Hybrids and utility

[Jimjam38]

One of the bluetracker tweets caught my eye today, and imthought where better bitch and moan about it than here. Seen this going around the tweets a fair bit too. Raid utility... yeah that old Chesnut
Specifically, another one of blizzards infallibly logical decisions, giving raid cooldowns to pure dps. I think the most glaringly obvious example being mages shiny new amplify magic. Not sure what it does specifically in its current itteration, but it's basically a healing raid cooldown.

Okay, fine, thats cool, mages dont really have any raid utility, the only reason to bring one is the 15% more dps they do than everyother spec, so yep, fine. Parity for all and such.
Oh, but whats that Blizzard? There's too much raid utility these days? Well, okay I guess you could say that. And you do have a massive hardon for cutting abilities at the moment, so sure lets remove some of the utility. Maybe just a trim around the edge, cut some of the more situational stuff.
Or.. yeah okay, or we could just remove some iconic ones I guess. I mean, integrity for classic class abilities is so last season anyway. Oh you'll let the healers keep them at least? Oh gee thanks Blizzard, you're the best. Good thing our hybrid off heals are both meaningful and unrestricted. Until we have to cast more than one of them.

Not to worry, we still have our superior damage throughput. Wait, never mind, my mistake. Okay we do have our self heals and survivability.. wait, do all pure dps classes have some kind of immune? Oh wait, no no, not all of them, thank god. Not the one with tank level health.
That's lucky, thought we were at a disadvantage for a second there. Look, none of this really bothers me, raiding is a team effort after all, who cares if the pure dps classes have the better utility.

After all, at least us hybrids can still do... hybridy.. stuff. Like respec.

Shadow doesnt seem too bad off, we at least get to keep Vamp Embrace, but not sure how decent the new version is. And, while I guess most of our heals were fairly insignificant anyway, we only had to drop shadowform for most of them, not all of them. Not sure how to feel about that change. But the level 90 talents were pretty significant healing, almost felt like a priest sometimes with the healing I could contribute with them, not just some purple gasy warlock. I think they should still do healing for spriest, maybe only if you drop shadowform? I never really found their damage that significant.

[Narwhalosh Whalescream]

One of the bluetracker tweets caught my eye today, and imthought where better bitch and moan about it than here. Seen this going around the tweets a fair bit too. Raid utility... yeah that old Chesnut
Specifically, another one of blizzards infallibly logical decisions, giving raid cooldowns to pure dps. I think the most glaringly obvious example being mages shiny new amplify magic. Not sure what it does specifically in its current itteration, but it's basically a healing raid cooldown.

Okay, fine, thats cool, mages dont really have any raid utility, the only reason to bring one is the 15% more dps they do than everyother spec, so yep, fine. Parity for all and such.
Oh, but whats that Blizzard? There's too much raid utility these days? Well, okay I guess you could say that. And you do have a massive hardon for cutting abilities at the moment, so sure lets remove some of the utility. Maybe just a trim around the edge, cut some of the more situational stuff.
Or.. yeah okay, or we could just remove some iconic ones I guess. I mean, integrity for classic class abilities is so last season anyway. Oh you'll let the healers keep them at least? Oh gee thanks Blizzard, you're the best. Good thing our hybrid off heals are both meaningful and unrestricted. Until we have to cast more than one of them.

Not to worry, we still have our superior damage throughput. Wait, never mind, my mistake. Okay we do have our self heals and survivability.. wait, do all pure dps classes have some kind of immune? Oh wait, no no, not all of them, thank god. Not the one with tank level health.
That's lucky, thought we were at a disadvantage for a second there. Look, none of this really bothers me, raiding is a team effort after all, who cares if the pure dps classes have the better utility.

After all, at least us hybrids can still do... hybridy.. stuff. Like respec.

Shadow doesnt seem too bad off, we at least get to keep Vamp Embrace, but not sure how decent the new version is. And, while I guess most of our heals were fairly insignificant anyway, we only had to drop shadowform for most of them, not all of them. Not sure how to feel about that change. But the level 90 talents were pretty significant healing, almost felt like a priest sometimes with the healing I could contribute with them, not just some purple gasy warlock. I think they should still do healing for spriest, maybe only if you drop shadowform? I never really found their damage that significant.

So you are saying that halo doesnt do significant damage? :<

[maizensh]

Okay, fine, thats cool, mages dont really have any raid utility, the only reason to bring one is the 15% more dps they do than everyother spec, so yep, fine. Parity for all and such.

15% more damage? In SoO? You're completely wrong.
Ferals beat mages on single target by a good margin, while affli locks beat mages on multi target by a lot while doing roughly the same on single target.
Unlike ferals, mage brings consistency in damage on almost every encounter. This is a small addition though, because feral has the option to spec into boomkin which is competitive with mage on multitarget.

In retrospect there was very little reason to bring a mage to SoO if you had other options, except for before T15 arcane 4set nerf. That made arcane very strong, but it's long long gone.

[Deleted]

It's sad that there are no hybrids in wow anymore and hasn't been since pretty much early vanilla (Resto-bears, melee hunters, Disc dps, stamina warlocks etc...)

[buffalowbie]

IMO, Amplify Magic is a cooldown that belongs to Priests or Paladins.

It makes NO sense to give a healing cooldown to a class that can't heal.

Furthermore it makes NO sense to give a strong cooldown to a class that already has a major cooldown (lust).

Priests, specifically shadow, have shit when it comes to major raid cooldowns. Let's pretend, for a second, that mages, warlocks and shadow do the same DPS. Say you have one spot left to fill for raid. You have a choice between a mage, a warlock and a shadow. Who are you going to pick? Probably the mage or warlock. Mages can bring lust, warlocks can bring a brez.

Let's think about that for a second. Every caster but priest can bring either lust or a brez. I call bullshit on shadow's raid utility. If it's totally okay for mages to have lust and warlocks to have a brez, then it should be ok that shadow can provide passive offheals without taking a dps hit.

[Swoon]

IMO, Amplify Magic is a cooldown that belongs to Priests or Paladins.

It makes NO sense to give a healing cooldown to a class that can't heal.

Furthermore it makes NO sense to give a strong cooldown to a class that already has a major cooldown (lust).

Priests, specifically shadow, have shit when it comes to major raid cooldowns. Let's pretend, for a second, that mages, warlocks and shadow do the same DPS. Say you have one spot left to fill for raid. You have a choice between a mage, a warlock and a shadow. Who are you going to pick? Probably the mage or warlock. Mages can bring lust, warlocks can bring a brez.

Let's think about that for a second. Every caster but priest can bring either lust or a brez. I call bullshit on shadow's raid utility. If it's totally okay for mages to have lust and warlocks to have a brez, then it should be ok that shadow can provide passive offheals without taking a dps hit.

Your post is very silly, mages bring absolutely nothing besides damage to the raid, if shadows damage was on par or higher than mages you would bring shadow over a mage every single time.

VE is undervalued, hymn mind you I think it's garbage and I don't use it, still has some potential use on fights like heroic paragons during progression, life swap/grip are also pretty solid during progression mostly (And trolling with grip ^^), what do mages have? Hero, that's it. Hunters and shamans both have it, who cares. You just make it sound like mages are picked because of their amazing raid -cooldown- which two other very common classes have.

There is no denying mages/locks are VERY strong currently but the reasons you gave for choosing a mage/lock over a shadow priest are insanely flawed and not the reasons they're picked at all, locks give healthstones/portals that is the MAIN reason you put a warlock in a raid, it just so happens they do the highest damage out of any class, mages bring consistent damage on every encounter as they are a pure damage class, shadow currently is very weak single target and mid pack multi dmg -hybrid tax lel- WoD hopefully fixes this which should put spriest in a much better position, THAT is why shadow has lower value than mage, not because we don't have heroism..

Warlocks are on a completely different level when it comes to raid utility/damage so you honestly cant compare warlocks to any class right now.

~And as for what you said about amp magic belonging to priests/paladins, mage as I said bring absolutely nothing to the raid besides hero which is why they're adding it I would imagine.

And yes I understand you said let's pretend they do the same damage, but they don't do the same damage so lets stick with whats real.

[buffalowbie]

I'm not denying that shadow doesn't have raid utility, I'm saying we lack a major raid cool down that every other caster has. If you don't have a lust and you have a choice between a mage, a lock, a shaman and a shadow priest? You sure as hell will take the mage or the shaman. Same thing if you lack a brez and it's between a lock, a mage, a shaman and a spriest.

My point is, is given the lack of one of the two major cooldowns (brez and lust) and one spot left (for a caster), shadow will loose every time.

Locks have too much raid utility, something that even blizzard has admitted. Yet their damage wasn't artificially lowered because of it, but shadow was.

I am not budging from my position that mages don't deserve another raid cooldown. Sorry. I don't believe VE and lifegrip are on the same level as lust when it come to "the raid needs this". The only times I have used SoO this tier was on Galakras, to grip the tank to the tower, and on Iron Jugg, to grip the tank out of the air. VE is also used sparingly, because at high ilvls and people not being dumb, it's just not needed that often. Lust, on the other hand, is used every fight. Brez is used every fight during progression, and during farm when someone screws up.

If it seems like I have a bone to pick with mages, it's true. Every mage I have run across has either been complete crap, but kept for the lust, or a major asshole, but kept for the dps (or because the raid lead favored them since they were buddies IRL). Is that my problem, absolutely. But it's tainted my opinion of the class.

[Drye]

Shadow isn't classified as a hybrid anymore. No classes are. The new way blizzard has class, each dps class has some unique type of utility or raid cd for different boss mechanics. VE is really strong. It does a ton of healing right now. It's one of the strongest healing CDs available. It's it's only going to scale better.

We really just need a numbers pass to determin how good shadow is going to be before we make any assumptions. I made a nice post on the beta forums about how I feel about shadow. I'm pretty optimistic going into warlords right now. Shadows going to be a nice spec, a lot better than it is now that's for sure.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...6573?page=3#56

[Swoon]

I'm not denying that shadow doesn't have raid utility, I'm saying we lack a major raid cool down that every other caster has. If you don't have a lust and you have a choice between a mage, a lock, a shaman and a shadow priest? You sure as hell will take the mage or the shaman. Same thing if you lack a brez and it's between a lock, a mage, a shaman and a spriest.

My point is, is given the lack of one of the two major cooldowns (brez and lust) and one spot left (for a caster), shadow will loose every time.

Locks have too much raid utility, something that even blizzard has admitted. Yet their damage wasn't artificially lowered because of it, but shadow was.

I am not budging from my position that mages don't deserve another raid cooldown. Sorry. I don't believe VE and lifegrip are on the same level as lust when it come to "the raid needs this". The only times I have used SoO this tier was on Galakras, to grip the tank to the tower, and on Iron Jugg, to grip the tank out of the air. VE is also used sparingly, because at high ilvls and people not being dumb, it's just not needed that often. Lust, on the other hand, is used every fight. Brez is used every fight during progression, and during farm when someone screws up.

If it seems like I have a bone to pick with mages, it's true. Every mage I have run across has either been complete crap, but kept for the lust, or a major asshole, but kept for the dps (or because the raid lead favored them since they were buddies IRL). Is that my problem, absolutely. But it's tainted my opinion of the class.

Your comparison assumes the raid doesn't have heroism which itself is insanely biased and unlikely because of how common hunters/shamans are, a null point is what I'm saying.

Battle rez also something unlikely to not have a bunch of because Death knights.. Druids, warlocks, and shaman somewhat all have some sort of a battle rez also something which wont be the case because as I said you pick warlocks are picked for their healthstones/portals if you ignore the damage part.

Assuming you aren't using a biased example to prove your point and if damage is all the same in general for each encounter, locks are still by far the better utility pick with healthstones/portal, spriest > mage utility wise, might be different in WoD if they keep the amp magic and it turns out to be good as they are removing a lot of the spriest 'bloat' which opens up a lot more room for damage and you still undervalue VE a TON.

[buffalowbie]

Typically a group wants two brez people so if one brez dies, someone can brez them. You would also be surprised how common it is to not have a hunter or shaman in a 10m group on a regular basis.

Anyways, just after being shafted the entire expansion (and picked on by the mages and locks in my original MoP group to the point I said "screw this" and left my server), there is literally nothing that would make me happier than to see giant, undeserved nerfs to mages and warlocks. I mean, hop over the the lock forum. They're QQing up a storm over the removal of fel flame.

Mages do not need more raid utility. Mages do not need to be buffed. They. Are. Fine.

[brookllyn]

If you don't have a lust and you have a choice between a mage, a lock, a shaman and a shadow priest? You sure as hell will take the mage or the shaman. Same thing if you lack a brez and it's between a lock, a mage, a shaman and a spriest.

So because you can't get invited to a group in the last spot because the group doesn't have a lust, you don't think amp magic should be put in? That is literally the only time when this situation exists. 90% of groups will already have a lust.

For the second scenario, it is the same thing, but there is an even higher chance that there is already a lock druid or dk in the 19 people in the group. These scenarios are edge cases you designed to make shadow sound like it never gets brought to raids.

VE is also used sparingly, because at high ilvls and people not being dumb, it's just not needed that often.

By that logic, Amplify magic won't be needed or used either. They basically do the same thing, more effective hps for a short time, the only difference is that one scales with your healers gear, and the other scales with your own gear.

I am not budging from my position that mages don't deserve another raid cooldown.

You cannot consider lust a raid cooldown when there is a >90% chance that you will end up with it just by inviting random people to fill the raid.

If it seems like I have a bone to pick with mages, it's true. Every mage I have run across has either been complete crap, but kept for the lust, or a major asshole, but kept for the dps (or because the raid lead favored them since they were buddies IRL). Is that my problem, absolutely. But it's tainted my opinion of the class.

This is why you aren't the one balancing classes. Because you are too emotionally involved. You are making broad generalizations about the entire mage population and letting your own experiences taint what you think about balance.

I also want to say that if the raid leader picked someone over you because they were buddies IRL, there is no class that wouldn't have been picked over you.


Let me also say that you really need to realize that amp magic vs vampiric emprace is the only real competition between you and a mage(That and how much damage you do, but that is completely player skill). Lust is not going to be the determining factor, mythic is the only raid difficulty that you can really complain about "not being taken" because it is the only fixed size difficulty. You will also be very hard pressed to find a group that is A) lacking lust and a brez already, and B) looking for another DPS between just you and a mage, and a lock.

- - - Updated - - -

You would also be surprised how common it is to not have a hunter or shaman in a 10m group on a regular basis.

Lucky for you there are no 10 man groups anymore, everything scales but mythic, so the only reason you won't be taken as an 11th man is purely player skill.

[Deleted]

Shadow isn't classified as a hybrid anymore. No classes are. The new way blizzard has class, each dps class has some unique type of utility or raid cd for different boss mechanics. VE is really strong. It does a ton of healing right now. It's one of the strongest healing CDs available. It's it's only going to scale better.

We really just need a numbers pass to determin how good shadow is going to be before we make any assumptions. I made a nice post on the beta forums about how I feel about shadow. I'm pretty optimistic going into warlords right now. Shadows going to be a nice spec, a lot better than it is now that's for sure.

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/to...6573?page=3#56

Hahahaahhaha! you are funny! You know why? Because you just said ''The new way blizzard has class, each dps class has some unique type of utility or raid cd for different boss mechanics'' which is a complete and utter lie ^_^ Not only that but they removed some raid cds from atleast 1 class that i know of and left them with no raid cds at all while giving mages a new raid cd while saying the same thing you just said aka total bullshit! I would look around a little further and make some research instead of keep on repeating what blizzard have said mainly because atleast half of their statements they are making are plain outright wrong ^_^

[brookllyn]

Hahahaahhaha! you are funny! You know why? Because you just said ''The new way blizzard has class, each dps class has some unique type of utility or raid cd for different boss mechanics'' which is a complete and utter lie ^_^ Not only that but they removed some raid cds from atleast 1 class that i know of and left them with no raid cds at all while giving mages a new raid cd while saying the same thing you just said aka total bullshit! I would look around a little further and make some research instead of keep on repeating what blizzard have said mainly because atleast half of their statements they are making are plain outright wrong ^_^

Which class did they take a raid cooldown from who doesn't already have utility?

Mages had 0 raid utility before they added amp magic, the classes they removed cooldowns from already have a bunch of utility you are probably overlooking. I don't think you understand balance if you really think our raid utility isn't on par with other dps classes.

How is each class having a unique raid utility a lie? I can't think of a single dps that doesn't have utility in WoD.

[buffalowbie]

So because you can't get invited to a group in the last spot because the group doesn't have a lust, you don't think amp magic should be put in? That is literally the only time when this situation exists. 90% of groups will already have a lust.

For the second scenario, it is the same thing, but there is an even higher chance that there is already a lock druid or dk in the 19 people in the group. These scenarios are edge cases you designed to make shadow sound like it never gets brought to raids.

I am still thinking in terms of 10m, you have a good point when thinking about 20m.

By that logic, Amplify magic won't be needed or used either. They basically do the same thing, more effective hps for a short time, the only difference is that one scales with your healers gear, and the other scales with your own gear.

I still think it's stupid to give a healing cooldown to a class that doesn't do heals.

You cannot consider lust a raid cooldown when there is a >90% chance that you will end up with it just by inviting random people to fill the raid.

Lust is a cooldown, doesn't matter if it's via a pug or organized raid. A cooldown is a cooldown is a cooldown :-p

This is why you aren't the one balancing classes. Because you are too emotionally involved. You are making broad generalizations about the entire mage population and letting your own experiences taint what you think about balance.

I also want to say that if the raid leader picked someone over you because they were buddies IRL, there is no class that wouldn't have been picked over you.

And other classes get to QQ because they are worried about how it affects them personally? Am I too emotionally involved? Yeah, sure. But so is everyone else, as far as player population goes. Blizzard gets to be less so because they have access to all the data, but they ignored all of their data for 2 years.

Well, my RL had other issues than playing favorites, he would: sit people he had a fight with for entire lockouts, go over the loot councils decision and award loot to someone else if he didn't want someone getting loot, personally insult people if they were bottom dps for more than 2 pulls on progression bosses. We eventually broke apart because of Heroic Siegecrafter. I haven't raided since, too late in the tier to try and find a new group.

Let me also say that you really need to realize that amp magic vs vampiric emprace is the only real competition between you and a mage(That and how much damage you do, but that is completely player skill). Lust is not going to be the determining factor, mythic is the only raid difficulty that you can really complain about "not being taken" because it is the only fixed size difficulty. You will also be very hard pressed to find a group that is A) lacking lust and a brez already, and B) looking for another DPS between just you and a mage, and a lock.

At the moment, and I don't know how it is on beta, between equally skilled mages and spriests, the mage will always win out. I dearly hope this trend does not continue.

Lucky for you there are no 10 man groups anymore, everything scales but mythic, so the only reason you won't be taken as an 11th man is purely player skill.

You have no idea how thrilled I am for this change :-D. I think lots of things will be better in WoD because 20m will be easier to tune.

[Aurimas]

I've said it a million times every time I see a hybrid thread pop up...

I'd just remove pure dps from the game. Give everyone a "hybrid" spec. At least the QQ would only happen ONCE.

Sure, for a few months we'd hear people bitch "if I wanted to X I would have rolled an X".

In my scenario we'd hear people bitch for 6mo... but we've been hearing the hybrid / pure thing for 10 years?

Now you seemed to be complaining about how mages are OP. That debate wouldn't end... but you used the word hybrid, so I launched into my rhetoric.

[brookllyn]

I am still thinking in terms of 10m, you have a good point when thinking about 20m.

You can't do this, 20m is the only fixed-sized raid anymore.

I still think it's stupid to give a healing cooldown to a class that doesn't do heals.

It's a raid cooldown(flavor is a completely different argument and I would agree with you), but they needed one.

Lust is a cooldown, doesn't matter if it's via a pug or organized raid. A cooldown is a cooldown is a cooldown :-p

Lust is a special case, you can only use one and thus only need one.

And other classes get to QQ because they are worried about how it affects them personally? Am I too emotionally involved? Yeah, sure. But so is everyone else, as far as player population goes. Blizzard gets to be less so because they have access to all the data, but they ignored all of their data for 2 years.

I'm not singling you out, I don't think anyone else should QQ when they really don't have any idea about the balancing involved.

Well, my RL had other issues than playing favorites, he would: sit people he had a fight with for entire lockouts, go over the loot councils decision and award loot to someone else if he didn't want someone getting loot, personally insult people if they were bottom dps for more than 2 pulls on progression bosses. We eventually broke apart because of Heroic Siegecrafter.

You have entirely wayyyy different problems than "I didn't get picked over the mage in my group". You should have been gone from that group before he even got a chance to not take you.

I haven't raided since, too late in the tier to try and find a new group.

It isn't.

At the moment, and I don't know how it is on beta, between equally skilled mages and spriests, the mage will always win out. I dearly hope this trend does not continue.

If you don't know how it is on beta(not that anything is tuned anyways), then you really can't be so negative about what it is going to be like. I don't want shadow priests to be bad at dps either, but I'm not QQing in the forums crying "OMG Blizz we do no damage, mages are better than us" because that isn't helpful. What is helpful is telling Blizzard what your problems with the spec are besides tuning. They *already* know that we do less single target damage than other classes.

You have no idea how thrilled I am for this change :-D. I think lots of things will be better in WoD because 20m will be easier to tune.

Oh you mean like raid utility?

[Drye]

Hahahaahhaha! you are funny! You know why? Because you just said ''The new way blizzard has class, each dps class has some unique type of utility or raid cd for different boss mechanics'' which is a complete and utter lie ^_^ Not only that but they removed some raid cds from atleast 1 class that i know of and left them with no raid cds at all while giving mages a new raid cd while saying the same thing you just said aka total bullshit! I would look around a little further and make some research instead of keep on repeating what blizzard have said mainly because atleast half of their statements they are making are plain outright wrong ^_^

You can get as salty as you want. Doesn't make my claim any less valid. Which class lacks utility at this point?

[buffalowbie]

Oh you mean like raid utility?

Touché :-p.

I don't know how it is on beta, other than reading posts here and there, because I have yet to get a beta key . My problem with blizzard is they have known shadow has been bad on single target for a very long time, but haven't fixed it. This doesn't give me any confidence they will address it. Giving mages a healing raid cooldown, it feels like a slap in the face.

When I look over the patch notes and I see mages getting dps increases and a raid cooldown, it just irks me. Shadow has been told over and over again that the reason they do less dps is because of our raid utility, even if it is in the form of offheals.

It honestly feels like it's blizzard that has a vendetta against shadow priests. If they can properly tune shadow to actually be middle of the pack, I'll be happy. I don't want us to be top dps, I'm just tired of knowing I'm a better or equally skilled player, but doing less dps because the class is worse.

[Swoon]

Touché :-p.

I don't know how it is on beta, other than reading posts here and there, because I have yet to get a beta key . My problem with blizzard is they have known shadow has been bad on single target for a very long time, but haven't fixed it. This doesn't give me any confidence they will address it. Giving mages a healing raid cooldown, it feels like a slap in the face.

When I look over the patch notes and I see mages getting dps increases and a raid cooldown, it just irks me. Shadow has been told over and over again that the reason they do less dps is because of our raid utility, even if it is in the form of offheals.

It honestly feels like it's blizzard that has a vendetta against shadow priests. If they can properly tune shadow to actually be middle of the pack, I'll be happy. I don't want us to be top dps, I'm just tired of knowing I'm a better or equally skilled player, but doing less dps because the class is worse.

So you are basing things off of patch note dps increases and an actual raid CD for mages and you've ignored that we are getting 5 orbs, crazy t100s, cool glyphs which are actually useful, blast scaling and many other well needed shadow changes because you're too ignorant to get off of the blizzard hates shadow priests, mages are OP cry cry cry QQ train?

Just stop.

Edit: Added onto the fact they even SAID shadow priest single target was an issue and they were going to fix it, my god you are thick headed.

Go read Dryes forum post and stop talking pls.

[brookllyn]

Shadow has been told over and over again that the reason they do less dps is because of our raid utility, even if it is in the form of offheals.

Wow that means an extra raid healing cooldown for mages accomplishes exactly what you want. Since mages now also have raid utility, they can be nerfed and do less damage than us. Sounds like you are getting exactly what you want. -.-


Edit: I just want to point out your logic really quick.

Sees patch notes with mage buffs.

Sees patch notes with slight shadow buffs.

Ignores that entire number system for damage and raid utility has been completely redone.

Ignores when devs have said "No tuning has been done yet"

Hasn't been on the beta yet.

Proceeds to QQ about shadow on the forums because you had a bad experience with a mage once.

I'm sorry but you have absolutely not a single clue about what you are talking. Please try to inform yourself more before complaining and making noise that distracts devs who read these forums from their real job.