volume to come to a better method of weighing classes. DPS Paladins have very few options in doing DPS, rogues have lots of options with haste effects, bleed effects, etc. What the Paladin has options in is in survivability with greater armor and Divine Shield, the rogue has better dodge and Vanish. Overall (and this is hasty and unquantified) the volume of the ability polyhedral is roughly similar between the two. Warriors are the tanks with the most options, though not the best in every given area. Skillsets may differ favoring some classes for some encounters, but the "pure" class is going to have more options to fill their role than any role-switcher would.
Those options may or may not be useful all the time. Vanish is still a nice trick to have up the rogue-sleeve. Last Stand is one of those really nice abilities of the warrior that gives them more options than Paladin or Druid tanks. Ice Block > the destruction of the universe (old and inside joke). Priests have more options for healing: group heal, HoT, large single-target heal, binding heal, prayer of frisbee… a resto shaman has fast small heal, slow big heal, chain heal. When you need chain heal, the Shaman may well serve you better than the priest, but the priest will have more flexibility as a healer over all.
Edit: It seemed a bit of clarification might be in order.
Looking at the "triangle"of roles, you basically have this-
If you consider the warrior class, which has lots of tanking ability and some dps ability, you have a triangle filled in something like this-
And rogue and priest would be more or less these (respectively):
The people who feel hybrid classes are overpowered, would suggest druids, for example, look a bit like this:
But, more realistically, before gear and spec are taken into account, it’s more this:
My argument is to suggest that, yes, druids can have that full triangle, but only when considering the total abilities of the class without regard to the limitations of spec and gear. If you could be 61/61/61 and wear gear that had all stats and +defense and +crit and +heal and +spell damage, sure, that would make the druid a hybrid. But for any given encounter, the druid’s triangle is limited to something similar to that of the pure class whose role they are filling. A lot of people seem to feel that allowing a role-switching class (because they can only fill one role at a time) to be nearly as good as a pure class unfairly limits the pure class because they can’t do anything else.
And I can’t inherently argue against that. That’s why I think the triangle is too limited a way to consider class balance. Kitty or Boomkin druids may well be able to dps at the same level as a rogue, but they have far fewer options to do it with. Cat druids get two viable finishing moves, and Ferocious Bite is not that good if Rip has the time to tick and the target is bleedable. Moonkin cast arcane of nature damage spells, severely limiting their ability to do damage if those schools are off the table. Rogues can vary their abilities to the situation, focusing on haste effects (slice and dice) or bleed damage (which skill escapes me) and has options for getting out of combat that a druid lacks (vanish).
My point is not whether classes are balanced, but to give a better method for doing those comparisons. When all of the factors are weighed, rogues look much more like this:
Their options for dpsing give them more abilities in that area than a dps druid would have. Their options in each area are fewer, but it balances out due to their options in other arenas: tanking and healing. Their abilities come up in their ability to switch roles, however sub-optimally. Correspondingly, a dps druid’s would look more like this:
I’m not suggesting these graphs are accurate, merely conceptual. I’m not trying, here, to determine the relative abilities of classes or specs, but lay a groundwork for how that can be done. It came out of hearing too many people saying "Oh, my spec sucks because I can’t do" something that some other class can, without being cognizant of their abilities that serve as balancing factors. No, not every class/spec/role will be filled equally, and individual encounters and gear levels will affect things greatly. I just though, that instead of living in my head, this concept should be shared and discussed.
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3 Responses to “The Triangle”
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So what you’re suggesting is that talents be restructured to offer deep-tree specced hybrids more capacity and skills to aid them in their chosen raid role?
I would argue otherwise, or perhaps a different take, but I can understand your sentiment. A hybrid specced for DPS can begin to resent his/her healing spells, as they are counted as a defensive mechanism by developers and an alternative role by fellow players.
But top end talents have to be examined by the operations of all roles seem to approach them in different ways. For instance, a deep Holy Priest might prefer a talent that aids in soloability, given that his/her spec is primarily about group utility. Similarly, a Protection Warrior and Restoration Druid might ask for soloing talents.
A DPS-specced hybrid should really have no issues with soloability, but may instead ask for talents that augment what they bring to the table. A Shadow Priest is a perfect example of talented group utility. Not only do they come with trained crowd controls but also Vampiric talents with turn damage into health and mana. Enhancement Shaman come close to that ideal with their party buffs and ability to tank and destroy caster mobs.
Elemental, Feral(cat), Retribution, and Balance classes arguably don’t have the talents to seem an attractive alternative to other specs. I know my moonkin would get a lot more invites if I could root indoors or hibernate more than the rare Beast in a dungeon.
What would you add to Retribution?
Urthona, thanks for stopping by and commenting! You bring up some interesting points and I think I’d agree with a lot of your points. It did seem my main point was missed, so I edited the post above to , hopefully, clarify a bit. Cheers!
LOLCharts!
No, really, that DID help to explain your position. The article was more about our perception of gameplay rather than implementation of actual mechanics. Very nice. If only we could slip this into the User’s Manual.