A class without a DPS spec. Could it work? Would you play it?

[GrieverXIII]

Hybrids pretty much were support characters prior to mid of WolTK and people complained and wanted everyone to do the same dps no matter what else they bring to the raid, and now people want support roles back?

Personally i wouldn't mind, i like having utility outside straight dps numbers.

[Toxigen]

If it was interesting, absolutely.

[AVPaul]

Please read tweet, GC answered to. He said, that it's possible to have new role, not class without dps spec. Sorry, but dps spec is mandatory, cuz other specs are suboptimal in outdoor/solo content.

[Polarthief]

So things that are made for DPS only are unplayable for this class... Man, that's genius.

- Brawler's Guild
- Scenarios (As intended; you can still heal/tank it)
- Doing quests/soloing (Tanks can do it fine, healers not as much)

I'd prefer making all pures into hybrids at this point (Rogue, Hunter, Warlock and Mage all getting a 4th spec; tank or healer)

Or hell, I'd love to break the "Holy Trinity" and create the "Holy Square", adding Support as the 4th role. Support would essentially do a little bit of everything. They would debuff enemies to take more damage/deal less damage, have small bits of healing, buff DPS players to deal more damage, etc.

@Anyone whose played FFXI, think of the Bard.

[dryankem]

People are already running Heal/Tank specs so I don't see how it couldn't work. They would be locked out of something like the brawlers guild and less flexible raid wise so I don't think it's going to happen but you never know.

[Terahertz]

I honestly doubt it could work. Perhaps for the hardcore players who are truly devotioned to either healer or tank. I reckon that class would be the least represented at least.

[Ravanna]

Sure, it could. It was called "being a priest or paladin in Classic." The closest that priests had to a DPS spec back then was Disc, since Shadow was lightdamnawful. And Paladins only really had one spec, Holy, since Prot was incredibly iffy and Ret was... heh.

But, back to the initial idea, I think it could, as long as you had a way to solo. If it had a tank spec, that could usually work fine for it.

[JohnBrown1917]

A class with 2 tank specs and a healing spec, maybe?
We still don't have a class with 2 tanking specs, I think it would be nice(even if the 3rd spec was a dps spec).

But yes, I would play it. I don't enjoy dps on my main anyway, so I've gotten used to not having a dps spec on my paladin(she has been holy/holy or holy/prot for most of 'her' lifetime).

---------- Post added 2013-06-20 at 07:59 PM ----------

Please read tweet, GC answered to. He said, that it's possible to have new role, not class without dps spec. Sorry, but dps spec is mandatory, cuz other specs are suboptimal in outdoor/solo content.

A shame.

But tank classes are actually better at outdoor content than dps specs, so I still think it could work.

[Alexieel]

Sure, it could. It was called "being a priest or paladin in Classic." The closest that priests had to a DPS spec back then was Disc, since Shadow was lightdamnawful. And Paladins only really had one spec, Holy, since Prot was incredibly iffy and Ret was... heh.

But, back to the initial idea, I think it could, as long as you had a way to solo. If it had a tank spec, that could usually work fine for it.

I raided MC, BWL ZG and AQ20 as Shadow, was Holy only for 2 Weeks (after that 2 Weeks I got Anathema )

Hybrids pretty much were support characters prior to mid of WolTK and people complained and wanted everyone to do the same dps no matter what else they bring to the raid, and now people want support roles back?

Personally i wouldn't mind, i like having utility outside straight dps numbers.

I play Priest since Vanilla, in every AddOn except Cata (I stopped playing Cata after 1week), and only Shadow (except ICC, where I went disc), and the best time I had in BC.
Fuck of high dps, the feeling that I really supported my Raid with nearly unlimited mana was so awesome, that I didnt care that I only dealt 1400dps, where the WLs pulled 2k.

[Gangplank]

Outside of leveling (or some activity that required solo effort to kill things), yes.

After going through Vanilla, this was actually the "norm".

Druids were mostly healers (occasionally tanks, never serious dps)
Priests were full-time healers (shadow form wasn't polished enough to complete with rogues/mages)
Paladins were full-time healers (tank and ret specs were a joke)
Shaman were mostly healers (occasionally you'd find an enhancement spec -- their aggro was ridiculous [windfury procs], but their dps was unreliable)
Warriors were mostly tanks

And I'd be OK if that were how it was. The game would certainly be easier to tune.

[Aleksej89]

Fluffy teddy bear class:

Heal spec: throw adorable fluffy toys at nearby allies, causing them to be healed from cuteness overload.

CC spec: throw stuffed panda toys at nearby enemies, causing them to go blind from exposure to pure awesomeness!

Tank spec: throw care bear toys at all nearby enemies, causing them to care so much about your feelings that they just can't attack you.

[Tarazet]

Outside of leveling (or some activity that required solo effort to kill things), yes.

After going through Vanilla, this was actually the "norm".

Druids were mostly healers (occasionally tanks, never serious dps)
Priests were full-time healers (shadow form wasn't polished enough to complete with rogues/mages)
Paladins were full-time healers (tank and ret specs were a joke)
Shaman were mostly healers (occasionally you'd find an enhancement spec -- their aggro was ridiculous [windfury procs], but their dps was unreliable)
Warriors were mostly tanks

And I'd be OK if that were how it was. The game would certainly be easier to tune.

In Classic, Windfury Attack could proc off of Windfury Attack. And it could then proc again off of that Windfury Attack, and so on. So in the blink of an eye, both the shaman and the mob would be dead.

[Hilde]

If it was interesting to play then yes, I assume they would have some sort of improved disco priest spec or fistweaver spec to them, or a tank spec that does good dps and self heals( blood dk?) to deal with the questing/dailies etc. I have tried leveling tanks and healers with questing and it hasn't been the best except maybe disco priest which although doing less dps tended to die much less than as shadow. My prot pala died all the time.

[Kelimbror]

Considering that 95% of the game is centered on being able to do decent damage, I don't think a non ds viable class would survive in the game. They would most likely be represented in raids as they would have to naturally be better than other classes, otherwise the trade off to play one wouldn't exist.

I'm fine with support classes existing, but it needs to be an option and not an absolute.

[Cyno]

Personally as someone who's always been drawn to the support style role I would love to see something like a brd, cor, and rdm from ffxi or dom and arch from rift. Sadly though after playing for seven years and seeing the direction the game has taken I just don't think it would be possible. After all every step since the release of wotlk has been to homogenize classes down to not needing one class over another then to see a class fill a role that would be completely unique is just something I don't think blizzard would be able to accomplish anymore.

[l33t]

Yeah, and then we have some new feature like Brawler's Guild, based on dealing pure dps (and freaking HUGE amounts of pure dps in a very, VERY short windows). And what will be the reason to play a class that can't do a part of the content right from the moment of character creation?
So no, it won't work, at least in today's WoW.