Pure DPS class best DPS class

[seventysix]

I've seen countless opinions on this stating that you can't buff hybrids because pure DPS classes should do the most damage. Why? The general response is that Hybrids sacrifice utility for for damage.

Now I'm sorry but I'm under the impression that these people believe that pure DPS classes have 0 utility as if we're playing retail wow, this baffles me.

- Mage : Food and Water(important), Blink, Mana crystals, Portals, Shields, Arcane Intellect, fire vulnerability and more..
- Warlock: Multiple 5% damage debuffs on the boss for magic, Soulstone, Healthstones, Pet buffs (blood pact)
- Rogue: Vanish, nearly non existant threat while DPSing from feint (Rogues truly bring the least amount of utility yet usually don't out dps mages and fury warriors.
- Hunter: Laughable DPS - Shouldn't this "pure dps" class do more than others?

The only real difference in utility I see is classes having heals, but really why is that a big deal? Which enhancement shaman is going to stop dpsing to cast a heal on someone that costs 1/4th of the manapool they have. From what I see every single class in the game has "utility" they bring in vanilla some better than others, but I can't imagine this being game breaking to have for example enhancement do equal dps to a warlock for example, would everyone no longer bring warlocks? Of course not, that argument is silly...imo.

I would love to hear some outside opinions on this as it makes no sense to me.

Edit BTW Warriors are for this purpose a HYBRID class. And yet fury warriors dominate DPS charts, no ones complaining about this?

[seventysix]

Warriors top charts because at the start Blizzard had a very hard time balancing rage with gear and the issue persisted for expansions beyond vanilla.

The logic behind Hybrids was that why should a class that can fulfill two or three roles be at the top of all roles? Hybrid dps in vanilla didn't bring nearly as much utility as they did in TBC so that wasn't the reason for lower dps.

I can understand that sentiment and I'm glad you noted that they don't bring that much utility in vanilla, it was indeed far greater in TBC with things like bloodlust, but why shoouldn't they be competitive in vanilla DPS wise? There is literally no reason. DPS shouldn't be based on what other roles your class is able to fill. Especially in vanilla where respeccing is no simpe feat.

[Skaiz]

wrong section boys. I'll take the L and leave quietly

[Chaelexi]

I've seen countless opinions on this stating that you can't buff hybrids because pure DPS classes should do the most damage. Why? The general response is that Hybrids sacrifice utility for for damage.

Now I'm sorry but I'm under the impression that these people believe that pure DPS classes have 0 utility as if we're playing retail wow, this baffles me.

- Mage : Food and Water(important), Blink, Mana crystals, Portals, Shields, Arcane Intellect, fire vulnerability and more..
- Warlock: Multiple 5% damage debuffs on the boss for magic, Soulstone, Healthstones, Pet buffs (blood pact)
- Rogue: Vanish, nearly non existant threat while DPSing from feint (Rogues truly bring the least amount of utility yet usually don't out dps mages and fury warriors.
- Hunter: Laughable DPS - Shouldn't this "pure dps" class do more than others?

The only real difference in utility I see is classes having heals, but really why is that a big deal? Which enhancement shaman is going to stop dpsing to cast a heal on someone that costs 1/4th of the manapool they have. From what I see every single class in the game has "utility" they bring in vanilla some better than others, but I can't imagine this being game breaking to have for example enhancement do equal dps to a warlock for example, would everyone no longer bring warlocks? Of course not, that argument is silly...imo.

I would love to hear some outside opinions on this as it makes no sense to me.

Edit BTW Warriors are for this purpose a HYBRID class. And yet fury warriors dominate DPS charts, no ones complaining about this?

Fury dominated for the same reason warriors dominate at the end of every expansion their dps is limited by rage, the more gear you get the more rage you generate and the more damage you can do. For a very long time in Vanilla Warriors were middle of the pack, sometimes even considered bottom.

Warlocks: Were near the top early due to negative resists and SM/Ruin Spec but once that was nerfed and the change to COE/COS they actually were just above the hybrids in damage and suffered a so called hybrid-lite tax. Also their damage co-efficients for spells were poor.

Mage: They brought decurse and AI to raids, one was a DPS reduction and the other was a small int buff. The rest of what they brought were just convenience factors and did nothing to make fights more simple as there were no real solo soaking. They also suffered early tier as they could not play fire in raids as half the bosses were straight immune to fire spells. They only boomed in DPS in AQ once they could use fire and got gear for it.

Hunter: Were amazing in MC/BWL for DPS then they found out nothing they did scaled well other then off weapon speed, why the Xbow off of chromag was used for most of the xpac. They did bring one huge thing though, the ability to selectively pull trash, and the threat drop that rogues had.

Rogue: Same as warriors the more often they could hit a target(+hit and +weapon skill gear) the more damage they did.

[seventysix]

"Rogues truly bring the least amount of utility" what in the.... What does utility mean to you? lol. Rogues have been used nearly all expansions in progression raiding and in farm to handle mechanics other classes struggle with. They have also enabled strategies tailored to rogues. This hybrid vs only dps argument has been around since launch and it's result will never change.

Basically you picked a DPS only class, so you're only going to be doing DPS. Which flavor of DPS you want to do is your perk of choosing that class. The same can be said for any other class. Warriors? Your perk is the option to tank and have a couple choices of how you would like to melee dps. Shaman? You have the option to heal. But you have a single choice of melee or ranged dps.

I feel as though your rant is trying to scratch at another itch which is displeasure from the homogenizing of classes over the years. Yes I too would like for the old days to return and make each class or spec feel like it brings something to the table. But with that not being the case it seems like you feel that pure DPS should "do more damage" then others because they, like others, don't being anything new to the table that everyone else doesn't already have.

I think maybe you're in the wrong section? I'm posting about vanilla, rogues using things like cloak of shadows to ignore mechanics is not a thing, so that's irrelevant. Also, I'm on the stance that hybrids SHOULD do just as much damage as a pure DPS class, not sure where all the confusion in your post came from.

[potis]

I think maybe you're in the wrong section? I'm posting about vanilla, rogues using things like cloak of shadows to ignore mechanics is not a thing, so that's irrelevant. Also, I'm on the stance that hybrids SHOULD do just as much damage as a pure DPS class, not sure where all the confusion in your post came from.

Because you are thinking with the mindset of today, and not with the mindset of 2005.

WoW Vanilla, classic, call it whatever up to end TBC was a RPG first and at the core, at WoTLK it changed because of the repeated crying of the same type you just did

"I dont wanna be sat out or be a resto because i cant do as much DPS as the other classes and because the other shaman won the weapon he gets to be enh buffbot and i get to remain resto"

"I dont only wanna be a mana battery, why are warriors better than me, i have a two hand too, make me the same" <--Retri Paladins

Same with moonkins, same with Shadow priests etc.

Raiding became more accessible, the info spread around and more people started learning how the game works and you get what we have today in the end.

In the sense of RPG, a class cant heal and do insane DPS, it would be OP, thats why it heals a bit, and DPSes a bit, or heals a lot and barely does any DPS, or does insane DPS but cant survive on its own, reminds you of something?

So since Paladin/Shamans/Druids could heal themselves and others and do other things, they were not allowed to do comparable DPS to a pure DPS class.

[pateuvasiliu]

Warriors and Rogues wreck.

Hunters aren't as strong in PvE because they have utility that melees don't. They can kite, tranq, provide Nature Resist, pull.

I mean I paly a hunter so I'd love more damage, but I can see why we don't have it.

Also Hunter burst is very strong in PvP, if they made it even stronger we'd be broken.

[shaunika123]

the point of hybrid tax is.

that pure dps classes dont have the luxury to just go heal/tank when that's what's required

they're stuck being a dps on their character for the end of time.

it's not about utility, it's about flexibility.

- - - Updated - - -

Same with moonkins, same with Shadow priests etc.

to be fair, shadow priests did pretty decent dps, their problem was that the debuff limit was 16, and they ran out of mana on a longer bossfight. but if they had a shaman in their group for mana spring, and their dots didnt fall off cos the raid comp was made like that, then it actually did pretty good dps.

[Exodeus]

This is pure garbage all the pures should have atleast one spec the is 10-20% better then hybrids because they can't do anything but dps.
What Blizzard keeps preaching now about class fantasy was actually a thing in vanilla classes actually had their things that they could do and no one else and hopefully blizzard is trying to bring some of that back to retail.
But anyway if you want to do awesome dps in vanilla just play a mage or rogue.

[Storfan]

A team of fire mages in Naxx with 1.12.1 talents stacking ignite and having priests use PI on them = Nuclear bomb.

Also, fury warriors are pretty damn amazing in late vanilla.

[Zulatomten]

Also, fury warriors are pretty damn amazing in late vanilla.

The same goes for literally every single spec in the game. Since that's when they are at their strongest...

[Thimagryn]

Would you want a rogue or a rogue with innervate and combat rez?

That's only because they didn't give Rogues any utility and purposefully designed them that way whereas almost every other Pure has something else to bring to the table as well as deal good DPS. This isn't a Feral Druid's problem when they already have to talent for innervate (which gimps DPS) and all combat resses were global shared in the raid. Factor in that Feral has to itemize away from Int/Spirit/+heal and that the mana costs and cast times are inefficient for power-shifting and they really don't bring any Heals to the table at all. PVP and leveling downtime is the only thing heals help out with, otherwise it is not effective utility being brought into a Raid that already has healers. Decursing and Detoxing is arguable at most.

We may as well equate this to having a DPS Tax on a Rogue for being able to bandage people in the raid and pick-pocketting.

Funny enough, TBC actually lowered mana costs of shifting, made heals more powerful for Feral through talent scaling and still gave them the DPS they needed to be viable (though rarely ever as chart-toppers). And it didn't replace Rogues at all since they gave other incentives to play a Rogue like sweet Legendaries.

[Thimagryn]

Feral druids should definitely not be allowed to compete with rogues in vanilla.

Having competitive DPS does not equal having the same DPS as Rogues. There are other classes to compete with to varying degrees, and Feral Druid was only viable towards the end of Vanilla when gear and stats were better tuned for that role.

All I point out is that whatever the Rogue lacks in utility is not a reason to tax a Hybrid that is focusing all their talents, gear and skill on performing as DPS. A Feral Druid itself should be able to have competitive DPS (say 80% of Pures DPS, factoring 20% in party buff benefits + utility) given that they are itemizing and talenting themselves away from tank, heal or raid utility. There should be talents or stats available to make it viable , considering not every encounter will require a Feral DPS to go heal or go tank in the middle of a fight.

In order to be a viable off-tank, a Feral DPS would have to equip armor trinkets and wear high-stam gear going into the fight. To be a viable off-healer they would want to use healing relics, +int gear for a higher mana pool and spirit gear for mana regen. The 'tax' is already built into the gameplay. Someone who plays the Jack of all trades Hybrid isn't gonna top charts anyways, but it doesn't mean all Feral DPS should stay bottom-of-the-barrel even against an undergeared Rogue (which is currently the case).

A big part of the problem is lack of itemization or inefficient stat allocation. Ferals (inc cat) gains 2pts ATP from STR, 1pt from AGI. Druid gear with STR has INT/SPI and wastes stats. Rogue gear has STR and AGI, but generally favours higher AGI numbers (Rogues gain 2pts ATP per AGI). We have talents that even boost our STR gain in Cat form, so we scale great but we lack the itemization to scale with. So early MC you will see Feral Druids in green/blues do very good DPS. As people progress and gain raid gear, Druids lack any decent STR items and fall behind, gaining more 'useless' stats overall rather than the numbers that green +STR or Blue +STR gear gives. This lasts until AQ and Naxx. This is where the 'Hybrid Tax' exists the mosts; a massive oversight in available gear.

[Roxyfoxy]

The hybrid tax aint mainly about being able to go from dpsing and throwing around offheals in the same fight.
What a lot of prople dont understand about vanilla is how big the focus on gear is. And talents are more enhancing the gear, compared to retail where the gear enhances the spec.

A enhancement shaman can go around with max dps talents for half the raid. And when you get to the boss where more healing is required, he can equip his healing gear and be almost as powerfull as a resto shaman, due to all the spells being available to the spec. He only looses out on some talents that boost his healing by rougly 10 or 15% some cast time reduction (0.5 sec) and mana cost reduction. He can function as a pretty much fulltime healer with that gear while still giving the raid all his buffs.

Same applies to all hybrids, its the gear that define the role, not the specc. The talent specc just give some extra little boost to his power

Edit: before someone points it out. This mainly apply to being a tank / dps spec putting on healing gear and being effective, and not the other way around.
Although dps warriors can put on tank gear, and feral dps can put on tank gear and still be effective.

[Low Hanging Fruit]

Tax was in vanilla. Which means tax should be in classic. No changes.

[Divinexve]

How do i pay my hybrid tax???

[Aliven]

How do i pay my hybrid tax???

With your dignity.

[Lora]

Don't get why people seem to be forgetting that warriors are hybrids too.

[solarfallz]

I've seen countless opinions on this stating that you can't buff hybrids because pure DPS classes should do the most damage. Why? The general response is that Hybrids sacrifice utility for for damage.

Now I'm sorry but I'm under the impression that these people believe that pure DPS classes have 0 utility as if we're playing retail wow, this baffles me.

- Mage : Food and Water(important), Blink, Mana crystals, Portals, Shields, Arcane Intellect, fire vulnerability and more..
- Warlock: Multiple 5% damage debuffs on the boss for magic, Soulstone, Healthstones, Pet buffs (blood pact)
- Rogue: Vanish, nearly non existant threat while DPSing from feint (Rogues truly bring the least amount of utility yet usually don't out dps mages and fury warriors.
- Hunter: Laughable DPS - Shouldn't this "pure dps" class do more than others?

The only real difference in utility I see is classes having heals, but really why is that a big deal? Which enhancement shaman is going to stop dpsing to cast a heal on someone that costs 1/4th of the manapool they have. From what I see every single class in the game has "utility" they bring in vanilla some better than others, but I can't imagine this being game breaking to have for example enhancement do equal dps to a warlock for example, would everyone no longer bring warlocks? Of course not, that argument is silly...imo.

I would love to hear some outside opinions on this as it makes no sense to me.

Edit BTW Warriors are for this purpose a HYBRID class. And yet fury warriors dominate DPS charts, no ones complaining about this?

To begin with, having a heal in classic is WAY more impactful in classic than it is in later versions due to a complete and total lack of self-heals, as well as significantly slower food. For ONLY the purpose of min-maxed raiding, hybrids having high DPS would not change too much, but for EVERYTHING ELSE (including many raid groups) it would cause massive changes.

As for hunters, they are the soloing kings and they can farm like no other. They are the only ranged class not susceptible to interrupts/silence, and pets are incredibly useful. They are a "pure DPS" class, but not a class that is actually designed for high DPS, but rather for their huge toolbox. They are completely solid for raids despite their somewhat low DPS.