Pure Classes =/= Pure?

[Athael]

This is just a half-baked thought, but, isn't Control (CC, stunning, sleeping, fearing, et cetera) just as class-defining a role as Tanking, Healing and DPSing?

Under that logic, Rogues and, to a lesser extend, Mages, aren't pure DPS classes. The rogue in particular is a Control class. I could probably wax poetic on this for a long time but I'm not interested in a lot of "tldr" and annoying "COOL STORY BRO" .jpegs, so I'll keep it brief.

Conclusion: Do you think Control and Debuffing is undervalued as a class role? Do you think it deserves equal consideration with healing, tanking, and DPS? Why/why not?

[negative432]

Does Crowd control require a different gear set to pull off properly?

[Nangz]

Does Crowd control require a different gear set to pull off properly?

this.... oh wait...... disc/holy ..... sure diff stat weights but still

ele or resto.... shadow or disc/holy...... boomkin or resto......

[nukson]

Yep, thats why we in our guild decided to not tank the bosses anymore but stunlock them till death.

[darkfireyguy]

Yep, thats why we in our guild decided to not tank the bosses anymore but stunlock them till death.

That's what all the top guilds are doing I heard

[Xiangu]

Well it would be an interesting alternative.. some classes have quite clever abilities/mechanics.. however it doesn't go well along with blizzards bring the player not the class strategy. That's why we don't see much use for cc these days.

[LFW]

What about # ?

[Kduruh]

when people refer to "pure" classes it's relativly to PVE, not PVP... so in terms of PVE you can't classify CC as a role, in all boss fights you needs tanks, healers, and DPSers, (ALL) except ones with vehicles in which case CC isn't an issue also... the thing is CC is secondary and therefore irrelevant as a role... and yeah! chain stunlocking bosses until they die seems like a great idea! xD

[myo]

In a lot of MMO's there are different classifications such as what you are suggesting. I think that blizz has melded the idea of control into many different classes and thus doesn't like granting it it's own tag. Just as there are no "support/buff" classes, there are healers. You could argue disc is support/buffing, but disc is still called a "healer".

I see what you are saying, and if there were more pve situations where CC was necessary or helped the raid more than said classes dps there would be a greater arguement. But for now i think the pure/hybrid thing is good where its at.

[Athael]

It was a given that I'd get a bunch of douchebags giving me snappy one-liners, so I'm not gonna gripe over that.

In response to the actual points made:

While DPS, Tank and Healer traditionally are PvE-centric roles, I think that fails to take into account the strong direction that massively multiplayer gaming seems to be taking toward making PvP a bigger deal. For example, you have Aion, in which the endgame content is PvP focused, and you have steps taken in WoW like Wintergrasp, the Cataclysm version of Wintergrasp, and rated Battlegrounds/Arenas, which place a strong emphasis on player versus player combat, where being able to effectively control your enemy is a lot more important than stacking avoidance and tanking them (which is usually the healer's job in any case, making dedicated tanking class/specs pretty irrelevant at worst, or gimmicky at best).

That having been said, I am not trying to imply that CC is somehow a replacement for tanking. That was never my point, and Nukson/darkfireyguy/any other retard who thinks that is, well, a retard. Or else, didn't read very closely.

Ignoring for a moment that there are PvE encounters where CC is valuable (Anub25 becomes a lot easier with Holy Wrath, for example, especially before diminishing cooldowns nerf), let's take a look at the game and distill it into its constituent elements: Levelling, Raiding and PvP. Control is usable and useful in 2 out of those 3 (unless you count trash, in which case it is usable in 3 out of those 3, but let's not count trash), and is often considered just as important as healing in PvP, even going so far as to acceptably replace healing in certain situations (Rogue/Mage teams in 2v2 arena, for example). I know a lot of dbags will cry that this is a PVE-Raiding game and everything else is just crap for casuals, but, sorry, no, you're wrong and an idiot.

A lot of people have raged and rage-quit over being stunlocked, or being chain-CCed and killed without getting a single hit in. To discount a mechanic that can so strongly effect a game situation is questionable.

Even Blizzard themselves have made reference to the fact that they often try to balance class damage with class utility. Other than buffing and debuffing (And I'll admit, that is a big "other than," and this thread could as easily have been about buffing/debuffing as a class role instead of CC, with examples of vanilla Wow's paladins and Aion's chanters), control is the only kind of utility out there to balance against.

And with regards to :

Does Crowd control require a different gear set to pull off properly?

By your reasoning, there's no such thing as Healers, DPS and Tanks. There's Block Tanks, Avoidance Tanks, Combat Melee DPS, Poison Melee DPS, 2handed DPS, Haste caster DPS, Crit Caster DPS, and so on and so forth. Gearing is on a spec-by-spec basis already, and thus is irrelevant in this conversation.

NOW. Having said all that, I will ask my original question again: Do you think Control and Debuffing is undervalued as a class role?



Edit: Thanks for the solid response Myo, and I'll accept that and leave it there. Point conceded.

[nukson]

That having been said, I am not trying to imply that CC is somehow a replacement for tanking. That was never my point, and Nukson/darkfireyguy/any other retard who thinks that is, well, a retard. Or else, didn't read very closely.

Retarded question requires a retarded answer I am afraid.
Talking "politics" and recognizing rights in a freaking pixel game.

And even if i ignore the stupidity of the question, when you would be able to talk about completely new CONTROLING roll is when you would be able to keep an opponent stunned 90% of the time of any length that the fight would last while doing damage compared to a healer. Now what this brings? Whining that they cant do shit in PVE, and whining from other classes in PVP, cuz that is what this game needs yea, more whine.

[BDF]

In defining what makes a class pure or hybrid it isn't the presence of utility, but the potential to fulfill an altogether different raiding role.

The three possible rolls being :Tank, Healer, DPS
This is how blizzard sees it and how they have told us they see it.


While pure (aka dps only classes...there are no pure tanks or healers) classes bring utility that others do not this does not make them less pure in the sense of how the word is supposed to be used.

[Polarthief]

This is just a half-baked thought, but, isn't Control (CC, stunning, sleeping, fearing, et cetera) just as class-defining a role as Tanking, Healing and DPSing?

Under that logic, Rogues and, to a lesser extend, Mages, aren't pure DPS classes. The rogue in particular is a Control class. I could probably wax poetic on this for a long time but I'm not interested in a lot of "tldr" and annoying "COOL STORY BRO" .jpegs, so I'll keep it brief.

Conclusion: Do you think Control and Debuffing is undervalued as a class role? Do you think it deserves equal consideration with healing, tanking, and DPS? Why/why not?

I fully understand your point, but since when have we needed to CC shit? In Naxx? in Ulduar? haha i don't think so.

Though I would love to extend my polymorph spell to be allowed to CC up to 3 at once *Only 1 PLAYER at a time though, keeping it not OP for pvp*. or a mass polymorph would always be cool