Originally Posted by
crious
As a fury warrior in raids who has tanked the raid boss through the final 10% multiple times, yes, I'd like to still debate this, because you're flat out demonstrably wrong. That does not make them specialist, it makes them hybrids, going off of the model that -you- gave for hybrids.
In 4.3 Ret healing still required a global cool down, and potentially holy power. This is a DPS sacrifice, just as an enhance shaman can use a 5 stack of malestrom weapon to use healing surge or healing rain instead of lightning bolt. To relate this to hybrid tanks, DPS warriors and DKs still retain all of their DPS abilities by going into a defensive stance, but warriors generate less rage, and death knights lose their stance bonus. That's it, same concept, small DPS sacrifice for hybrid gain.
Ret has been able to instant cast heals since the start of cataclysm, because Word of Glory is instant. That's beside the point though, because hybrids are classes that can fill different roles with different specs, and retain some abilities of each spec in all specs. The hybrid tax was removed when pure DPS specs gained utility and self heals.
Keep calling me a kid if you'd like, it doesn't make you any less wrong.
---------- Post added 2013-03-07 at 11:10 AM ----------
You're 100% correct about a class hybrid, what you're incorrect about is that a Death Knight or a Warrior cannot tank while in a DPS spec, and a Ret paladin being able to actually heal a tank through a raid boss. If you're talking 5 man instances, yes, a ret paladin can heal a tank through it, but I've also tanked a 5 man instance as fury with a dedicated healer, thus making both specs hybrids.
The core fundamental ability of a tank is to hold aggro and not die, and if played correctly every tank hybrid can do this in a DPS spec quite effectively, but cannot replace a dedicated tank on a raid level. This holds true of a hybrid healer. Hybrid healers cannot replace a healer on a raid level, unless it's a stupidly light healing fight, or your other healer(s) is/are very competent.
So, the word you're looking for is hybrid.
EDIT:
Just to clarify a little bit, for plate DPS hybrids, strength gives you more parry rating than parry does. My warrior sits at 19k strength raid buffed, which puts him roughly at 20% parry with a base 5% dodge and 5% miss, which totals to ~30% pure avoidance. Slapping on a shield raises my armor to around 55% damage reduction, and adds a base 5% block chance. This means that by using Shield Wall, I'm only taking 45% of 60% raid boss damage roughly 65% of the time. Shield Wall last 12 seconds, Die by the Sword (100% parry chance) last for 8 seconds, and as of 5.2 is extended by using Wild Strike. This gives me easily 25 seconds of tanking a heroic raid boss assuming the healers switch to healing me. Add in a Rallying Cry, Guardian Spirit, Pain Suppression, Hand of Sacrifice, Sacred Shield, Devotion Aura, Lay on Hands, Life Cocoon, and Spirit Link Totem and just about any plate tank can successfully hold threat and live through a raid boss for upwards of 60-80 seconds. That's buying almost 2 minutes. Should I go into more detail or is that enough of how to hybrid tank?