Thought Experiment on Sub-Optimal Specs

[garicasha]

Edit: What's the raid comp you think could clear Naxx within three months of world-first?

Edit: The 16-debuff limit makes my original post too far out there to be a meaningful argument.

OP:
Hypothetical: Day 1 of launch, you give extremely skilled players the worst possible class balance that still technically meets the tank/dps/healer and dispelling/mechanical requirements. For the sake of argument, we'll also say that druids and paladin tanks have taunt, therefore no warrior tanks. Can they clear through Kel'Thuzad?

(We'll also ignore the effect on loot of having such ridiculous raid comps.)

You can choose your own comp, but I'm thinking something like this:
--2 bear tanks
--8-12 resto druids (edit: this wouldn't work, I forgot tanks can only have one rejuv)
--1/4 of DPS as feral druids
--1/4 of DPS as Boomkins
--1/4 of DPS as Shadow Priests
--1/4 of DPS as Ret Paladins or Elemental/Enhance shamans


My answer:
--Yes they can. (Edit: Forgot tanks can only have one rejuv, so they couldn't.) But it would probably require months of additional raiding as their progress would be about a half or a third of what it would be otherwise. The tanks in particular

[Thunderball]

Well there are two categories of suboptimal specs.

1) Specs that dont have tools to do their job in raids - that is threat reduction talents (mostly on Horde, Salv kind of takes care of it on Alliance), mana replenishment problems, lack of taunt, etc. So that's Prot Paladins, Rets, Enh/Ele Shamans.
2) And you have a second category that can function in raids, but is going to be A LOT worse than optimal specs due to different reason:\

- Ferals, tank and dps. It's fine mostly, just other classes are a lot better and make raid a whole lot easier. This is imo very close to being an optimal spec, just needs some help with items, like tier sets. Bear tank just lacks itemization (+armor and dodge leather) and defensive cooldowns (which is fine most of the time), DPS just doesnt scale as well as Rogue due to lack of scaling with weapon damage/weapon enchants.
- Shadow Priests. Somewhat viable, but has a lot of problems. Boring to play, huge threat problems when using full rotation (MB has a threat modifier, plus VE on top), huge mana problems when using full rotation, requires 3 debuff slots (and there are 16 total maximum), doesnt scale with crit (Mind Blast is the only spell that can crit, and is the first spell you drop off rotation due to mana/threat).
- Ret Palas. Huge mana issues and pathetic dps. Spec just doesnt have enough buttons to press. Obviously it's a paladin, so brings quite a lot of utility.
- Balance Druids. Huge mana problems and extremely pathetic DPS. You also have to fight mages/warlocks for gear. Essentially same as ret.
- Enhance. No threat reduction. Extremely bursty threat due to WF mechanic (you have to wait with damage to avoid dying on pull). Huge mana problems. Cant use Stormstrike at lot of the time on bosses due to it being a very high priority debuff (same with MS). Doesnt bring any utility over Resto other than Stormstrike (which is useless unless you use Ele Shamans). Itemization and scaling problems - your gear doesnt buff your shocks and damage totems.
- Elemental. Actually fine dps if you have Stormstrike (~10-15% off Mages). Huge mana problems. No threat reduction. Sometimes seen in raids due to being one of the top specs for group PvP.
- Arms Warrior. Hugely inferior dps to Fury. Same problem as Stormstrike (high debuff priority). If Fury didnt exist it would be an ok spec for raids (especially on Horde).
- Sub Rogues. Same as Arms, but in here you just have zero utility and the same gameplay as Combat, but do a lot less damage.
- Warlock on Horde. HUGE threat problems. Can be somewhat fixed with having a shaman provide Tranquil Air, but at this point setup is just not worth it: you require BOTH a Shadow Priest in raid AND a Shaman in group (which means one less melee group) to be viable.
- Resto Druids. They are actually fine and get better come Naxx. It's just there are huge diminishing returns to having more than one Resto Druid per raid - spell duplicates are not allowed, so there can only be one Rejuv/Regrowth on the target.

To answer your questions. Can this group clear Naxx? No. No amount of gear will help. It can clear MC and 20 man raids, but that's pretty much it. To answer the second question: it largely depends on the player commitment. I'd say you can get away with about 5-7 suboptimal specs in your raid if all other people are really good, but that's not realistic because good players wont be ok with suboptimal specs dragging them down (keep in mind that in vanilla wiping is VERY expensive due to amount of consumables available) so realistically you're going to have a couple. Shadow Priests, Enhance, Ret all are going to be seen from time to time. Feral both tank and dps for sure.

[garicasha]

Yah after I posted this I realized that the 16 debuff limit is what makes a few specs unplayable in raids. The mana issues can be slightly overcome by the mana runes from Felwood, but in a real situation it'd just be a better return to level an optimal spec than spend every waking hour in Felwood.

Sub-optimal specs would also extend the length of fights, which in turn could require more healers, which has a snowball effect of making the fight even longer.

Skill, Knowledge, and Experience are hugely valuable...but people with all three will trend towards raid teams loaded with optimal specs.

[BicycleMafioso]

But different ranks of rejuvenation stacked, right? But only one from each druid. And HT rank 4 was what it was all about.

[Thunderball]

But different ranks of rejuvenation stacked, right? But only one from each druid. And HT rank 4 was what it was all about.

No. One Rejuv per target, period. "A more powerful spell is already active".

[Armourboy]

Vanilla would have been a completely different game if all of those HoTs, DoT's and Debuffs worked like they do now. It would have been interesting to see to say the least.