How many hybrids would you raid with if you wanted to clear Naxx in a month or two?

[garicasha]

i didn’t start till Wrath, and I am going to play Classic and plan on raiding as much as I can. I’ve raided mythic for several years on my Warrior as DPS, but lately I’ve been playing Shadow/Holy Priest and really like it. During the stress test I played both Warrior and Priest, and I’m really considering going Priest at Classic launch.

Question; what exactly is meant here when you all say hybrids aren’t desirable? If at all possible, I plan on being fairly hardcore about raiding and do not want to be hamstrung by the class I play.

Some here will say play what you like and don’t worry. But if someone doesn’t mind explaining the OPs point about how many of this class or that class would you like in your raid, I’d appreciate it.

Raiding in vanilla was VEEERRRRYYYYY different than even Wrath. Check the post in my sig for a long, long answer. Remember, most classes had one button rotations in vanilla.

This is roughly what the different classes do in DPS:
https://www.mmo-champion.com/threads...full-Naxx-gear

This is rough estimates without big buffs, but in vanilla the buffs and gear a toon has make an enormous difference.
Fury War 850 DPS
Fire Mage and Rogue 800-850
Warlocks 750
Hunters 700
Everything else 400-600

And the disparities get bigger the more buffs are applied.

You seriously need to go to youtube and look at videos of what raiding was actually like.


From my reminders thread, optimal ally build is roughly:
8 Warriors(2 full prot, 6 fury/prot)
4 Paladins (Mixed specs to get all blessing but they all healed since throughput was not overly effected by spec)
2 Hunters(To pull and use tranquilizing shot)
2 Druids (resto)
9 Rogues (spec? I think combat)
9 Mages(all fire)
2 Warlocks (for Curse of Elements and Curse of Ruin)
4 holy/disc priests

[Annelie]

Considering the amount of farming you need to do for Naxx on classic/Vanilla i would want the classes that can do it as fast as possible. It will not be like Naxx private servers as they got mechanics so wrong there that it made bosses total pushovers.

But then again i will not hardcore raid again, Vanilla naxx raiding burned me out completly and i have not raided seriously since then.

Also good luck getting resist gear to the entire raid in a month.

[Battlebeard]

That's absurd. Organizing and executing Four Horsemen or Gothik the Harvester is harder than Kar'gath Bladefist and Champion of the Light. No need for hyperbole. Classic raids aren't hard compared to mythic raids now but you're overstating your case.

And in three of the difficulties out of four on retail the fights have a bunch of mechanics but most of them do nothing.

No, it's absolutely not. The only "hard" part of 4 horsemen is preparing for the fight and farming old content to gear tanks. It's an effort timewise but not difficultywise.

[Annelie]

Week 1 molten core or naxx clears arnt going to be easy. 20 manning raids isn't going to be easy. Difficulty is one thing, efficiency another. If you can do twice the dps you can drop one dps and thus get twice the loot.

Molten core will be easy as hell in this version as the gear from dungeons will be close on par with the raid gear. Naxx on the other hand will be a completly different story.

[yamix]

0. If you're not willing to play an optimal spec you're not suitable for high end raiding.

Never stopped me from clearing mythic playing relatively unplayed specs. I remember killing Imperator as one of, like, 5 gladiator warriors on warcraft logs.

[erifwodahs]

Spoken like someone who has never progressed past MC.

Hell, even MC has shit that can wipe you. LFR literally nothing can wipe the raid short of half the raid disconnecting.

Spoken like someone who has never done an LFR. One thing is where you will get a kill eventually, because of the stacking buff, but the other thing is wiping. it took me 50 minutes to kill Argus on LFR. That is 4 wipes. When the new raid is out, LFR takes 3 times as much as doing HC with actually skilled ppl.

[anon5123]

Spoken like someone who has never done an LFR.

I played from BC to Legion. Fuck yourself

When LFR first released it was a fucking joke. You could literally ignore mechanics and just tunnel the boss and still win easily.

Each expac after that it was the same way. You could just steamroll your way through the raid and ignore mechanics because nothing would 1shot you or punish you in any significant way for failing. Literally every raid that I tried LFR for, we stomped it super easily.

- - - Updated - - -

Never stopped me from clearing mythic playing relatively unplayed specs. I remember killing Imperator as one of, like, 5 gladiator warriors on warcraft logs.

Congratulations, you're willing to drag your raid down just so that you can be a special snowflake and feel good about yourself for playing a bad spec.

/clap

- - - Updated - - -

No, it's absolutely not. The only "hard" part of 4 horsemen is preparing for the fight and farming old content to gear tanks. It's an effort timewise but not difficultywise.

4HM is literally one of the most complex bosses in vanilla which requires a LOT of coordination and pre-planning, moreso than any other boss save for KT. To claim that it's "not difficult" is just objectively false.

[potis]

i didn’t start till Wrath, and I am going to play Classic and plan on raiding as much as I can. I’ve raided mythic for several years on my Warrior as DPS, but lately I’ve been playing Shadow/Holy Priest and really like it. During the stress test I played both Warrior and Priest, and I’m really considering going Priest at Classic launch.

Question; what exactly is meant here when you all say hybrids aren’t desirable? If at all possible, I plan on being fairly hardcore about raiding and do not want to be hamstrung by the class I play.

Some here will say play what you like and don’t worry. But if someone doesn’t mind explaining the OPs point about how many of this class or that class would you like in your raid, I’d appreciate it.

Back in the 2005-2007, people didnt know better and the information wasnt easily found/accessible unless you were actively looking.

Therefor anyone that didnt go looking, was terrible at the game, because of that, many weird specs were allowed, some better guilds had them also, but mostly because "There since the start, or a friend" or they just didnt know.

Reality in Vanilla is, apart from maybe 2-3 bosses, the rest are the 20 carrying the other 20, so it wasnt very noticeable.

As private servers were created, and people already knew because the information gotten out of the forums and everything was accessible, people learnt that "Why did we have a hybrid when it did 30-50% less, wtf".

This is why, Hybrids, like:

Feral druids/Elemental Shamans/Retri or Prot paladins generally any spec that is 20-50% behind the "pure" of the class, is not wanted.

It was accepted in the cesspool, of people clearing the bigger dungeons, while the game was 2 months before the expansion.

Generally the safest classes for Vanilla is Warrior and Priest, they are wanted by default.

Just be ready to offtank a lot as a Warrior without complaining, and be bored to death spamming downranked Greater Heal/Heal/Flash heal on your Priest.

As a druid, you are a back up healing innervate the priest bot, usually revolved around Rank 4? Healing Touch spam.

As a shaman you are back up healing, extra armor % on tanks bot, hence why Critical gear was a must, with downranked spam also.

As a Paladin, back up healing and Hands, mostly salvation. (The active playing, not the buffs through blessings :P)

Shaman/Paladin at higher gear levels are equally good as Priests, but since Classic will be slow gear scaling same as back then, Priests will dominate till Naxx.

Mage is safe, expect 1 year of Frost Bolt spamming, followed by 6 months of Ignite stacking.

Warlock is Shabow Bolt spam, curse for DPS for mages.

Rogue is default, pretty much equalizes with a Fury Warrior, so either works, they had feint to reduce threat so much better for the horde side that doesnt have Salvation.

Hunters is, tranquilizing shot Magmadar for the bad guilds with tanks that cant stance dance, and then reroll to Warlock/Mage for the other raids.

WoW of today is like this because the above classes at the end of Vanilla and most of TBC were crying "I WANT TO DO WHAT THE OTHERS DO, I DONT WANNA BE A BUFF BOT AND GET BENCHED".

So you literally started playing when they started doing just that, WotLK

[erifwodahs]

I played from BC to Legion. Fuck yourself

Well... I was not insulting you, just stating the fact, that it is possible to wipe on LFR, esp if you played legion, as you claim, KJ wiped LFR raids long after Antorus came out. It does not mean it is hard, it is not, 5 raiders in 30 man grp can carry it, it just means it is not /que /afk. Doing normal was way more efficient and less time consuming than doing lfr.
But it would seem that you are not discussing anything and unable to reason anyway.

[Beatman]

Congratulations, you're willing to drag your raid down just so that you can be a special snowflake and feel good about yourself for playing a bad spec.

/clap

It's a game, not a job. Cunt.

[garicasha]

One good point raised.

When vanilla came out even the world’s best players, like everyone else, had no idea which classes would be good.

This time around we know, which makes he choice of playing a ret pally now vs a ret pally then shows something very different about the player.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Most classic raids, if not all, will be cleared within a day or two. People are forgetting we've had 13-14 years of time to figure out everything, on private servers most people who are half serious about raiding clear Naxx within a few days of dedication... The hard thing about vanilla raid bosses is the organization and preparation, not the actual bosses.

[Priestiality]

Explain me how it's not how it works? Half the people is twice the loot.

You said drop one (1) dps. 39 is not half of 40. 20 is half of 40.

[Cruor]

0. If you're not willing to play an optimal spec you're not suitable for high end raiding.

This. I will be joining a good guild like I was in Vanilla (I cleared level 60 Naxx in retail) No ret paladins, no other dumb crap. Can't wait for some fool to tell me "I did a lot of DPS as ret in Vanilla"

[ellieg]

Gonna be really interesting to see how the opinions of people changes in a year. I really like the ppl talking abt "LFR" difficulty and then trying to compare mc to naxx. Raids are gonna be harder than you think. 40 ppl is a lot in a boss fight. Gotta have them not standing in shit, not standing on eachother, and all of them not going oom.

Be a meme spec in dungeons, mc, bwl, zg, aq20. Past that you need a better comp. More hybrids means less dps which means longer fights, which means more mana consumption and time for a fuckup to happen.

Vanilla wow is about the raid, not the individual. Very limited loot drops. When you are in bwl, and you are reclearing mc for bindings, rag loot, and to fill in a few pieces your raiders dont have yet, you don't want to spend 4 hrs doing it. When weapons, rings, necks, and trinkets drop, who do you think is going to get the loot in a competent guild? The mage or the moonkin doing under half the damage? The warrior or the ret?

It's really not a problem imo tho. These 2 groups of people wont interact that much. Tryhards need to realize they have a goal that isn't shared by everyone. And the casuals need to understand they arent entitled to join every group.

[garicasha]

When I saw people vehemently defending zero as the correct number of sub-optimal specs I definitely thought, “these guys are way too hardcore, especially for how I worded the title of the post.”

But I’m realizing that for recruitment/psychological reasons there’s something to be said for no sub-optimal specs even in a hardcore-but-not-bleeding-edge guild. There can be a lot of loot animosity when optimal specs see coveted items go to people they know do lower DPS. And there’s also animosity when sub-optimal specs raid for months but don’t get anything.

[The-loon]

There are specific specs that are mathematically best to bring into a 40 man raid that you have identified as being a hybrid or off spec. I’d argue that these specs are not actually “off specs” but correct if you are looking to min max a 40 man raid by DPS/HPS.
Best examples of this are:
Winter’s Chill Frost mage in MC/BWL to buff other frost mages DPS
Disc weaving priest to put up shadow weaving debuff for Warlocks
Disc Priests with PI- yes it’s better than Holy
Warlock with imp out (30/0/21)

So based on how you posed the question I’d say 7-8 based on if winter chill is needed or not (ZG+) however this is a skewed number if viewed with no supporting data like it is in your poll IMHO.

[Triceron]

Explain me how it's not how it works? Half the people is twice the loot.

Not really.

It's half the people, same amount of loot. Distributed, yes people could get twice the loot, but you could already do this with a full raid using DKP system or Guild Rank priority. Many guilds prioritized gearing of Officers and trickled down any duplicates, and that's how they min-maxed it all.

So effectively you could bring a full raid without gimping your progress and simply distribute the same way you would as if you had half the people - Only 8-10 people would be gearing up while the rest of the raid has a mutual agreement to this system on behalf of improving progress on future runs. Faster geared tank and main heal = smoother run.

In the case of running with half a party so you can do two runs, then you theoretically have to have an equal split of optimal classes and end up wasting hybrid loot drops for not taking hybrids as a part of that optimization. Taking a Paladin in a 20-man run is not gonna be as optimal as taking another Warrior or Priest.

[willemh]

Not really.

It's half the people, same amount of loot. Distributed, yes people could get twice the loot, but you could already do this with a full raid using DKP system or Guild Rank priority. Many guilds prioritized gearing of Officers and trickled down any duplicates, and that's how they min-maxed it all.

So effectively you could bring a full raid without gimping your progress and simply distribute the same way you would as if you had half the people - Only 8-10 people would be gearing up in both cases while the rest of the raid has a mutual agreement to this system on behalf of improving progress on future runs. Faster geared tank and main heal = smoother run.

I'm not sure what your trying to say here, but no gearing system only gears 8-10 people, and even if it would, gearing 8-10 out of 20 people means gearing 16-20 out of 40 people and is, as I said, exactly twice as effective.

[Triceron]

I'm not sure what your trying to say here, but no gearing system only gears 8-10 people, and even if it would, gearing 8-10 out of 20 people means gearing 16-20 out of 40 people and is, as I said, exactly twice as effective.

So you're talking about a guild that has two main tanks instead of just 1, 4 offtanks instead of just 2, etc etc. At what point are they going to play together to make use of that 'effectiveness'? It's running two parallel raids inefficiently because it's going to take both parties longer to complete the raid with only half the raid there, and you're going to be wasting loot all along the way by not having the right class compositions available to soak up excess gear.

If you're looking at it from a pure math point, yes you are correct. But this wouldn't be twice the amount of gear in practice if a bunch of that gear goes to waste and you're doubling up on certain classes for each raid.

You're basically gearing for 2 main tanks, 4 off tanks instead of gearing 1 main tank 2 offtanks. I don't see how that is efficient, that's simply running two separate raids inefficiently.