When the class role doesn't match solo play

We touched the subject a couple of times in the past, but I thought I'd write a more detailed piece on the difference between group combat and solo combat, and why this affects different classes in different ways. I'll use World of Warcraft as an example, but in many ways the same is true for all games that use the same type of holy trinity tank-healer-dps group combat.

So how does group combat in WoW work? We take a typical group with one tank, one healer, and three dps classes. If that group fights several mobs at once, we assume that the extra mobs are under some sort of crowd control, sheeped, banished, sapped, trapped in ice etc., so we can reduce our discussion to the fight of the group against one single mob. We start with the tank who hits that one mob. In spite of possibly wielding some impressive looking sword, the damage the tank does is not very important. The most important function of the tank is to create aggro or hate, a numerical value which the AI mob uses to determine who to hit. Ideally the tank is always on top of that aggro list, and the monster thus always hits the tank, who by wearing the best armor and having defensive capabilities mitigates that damage down to the lowest possible value. The damage the tank does adds aggro, but he creates far more of it by using abilities like taunt, sunder, devastate, or thunder clap. It is important that the tank keeps the aggro, because his combined block and parry abilities, plus armor and defense rating is reducing the incoming damage by over half. If the same mob hit a mage or priest instead, the incoming damage to the group would be twice as high, and as an added problem the damage could interrupt their spells.

So now we have the tank mano-a-mano with the mob and both of their health points are going down. Unfortunately, as we are in a group encounter and the mob is an elite one, the health of the tank goes down faster than the health of the mob. So now we add the second component, the healer. The healer heals the tank with a mix of direct heals and heals over time. These heals create aggro too, but as long as the healer takes care not to overheal, he should be able to create less aggro than the tank, who is still spamming all his aggro-creating abilities like crazy.

So now the health of the tank remains up, as he is constantly being healed, and the health of the mob is going down, as the tank hits him. The mob remains glued to the tank, because the tank produces more aggro than the healer. This could go on for quite a while, until either the mob finally dies, or the healer runs out of mana. So now we need to get the health of the mob down faster, which is where the dps classes come in. Their role is to do most of the damage, in a constant stream, but not necessarily as fast as they can. Any single dps character can not do more damage than would be needed to top the tank on the aggro list, because then the tank would lose control of the mob. If for example a mage lands several crits, his aggro value for that mob grows too high, and the mob goes after the mage, who can't withstand the mob's damage as well as the tank can. But provided the dps classes can avoid that, their combined damage output is now leading to a fast fall in the mob's health, until the mob dies and the group wins.

Now lets say this mob was the final boss of the dungeon, the group divides the loot and splits apart, and each of them goes for some solo PvE, either doing some quests or farming some monsters for xp, gold, or reputation. The very term "farming" or "grinding" suggests that this is less interesting, more boring that group play. Why is that so? Because, on average, farming solo is much, much safer than playing in a group. In most cases you chose the place for farming in a way that your chance to die is very small to non-existant. While in the fight of the group against the boss mob the basic question was who would win, in farming the basic question becomes how fast can you win. In group fights, for example with the damage output of the dps classes we mentioned, it is often preferable to sacrifice speed for safety. Your group can take harder monsters by playing it slow and safe, giving the tank a few extra seconds to gain aggro before the others attack the mob, or by the dps classes limiting their damage with the help of a threat meter to avoid pulling aggro away from the tank. In solo fights being slow is a disadvantage. You are already sure that you are going to win. The only question is how many of these mobs can you kill in one hour, to maximize the gold, xp, or reputation gain.

So now our dps classes from the group are in solo PvE grinding, and they do exactly what they did in the group fight: deal damage. Only without having to watch an upper limit, because now the faster they deal the damage the better. Whatever talents or gear they have that helped them deal good damage per second in a group will also help them grind most efficiently.

The tank from the group isn't so lucky in solo PvE grinding. If he is still using the same tank gear and tank talent build that he had in the group, he can deal only slightly more damage than in the group fight, by changing to a more aggressive stance and using his rage for damage abilities instead of abilities that draw aggro. He still mitigates half of the damage with his armor, but that doesn't help him much, because he also deals a lot less damage than a dps class and thus the fights last twice as long. Per hour he simply kills less mobs than a dps class, because he deals less damage per second, otherwise they wouldn't be called dps classes. He can increase his damage output by changing his gear and/or his talent build. But it will never be quite as good as the best dps dealing class. And of course it would require him to collect several sets of gear, and to pay respec costs, which all adds up to a lot of cost and effort that a dps class doesn't have.

The healer has exactly the same problem. He deals enough damage to kill the same grinding mobs without problems, but slower than the dps classes. He doesn't die, because he can heal himself, but every single fight takes a bit longer than the one of a dps class, and at the end of the hour he has gained less xp, gold, or reputation. Again he can collect a second set of gear or spec differently for soloing, which again has a cost that the dps classes don't suffer. Or in summary: the class role of the tank and healer in a group is at cross purposes with the goals of solo PvE combat, while for the dps classes the two purposes align much better. Of course even a dps class might have some differences in the "perfect" talent build or gear for group play and solo play, but in general the differences will not be so large, and it is easy to find some compromise which works well for both.

Saying that a specialized tank or healer, in WoW terms lets say a protection spec'd tank or a holy spec'd priest, can't solo is clearly wrong. They can solo, and in many cases they can even do the same level of quests and kill the same level of mobs that a dps class can. But this comes at the cost of speed, if they stick to their protection or holy build and gear, they will level / get rich / gain reputation much slower than the other classes. Somebody who has played several classes will be very much aware of the difference, and leveling up slower is feeling less fun for most people.

This has several bad consequences. One is that healers and tanks are the least popular classes to play. But as every group needs at least one healer and one tank, they become the bottleneck for group formation. In my 3 years of WoW I'm sure that over 90% of the looking for group shouts I heard on various chat channels, including guild chat, were either looking specifically for a tank, a healer, or both. There are very few times when a group has a tank and a healer and has problems filling the other three spots.

The other bad consequence is that people who are aware that tanks and healers are needed for groups and decide to play one don't want to actually level him as such. They will make shadow priests, fury warriors, retribution paladins, etc. to level up to the level cap as fast as possible. That makes them of not so much use for groups in the lower levels, and they miss out on opportunities to already learn how to perform their class role at the lower levels. Level 70 is late for a warrior to learn how to taunt. And even at level 70 they often find that they prefer to stick to the more damage-dealing role, as it is better for soloing and for PvP. Which still doesn't help the other players looking for a tank or healer.

When Blizzard recently added damage bonus to healing gear, they clearly intended to fix this cross purpose between solo role and group role for healers. Warhammer Online stresses how each of their classes is good at dealing damage, even the tanks and the healers. Ideally a game would have many different classes which all kill mobs in solo combat at the same speed. And each class would have a specific role in group combat, like tanking, healing, crowd control or special effects which were all equally useful but different. Damage dealing shouldn't be a speciality, it should be a common base value. After all, when the typical looking for group shout goes out for "a tank, a healer, and 2 randoms", it can't really be considered a compliment to have one's class listed under "random".
- posted by Tobold @ 5:33 PM Permanent Link