Most people simply do not want to heal AND tank AND dps. So the advantages you describe (which also creep up in regular intervals on the offical forums) are lost on them. Some people like to tank and dps or heal and dps. The Mass of people just dps, so even pure classes are fine for them.
 

I don't know what are you talking about. This is a game, like you frequently say. Why would I play a druid or a paladin, if I like warriors, or mages? There are only a couple of people from my guild who actually rerolled in WotLK, and one of them exchanged nice paladin tank for... rogue! And he is welcome in our raids, because he is a good player. No one rerolled druid or paladin.
But our guild is pretty old and we got core of like 15 people who know each other for years.
Also, do you have your full Shadow set fully enchanted and gemmed on your priest? I suppose no. Lots of hybrid classes do, or I hope so, cause they are not real hybrids if they can't fullfill some role on request. And it is costly to maintain 3+ sets of gear and knowlege about each of your specs. And if you don't play each of your hybrid specs well, why are you playing this class?
If we are talking about real endgame like Sart 3 drakes, then trust me, druids are not best healers there. And no druid can tank small adds better than paladin or warrior, even DK. And not only druid can tank Sarth himself, but paladins can't tank him without excessive effort as far as I know.
If we are talking about Naxx or Malygos level, I am pretty sure no one cares about class composition, cause this content is really easy. Week ago we downed Malygos 10 with me as a healer on raid (long-time druid), and I was specced out of Wild Grow to Dreamstate, just to give it a try. Other healer was Shaman, but we got almost no Chain Heals before 2nd phase, cause she was on tank. We got only 2 Naxx-25 geared players there, myself and fury warrior. Still, we killed him on 3rd attempt after some unluck with oneshots on phase 2 and adjusting to healing without aoe heals on 1st phase at all. It was not skill or gear kill. I will not even talk about Naxxrammas, it is just trivial. So, who cares about class comparision? If you can't or doesn't want to play your "pure" class well, it will not make you play hybrid better, only worse, I think.
And if we are talking about heroics/leveling... I hope we don't?
 

This is stupid. Why make two druids mandatory? My raid happens to have a feral and a tree by chance and it *has* disadvantages. For example tankdruids take CRAZY damage from caster classes and their AOE-tanking really sucks. I'm also quite sure that their bigger lifepool is needed because they take more damage than other tanks.
As for trees, well they are good with HoTs, therefore good grouphealers. How is that mandatory?
 

I must disagree on druids taking CRAZY magical damage, as it is just plain false, cause -12% by talents and -20% on 1 minute cooldown are present. Before writing such sentences, try watching specific WWS reports or reading thematical forums. And I have yet to loose clever aoe'er to aggro. If your fellow druids playstyle have some... flaws, please don't expand it on the class.
But even so, I too don't understand this. Maybe, your raid leader is not that bright about classes and abilities, Tobold?
 

I'm intrigued by that list. We cleared 10 man Naxx with a shaman and a paladin healer. I don't really see why they'd have such strong class requirements.

I also think that the reason druids are in such demand as 10 man tanks is not because they're the best main tanks. It's because they are the best off tanks (ie. when they arent' tanking, they can put out the best damage).
 

I doubt the fact that class 'a' can clear an instance is fundamentaly important in choosing what class you play. Hell, I play a paladin just for what I have in mind that paladins ought to be/represent - definitely not because of what I can do ingame.

Too many variables in the current content but so little meaning it seems. Keep a tight group of players (good players) and you can tackle almost everything but the harder achievements in the current content. Allow them to play the class they want (as long as you keep the tank, healer, dps analogy reasonable). A player who does what he likes is definitely better than one thats dragged into a class.

Tanks endure, dps saves raid days and and healers win raids. Ok I am being funny here :p
 

Dare I point out, in this long series of posts where you feel sorry for yourself because one single ability has been nerfed, that priests are actually considered hybrids? On the same reasoning, I never read your outrage when paladin healing was nerfed in TBC.

Beyond that, basing your argument on your guild's quite peculiar requirements, which appear to be in no way, shape or form some kind of global trend is a bit odd, to say the least. What's even more bizarre is that a guild where casual / softcore players like you describe yourself find a home would have such specific and stringent class requirements.
 

Pigeonholing is a fundamental weakness of class-based RPG systems - by design a member of Class A can do X really well, Y kind of OK-ish, and Z not at all. Blizzard tries to get around this by having each class bring something unique to the table and making it so the hybrid classes can function as the 'pure' class, but with WoW being what it is, second best will never be good enough in a pvp or raiding environment (at least, anything resembling a serious one).

So Blizzard does their absolute best to balance the classes so hybrids will remain viable. Viable in WoW means you either perform at 100% of the level the pure class, you bring something unique to the table that your group needs or would be really nice if it had, or both. I'll admit that it sucks for the 'pure' classes but back in classic WoW we all learned that being able to be 80% of a priest, 80% of a warrior, or 80% of a mage isn't going to get any raid slots.
 

The content in this expansion is not hard enough to make a list like that. You can run Naxxramas just fine with 3 random healers, 2 random tanks + 5 random dps. It will work. It'll even work better if you take one from each class. That list is a very, very stupid thing and I'd leave my guild if they started using that.

Now, as for hybrids. They all have to tank and heal roughly equally well or there is no reason to take them with you. Healers are already in low supply so not taking a class would be terrible.

As for DPS, pure classes should get a small advantage over hybrids. Give them 10% more DPS and give them utility. Blizzard tried to make hybrids viable in TBC by giving them utility tools (windfury totem, mana regeneration,...). Pure dps should however get those and a few more to compensate the fact that they can not heal/tank. 10% more DPS would be enough to take a pure DPS class while not being enough to leave all hybrids on the sideline. And everyone wouuld be happy.
 

Carra: I don't agee. The compensation for not being able to heal or tank is that no one ever asks you to heal or tank!
 

priests are actually considered hybrids

I'm talking about triple-hybrids here. Of course the same considerations apply to balancing double-hybrids with classes that can only do a single thing. Of which there are few left, only some dps classes. But I fully agree that a mage should deal more damage than a shadow priest, because the mage is more specialized in damage dealing, while a priest can either do damage dealing or healing. But as we don't have a class that only heals, and can't deal damage in another spec, the same consideration doesn't apply to healing.

And of course I understand that the druids aren't happy about people wanting to nerf them. Just like paladins didn't like to be nerfed "to the ground", or like hunters don't like the nerfs in patch 3.0.8. But as I didn't see druids speaking out against other classes being nerfed, you can hardly ride the high horse here now, saying that druids should be somehow exempt from being nerfed.
 

I don't get your guild, I'm sorry. My guild doesn't even have a druid tank or a druid healer, just a couple of kitties and a moonkin. On the other hand, we have about 6 priest healers and only 2 resto shamans and 3 holy paladins. We were one of the first to clear all heroic instances on our server, and have done a number of raid achievements, including Heroic and normal Twilight Duo. And then people say we are elitist and hardcore ;).
 

saying that druids should be somehow exempt from being nerfed.

*cough* Druids were actually nerfed on Wild Growth, their equivalent to CoH, in the exact same way as priests were. Just saying.
 

@Anonymus: I have to admit that as a healer I don't read much tank-theorycrafting. My claim that druids take more magic-damage is based upon what my tank says and my own observation. I don't know why but it IS significantly harder to heal a druid through high amounts of magic damage than a warrior. However on the topic of druids lack of aoe-tanking I'm quite sure. Other classes have aoe-tanking-abilities that go for a certain range and on 360 degree radius (thunderclap, consecration..). That means they basically begin tanking when mobs are several yards away from them. Eager DDs learn to rely on that and usually start DPSing about 2 seconds BEFORE the tank reaches the target. This works with all tanks except druids, those need all mobs close and in front of them to start tanking. An eager Retribution-Paladin who starts AOEing a second before the tank reaches the mob is no problem with a good tank - except if this tank is a druid.
 

Let's clear it a bit, maybe?
Tobold, you are complaining about 10 druids or paladins able to clear whole Naxx, right?
It means, what you think they should not be able to do it, cause else EACH class must be able to do it.
It means, what you think there must be no 3-spec hybrids at all, am I correct?
I hope you do not think so. Cause if you think so, YOU, as a 'partial' hybrid, must loose something too. Do you like the idea of not having Flsh Heal or Renew? At the moment priest is the only class with each type if healing spell available: aoe heal, fast heal, big heal, hot, and then unique PW:S and POM, and also have most important buff for raids, stamina, and since expansion doing very very competitive dps to mages. Our top SP avarages to something like 5k dps in 25 man raid, and he is not even close to full 25 man gear. Is't it too much even for 'partial' hybrid?
If you don't think so, then please explain, how it should be: the group of skilled and minimally geared players with 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 dps should not be able to clear easiest raid dungeon ever?
 

First of all: Druid for top tank/healer, wot? I understand this isn't about which class is better, but still, wot?

Now that's out of the way, the problem with your idea with making hybrid classes be less capable in each specialization is the fact doing anything less than 100% viability automatically denies that spec/class raid spots. You're also ignoring the fact that "hybrids" can only specialize in *1* thing at a time. The only benefit that druids have over other classes is the time saved leveling up from 1-80. We still have to gear up each spec to do each job well, and we can't do more than one of those things well at any point in time.

Finally, you're ignoring the unique benefits each class brings. This (should) mean that no one class can overtake every single part of any other class. Whether some particular class/spec's benefits do 100% overlap with another class's, I don't know. But I do know that they don't for druids and/or paladins.
 

An eager Retribution-Paladin who starts AOEing a second before the tank reaches the mob is no problem with a good tank
There used to be a time where the golden rule was "wait 5 sunders" (back in the days, you know, when we used to walk 10 miles in the snow barefoot and uphill both ways just to get to the instance door). As I just re-noticed myself last night, it's actually very easy to rip aggro on the secondary targets if you put down some AoE too soon (divine storm) with any tanking class. And I've seen my share of warlocks breaking pulls because their overeager felguard intercepted one mob in a multi-pull way before it came into consecrate range.
Consecration in particular has lowered the time between tank aggro and dps output, that doesn't mean that eagerness has to turn into stupidity. Something I have to remind myself on every run.
 

@Kiseran: got your point, and it is true in some (even most) cases, but it is a pointless discussion outside of concrete examples. Maybe you are talking about some heroic where warrior can simply spell reflect some, maybe your warrior is good and your druid is not. Armory links, wws reports - that would be arguments, but this is not a place for this kind of discussion.
In fact, I cant even recall ANY significant magic damage currently in game except for Sartharion.
@Gwaendar: that's my thougth too.
 

In a 25-man raid, you can pretty much guarantee that you have every buff imaginable, and fill the rest with any kind of healer/tank/dps. "Bring the player, not the class", as a Blizzard representative explained. For 10-mans however, the buff structure is not so well balanced. (I think Tobold mainly raids 10-mans.) For example, a shadow priest is strictly more useful than a holy priest, because he/she brings Replenishment and Misery in addition to the Fortitude and Shadow Protection that a holy priest can buff. As you don't have enough player slots to bring every buff anyway, it's always better for the raid to not have a holy priest. That's not the only example of course; other classes/specs suffer from this problem too, but not all of them: every spec of druid brings a unique buff, every paladin can buff a blessing. I see that as a problem.

As with most of the things broken in the game, Ghostcrawler has admitted that some classes have seen the short end of the stick with the great buff overhaul of 3.0. They'll look into it, and he promises that they'll be faster to react to class balancing issues than in the past. Judging from the very modest list of changes so far, and from the horribly broken patch yesterday that forced them shut down practically all PvP content (Wintergrasp and now even arenas), I can only conclude that Ghostcrawler is wrong. Everything that's imbalanced now will still be so in two months.
 

@Gwaendar: We used "wait 2 sunders", but I know what you mean ;)
Our DDs are a bit spoiled. They dish out everything they have and fail to get aggro. They start DPSing immediately at the beginning and still fail. So they push the boundaries even farther and end up DPSing before our tank is fully there or even pulling. At the moment we're training them to wait for the tank to arrive and use toilets, because otherwise its disgusting ^^
 

"You're also ignoring the fact that "hybrids" can only specialize in *1* thing at a time."

This will not be true anymore come 3.1 and dual-specs. You bring every kind of tank and every kind of healer, and always choose those that are best for the encounter you currently face.
 

It's not even true in patch 3.0.8. A druid with feral spec only needs to switch gear to go from great tank to still-very-good melee dps. That is one of the reasons raids like to bring one, because you don't need the same number of tanks for every encounter, and a tank who can easily switch to dps is better than one who would need to respec to do so.
 

Druids were actually nerfed on Wild Growth, their equivalent to CoH, in the exact same way as priests were. Just saying.

Yes, and I'm saying that the same nerf hits a cless which can do more different things less hard than a class that is more specialized.
 

This will not be true anymore come 3.1 and dual-specs. You bring every kind of tank and every kind of healer, and always choose those that are best for the encounter you currently face.

1. It's actually not confirmed for 3.1 but for "when it's ready"
2. It also works for DPS. Heavy shadow & frost resists? Switch to arcane / fire or destro. AoE too intense for your pet to be useful? Switch to MM. And again, collecting, upgrading, gemming, enchanting and lugging around 2 completely separate sets of gear is neither entirely trivial, quick, simple (there's always some resistance to allow off-spec gearing at least until everyone is decked out properly) or cheap.

That being said, the nice thing about a game with 10 classes is that you can always reroll something else if you no longer enjoy your preceding main. It's not as if leveling had become harder recently, in particular with a bunch of heirloom items to speed things up.
 

I think this might be more a social problem with your guild rather than a real balance issue. Why exactly does your guild reserve two spots for druids in your 10-man raid? And why the spot-reservation for a priest healer btw? A druid tank is not automatically better than any other tanking class. Neither is a druid healer universally better than the other available healing classes. If your guild reserves spots for specific classes then you might want to look deeper into the motives of the officers.
 

Yes, and I'm saying that the same nerf hits a cless which can do more different things less hard than a class that is more specialized.

Sorry, as far as the healer role is concerned, priests can do more different things and by your reasoning got affected less than the druids. Just because a druid can respec to boomkin if he's unhappy about the wild growth nerf (just like a priest can respec to shadow if he can't get to terms with CoH nerf) doesn't mean he a) wants to b) could actually get a raid slot even if he wanted to. Hybrids have been complaining about being pigeonholed to healing in particular since WoW 1.0.0
 

Just wait for the "dual spec" feature and you will see Hybrids rise even more. In TBC, Hunters and Mages were screwed. This time, Paladins, Death Knights and Druids get it handed on a platter. I quit before, as a Warlock and many other pure DD classes I have no good arguments besides "we are friends" that my class would be included in a raid. Bring the player, not the class? Nice idea, in theory, Mr. Ghostcrawler, in the end you just buffed some classes and nerfed some others, nothing else changed.
 

Good point! Of course if you have for example a pure damage-dealing class, the dual spec feature only changes the flavor of the damage you're dealing. A priest can be both healing or damage dealing spec, and a druid can be all three healing, tanking, and dps (although he needs to carry around 3 sets of gear for that).
 

That line os thinking is wrong... you never put a feral druid to heal, or a resto to tank. You have to see druids, or paladins, as 3 different specialized classes, druids can do everything but not at the same time (same spec) and same time effort on gear. Thats the weakness, when you are hybrid you are forced to specialize in some aspect of the game, dps, tank or heal, giving up most of the efectness of your other roles, healers are bad tanks and dps, tanks are bad healers and etc. Thats the nature of a hybrid. For me we only will see a problem, or unbalance, when you gather 10 feral druids to raid (or for ex. when 5 DKs lvl 60 go to Ramparts) if a hybrid is able to do everything at the same time (maybe the double spec feature will give this unbalance to us) than thats wrong.
 

Whilst I understand that it might be annoying for a druid to be just as good as any other non-hybrid at their chosen spec, can you imagine if us druids weren't? If we couldn't compete with warriors to tank, couldn't heal competitively with a priest or couldn't keep up as much dps as a mage then why on earth would druids ever be taken for a raid at all when there are superior non-hybrid specs? I understand "jack of all trades, master of none" but it would completely render the class useless in terms of pve and we would never get a raid spot. I don't see a way around this.
 

I understand "jack of all trades, master of none" but it would completely render the class useless in terms of pve and we would never get a raid spot. I don't see a way around this.

I do. Make them as good as ONE other specialist class in ONE domain, and second-class in the two others. If druids for example were as good as priests in healing, but only second-rate at tanking and damage dealing, they would be better balanced.
 

Make them as good as ONE other specialist class in ONE domain, and second-class in the two others.

That was exactly how it was for druids and pallies pre-TBC, back in the day when their only allowed spec was healing and nothing else. Been there done that got the T-Shirt, thanks.
 

A friend of mine plays a druid in a top-end raiding guild. They have cleared all content (heroic level) except for 3D-Sarth. He serves mainly as tank but he sometime re-specs as healer when needed (he has the gear for this). According to him, at the top levels, druids are currently the worst tanks of all 4 tanking classes.

So while I agree with you Tobold that druids are a great class to play and that their versatility is a powerful plus for the class, I assure you that you don't see the whole picture with regards to them.

As for your guild, I have to agree with previous comments - mandating a particular set of classes as healers or DPS is silly. Naxx is easy except for Sapphiron. PuGs are clearing normal Naxx left and right but your guild *has* to bring a druid tank and druid healer? Please...
 

You knew what you rolled in the beginning. Now this line just works in completely different meaning than before. Live with it.

Blizzard themselves said they consider only hunter, rogue, mage and warlock to be pure classes. So you want to nerf all of the others to suit those needs? This would cost them quite a bit of players
 

"Make them as good as ONE other specialist class in ONE domain, and second-class in the two others."

Now you're being silly. You sound unhappy with Blizzard's view of where priests should. I can relate to that, it's why I shelved my priest in TBC. (Nice class and fun to play, but it was clear that Blizzrd no longer intended them to be THE primary healers.)

Blizzard has decided as a design goal to go with hybrids as role shifters (I'm all for this because I love that my warrior can be either a tank or dps, it's cool). If you want a game where only the pure classes are able to tank and heal, you may need to try something else.
 

I think someone above got it right when they said a hybrid should be nearly as good as a "pure" class but not 100% as good (90% sounds about right). All the hybrids saying they need to be 100% as effective or they won't be taken on raids need to consider the reverse situation. If hybrids are 100% as good as the "pure" classes then no-one would ever take pure classes. Why? Because even if you can't be specced all ways at once a DPS hybrid taking heavy splash damage while all the healers are busy can get themselves out of trouble with a heal, or if not needed to heal for a particular encounter can still DPS reasonably effectively (sure not close to a proper specced DPS but anything is better than nothing). Already in Naxx I have seen countless times hybrids pull their a**es out of the fire when in trouble whereas the pure DPS just die.

This will only get worse come duel specs and I am sure there will be lots of hybrids carrying around top end healing and DPS gear at once. Even now as a "pure" DPS I carry 3 sets of gear into a raid so its not huge problem to keep multiple gear sets.

When duel specs come about pure DPS will simply not be required.

Of course there is a "third way" which would be to give the DPS some additional but useful utility over hybrids which makes a difference to a raid. Under those circumstances maybe 100% equivalence in damage/healing/tanking etc would be ok. Alternatively give all DPS healing abilitites equivalent to a non-heal spec hybrid.
 

Why would a casual guild like yours make 2 druids mandatory? /shrug. Heck even some competitive guilds out there don't have written rules like that.

I'm guessing some of your officers are druids? or their friends? =P. I'd look into it if I was you.

Our guild does have 2 druids on 25mans as a tank/dps and healer but on 10mans you can really get by with any class that does the job required.
 

Have you ever actually played a druid? Hybrid classes do not have the same versatility as a pure anything class. As a moonkin, I had less types of spells than a mage. Starfire/wrath combo. It gets dull. As a healer, I have less healing spells than you do and I am able to heal less damage with my single target non-HoT spells. My holy pally friend beats the pants off me for single target healing.

I also found the druid to be one of the harder classes to level. When we're young we're not particularly good at anything. When we're older, we need to learn tactics to deal with the things we can't do well.

Grass is always greener on the other side.
 

"Why play one of these specialized classes if a hybrid class can do as well in your specialization *plus* can do as well as any other class in their specialization?"

Um, I can think of reasons. Maybe you just enjoy playing your specialized class more than you enjoy the hybrids. Maybe you don't WANT to be asked to tank or heal, you just want to DPS. You CAN argue all you want about how successful the 'bring the player not the class' philosophy has been executed. But most class/spec combos are fully effective at their roles right now and if you're good at what you're doing, and you enjoy it, you should be able to find a raid spot.

For someone who is all about not catering to the hardcore, you sure seem to like to pal around with them. The average, casual player isn't going to be utilizing hybrids in the way you seem to fear--in a raid they do one thing, and that's all they know how to do, and it is all they are geared for. Their hybrid utility only gets used when they go off and do solo stuff. Further, why are you putting up with these draconian raid composition rules? It's definitely not Blizzard's fault that your guild requires 2 druids. It's COMPLETELY unnecessary to compose a raid in such a way, I guarantee a guild can do all the 10 man content without a single druid. You are complaining about problems that simply don't exist for the average player.
 

@ Anyone who thinks hybrids shouldn't be able to compete with pure classes let's take a trip down memory lane....


(swooshy lines)(bad 60's music)(more swooshy lines)


All druids went resto. If they weren't resto they didn't get into raids. A guild might take one feral or one boomkin in a 40 man raid.


All shamans went resto. Enhance was crappy DPS compared to say the 10000 rogues that wanted the spot and didn't bring anything more than just adding another resto shaman and having him drop windfury in the melee group. Elemental was non-existant...I honestly can't remember a single ele-shaman that I raided with in the year or so that I raided @ 60.


Warriors went protection to raid. Plate DPS gear was few and far between. All tier sets were tanking gear. A raid might have a couple of DPS warriors squeezed in but generally they could not keep up with the DPS of rogues until they were very well geared.


Priests went holy. I remember seeing one..maybe two shadow priests in a 40 man raid. It was not that common because they couldn't do the DPS of a pure caster class.


Paladins went holy. I raided Horde but I never remember hearing anything about paladins tanking until TBC. Ret was largely seen as a PVP spec and was widely laughed about.
 

"As a moonkin, I had less types of spells than a mage. Starfire/wrath combo. It gets dull. As a healer, I have less healing spells than you do and I am able to heal less damage with my single target non-HoT spells. My holy pally friend beats the pants off me for single target healing."

Well, "boring" is not an argument against anything; when composing a raid you never look how "boring" a certain spec is but how effective it is for the group. I also don't know what paladins have to do with this, they are *also* a three-role hybrid, and BTW will beat every other healer in single target heals including disc priests (and are also the most effective group healers in 3.0.8 due to a bugged glyph, but that's another story).

I agree with all the other posters that Blizzard can't make a druid or pally heal or tank or DD less effectively than the other classes or else they won't be brought to raids. So here's another suggestion: druids and paladins should not give group buffs that are as useful as those given by 2-role hybrids and 1-role classes. In other words, players can decide whether they want the additional group support from the more focussed classes, or the versatility of the hybrids. Both have their advantages in different situations.

A huge balancing problem now is that the most versatile classes also bring the best group buffs (and by this I include things like innervate, battle rezz). If this were reversed, pure classes wouldn't have to fear for their spot, and hybrids would keep all the benefits of their versatility without being made less effective. Think about this.
 

Oh, and one more thing. It's not as if up to TBC, damage dealers could choose from 3 viable specs. Look at any pure DPS class: one spec is generally agreed upon to be the best PvE DPS spec and is required for any serious raider, one spec is the preferred PvP spec, and a third one is horribly broken and ignored by Blizzard for years. Pure DPS classes never had more than one, at most two viable specs.
 

What a bizarre list of requirements for a raid.

At the moment there is only 1 raid encounter in WOLK that requires a certain class, and that is Razuvious in 25-man Naxx (requires 2 priests). Every single other encounter can be done with the requisite number of "DPS", "Healers" and "Tanks", regardless of class.

Malygos without a good AoE healer(s) is much harder, but still doable.

As to your point about hybrids: You seem to be talking as if 1 person can fill 3 raid spots (in the case of a druid or pally). I play a Holy paladin - but I can't fill the raid spot of a prot warrior. I don't have the gear, skills or inclination to do so. I suppose I could spend a few weeks getting prot gear to be a tank, but then someone else (of any healing spec!) would need to replace me as a healer.

Or maybe it would be best if you answered your own question, Tobold - you have a warrior and a priest, both of which can fill 2 roles as well as any other spec (i.e. Hybrids). Does your priest feel far superior to your mage because you can respec into another role? If your priest had a tank tree would it suddenly make it the perfect class?
 

Well, "boring" is not an argument against anything; when composing a raid you never look how "boring" a certain spec is but how effective it is for the group.

Let me put it to you this way. I have two types of spells. Nature or arcane. I have two spells to cast in rotation and if one of them gets interrupted then I'm SOL. If a creature is immune to nature damage, I'm SOL. My AOE sucks and I can't trap multiple mobs the way a mage can. Roots only work on one mob at a time. Cyclone's duration is too short and diminishing returns makes it useless after a while.

I also don't know what paladins have to do with this, they are *also* a three-role hybrid, and BTW will beat every other healer in single target heals including disc priests (and are also the most effective group healers in 3.0.8 due to a bugged glyph, but that's another story).

My point was with the single target heals. I can't do it. You holy priests/paladins can.

WoW is about tactics. Instead of complaining about classes, work to your strength and learn the tactics to make it effective.

At the end of the day it's just a game. If you're not happy, then stop playing or switch to something else to make you happy.
 

I agree with a lot of the previous comments wondering what the H*ll is up with these posts this week.

If I've heard right, WoW patches in the past routinely nerfed particular skills used heavily by classes (And in theory, this is how patching seems like it should work.) Wow has had bad patches in the past (I don't have an opinion on whether this is actually a bad set of skill changes, but complaining that they are seems out of place.), and the hybrid "issue" sounds like something that in theory has existed somewhat since burning crusade, and in theory has existed since the game started, but did not due to poor design. (Something I've read a lot about long before the comments in this thread.)

As others have pointed out, these rants are quite far along to being like the constant annoying whining found on bad official forums, which is way out of character for the blog.
 

I Totally agree with Tobold from a PvP standpoint.

I think Hybrids have an advantage. This is never clearer than in PvP. When I used to play my warrior, it was so frustrating seeing ret Pallies with inferior gear specifically target me in BGs and open world PvP, Knowing that they could deal similar damage but could heal themselves. Any heal-capable dps class/spec IMO has an unfair advantage in 1v1 situations.

'Pure' classes are penalised for being specalists in what they do - ok you can't heal, you should be able to deal more dps to compensate. Hybrid classes have no such penalty at the moment. In PVE they have more choice in playstyle with the only penalty being the cost of maintaining multiple gear sets (although boomkins I know have 2-3 Hit items to swap in for some regen to heal and thats it). In PVP they have an advantage in options. Druids - tell me what other class has so many viable spec options to succeed in arena? Most classes are lucky if they have 2 spec options which don't totally gimp themselves.

There is no cost of versatility.
 

As a druid I can you that druids do indeed rock, and if I could run 25 mans with all druids I would!

However, your issue is different. You guild is creating some idea of a favourite class which is really really bad for business and just not true. They are not the "best" to take - that is entirely debatable. I would have a word with your raid leaders, rather than use their ignorance to make some innappropriate comment on the design state of "hybrid" vs "pure" classes.
 

As many commenters have said before me, what's up with those strict class restrictions in your guild raids? It seems to me your guild hasn't really adapted to the new world of raiding. I would also like to check the officers' secondary motives if I were you.

I for my sake don't see hybrids as a threat to my "pure" class. In my guild the top 3 DPS in our 10man raids are hunter, rogue and warlock, all pure classes. Me being the hunter I haven't had any problems getting a raid spot, despite the fact that an "optimal" 10man raid doesn't take a hunter. And again, the "optimal" setup I'm talking about only considers buffs, not utility, and believe me, a hunter provides lots of utility that's not accounted for when looking at pure buffage and DPS. I can Misdirect, which is handy in certain circumstances, I can lay down traps to slow down mobs, I can put up a healing debuff, nothing of which is useful all the time, but put together it adds utility on many bosses. Other pures bring other utility, like free water/food, healthstones, soulstones, and the list goes on. I do not fear to be replaced by a hybrid (not until our ret pally starts outDPSing me at least), for the simple fact that the game isn't designed around requiring certain classes for certain encounters anymore. Finally we have skill > class, and while players who used to only get into raids because their class was needed go on moaning about "the game losing flavour" I just laugh at them, knowing full well they're just too lazy to adapt.
 

Spinksville allready sorted out the truth to this argument way way up above.

"The compensation for not being able to heal or tank is that no one ever asks you to heal or tank!"

Hyrbrids are for players who don't mind being bothered to do any role thay are geared to fill. They spend cash on respecs and deal with the annoyance of setting up thier ui properly each time for thier new role. Sounds annoying to me, and makes me glad I'm just a simple rogue with no choices. Let Hybrids be 100% at any role thier tree and gear allows; good for them.

~Jason DPS Liberation Front
 

Yep I agree with some previous posters. The blogger here is whining quite a bit, and previous posts this week have been of a whiney nature, similar to the childish and very personal immaturity of the official forums. (random loot drops are sucky, healing is sucky - haha that was a classic) and now the existance of hybrids is sucky. What's usually going on is: I had a bad night, or I feel frustrated, therefore wow sucks and I'm going to tell you all why. Its just a very unconstructive motive for writing.

Way too many of these posts seem like a description of the bloggers emotional state atm. If you had a bad day at the office and need to vent, can you use your wife/kids/colleagues/shrink instead?
 

Hybrids should never be able to outperform a comparable player that is of another class specialized in what they are doing. A pure healer (priest) should easily outperform a Druid/Paladin just as a pure tank (warrior) should easily outperform a Druid / Paladin. "Jack of all trades, master of none" needs to apply to hybrids. As soon as they are Jack of all trades, master of ALL then it's game over. Go home.
 

I think the real problem with hybrid classes and game balance will start with the introduction of the dual-spec feature. If a class can switch between multiple roles depending on the specific encounter *and* fill that role as well as anyone else then the value of hybrids skyrockets. If you have someone who can do competitive DPS on trash, heal on one boss, and then switch to tank on the next one, then this is obviously an advantage for this class over another that is less flexible.

Hopefully Blizzard will have a plan to dampen that effect. I don't think it can be fixed by nerfing the capability to dps, heal, or tank without alienating the players. Not every druid wants to fill every role. And it would be wrong to punish a tree who just wants to heal so that the other druid who wants to fill several roles is "balanced".

But it should be possible to provide incentives for class diversity by giving other classes more unique utility. Druids with their unique battle-res might indeed be overpowered as a raider if they can also switch specs. But if every class brings something unique then this would certainly help balance.
 

A pure healer (priest) should easily outperform a Druid/Paladin just as a pure tank (warrior) should easily outperform a Druid / Paladin.

Aside from the fact that warriors and priests are also considered hybrids, assuming we went back to the above scenario, a raid would nonetheless take a hybrid because... ?
 

I think the real problem with hybrid classes and game balance will start with the introduction of the dual-spec feature. If a class can switch between multiple roles depending on the specific encounter *and* fill that role as well as anyone else then the value of hybrids skyrockets. If you have someone who can do competitive DPS on trash, heal on one boss, and then switch to tank on the next one, then this is obviously an advantage for this class over another that is less flexible.

I was under the impression you could only change your spec if you were at your trainer, not out in the world. The idea behind dual spec is to give us healers a chance to actually stand on our own while hunting mobs. I don't like having to spend a lot of time to kill one mob. This will give me a chance to work on my Sons of Hodir rep.
 

"A pure healer (priest) should easily outperform a Druid/Paladin just as a pure tank (warrior) should easily outperform a Druid / Paladin."

When a Druid is specced to heal he IS a pure healer, he doesn't get to go out and DPS or Tank.

Prior to patch 3.08 (more on this below) if a Druid was specced DPS he wasn't going to heal or Tank.

When a Druid is specced tank he won't be doing DPS or Healing.

The reasopn I said prior to 3.08 is I think they made a mistake putting the bonus armor on Survival of the Fittest, EVERY feral is going ot have that and it boosted my armor in bear form to over 28k (was at 20k prior) in DPS gear. That makes me able ot go in and tank most fights that aren't magic damage heavy as a kitty spec. They should have put that bonus armor on a tank specific talent OR to prevent completely nerfing cFeral DPS in bear Split it over SotF and a tank specific talent. That would have kept my pre 3.08 armor about the same and boosted true tank specced Ferals without boosting me too much. I think it will end up being moved.

And the goal for the Pure classes is for them to do about 5 percent more damage than the hybrids, which is fair, hell I could even live with 10 percent. You go more than that and they won't take "hybrids". why would you. If when I am specced purely fo rone role if I can't do that role nearly as well as soemone else you wouldn't take that person. Calling Druids, or Shamans, or Paladins "hybrids" works right on up until you actually start raiding and you either do one thing very well or you don't do anything.
 

One consideration that always seems to be missing from these discussions is player skill. Why does it matter so much that a moonkin and a mage can both DPS? I think it's great that every class can DPS because it allows raids to take the most skilled player without worrying about what class they are. I wish people would see hybrid off-healing and off-tanking for what they are: different class abilities. Is a moonkin's off-healing more useful than a mage's polymorph? Is a ret paladin's ability to off-tank more useful than a hunter's trap? Bring the player not the class is truer now than it has ever been. And that is reason to celebrate, not QQ.
 

"I'm worried about class balance in World of Warcraft right now. My guild put up a "template" of required classes for a 10-man raid, and the first five spots look like this: Druid tank, random tank, druid healer, priest healer, random healer"

I'd be more worried that the guild I was in insisted on class stacking based on personal opinion to be honest.

WoTLK made things less reliant on class stacking and yet raid leaders continue to stick to it like poop on a shoe..
 

Have you asked your guild on why they are demanding a druid tank for 10 man naxx? I am going to guess it has to do with the health/armor druids have. Even in low level raid gear a bear tank will have 40k health. Other tanks have around 25k health when stepping into naxx a few times. 40k health vs. 25k health. My paladin after months of raiding and heroics is only starting to break the 30k mark....and at this point equivilant druids have 50k+.

Druids make great entry level raid tanks. They do not need defense at all. It took me weeks to hit the defense cap on my pally and I needed to sacrifice a lot of stamina to do this. So for a 10 man naxx, I would also agree w/ a druid tank. As ilevels go up, druids aren't going to shine, they only have armor, health and dodge. My paladin dodges, misses, parries, or atleast blocks near 100% of the time with holy shield up.
 

Yep pallies and warriors can reach 102% "avoidance", whereas druids only have boring old 55% "avoidance". Not only do you never get hit, you *more* than never get hit. Make sure you take warriors and pallies to t9 content, coz druids are gonna suck. You wont even need any healers since your pally is *more* than unmissable.

Seriously though, any discussion of the superiority of certain classes in raids is just going to end in tears. Ideally you'll bring your most skilled players. A guild that believes certain classes are the way to go has an unsophisticated attitude. You often find that in casual guilds, and yep! ya get what ya pays for.
 

"I was under the impression you could only change your spec if you were at your trainer, not out in the world."

We don't know that yet. But even if so, with a combination of mage portals and the soon-to-be-buffed warlock ritual of summoning, you can send your entire raid to the respec trainer and back in under one minute, all for the cost of a few portal runes and one soulshard.
 

So, if I understand you correctly, Tobold. You are essentially saying that each class will only effectively be able to fill one roll in a raid. So, priests and shamans would only be able to heal for raids; warriors would only be tanks; druids and paladins would get one of the rolls, but the other two nerfed into oblivion; DKs would probably be relegated to dps.

What is your problem with druids and paladins being able to fill a raid with just one class? You could technically fill a 10 man with 8 priests/shamans and whatever 2 tanks you wanted. Or 7 warrior/DKs with whatever 3 healers you wanted.

I think your raid leader is severely limiting your raids by saying that he "needs" a druid tank and a druid healer. Running Naxx 10 does not require you to even have a druid. I have run it multiple times without one. I could understand if there is a specific achievement that he is going after and he has a specific strategy that may require a certain raid makeup, but that is about the only reason I could understand for limiting yourselves. Well, there is one other reason: If he is the druid tank and his wife is the druid healer and being the raid leader he is just reserving their slots for the raid.
 

Usually I agree with your commentary Tobold but I feel you are a bit off on this whole argument. As a healing priest this recent nerf doesn't have any impact on me at all. Of course I'm discipline. Oh wait? Thats right priests have 2 healing trees! No other class has 2 healing trees so therefore priests must be the best healers in the game! Right? But there is still that third tree that makes us a hybrid. I understand that you feel that classes that can spec into every role should be limited in effectivness. As a jack of all trades druid main in BC I raided as every spec and had the gear to back it up. But I also raided as a holy priest with the old coh and as a disc priest when 3.0 was released. I raided as a prot pally and holy pally. My shaman didn't get passed 70 till after wotlk so I can't say I've raided as a resto shaman.

Having healed with every class I have to say that your view of things is too narrow minded. I prefer healing with my priest over the other classes because of the huge array of tools priests have. The problem though is that CoH priests reduced themselves to one button spammers. Druids did the same thing and Blizzard changing this wasn't an afront against priests it was a way to say hey! look at your other abilities and use those in between those 4.5 seconds of dead space. I haven't used CoH since it became raid wide and a smart heal. That one ability just made healing less enjoyable.

Finally the whole "Make them as good as ONE other specialist class in ONE domain, and second-class in the two others." is fine and dandy but what if Blizz decides to make Priests one = spec Shadow. By your definition that would be better balanced but I have a feeling you would be ranting alot more. Also there are alot of druids and pallies who can heal great but I wouldn't trust as far as I could throw them tanking or dpsing.
 

My guild is a small casual guild of approximately 15 raiders. We have downed all the 10 man content and run PUGs through all the 25 man content except for malygos25. We have never used a 'mandatory' raid build up. When running 10 mans I take whatever 3 healers are on, whatever 2 tanks are on and whatever 5 dps are on. We have never had a problem with any 10 man content doing things this way.

And yeah, none of my priests have been hurt by this nerf to CoH.
 

"Well, there is one other reason: If he is the druid tank and his wife is the druid healer and being the raid leader he is just reserving their slots for the raid."


This was my immediate thought as well. I would seriously question their specific raid needs outside of the normal we need a tank, off tank , 3 healers, etc.... It sounds like there may be a loot issue for your guild in the near future.

-Ari-
 

WOW, I am a hard core raider and we don't even do that. The only fight in the game that I'd say a druid is better on is 3 drake sarth and only because haveing 40k+ health makes it easier to heal through(my guild does it with a warrior). We don't even have a feral druid and we are the top guild on the server. I've some bad news for you if your guild is really having these strict class guidelines. You know how you liked being in a casual guild? Your not in one anymore and I believe your about to experience a schism that many casual guilds face. Your hardcore members are going to leave or your guild is going to transform into a hardcore guild.
 

Why should a Hybrid get penalized for healing, dps or tanking? They can only do 1 at a time. They have to spec and gear for each tree. When you are a shadow priest you are not a hybrid, you are a dps class. If you are holy you are a healer. Not both.

Why have hybrids if you make them less of a tank, healer or dps? No one would want a hybrid. Makes no sense.

Preist got nerfed a little. They are still the best single target healing class in the game.

Your guild requirements suck and don't make much sense to me. Your not casual so don't fool yourself. Any guild doing heroic Naxx 25 is far from casual.
 

Its so wrong when a blogger berates the design of the game, rather than question the game he is playing, or the people he plays with. Your post is way off this time, and rather ridiculous. If you're a casual player (and you are) then pleaase dont make sweeping statements about the state of the game. Its just highly incongruous with your casual engagement. And if you play in a guild with terrible leaders - you have even less reason to berate a game that is simply being spoiled by the people you play with.
 

This all boils down to the core failures of the whole game design concept of raiding. The strict numerical limits and the challenges that are based on specific class combinations and numbers rather than skill.

Until and unless those problems are solved, balance will always be impossible.

-Michael
Muckbeast - Game Design and Online Worlds
http://www.muckbeast.com
 

Tobold, you are actually asking Blizzard's design to regress to earlier, poorer class balance.

As many have said, your guild is weird. I know that's where you live, so it influences all your views - abused children grow to think that their lives are normal, as well. Suffice it to say that I've never heard of a guild requiring a druid tank for 10-man anything, period. My guild doesn't even have a druid tank, and our one feral druid raids as resto 98% of the time. Please, survey the actual situation amongst guilds at large before calling for nerfs to the rest of us man - that's not terribly neighborly.

Do you want to go back to the old days, where Blizzard's design was essentially false advertising? There was a tanking tree and a DPS tree for Paladins, but they could only effectively heal. I consider that truly terrible game design, and it led to far more pigeon-holing than the current design. And again, the class limits you are seeing are strictly in your weirdly-led guild. Honestly, any time I see something like that, I wonder where bizzaro GL gets his ideas.

As far as the raiding world that I've seen in guild runs and PUG raids, people want to balance the roles of tanks, healers, melee and ranged, and that's about it. You might want a diversity of classes to get all the buffs (amusingly, your guild is gimping themselves in this, one of the few ways smart raids are stacking their compositions). You need priests to run Naxx 25, and you might want certain tanks for Sarth+3, but in general, "Bring the player, not the class" is working.

Please consider. =D

Fedaykin98
 

I hate to say it Tobold, but I think you are being fairly narrow minded in this assesment. You see the trees (no pun intended!) and not the forest.

I won't reiterate at length what has already been said many times, but Blizzard actually FIXED class roles with hybrid classes. Do you think you would have ever seen a retadin or a oomkin in AQ 40 or Nax 40? Heck, even in MC! I've always been resto, because I like to heal, but I know a lot of people who were happy to be able to do other things in the druid and paladin class and have never looked back to their old life as a healer. I don't think this means that the class is broken. If all available specs can't perform on the same level as other classes, there would be no reason to use them (a la vanilla wow style).

I am also quite curious...have you ever played a druid or a paladin?
 

Tobold: "It's not even true in patch 3.0.8. A druid with feral spec only needs to switch gear to go from great tank to still-very-good melee dps. That is one of the reasons raids like to bring one, because you don't need the same number of tanks for every encounter, and a tank who can easily switch to dps is better than one who would need to respec to do so."

Yes. This does deserve nerfing. But that's only one spec and can't be applied to the class nor hybrids as a whole.
 

Tobold: "It's not even true in patch 3.0.8. A druid with feral spec only needs to switch gear to go from great tank to still-very-good melee dps. That is one of the reasons raids like to bring one, because you don't need the same number of tanks for every encounter, and a tank who can easily switch to dps is better than one who would need to respec to do so."

Yes. This does deserve nerfing. But that's only one spec and can't be applied to the class nor hybrids as a whole."

A DPS warrior can throw on tanking gear and off tank. A DK in a tank spec can throw on DPS gear and throw out decent damage. Etc.

The feral tree was already broken into tanking and DPS. A feral druid specced specifically for one or the other isn't as good at the other aspect, even if they regear. They are no better than a DK, warrior, paladin, etc geared for their 'offspec'.

This whole conversation is a case of grass is greener mouthed by people who have never experienced playing paladins or druids at the cap. It's really disappointing to see this sort of wow-forum like whining on a blog I visit for intelligent conversation regarding WoW.
 

Maybe , just maybe the Raid is composed of 2 Druids because the Guild has more Druids than anything else...
 

Just as to the question of hybrids being more versatile I thought I would look at the warcraft realms census stats. Looking at level 80's (making sure we are only looking at WOTLK players and aren't focuing on low level alts) it clearly shows that the people are voting with their feet and prefer hybrids to non hybrids (wonder why). Both the 3-way hybrids are more popular than any DPS class. Of course these aren't huge swings in favour of hybrids but it's certainly enough to see a trend.

Finally just in case anyone wants to argue people just prefer hybrid classes because they like the idea of them and not because they are better, then I would suggest you look at the top 2 classes in popularity. The same 2 classes widely recognised as being the most powerful at the moment.

Death Knight (2 way hybrid)- 13%
Paladin (3-way Hybrid) - 13%
Warrior (2-way Hybrid) - 12%
Druid (3 way hybrid) - 11%
Hunter (non-hybrid) - 10%
Mage (non-hybrid) - 10%
Priest (2-way hynrid) - 9%
Rogue (non-hybrid) - 8%
Shaman (2-way hybrid) - 8%
Warlock (non-hybrid) - 7%
 

I disagree. I play a Hunter because I liked her look, animations and the play style.

I'm not upset if a Retribution Paladin can do as much DPS as I can. The fact is, hybrid classes give you more choice, yes, but only one at the time (not getting into the dual spec issue since no one knows how exactly it will be implemented). Also, like someone already mentioned, you'll very seldom find a hybrid who has great gear for all three parts (DPS, healing and tanking), making them already have a disadvantage on the other two possible parts that they aren't playing as their main one.

If a hybrid isn't as good in his/her chosen part as a pure tank/healer/DPS, they'll often get put in a corner, or asked to spec something else because they lack, for instance, certain classes so badly they'll tolerate a not as good healer coming along.

Like I said before, I play a pure DPS class (because I chose to), and I'm not bothered in the least about hybrids specced for DPS doing as much pew pew as me. Balancing the damage so similar geared/skilled players in two distinct classes CAN do the same damage? Yes. That I agree with.
 

The same 2 classes widely recognised as being the most powerful at the moment.

Define "widely" and "most powerful". Top raid DPS is currently provided by 3 pure classes (hunter, mage, warlocks) by a wide margin (and yes, rogue has massive issues and isn't sitting where it should be). Arena is dominated by the burst classes, in which you'll find both hybrids and pures. I'm therefore quite interested in hearing your definition of "most powerful".
 

The first thing is simply that your guild is being ridiculous. Naxx doesn't require a druid tank or a druid healer in particular. Making the class mandatory to do a raid is silly. 10 man Naxx requires 2 random tank types, 2-3 random healers and some a mix of DPS. My guild's done Naxx using different combinations of tanks and healers and it's fine. The only thing that Naxx DOES require is priests on 25 man.

The second thing is this huge misconception that triple-hybrid classes like druids and paladins are somehow superior to every other class because of their number of rolls. It's just not TRUE. Yes, when properly spec'ed and geared, they can each heal, tank or dps. The key words though are properly spec'ed and geared - and the higher you get, the harder it is to build a *minimum* 3-4 complete sets of cutting edge gear. The kind of gear you need to really raid if you're going to swap specs.

Most druids or paladins have one primary spec and then pick up pieces that everybody else passes on for an offspec.

As a disclaimer, I am a druid healer and one of my alts is a paladin tank, so I am biased. But I can tell you - I have the gear to HEAL. That's it. When I respec balance, I can do a meh job of DPS, but I don't have the +hit to do a great job and the gear I need to change that is still going to DPS - and the chances are good that by the time they already have that gear, we'll be in the next tier of raiding and I'll be passing on DPS gear to them again for new upgrades. In TBC I picked up some offspec gear, but it was *always* a level or so behind where my guild was raiding.

And there is absolutely no way I would have been able to pick up gear I'd need to easily swap between tanking/healing/DPS. If I decided to completely switch my main raiding role, I could have done it - but then I wouldn't have gotten the healing pieces I needed to stay competitive.

I really urge anybody who believes that playing a hybrid means you can just switch roles on a whim to play one up to level and see what it's really like.

Also, to answer your question of why somebody would play a different class - because of what's fun for them. I love my pally tank. I have NO desire to heal with her and no desire to DPS with her - even though I know how power ret can be. But I like tanking with her. At the same time, I have no desire to tank with my druid - the druid tanking style isn't my thing. I did enjoy playing cat for fun and I don't mind solo'ing as moonkin, but I like healing in a raid with her. When I DPS in a raid, I prefer my warlock, although I don't mind on my mage. My hunter bores me.

It's basically about individuals and playstyles and preferences.

Here's what I really don't get. You seem to be saying "Nerf druids and paladins" NOT because they are more powerful than other classes but because a druid healer can heal about as well as other healer types and a druid tank can tank about as well as other tank types and druid dps is competitive with other dps types - when the person playing the druid is equally geared and appropriately spec'ed.

Because yeah, what you're asking for is called pre-TBC, when all druids were forced to be healers and people laughed at balance and feral wanna-bes and they maybe, MAYBE got one slot in a *40man* raid for non-heal specs. While we're at it, lets make shadow priests non-viable again and make all priests heal. And mages can only cast fireballs. And all shaman must be enhance and all warriors need to be prot.
 

"A DPS warrior can throw on tanking gear and off tank. A DK in a tank spec can throw on DPS gear and throw out decent damage. Etc.

The feral tree was already broken into tanking and DPS. A feral druid specced specifically for one or the other isn't as good at the other aspect, even if they regear. They are no better than a DK, warrior, paladin, etc geared for their 'offspec'.

This whole conversation is a case of grass is greener mouthed by people who have never experienced playing paladins or druids at the cap. It's really disappointing to see this sort of wow-forum like whining on a blog I visit for intelligent conversation regarding WoW."


Any feral druid specced correctly can tank at 98% and DPS at 95% of peak efficiency.

http://www.wowhead.com/?talent=0ZtGGsfrzceRccuVo0E0z\

Tanking losses:
No Brutal Impact (utility only)
No Imp mangle (minor loss in threat gain)

DPS losses:
Predatory Instincts
Imp Mangle
Master Shapeshifter

Toskk's DPS calculator puts these losses at about 5% decrease in DPS.

A feral druid is much better at doing both of the things than either of any spec of a warrior/DK/paladin.

It should be noted, however, that this advantage vanishes the moment dual-specs hits.