Originally Posted by
Xentropy
I don't really think wanting to be able to do my job better because I can't do any other jobs without spending weeks leveling a new character is "being a diva". I don't really QQ about it like some people do, though. I just feel the ideal state of the game would be for pures (as in, pure dps) to have some advantage over hybrids to make up for all the advantages hybrids have. For me to even find out what healing is like I need to either have a friend willing to let me try out their character (against the ToS anyway) or spend hundreds of hours of prep time just for the experience of level 80 healing. Meanwhile a feral cat can see what healing is like by spending hundreds of seconds looking up a build and respecing. And still do the same dps as me while feral. Does that really make sense? What do I bring to the table as a pure dps class to make up for the loss of ability to enjoy different roles?
Again, not a QQ. I love my class. I have a lot of fun playing the game. I just wonder what tanking and healing are like and will never know because I can't stand old world questing all over again to find out. If I were a paladin or druid, I'd probably have just as much fun and certainly do just as much dps, but also be able to experience the other 2/3rds of the game without rehashing terrible old world quest design. Cataclysm redesigning old world to make the leveling experience FUN up to lvl 58 again may fix the whole issue for me. Right now just the thought of going through that grind again, even with +20% XP from heirlooms, is a big turnoff. So I have fun and enjoy the 1/3rd of the game open to me as a pure, and hope I'm not missing anything big in the other 2/3rds of the roles.
Basically, for me, the whole "what if" scenario is what drives me nuts. What if I'd enjoy healing 3x as much as I enjoy dps? I'll never know! What if all I'd need to conquer burnout from time to time while waiting for a new tier would be to change roles for a while? I'll never know! Healers and tanks never have to wonder what it's like to dps; it's always just a respec away. Four classes will always just be wondering what it's like to do something OTHER than dps. And the reason that situation exists is that tanks and healers wanted to be heroes and Blizzard caved and let everyone dps equally. It sort of makes pures pointless. If I were starting the game up today, and I recommend this to anyone just now getting into WoW, I'd definitely roll a hybrid. There's no point being a pure, all you can do is one thing, and no better than the hybrids. Back when I chose mage it meant something. Now it just means giving up 2/3rds of the game from the first click.