Cataclysm

[Selby]

They always make comments along the lines of; "If you focus on more than one class, you're just going to be terrible at all of them."

Oh please.  I have 4 characters that are all at least 11/12 in ICC (with several LK kills on the main character) and I would hardly consider myself a terrible player.  I like DPSing, tanking, and healing and know how to do them all in heroics and raid environments, sometimes better than other people who only have 1 "main" class they play.

[Sheepherder]

The problem with warriors is the kludgy shit left in the class design which isn't looking like it's going to be addressed anytime soon.  Case in point: Spell Reflect requires a macro to be usable by a non-shield using warrior.  Okay, so they just macro it for a quick swap, crisis averted.  Except the players with a high ping, who are doublefucked reaction-speed wise because the spell reflect won't fire off until the client confirms that the shield equip occured at the server.  Likewise for interrupting casts in battle stance.

[Zetor]

Yeah, I like warrior finesse (you can do charge-intercept-intervene-to-healer at the start of a pull for extra style points, be sure to have some pinball sounds playing!), but serious tanking / pvp with my ping (600+)? Fuck that noise. Incidentally I found the same thing with arms, it was so GCD hungry / timing-critical that I was really frustrated with it.

Druid tanking is nice and relaxing... the flashy druid tanking moments come from brezzing a healer while tanking (between boss swings / during a cast), innervating (ditto, though not really needed except as a downtime reducer nowadays), using caster-form CC spells and switching into cat to kite/dps at opportune moments. That said, I'm really looking forward to cata druid tanking, pulverize looks interesting at least.

[Sheepherder]

Ghostcrawler seems hell-bent on being clueless.

I'm not trying to say that clunkiness is a good cost for an ability. What I am trying to say is that if we just wanted Spell Reflect or whatever to be super easy to use that we would take away the shield requirement or just have it auto-switch to a shield. Being able to pull it off at the right time is the hallmark of a great warrior. If you watch some of these really skilled players play, yeah I'd argue their intuition does seem to border on ESP.

What are you going to do differently? I mean, if you designed the gear / warrior abilities with the intention that they were balanced...and they ended up tending to be overpowered on the damage charts, what evidence is there that you can produce balanced gear / warrior abilities?

Normalizing rage for one. Getting rid of armor pen for two. Defining swings as AE or single target for three.

Someone should tell him they never actually rolled back rage normalization.

[Tarami]

Spell reflect was a shitty, shitty idea. It's too powerful to work in 80% of the situations where it would be useful and in the remaining situations it's not defined what it does. Even when using it the feedback isn't very helpful (if it works at all, if it just negates the damage done, if the spell reflects and the mob is immune or if the spell *actually* reflects like it says in the tin.)

[Zetor]

The best use of spell reflect was 1-shotting wannabe ganker POM pyro mages in BC.  

In pvp it actually works pretty well (reflecting CCs can be pretty clutch... if you have less than 100 ping), but I agree it is not a good ability in pve (I just use it as a ghetto grounding totem when tanking and I have tons of excess rage against caster trash mobs).

[Paelos]

What I'm mostly hearing is that people don't like tanking as a warrior because it's more difficult than say a druid or a paladin. To that point, I'd certainly agree. There are certainly easier tanking classes out there with less to worry about. That line of thinking was a reactionary decision by Blizzard because tanks were incredibly unpopular as a group in the early game.

Tanks were rare. Warriors do have egos. Some of them are well-deserved, and others are flat-lining at the simplest of tasks. However, I would put dollars to donuts that you'd have a hard time finding a warrior tank that played from release who was outright terrible. Most of the shitty ones are converts. The reality is that I think if you really want to shine as a tank, you have more room to show your skills as a warrior. If you want more consistency or ease of play, there are the other classes.

[SurfD]

Yeah, a good warrior tank is literally worth his / her weight in gold (full set of plate armor included).  The things a good warrior can do are astounding.  The problem is finding those "good" warriors.

[Rendakor]

However, I would put dollars to donuts that you'd have a hard time finding a warrior tank that played from release who was outright terrible.

This would apply to players of any class, I would think.

[Fordel]

Fuck Warriors. Yea I said it! 

Tanks were rare because there was all of one class in the entire game that Blizzard thought of as a legitimate tank. They have Ego's because Blizzard spoon-fed them the top position in the PvE Hierarchy for some 3 odd years of game play. It has shit all to do with magical warrior player tanking prowess and everything to do with being the 'go-to guy' by default through total lack of other options.


It's not like Prot Paladins and Feral Druids weren't trying to tank in Vanilla and only Warriors were answering the call. It just wasn't mechanically possible for either to legitimately tank, it wasn't supported at all by Blizzard.

[Arinon]

I didn't find warriors to be rare at all in vanilla.  Quite the opposite and for the exact reason you state.  There was just the one class that tanked.  Who picked a class first and role second at release?  That was doing it backwards.

The ego thing I can agree with.   It was worse only because a warrior's ego could stop a raid while a hunter's ego would, well, result in bringing less hunters.

[Sheepherder]

Who picked a class first and role second at release?  That was doing it backwards.

Everyone who never played an MMORPG before?

[Paelos]

Fuck Warriors. Yea I said it! 

Tanks were rare because there was all of one class in the entire game that Blizzard thought of as a legitimate tank. They have Ego's because Blizzard spoon-fed them the top position in the PvE Hierarchy for some 3 odd years of game play. It has shit all to do with magical warrior player tanking prowess and everything to do with being the 'go-to guy' by default through total lack of other options.


It's not like Prot Paladins and Feral Druids weren't trying to tank in Vanilla and only Warriors were answering the call. It just wasn't mechanically possible for either to legitimately tank, it wasn't supported at all by Blizzard.

Yep, because paladins and druids are actually supposed to be healers. 

[Tarami]

Fuck no. That's the priests' job.

[Musashi]

Warriors are the hardest tanks the play, but the trade off is that they're unquestionably the best all around in the right hands.  Always have been (minus those few months before they nerfed DKs), always will be as long as Furor works at Blizzard.  Yes, some of their mechanics are overtly retarded - notably AoE tanking.  But it's better now than it has ever been.

Also, the ego thing.  Not really a warrior exclusive.  I think it has more to do with the type of person who wants to be in that role, and it doesn't matter what class.  But I've seen more epeen wars over DPS than over who should be the tank.  Healing meter wars are cute.  Blizzard does cater to warriors, though.  I won't deny that.  Again, see Furor.  Somewhere buried in one of his rants is the reason warriors have rend.  And I'll give you a hint:  It's not for keeping rogues out of stealth.

[Ratman_tf]

Who picked a class first and role second at release?  That was doing it backwards.

Everyone who never played an MMORPG before?

When I rolled my Ranger in DAOC I put stat points into.. I think Charisma? It was my first EQ clone, and I didn't realize how restrictive the role system was until then. Played that fucker to max level with gimped stats. 

[Paelos]

Warriors are the hardest tanks the play, but the trade off is that they're unquestionably the best all around in the right hands.

Yes, that's a better way of putting it. I'm always going to be locked into the old ways when I asked a paladin to come along and they healed.

[Mattemeo]

Fuck no. That's the priests' job.

Say that again after I've melted your face off.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Fuck no. That's the priests' job.

Say that again after I've melted your face off.

I'm a shadow priest myself but in vanilla wow the tree was a joke and not allowed in raids

[Selby]

Warriors are the hardest tanks the play, but the trade off is that they're unquestionably the best all around in the right hands.

Oh I definitely agree.  I love tanking on my warrior and a good warrior tank friend was the one who convinced me to take mine from level 13 where I left after I started 2-3 years ago to 80 and try to learn it.  And I did just fine, but the stress from the assholes who unleash AoE DPS and then shit all over me was too much to deal with so I stopped tanking with my warrior.  I'll probably finish the DPS set and then put the tank set back together (it was mostly ilvl 187-200 blues with all the crafted 226-245 pieces, but I was def capped and almost hit capped so it wasn't like I didn't know what I was doing).  People took one look at the GearScore and go "fuck this" and bail.

[caladein]

Warriors are the hardest tanks the play, but the trade off is that they're unquestionably the best all around in the right hands.

Yes, that's a better way of putting it. I'm always going to be locked into the old ways when I asked a paladin to come along and they healed.

Yes, because spending 175 days of play time on a character (yes, that's my main) and being able to do one thing, one way, in one set of gear is fucking awesome.

Seriously, anyone who looks back on Classic with even a hint of nostalgia either loved huge raids and started early with one of Blizzard's chosen classes (Warrior, Mage, maybe Rogue) or is a complete mental.

[Paelos]

Warriors are the hardest tanks the play, but the trade off is that they're unquestionably the best all around in the right hands.

Yes, that's a better way of putting it. I'm always going to be locked into the old ways when I asked a paladin to come along and they healed.

Yes, because spending 175 days of play time on a character (yes, that's my main) and being able to do one thing, one way, in one set of gear is fucking awesome.

Seriously, anyone who looks back on Classic with even a hint of nostalgia either loved huge raids and started early with one of Blizzard's chosen classes (Warrior, Mage, maybe Rogue) or is a complete mental.

Classic was terrible in a lot of ways. 40 man raids were completely inane and I wouldn't be able to toss one together today. That being said, the idea of a priest not having a healing spec irks me to this day. I feel the same way about paladins and druids. They designed them as hybrid healers. Sure I like the idea of you flopping to roles when needed. What I don't want to hear is that you don't have a healing spec in dual spec land.

You're a failure as a hybrid if that's the case.

[Lakov_Sanite]

Paladins and Druids have DPS/Tank/Heal specs, priests only have Heal/Kind of Heal/DPS.  Priests not having an offspec for healing makes sense, paladins and druids have two viable options besides dps, to expect them to be all be heal/dps is dumb.

[Ingmar]

You're a failure as a hybrid if that's the case.

Or you like to pvp. Or you're raiding at a high level and swap between trash/boss specs. Or you know, you just don't want to heal, god forbid.

EDIT: I should add as a raid leader I'd MUCH rather tank/dps hybrids than tank/heal hybrids in my raids, you always carry enough healers anyway, so on fights where you don't need every tank it is far more useful for them to be able to switch to dpsing rather than to being a redundant healer.

[Sjofn]

Yep.  I have been leveling a DK tank, and after playing a Druid tank as main through the last 4 tiers of raid content, DK sometimes leaves me confused.  Druids are stupidly easy to tank with.  As long as i have enough rage to hit swipe, aoe tanking is a breeze.  With the DK, I often find myself out of runes when i desperately need one, or half way through a tank "rotation" when something random happens and throws my rhythim completely off.   Druid?  I can practically roll my face across the keyboard, and as long as i have rage, nothing is going to stop me.

DK doesn't confuse me, as I've been playing one as a tank for as long as I have been able to make, but yeah, I still have those moments where I'm doing my rotation and then something unusual happens and then it's all Oh Shit My Threat Just Died and stuff, with the very occassional "oh god I'm out of the rune I need RIGHT NOW AUGH" and stuff. Which is fine, it keeps it interesting, I just find the paladin and druid much easier and disagree that DK tanking is a LOT easier than a warrior. Just ... I dunno, generically easier.

[Paelos]

You're a failure as a hybrid if that's the case.

Or you like to pvp. Or you're raiding at a high level and swap between trash/boss specs. Or you know, you just don't want to heal, god forbid.

EDIT: I should add as a raid leader I'd MUCH rather tank/dps hybrids than tank/heal hybrids in my raids, you always carry enough healers anyway, so on fights where you don't need every tank it is far more useful for them to be able to switch to dpsing rather than to being a redundant healer.

Yeah, but you decided on the tanks in the raid first. Hell, when you built the raid, you knew that was the easiest thing to figure out. That's your base in any 25 man, since it's the least amount of people you need, three. I need about six pure healers on top of that with about 2/3 hybrid dps/heals.

Tank/heal is a useless dual. You're covering one of the needed key points already.

[Sjofn]

And on the other topic:

The only time I get annoyed someone doesn't have a heal offspec is when it's a dpser who starts whining they got left off the raid that week because we have 459876238562345 dpsers and barely scraped together the healing needed. I try to keep that buried deep inside, though. I know some people just really don't like healing. I just wish some DPSers would accept THERE ARE A BILLION OF YOU.

Amusingly, I have been bitten in the ass by not having a real DPSer for five-mans (my hunter got transfered to a Horde server to make room for a new character in Cataclysm). Lots of people in the guild have tank/healer alts that they may or may not try to gear up, and I don't really have anyone to play with them, because I don't like DPSing as a DK (also, I suck at it).

[Nevermore]

You're a failure as a hybrid if that's the case.

Or you like to pvp. Or you're raiding at a high level and swap between trash/boss specs. Or you know, you just don't want to heal, god forbid.

EDIT: I should add as a raid leader I'd MUCH rather tank/dps hybrids than tank/heal hybrids in my raids, you always carry enough healers anyway, so on fights where you don't need every tank it is far more useful for them to be able to switch to dpsing rather than to being a redundant healer.

Yeah, but you decided on the tanks in the raid first. Hell, when you built the raid, you knew that was the easiest thing to figure out. That's your base in any 25 man, since it's the least amount of people you need, three. I need about six pure healers on top of that with about 2/3 hybrid dps/heals.

Tank/heal is a useless dual. You're covering one of the needed key points already.

Wait.  One minute ago you said all Druids must have a heal spec or they are 'failures' and now you're saying tank/heal is useless.  So in your world, Druids aren't allowed to ever tank because that violates points one and two?

[WindupAtheist]

I have a ret PVP spec and a ret PVE spec on my paladin, and I only have the PVE spec because I paid for dual and need to have SOMETHING. Of course, you couldn't pay me to sit through any dungeon that takes more than like 30 minutes to complete. It's also my only character except for a bank alt.

[Maledict]

Seriously, anyone who looks back on Classic with even a hint of nostalgia either loved huge raids and started early with one of Blizzard's chosen classes (Warrior, Mage, maybe Rogue) or is a complete mental.

Umm, I'm sorry but what? Mages?

How on earth were mages favoured? They had to use their lowest damage spec for the first two raid instances of the game thanks to immunities, had several severe flaws in the design that wasn't corrected until late on (they were one of the last classes to get fixed through their class patch - new icon for mage armour and all!), and the only point where they were overpowered is due to the rolling ignite bug in Naxxramus, where one mage could do stupid damage by being the first to start an ignite and then every other mage would keep it rolling through sustained crits?

I'm not sure really what you are referring too regarding "chosen classes", unless you were playing a warlock. Any class looks chosen compare to warlocks in the original game, but thankfully they fixed that and more in TBC. Mages were certainly not top of the heap, or in any way "chosen". Heck, you could argue any caster class was shafted in the original game because Blizzard didn't even start itemising for casters until the dire maul patch, and spell hit wasn't found on gear until Ahn Qiraj except for 2 or 3 pieces in BWL.

Re. tanks - Paladins are generally better equipped to be tanks than warriors nowadays. Not sure why anyone would believe differently. Warriors have some abilities that are extremely useful on certain fights (shockwave on LK, intervene etc when you need to move around fast), but a geared paladin tank will rock the house in ways a warrior can't touch thanks to Argent Defender for survival and Seal of Command for AE tanking. Paladins are *stupendous* tanks nowadays.

[Ironwood]

Warriors have been the worst tanks for quite some time now.

This is not to say that every warrior is a bad tank (speaking as someone who's been tanking since the start, fuck you), but it's pretty much a given right now that tanking as DK, Druid or Pally is just miles easier.  This is undeniable.  Anyone who disgrees should have those as alts (as I do) and weep.

I still prefer playing the warrior tho.  He's more FUN.

[caladein]

Umm, I'm sorry but what? Mages?

In Classic, if you wanted to be a caster DPS, what was your other option besides Mage?  Broken.
If you wanted to be a physical DPS, what was your other option besides Rogue? Occasionally broken.
If you wanted to tank, you were a Warrior.
If you wanted to heal, you had some options but then you were totally helpless outside of a group.

Sure, a lot of Classic was completely stupid and I have no idea how I put up with any of it, but pretending that some classes weren't more equally stupid than others is just deluding yourself.

[Merusk]

Yep.  I have been leveling a DK tank, and after playing a Druid tank as main through the last 4 tiers of raid content, DK sometimes leaves me confused.  Druids are stupidly easy to tank with.  As long as i have enough rage to hit swipe, aoe tanking is a breeze.  With the DK, I often find myself out of runes when i desperately need one, or half way through a tank "rotation" when something random happens and throws my rhythim completely off.   Druid?  I can practically roll my face across the keyboard, and as long as i have rage, nothing is going to stop me.

DK doesn't confuse me, as I've been playing one as a tank for as long as I have been able to make, but yeah, I still have those moments where I'm doing my rotation and then something unusual happens and then it's all Oh Shit My Threat Just Died and stuff, with the very occassional "oh god I'm out of the rune I need RIGHT NOW AUGH" and stuff. Which is fine, it keeps it interesting, I just find the paladin and druid much easier and disagree that DK tanking is a LOT easier than a warrior. Just ... I dunno, generically easier.

Runetap and Empower Rune Weapon get me through those.  If I need an emergency 1 rune ability more than every 1min or a multi more than every 5 there's larger problems to address.

[Mattemeo]

What I don't want to hear is that you don't have a healing spec in dual spec land.

You're a failure as a hybrid if that's the case.

My main is a Shadow Priest. Emphasis on Shadow. I bought Dual Spec when it became available and tried out Discipline on a few Heroics but it became painfully obvious that it was not for me. I don't have the moxy to play healer, and never have done, through my entire history of MMO gaming. It's just a mindset anathema to me. I'm going to give Resto Druid a shot in Cataclysm but I honestly don't think I'll ever be able to stick it.
My Priest's second spec is currently empty waiting for me to finalise a PvP Shadow Spec on my (hopefully) eventual return to the game.

What I am good at when it comes to healing is emergency spot healing in Raid or Heroic situations - I figure if I'm needed to heal, the shit has hit the fan. Oftentimes, I can help save a Raid or Heroic doing it, and it's a good feeling even though a lot of the time no one knows I did it (cause I'm discrete like that, gotta keep up the Witchy appearance). But it's certainly not something I crave.

So yeah, thanks, but no. I think I'm better suited to the small unique DPS niche I bring to a Raid as Shadow spec (our Guild doesn't have many, certainly not at Raid level) and if I'm not needed/DPS overspill I don't bitch about it. No one wants a healer who isn't interested in doing their job in a Raid.

[Maledict]

In Classic, if you wanted to be a caster DPS, what was your other option besides Mage?  Broken.
If you wanted to be a physical DPS, what was your other option besides Rogue? Occasionally broken.
If you wanted to tank, you were a Warrior.
If you wanted to heal, you had some options but then you were totally helpless outside of a group.

Sure, a lot of Classic was completely stupid and I have no idea how I put up with any of it, but pretending that some classes weren't more equally stupid than others is just deluding yourself.

Erm, no.

For caster DPS, *all* the classes were broken. Mages in Naxx ended up the only ones worthwhile, but that's like saying your the best at the special Olympics. Classic dps was dominated by hunters / rogues / warriors throughout the entire game, and only the aforementioned ignite bug gave mages any time of day in Naxx at all. Prior to Naxx, caster dps was just a joke full stop because neither the itemisation, the fight design or the class design supported it.

For melee DPs, warriors were broken throughout the entire game. At first due to the really badly thought out weapon speed fiasco with the Arcanite Reaper and Mortal Strike, and later on just because warriors scaled insanely well. DPS warriors were happily equal with rogues in BWL and beyond, and were the top standard damage class in Naxxramus bar the afore mentioned sole mage who was getting all the ignite damage from his fellow casters.

Tanking - yes, definitely warriors only. No argument there, and that was the case throughout the original game and most of TBC. Got to remember also that Blizzard are on record as saying they were aiming for DPS warriors to be the equivalent of a pure DPs class as well, as you didn't need 5 tanks per encounter. How on earth that one got through the design stage is beyond me, but that's the reason for warriors always being so good at DPS - they were supposed to be, unlike every other hybrid out there. Lunacy.

Don't get your comment about healing at all. No class was helpless outside of a group, right from day 1. Shadowpriests were one of the fastest and easiest classes to level in the game, and paladins have always been very good. I agree completely that it was a lot harder for healers to do solo stuff outside of a group unless they were picking up off-spec gear, but at what point did that matter? What was there to do outside of groups? Not sure what the point here was, as all the healing classes were useful back in the original game, albeit Paladins being a bit too useful than others.

Fundamentally, classic was an extremely broken game in terms of class balance, absolutely. But I don't think calling mages as being one of those broken classes makes much sense when you look at the dungeons, the performance and the fights. Hunters / Warriors / Rogues definitely, due to the itemisation at the time and the fiasco over weapon speeds. But of those, I'd say the only one where Blizzard were *deliberately* trying to overpower the class was warriors, and they're on record as admitting that. After 5 years, it would be nice for warriors to not be one of the best dps classes in the game again... :). But outside of warriors I don't think there were any "chosen" classes - just bad design, ignorance of game mechanics and pure luck that pushed others ahead.