Hybrid Superiority

There's been a neverending stream of QQ about the superiority of hybrid classes since Molten Core was serious business and a guild actually let a priest go shadow and saw the damage the spec was capable in the days when casters barely scaled.

The argument has always been, "Nobody will ever bring a pure DPS class when a hybrid can do similar DPS and potentially tank or heal."

The argument is bullshit. For a lot of reasons. Click for just a fraction of them, but still a damn lot of reasons.

There are 25 slots in a raid. Typical layout is 2 tanks, 6 healers, 17 dps, but common fight styles call for an extra healer or tank, capping up at 3 tanks, 7 healers, and 15 dps. Extreme cases, never required but occasionally used for various reasons (like staving off the soft enrage on heroic Putricide) there's some benefit from a fourth tank, or an eighth healer, and while I've never seen both recommended on a single fight and never seen both used together, I'll allow a hypothetical 4 tank/8 healer composition for the argument.

Now, this is how the raid lays out:
2 permanent tanks

6 permanent healers
2 variable DPS/tank
2 variable DPS/healer
13 permanent DPS


This raid composition has a huge amount of flexibility. It has the standard 2/6/17 setup, but can go up to 4/8/13. However, no matter how you cut it, 13 people will ALWAYS be DPS.

Now, this raid makes use of 4 hybrids. The two primary tanks, six of the healers, and thirteen DPS slots will always be filling the same role for the entire duration of the raid. Even though the tanks and healers are hybrid classes and some of those 13 DPS are as well, none of them are actually acting like hybrids - they're pure specialists covering only a single role.

Thirteen permanent DPS slots (52% of the raid), and 21 fixed role slots total (84% of the raid). And that's allowing for an extreme case, a fully successful raid would be possible with only one of each variable slot, which would bring us up to 92% of the raid being specialists, and 60% of the raid being permanent DPS slots.

Think about that: 92% of your raid never changes spec, and you gain no hybrid utility from them. The fact that all your tanks and healers are hybrids means nothing if they never go DPS. Even if all your DPS are hybrids, that means nothing when 15 of them are always DPS.

Let me put it this way: If your car can turn into a boat, but we both live in the desert, is it any better than my car that always stays a car?

And that's looking over the course of an entire raid, assuming that it's not an option to sit people and bring in alternates. Let's look at a single fight, because one of the most common arguments put forth by paranoid pure players is that hybrids can serve their multiple roles during the same fight.

This isn't how the game works. A hybrid can change their role, but they're still locked into a single viable role while in combat. A shadow priest out of form may be able to pull a clinch heal in a heroic, but in a raid that heal will disappear into tank damage, and the GCD it takes to drop form and start healing is the GCD in which the tank is already dead.

All three healer classes, when in their DPS specs, share a common trait: Their healing is terrible. It won't keep a tank up, it isn't sustainable, and it isn't supported by their gear (Though a Cataclysm ele shaman or boomkin may at least be geared approximately for healing).

Spec is big. Go to your trainer, reset your talents, and go DPS the dummies specced 0/0/0. Your rotations don't work, your spells are mediocre at best, you're missing key features that make you a viable class. Healers are like that. Take away their healing talents, and you're left with a 0/0/0 warlock trying to DPS. Sure, you're pushing buttons and numbers are popping up, but those numbers aren't going to justify your raid position. Neither will a hybrid healer out-of-form trying to heal.

Likewise, tanks. A boomkin might be able to pop into bear and pull a clutch taunt, but if he's actually called on to take hits, he's going to go squish and there's going to be a small bear shaped stain on the floor. Because he's not a tank. He's a boomkin in bear form.

Unspecced tanks take more damage, receive less healing, and will be missing key abilities that make them a viable tank. In fact, without feral talents backing them, there's a very real chance that druid will still die to a single hit anyway and all that clutch taunt accomplished exactly shit. Even plate doesn't help. Ever seen a fury warrior get agro? They die faster than a rogue does, because at least the rogue might get a lucky dodge first.

Demo locks can see this first hand, with soul link and metamorphosis, you can actually take a hit better than a boomkin in bear form, you just have lower health. But health doesn't matter because... well, next time you charge in for immo aura, "accidentally" cast challenging howl. When the boss turns around and smacks you in the face for 115,000 of your 35,000 health, you'll see that even having some extra health as a boomkin in bear form doesn't make you any more of a tank.

Because you're not a tank, you're the dumbass who taunted.