Is the Monk class the reason Rogues are losing most of the survivability and control?

[Dave131]

No, not really. For instance, most of us was fine with shamans doing lesser dps than others because they had so much buffs for the group. Another example was hybrid classes that could serve a special role or being an off-tank/healer. I myself really oppose to this homogenization ever since the begining of wrath. I think it was better when classes were unique.

Yeah cause playing a Buff Bot was a blast

[Sesshou]

Do tell me what a Warrior brings to Morchok? Or Zonozz? Or Ultraxion?

Rallying cry. Shield wall + taunt in event of tank death or perhaps if your tank is the one that needs to use their bres.

Do tell me what a DK brings to Yorsahj, Zonozz, Ultraxion, Hagara?

AMZ, bres, ability to soak on Ultrax. Not really useful on those fights, but death grip is also pretty huge and one of a kind which is useful on lots of fights.

Do tell me what an Enhancement Shaman brings to almost any fight?

Lust (essentially resource free), variety of totems for various kinds of utility like additional group healing, resists, casting pushback protection.

Do tell me apart from Bress what a Feral Druid brings to almost any fight?

Seriously... can't believe you are forgetting tranq. Their 4pc mass regen is also quite strong if it is necessary for them to go ahead with it (also for something like lightning phase hagara, its essentially not even a dps loss). Though to a lesser degree, innervate (granted feral innervate has been massively nerfed) and ability to SI+BS+taunt as needed.

Yeah cause playing a Buff Bot was a blast

Well you are entitled to your opinion, but lots of enh shaman did like the vanilla/bc model. They were extremely highly desired, took a decent amount of skill to weave totems properly (well, in comparison to say the combat rogue rotation at the time). So what if they weren't high on the meter, everyone else in the raid with a brain knew the enormous contribution the enh shaman were making.

I would bet most of the people disappointed were only disappointed because they rolled the class for things it clearly wasn't. It wasn't a dps class. Thats like me seriously getting disappointed because my rogue can't tank. If you roll a class for something it wasn't meant for and you end up disappointed, you had it coming.

[Cyi]

Maybe I'm alone in this, but I never once thought of my rogue as a ninja or of energy as ki. I will give you that there are some overlaps like how being sneaky is also associated with ninja or the assassination thing, but I never thought the wow idea of rogue encompassed ninja. I also thought of energy more like stamina, you know like swinging around your weapons is tiring. When I think mmorpg ninja, I think FFXI.

This all the way. Never did it once cross my mind that a rogue was a ninja.

[Verain]

Verain I dont want to sound condescending, because you have written a very good post, and have supported it well, so please dont take this like that. But 10man is vastly different from 25man, in 25man the enrage on Yorsahj and Ultraxion and co is a real real issue, that we have to face. Obviously as theyre now getting nerfed and gears getting better, its not quite the same issue it was, but it was one reason that 25mans didnt take Yorsahj straight after Morchok, because beating the enrage timer was horribly hard.

No, that's fair- 25m is harder than 10m, on top of the ludicrous extra difficulty of finding the players. We were a heroic 25 guild from the invention of heroics until firelands, where it was obvious that the extreme advantages of 10m for progression were no longer possible to ignore- I had my top players bucking to quit or leave if they didn't get a 10m, and so we went that route. I'm still ticked that 25 is legit harder than 10s (with a couple exceptions), but I play the cards I have, and they say, rock 10s.

In general, Blizzard has been harsher on dps requirements in 25 than 10 for this expac. For instance, Baleroc pre-nerf (postnerf was easier in 25s than 10s) was a ludicrous fight, demanding world class dps to down, and often slapping you down even with that. I consider it a poor design, because explaining the small loot advantage 25s enjoys over 10s goes right over the heads of most raiders, and thus there are nowhere near the number of 25m raiders that we saw last expac- instead people angle for a good 10s. But that's a rant for a different forum, I suspect.

I'm not sure this really eliminates my point from consideration, however- you must see that the amount of extra damage single target a rogue must bring to be worth letting the adds survive longer has to be substantial, and I'm definitely not convinced it is such a large amount as to be desired specifically for that role. I still get lines from my officers like "well, they just left the rogue on the boss because they could afford to", and such. Even if you are completely correct about rogue dps being high enough to justify for an enrage timer on progression content (and you could well be), I will still claim that being locked into such a desired job makes you look entitled and bad to a damned large chunk of the playerbase, and rolling a hybrid who can fulfill multiple rolls (in same case even ranged dps) looks much better from the perspective of "trying to advance the guild".

Hell we even killed Hagara about 3 seconds after the enrage on 25man, and that was with almost perfect tactic play, the lightning phase was over almost instantly, and we got all the pillars within 2 passes with a bit of time to spare.

On our first H. Hagara, we were racing the second frost phase.- with no hunter, our strategy was entirely different than most guilds on that. I suspect that it's more reasonable to demand higher dps on that fight in 25s, because you can safely assume pack in such a group. We were still ahead of the actual enrage, however- she would have enraged in the middle of her last frost phase, but downed her a couple seconds before the shield went back up. We would have definitely been finished in that frost phase if we didn't make that damage.


I will also freely point out that hybrids, and role switching, is better in 10s than 25s. This is because there are fewer players in 10s, but normally fights require the same number of tanks. If you are a plate hybrid, your ability to tank is MUCH more likely to be relevant to the group, depending on comp, than if that is the case in a 25 guild, where there is likely an understood dedicated off-tank to pick up gear after the first two tanks. However, even as a 25 guild, this stuff still came up, and the hybrid advantage saved the night plenty of times (normally when a good dps could become a slightly above average healer for when a healer main has some issue and can't stick around).

---------- Post added 2012-02-24 at 01:10 AM ----------

On the topic of "buff bot"- the original design of the game featured warlocks as a "debuffer", and shamans and paladins as a kind of "buff bot". Part of your rotation in a raid was intended to be keeping buffs rolling- much like placing a five minute dot on a boss might not be out of place during a 7 minute fight, keeping your blessings up midfight was intended to be sort of the same thing- a damage over time (or mana over time) effect that you had to manage.

Now, Blizzard came to the conclusion that not enough players enjoyed this role, and many players had rolled an enhancement shaman to not just LEVEL that way, but to raid. So they tried the BC model, where, as it was pointed out, the buffs were actually very damned strong, and in many ways dependent on bringing those classes. Eventually they tried the current model, where hybrid damage is not 30% behind pure damage, but somewhere closer to 5%, based on what they thought most players wanted.

In any event- I think that the "buff bot" model should have been done VASTLY better. For instance, lets take something simple, like blessing of might. In the old days, this was a flat AP boost. Pretend that when you cast it on someone, that YOU gain a benefit every time they punch with it- maybe a stacking buff, and when it reaches 100, you can do something cool or special- heal your friends, hit for a lot of damage, put up a dot, whatever. Then the game would limit how many people have this blessing of might from YOU. Basically, I think the disconnect was that casting the buff literally had ZERO feedback- you couldn't even begin to peel out the damage gain from the combat parse, and you personally noticed nothing different. The buff model really could have been made compelling. In Dungeons and Dragons, a wizard or sorceror will often cast, very early on, haste. This gives players extra attacks and increases their movement. It greatly increases the power of the PCs, but it costs an action to cast. Yet almost every caster LOVES casting haste. Why is that? Largely, I believe, it is the pace of the game. Often fights are resolved in four to ten rounds, and so very few spells are available. Positioning is more important in a game without tanks. If you spent the first 15 seconds of a 300 second fight "casting haste", then when it finally resolved, you would feel fantastic for delivering such a measurable and incredible buff- but standing still for 15 seconds is absolutely the opposite of compelling gameplay. The other thing is- when you go around the table, it is OBVIOUS when the hasted attacks are happening. Players say "oh yea, one for haste". You see the effects over and over again over the rest of the fight (which can take quite a long time). I think this FEEDBACK is the important part, and recount has made a lot of that not obvious. Hell, rogues neglect tricks because it doesn't show up under their damage done (even though all bonus damage done by a tricks is absolutely creditable to the rogue, or should be).

So I think UI elements and better feedback could make buff classes more compelling. Certainly, nothing is compelling about the current model of buffs, where you, or anyone of your class, presses one button and everyone enjoys the benefits for the remainder of the fight- the only part about buffs we get to keep under the current model is that you are more powerful in a group.

[Dave131]

Well you are entitled to your opinion, but lots of enh shaman did like the vanilla/bc model. They were extremely highly desired, took a decent amount of skill to weave totems properly (well, in comparison to say the combat rogue rotation at the time). So what if they weren't high on the meter, everyone else in the raid with a brain knew the enormous contribution the enh shaman were making.

I would bet most of the people disappointed were only disappointed because they rolled the class for things it clearly wasn't. It wasn't a dps class. Thats like me seriously getting disappointed because my rogue can't tank. If you roll a class for something it wasn't meant for and you end up disappointed, you had it coming.

So what you're telling me is a DPS SPEC was never meant to DPS because the CLASS has buffs. Sorry, but that is absolutely senseless to me.

[Sesshou]

So what you're telling me is a DPS SPEC was never meant to DPS because the CLASS has buffs. Sorry, but that is absolutely senseless to me.

No, I'm telling you it wasn't a DPS spec. It was a support spec. MMORPGs didn't originally only have tanks/dps/heals, and vanilla wow was loosely based on the accepted model at the time which included support classes (in this case specs). They did their dps through the other members of the group which is a perfectly fine model. Of course, if you somehow thought your (vanilla) enh shaman would be doing all of it as personal dps, yeah you would be disappointed.

[Deleted]

No, not really. For instance, most of us was fine with shamans doing lesser dps than others because they had so much buffs for the group. Another example was hybrid classes that could serve a special role or being an off-tank/healer. I myself really oppose to this homogenization ever since the begining of wrath. I think it was better when classes were unique.

nop that is your opinion general opinion is that all classes should have the same chance for dps and what you said about hybrid prolly is down from your head ppl are crying for hybrid classes pve wise and hybrid classes are crying for there dps pvp wise and at least on this tier tell me where exacly you see the use of a hybrid class

there is no hybrid
example rogue 3 speccs all dps
druid 3 speccs 3 roles 1 dps (moonkin / cat) 2nd tank 3rd healer
now based on what you are saying the druid shouldnt be a very good healer cause its hybrid class now let me think wich healer is not hybrid hmmmm none all of them are hybrid so all of them must do less healling than the pure healling classes wich we dont have
lets go on the tanks hmmmmmm same thing all tanks are hybrids so all of them should be werst than the pure tank classes seriusly give me a brake

[Kael]

nop that is your opinion general opinion is that all classes should have the same chance for dps and what you said about hybrid prolly is down from your head ppl are crying for hybrid classes pve wise and hybrid classes are crying for there dps pvp wise and at least on this tier tell me where exacly you see the use of a hybrid class

there is no hybrid
example rogue 3 speccs all dps
druid 3 speccs 3 roles 1 dps (moonkin / cat) 2nd tank 3rd healer
now based on what you are saying the druid shouldnt be a very good healer cause its hybrid class now let me think wich healer is not hybrid hmmmm none all of them are hybrid so all of them must do less healling than the pure healling classes wich we dont have
lets go on the tanks hmmmmmm same thing all tanks are hybrids so all of them should be werst than the pure tank classes seriusly give me a brake

I'll go right on getting that brake out of my car for you.

In all seriousness, the discussion's gotten a little silly. Hybrid abilities that are a bonus generally aren't useful because the class is a hybrid but because it has the ability. At equal skill and not worrying about raid-wide buffs, I'd usually bring a boomkin over a rogue if I didn't have a druid for a full HP Bres and to have someone else at range, as well as a half-decent AoE. That said, I'd sooner bring a warlock than the boomkin if I had the 100% bres or we were short on DPS for burst capacity, incredible AoE, or to put DI on someone who's really topping the meters, without losing a bres at all, and staying at range (outside of AoE and maximum capacity DPS).

As far as oddball strats and general raid utility go, I think warlocks and mages and hunters are generally all doing just fine. They've got a decent amount of versatility (although warlocks are trapped with rogues in the "melee/ramp up DPS" section) and can be used to activate different bonuses for different fights pretty decently, as well as bringing valuable buffs that are (somewhat) uncommon, or strictly unique, across the board. It's still not a HYBRID VS. ROGUES issue, it's a "what makes a rogue stand out as a valuable DPS to a raid?" issue. Except for some real strangeness with Cheat Death, or HMorchok (for which, to be fair, you can sub any plate wearer, or rotate CDs and persons in in the event of a really really bad composition -- we didn't quite get that kill before a plate logged on, but it was close, with 0 plate wearers and 1 rogue on 10).

Sure, we bring tricks... and flurry. Until someone makes a convincing argument that other pure DPS are also so hindered, I think we should stop attacking hybrids and talk about what would be rogue-oriented that would genuinely be helpful to a raid.

@ Sessh: I think you're over-valuing tranq to be some massive and intense CD. It's more useful in 10s than 25s, but it's not so incredibly clutch when you use it in any spec. I find the feral 4-piece to be entirely broken -- capping out around 1.6-1.8 million healing per use in 25 if it doesn't overheal, which has nothing to do with being a hybrid (but allowed our H Zon to sub a cat for a healer, which I find absurd).

I think other hybrid boosts are mis-attributed as well... the greatest bonuses we've found from shadow priests are all multi-dotting, AoE, dispersion-related tactics and passive healing that only comes from the shadow spec, not the healing-side CDs or ability to cast healing spells, or even the mana CD. My warrior's a looot more likely to use Rallying Cry a couple of times in a fight or rely on trollstorm*Maw*tentacles than my ability to use a couple of GCDs to switch stances, switch gear, hit taunt, and use a shield wall in combat - which, outside of spell-abilities and impale, isn't far off from a rogue running higher DPS than anyone else, getting threat, and using evasion, because anything tanked will drop a DPS warrior that gets crit in the face with low armor and barely any dodge/parry/block. IBF is similarly neutered for DPS DKs, AMS isn't even part of the tank tree, AMZ comes from the unholy tree, burst AoE from frost, etc.

On a different note, I'd love to see support classes return to MMOs... just not my rogue ^_^ WTB bard instead of monk

[Sesshou]

@ Sessh: I think you're over-valuing tranq to be some massive and intense CD. It's more useful in 10s than 25s, but it's not so incredibly clutch when you use it in any spec. I find the feral 4-piece to be entirely broken -- capping out around 1.6-1.8 million healing per use in 25 if it doesn't overheal, which has nothing to do with being a hybrid (but allowed our H Zon to sub a cat for a healer, which I find absurd).

I think other hybrid boosts are mis-attributed as well... the greatest bonuses we've found from shadow priests are all multi-dotting, AoE, dispersion-related tactics and passive healing that only comes from the shadow spec, not the healing-side CDs or ability to cast healing spells, or even the mana CD. My warrior's a looot more likely to use Rallying Cry a couple of times in a fight or rely on trollstorm*Maw*tentacles than my ability to use a couple of GCDs to switch stances, switch gear, hit taunt, and use a shield wall in combat - which, outside of spell-abilities and impale, isn't far off from a rogue running higher DPS than anyone else, getting threat, and using evasion, because anything tanked will drop a DPS warrior that gets crit in the face with low armor and barely any dodge/parry/block. IBF is similarly neutered for DPS DKs, AMS isn't even part of the tank tree, AMZ comes from the unholy tree, burst AoE from frost, etc.

On a different note, I'd love to see support classes return to MMOs... just not my rogue ^_^ WTB bard instead of monk

Feral/Boomkin tranqs are still really strong even in 25m because 1/2 of them not only do a substantial amount of healing but save the healers mana as well. The feral 4pc has EVERYTHING to do with being a hybrid. Because feral is a hybrid spec, they have to have tanking set bonuses on the same pieces of gear, meaning cat dps will have the same set bonuses as bear tanks. If they weren't a hybrid, they wouldn't have a tanking set bonus. Now this specific bonus in particular is absurd, but cat dps druids have always gotten free extra tanking bonuses.

I agree rallying cry is the big warrior raid utility. The taunt/cd/tanking is pretty much a clutch 'oh crap' moment utility which ideally shouldn't happen.

Your rogue example is horribly wrong btw. You lose 1/6 of your threat from using tricks which is ~16% which means you need to do 16% more dps than the next person to be ahead on threat (even if you trade tricks with another rogue, the threat you get still goes away and the threat you gave out never comes back). You certainly aren't saying we do 16% more single target dps than other classes are you? Now some classes have threat drops, but odds that all of your dps do is super low. Of course theres also that 2/3 specs use vanish as a dps cooldown meaning they will almost always be last on threat. So the only way this is happening is if theres some massive holding back on dps (either by the rogue not using dps cooldowns because they lower threat or the other dps to keep below) which means it is not comparable at all because the warrior/druid ONLY loses the dps if they actually exercise the option to use their utility but loses nothing to simply have the option.

Most bosses will not kill a dps warrior with shield wall up or a cat spec druid in bear form with barkskin+si up provided they get the same healing the normal tank does while tanking. If you meant without cd's, I completely agree, but the cd's easily last long enough to either bres the tank or have the tank bres some one else.

Also, I never said AMS. I said AMZ. He also didn't mention if the DK was frost or unholy so I didn't feel the need to confine my reply to a single spec.

[Kael]

I'll grant that the feral/feral issue really is an issue, and rogues attempting to tank a boss is a ridiculous concept, but feral's finally splitting feral/guardian in MoP (can't WAIT to see that tier vendor and try to actually find pieces) -- and the rogue not being able to tank has less to do with CD issues and more to do with threat -- which is rather rogue-specific (the same job could be accomplished by a hunter pet... and possibly others, although I'm not up to date on attempting to taunt bosses with Disshot, voidwalkers, and I haven't seen images take threat since Alysrazor, and really have no desire to test any of the above). The feral/feral issue I do see as being a REAL hybridization problem (the inconspicuous bear has an interesting talk on BearCats being used for progression), but again, one that's thankfully going away with MoP. Always hated cat DPS.

I don't think it's a problem that DPS can tank for ~~10 seconds. Some healers can, too (pallies, taunt/bubble/taunt, or very very sketchily shamans, rockbiter unleash external CDs, or druids again, with bear form, external CDs -- only priests can't taunt, and all healers can take a HoP). To be fair, I really really wasn't trying to attack your prior posts, but point out that the majority of what we care about for raid composition that doesn't favor rogues (I'm not bringing an arms warrior because it can put on a shield to taunt) has less to do with hybrids (unless you'd like to bring 10-15 4-pc kitties, which could entirely happen to replace half your healers, but I haven't seen it) than it does to do with rogues bringing nothing unique or especially helpful. Vanish/smokebomb/mobility/cleave don't bring much to the raiders' table (off of Blackhorn), and it seems silly that the masters of trickery and stealth and controlling enemies' perceptions... do just about none of that in raids. Mobility is countered by ranged, or other classes mobility, with ease. We're dead in the water for target swapping compared to most DPS in the game with no multi-target bonus except our OPcleave or assassination's poisons/bleeds, which are nearly unusable in practice this tier. And vanish... well, as Sessh put it, it's a DPS cooldown for 2/3 specs, and I'd be hard pressed to call it useful outside of that.

My rogue example earlier was even worse considering that we should be using feint often and push ourselves lower and lower on threat, as far as tanking goes. You could finnagle some threat movement for chimaeron-like reasons, but it'd be a lot of work for little reward.

[Sesshou]

Oh I agree about the rogue cd's, I can pretty reliably tank a boss with evasion up as even in the 4% or so chance I get hit, in many cases it won't actually 1 shot me and the odds of that happening again are super low.

I also agree that the 'hybrid' part isn't the important part. Its the utility brought to the raid, but it just happens that in general, hybrids bring more. And yeah you probably aren't thinking 'oh i better bring some one who can tank in a pinch for a couple seconds' but you probably did consider 'oh that arms warrior bring us an extra raid cd for damage phases'. You likewise aren't going to be like 'oh lets stack ferals for the 4pc' but for example we have 3 ferals (one is technically a tank, but as he still somehow does more dps than some dps, he does get to dps a decent amount including ultraxion) and those 4pc bonuses and tranqs definitely get taken advantage of. But, yeah, the core of the problem is not what everyone else can do but "rogues bringing nothing unique or especially helpful".

Though I do think that say for a 10m, especially one that doesn't want to swap people around a bunch, the utility of 'oh we might need another tank for X' so lets take the warrior/paly/feral/dk shouldn't be entirely discounted. Not that switching to prot should mean arms does less dps, but when you can only take at most 3 melee generally without noticeably gimping yourselves, it does stand out again that rogues dont bring useful stuff like that. (definitely been an issue with alt 10m runs since wrath in the 2 guilds Ive been with, sans DS where they take 1 just for the legendary crap).

[Milkshake86]

I've absolutely always assumed it was ki, from the moment I created back in August after the game was released. The ki gives you the power to make the strikes that grant you insight (or destabilize the enemy), the metastate of which was always combo points. Remember that some of our cooldowns used to cost energy as well, so I always felt that this was intended. Meanwhile, we have tricks such as vanish and cloak of shadows, ninja abilities with a certainty!

Energy is not similar in anyway to mana rage ki focus etc, energy is supposed to be a visual implementation of your energy expendature per attack or capable per attack. Combo points are a way to reference putting a classic fighting game combo on someone w/ a power hit at the end. Combo points have been since expanded into more of a moment to deal a large amount of damage or in the case of SnD and Recup a moment to resituate yourself while in combat. Monk resources will reflect a spiritual balance and harmony type setup.

Oh I agree about the rogue cd's, I can pretty reliably tank a boss with evasion up as even in the 4% or so chance I get hit, in many cases it won't actually 1 shot me and the odds of that happening again are super low.

I also agree that the 'hybrid' part isn't the important part. Its the utility brought to the raid, but it just happens that in general, hybrids bring more. And yeah you probably aren't thinking 'oh i better bring some one who can tank in a pinch for a couple seconds' but you probably did consider 'oh that arms warrior bring us an extra raid cd for damage phases'. You likewise aren't going to be like 'oh lets stack ferals for the 4pc' but for example we have 3 ferals (one is technically a tank, but as he still somehow does more dps than some dps, he does get to dps a decent amount including ultraxion) and those 4pc bonuses and tranqs definitely get taken advantage of. But, yeah, the core of the problem is not what everyone else can do but "rogues bringing nothing unique or especially helpful".

Though I do think that say for a 10m, especially one that doesn't want to swap people around a bunch, the utility of 'oh we might need another tank for X' so lets take the warrior/paly/feral/dk shouldn't be entirely discounted. Not that switching to prot should mean arms does less dps, but when you can only take at most 3 melee generally without noticeably gimping yourselves, it does stand out again that rogues dont bring useful stuff like that. (definitely been an issue with alt 10m runs since wrath in the 2 guilds Ive been with, sans DS where they take 1 just for the legendary crap).

In wotlk rogues as with most melee were insane damage sources. In wotlk MS debuff was used a bit and fan was a decent aoe. Keep in mind tricks is a raid utility so is disarm, vanish can also be used to get a quick res off after a wipe. Rogues could easily tank a ton of mechanics with cloak and were huge for baleroc. Lady deathwhisper a dps able to feint and dump threat elsewhere was also huge buffer for others. Anubarak rogues kiting ????? Your concept of raid utility is very narrow. Healing and DMG buffs are not the only utilities around that a heavily useful. I dare say yogg would have been a pain in the ass without combat rogues.

[Psilar]

Monk and Rogue were my main characters in EverQuest 1 and 2. In both games, Monks had way more survivability / utility, whereas Rogues were more of the traditional glass cannon. After reading the latest Blue Posts on MMO-Champion's main page it has become apparent that Blizzard is attempting to remove a lot of the Rogues Survivability, and Control while increasing their damage output. My question is:

Do you think that this is because the Monk class will likely become the new high survivability/control PVP class, or that the two are completely unrelated?

No, totally unrelated. You are just incapable of reading the talent trees. The control and survivability is there its not being removed....you simply will be sacrificing damage to get it. Rogues are still in a great spot.

[ZeroEdgeir]

Pretty much this; the classes that actually have the option to be Jack of All Trades (Druids/Paladins in particular) should not also be entitled to be King of all trades too. I will say however that they should have other tools/benefits to compensate for the 'opportunity cost' (to use my old Business Studies terminology) of being able to fulfil any/multiple rolls, such as bringing unique and precious buffs/CC's.

"Bring the player, not the class" clearly did not work for Cataclysm; a virtuous idea it certainly might have seemed, but in reality there's always going to be one class at the bottom of those DPS charts, so they should instead focus on giving those classes other attributes beyond mere DPS.

As to the monk/rogue thing however, we're still yet to see how it will work out, but if anything I think rogues should at least keep the survivability they have now; Monks/Druids do have certain luxuries such as access to many self-healing spells and tanking spells which while the bread and butter of PvE (Survival Instincts, etc), can make or break a fight in PvP.

The exact design you are explaining, took place in Classic and TBC mainly, and to a lesser extent, certain tiers of both Wrath and even Cata. Bringing a class specifically because it offers a buff, but doesn't do much else, almost feels like you are expected to have sub-par performance, and then raids get tailored to that standard, which once people can get by without those buffs (and they will, if it shaves 5/10/20 sec off their kill to bring a "pure" dps instead). How many situations where Shamans brought JUST for their Bloodlust/Heroism? Or their Cleansing Totem? The totem got axed (and rightfully, it was VERY powerful), and Mages picked up Time Warp and Hunters got Ancient Hysteria (if spec'd BM). So the whole reason to bring a Shaman, for the cooldown, died right there. All their other buffs have other sources that can be brought instead. So why even bring a Shaman now?

And then your tank and healers (since they ALL get at least 1 DPS spec too), become even stronger, unless they relegate those "perks" specifically to the DPS specs, and then, you are gimping your raid's total performance to bring a lower-performing spec, cause they bring a buff. That isn't interesting design at all.

[Deleted]

I'm pretty sure Backstab works by stabbing a mofo in the back.

made my day