By your definition of "classes where only one spec has representation above 2200", windwalkers are pures because mistweavers had 0% 2200+ representation in 3v3 prior to 5.3. Shadowpriests from 5.0->5.2 were Pures because Disc and Holy had a combined 0% representation above 2200 before Focused Will was brought back. Do you see the problem with defining pure/hybrid based on representation and not class design? It doesn't work. Shamans by the same token are frequently Pures because often both ele and enh are almost non-existent above 2200.
Same argument, it's my point Current representation cannot be what differentiates pures and hybrids.Hybrid classes, being Ret, Enh, Ele, Feral, Shadow, Boomy, WW is 7, but WW is kind of an outlier because it is so under represented. You could argue Boomy and Enh are both under represented too because people (especially top players) are playing Feral and Ele, but thats a whole different argument.
We can actually tell that by comparing 2200+ representation to global spec representation, we created a Popularity Quotient (PQ) on this forum back in 5.2 to describe this problem. The numbers were actually pretty surprising. So it turns out, Ret and Shadow are extremely popular specs - this is likely because they are the only DPS specs of their respective classes: so anyone who rolls a priest or paladin - but wants to play DPS - is necessarily Ret or Shadow.DPS strength according to the site goes (only includes top 10, 3 of which are healers):
Hunter - way overpowered.
Shadow - way overpowered in 5.2. I imagine a good # are camping their rating.
Mage - due to shadow nerf in 5.3, probably over-represented by mages camping rating as well.
Ret - only have 1 comp in top 10, probably being hugely skewed by the power of hunter/ret.
Ele - with 3 competitive specs number is probably slightly low
Feral - same as ele
Rogue - 5.2 thug put was +300 rating for any rogue that could open well. Camping rating.
So top 10 has 4 hybrids and 3 pures. Doesnt really support my conclusion much by itself, but when you think about the # of people that would call a pure their main, vs. Ele, or Ret their main, I would bet that they are way over-represented. By that I mean 100 warriors are pvp'ing, and only 10 of them are doing it successfully, compared to 25 rets are pvp'ing and 20 of them are doing it successfully.
As a result, the global representation of these specs is very very high - it's not 100 warriors playing and 10 of them succeeding versus 25 rets playing and 20 succeeding - from what I remember it was something like twice as many Rets as Arms warriors. Rets were the most popular spec of any class actually, followed by only a ~3% difference to Shadow, no other spec came close to them in terms of popularity/spec loyalty.
What was interesting about the finding was that while Shadow's representation was quite high in terms of an absolute number above 2200 compared to say, Windwalkers - Shadowpriests outnumbered Windwalkers globally by something absurd like 50:1, but above 2200 they outnumbered WW by a ratio less than half that - something like 23:1. If you only looked at the second ratio, you'd think WW was grossly underpowered and Shadow was grossly overpowered - but nobody thought Shadow was 27 times better than a Windwalker. If you adjust for both ratios - the global spriest population vs the WW population at the time - and their global 2200+ representation - you actually find that WW's were more likely to get 2200+ on average than Spriests.
The WW population has since exploded now that they have gone through some borderline OP phases, but initially - that result was quite shocking when Shatreeplay was the top comp.
Agreed, it's the number and frequency of their instant CC's that is doing it - it's the ability to set up so many more powerful CC chains as a result without a risk of those chains being countered. Combined with some pretty solid burst phases, a near-immunity to most melee, and a ton of caster-annoyance tools (ie. Feign Death, Camo) - their kit is just too diverse overall - but their instant CC in particular too plentiful IMO.I think the strength of hunters is completely changing the whole meta game. Hunters go so well with some classes that it is completely skewing the whole system!