i agree. since playing standard chars for almost 15-20 years in systems like ad&d (pen and paper)for the sake of simplicity, and our "GM's" mental health i realy like the opportunity to play a "prestige class". it's not as if didn't like my warrior or mage anymore, but i like my newfound flexibility.

ummm, yeah you ask anybody that plays the game and they will tell you that pallies, shamans, and druids all have a place in raids. Shamans pour out the dps and help other classes do so as well. Paladins are great for tanking mass mobs and their flashes of light have kept countless raiders alive. Druids have glorious hots, bear tanking, and well....boomkins have their crit buff (sorry oomkins!) If hybrid classes were cut out or more strictly modified, then all we would have are priests, warriors, mages, and hunters. They are all nice....but that would be REALLY boring.

my shaman does mad dps beats most mages so u can think watever ....i got a good healing set to lol

i read the article and it seemed pretty stupid. take into the fact that i prefer pally and druid tank to war tank because they can hold the agro of more mobs better. a competent shammy will do mad dmg. also he didnt take into effect the differences in the game. alot of warriors do go into to dps because they do that better and alot of pallys do go dps or retro(which will tick anyone off in lfg) and priests also do go shadow so that really takes out the shammy as a hybrid because u have the chance of both.

If you ever look at the DPS charts after a well geared raid, you'll see Shaman in the top 2 or 3 for overall DPS. We typically only spam 1 or 2 spells...LB and CL, But if we have good gear/enchants/gems, we're insane. Throw in the Lightning Capacitator trinket and it's maddening, constant crits going out.

Hybrid classes are overpowered in PvP because they can do great DPS and heal themselves (in most cases)

And in PvE they are chosen alot for their different abilities...

So Hybrids do work imo

I myself play a Paladin, have done since i got the game over 3 years ago, and i think that in todays raid environment to say that a paladin is not viable in a riad is utter bs. Holy paladins, for one, are often used as a constant source of healing for Tanks,and even topping up the raid, as their Flashes cost almost nothing and can almost be like a channeled HoT at times. The Paladin Tank has become more and more valuable as time goes on, my guild has one full time Prot Paladin and i myself carry a tanking set now just in case i need to respec for instances like ZA. Retribution is looking more and more impressive, though the stygma of retribution is whats holding them back from raids, though i have seen a few raiding.
Then we have the Shamans. As far as healing goes, Chain heal is possibly the best raw healing you can get for raid healing, especially where the entire raid are regularly taking damage from DoTs. I often see a Shaman topping the raw healing meters in AoE and environments where the raid has to stay close. And there is rarely a raid goes by where there arent raid members cheering when a shaman gets put in their group so they can get their awesome array of totems. I havent had any experience first hand at Shamans, but their damage as Elemental or Enhancement seems to be more than viable when coupled with their raid contribution.
Druids are much the same. If a raid has druid healers in, then things get that much easier, because those HoTs are a real lifesaver. the Feral tree is unreal, giving the druid the ability to Tank when its necessary, and then when less tanks are needed, switch straight into DPS without really needing to change gear and at only a click of a button. Boomkins have their aura and if someone knows the class well and has reasonable gear (as in any case) then they can certainly compete with the other 'pure' damage classes.

In all i would say that whilst the article does bring up a point about preference (you wouldnt take too many of each hybrid), the article tries to make it look like these hybrid classes have NO place in a raid environment (or that people dont think there is one), when in reality it is the presence of these classes and specs that make the raid successful.

Hybrid classes overpowered in PvP? This is horridly large falsehood.

hybrid classes has their uses. i have 2 lvl 70 druids, 1 lvl 70 shammy and a lvl 70 pally and they OWN in arena and EoTS. well, my druid doesnt go too well when facing shadow priests but hey, pallys are no match for me and so are wars.

Paladin:
a) As a tank +aura to increase aggro done, blessing on mates, which decrease aggro, for me it's great.
+ rly big armor
+ can support heal himself, etc.
- no taunting abillities

b) healer - imba, Epic healbot arrives!
+ very fast, versitable healing
+ big armor, so healer doesn't die in few hits like priest, nor he's disturbed too much to cast a shield on him/she
+ casting Pally's Bubble on teammates, if needed
+ such overpowered buffs as BoM, BoS, etc.
- no HoTs, but that's not a shame, when you cast Holy Light over few sec. xD

c) dps/PvE - it IS a shame.
d) lvling - who, besides pally can take 20 mobs at once and kill them all? Immo o_O

Shammy:

a) dps/PvE - can do as mage, if elemental. Enchantsment go even futher and beat rogues at dpsing.

b) healing - i think shammy's good healer too, he can restore mana fast (no mana breaks, support team with totems.

c) tank - rly, i've seen tanking shammy, but they're not good for it. It can go for "Why Hybrid Classes Don't Work?" xD

Druid:

a) dps/PvE
1. Balance - i've seen so far many balance druids which are so imba with they dmg in Moonkin form... Besides, with their talents in Balance, and items they can heal/support heal.
2. Feral - Maybe the cat hasn't got that much abilities as rogue, but with good items they can dps as much as normal rogues do.

b) healing - the best HoTs, the best support heal and the best buffs in the WoW.

c) tanking - it's almost unbeliviable, but a druid can have better armor that warrior or pally. Besides, that druid has also taunting ability, i've seen so far many tanks, and the best of them was tanking gnome warrior (fury) with two axes. It's about skills and healer, not items or class.

d) PvP - feral/balance druids/ench shammy - immo of the BG's, best universal classes of all for me.

This is silly... almost all of his claims are ridiculous "As long as it's fun and easy, casual players don't really care where their class falls on the power scale." Oh, ok, so if I'm a casual player (which I feel I am), I really just don't give a *** that a warlock with the same gear and less skill can easily kill me as a mage. Ya, of course. Or how about his claim, "No, when you boil it down, players like dealing damage over everything else." With the link leading to a troll thread about how much TPS a paladin is putting out... Not even related--i'm not impressed. "Yes, some flexibility remains, but not enough to really be called a hybrid. No, the WoW hybrid is now a class that can change its role with talent points rather than a re-roll. It's definitely a way of solving the problem, but put simply, WoW no longer has true hybrids." Ok, so druids can go stealth, then pop out and heal someone, then turn into a bear and melee the enemy down are completely not hybrids... hmmmm. Maybe if you base your arguments on experiences and examples that are real instead of heresay and opinion (with links to irrelevant sources) than you might be able to reason out a better argument, solution, and overall analysis.

I think some people missed the point, you are all saying the same thing, he does this or this, but not both and that is what a hybrid is SUPPOSED to do, BOTH. Not 1 or the other, both. Pure and simple all it is are existing classes with redifined attacks. Not new to do DPS on a warrior or rogue, but new cause you can do it with shaman, druid or paladin? Nope, again, not new. Heal like a preist cause its 'new', nope, same thing as before. The whole point is based on not having to chose one or the other, but doing both constantly and being as good as a 'pure class'. To have a shaman, druid or paladin in the hybrid sense would be to attack, tank and heal all in the same instance, raid, pve or whatever, without changing gears or points, and doing it as well as a warrior, preist or rogue and keeping up if not being ahead of the game in those roles. IMO, he is quite correct, look up hybrid. I have had these same issues with the hybrids, not that I dont still play them, they are just less than the 'pure' classes that I started later and level faster and easier.

My resto sham is in Hyjal so i would say that hybrid classes DO work my friend. Sham's are the BEST group healers out there. Healing multiple targets 3.5k+ at a single time with minimalism mana usage, It all add's up. This guy is talking balls.

Vivaxo - Agamaggan EU

honestly down anyone of you people actually read the entire thing. the point he is trying to get across is the us hybrids can not change our role at the toss of a coin in the middle of a raid with the same talent spec and gear on

Good article, for the most part.

Basically he's saying that true Hybrid classes can't work because they can't fill either of their two places in a party.

But, in WoW, a hybrid class can spec himself to play one role, as long as he doesn't mind not being able to play his other possible role.

Which, if you look closely, is totally true.

My Paladin can either be a Tank or a Healer, but spec'd as a healer, could never be a tank.

In typical Kotaku style, he's repeating what we already know with bigger words.

I can't see any Hybrids in WoW. Yes some Classes called so, but the only Class/Spec i would call a Hybrid is the Moonkin Druid. He can do DMG, Heal an Tank some Mobs and nothing of them he can do like a "pure" Class.

Problem with hibrids started before tbc when designer and develpment team from begining of game quit or get sacked and they took some of ppl from other mmo games.
Few of that new ppl were "less" lover for hibrids few of them were know as ppl which made angry post and made big problems on servers. Now we have them as designers/develpers.
Where lies problem with shaman and paladins?
This 2 classes wasnt improved as others in tbc, when other clases get some new playstyle/mechanism , shaman and paladins get only few mediocratic skills and places in tallent tree where it says"improved xyz".
Second thing is, they had plans for some urgent changes to be shaman/paladins more shiney in game but they stucked only on paper with changes so now gap is bigger with some last 1 year.
Third problem, Blizzard allready stated "we dont wanna rewamp classes anymore", in 1 word it means we wont change fast and then see how it looks, we wanna make small steps.
In situation with paladins/shamans small step doesnt help as i said cause of gap and cause on every patch something improved come to other classes.

Agree with you m8. Exactly, hibrids isnt here to REPLACE some classes or TO BE BEST in 1 role. Hibrids need to be made as SUPPORT for other and to have not 1 role in game cause again its then isnt hibrid.

I see the point of the article. However, feral druids can do serious melee DPS, but can still offtank successfully virtually instantly if required, no respec necessary. They can certainly offtank better than a DPS-specced warrior could. If not in combat, the transformation is even more successful. A quick change of gear will transform a very viable DPS cat into a very viable MT bear.

Also, healing classes specced for damage can pop a few emergency heals to keep the raid/party going should the necessity arise. Of course the spec is much more of an issue here, but not everything always goes to plan in an instance and it might just save a wipe and make you glad you took that elemental shammy instead of a mage. Of course, away from the subject of the article, the true attraction of a 'hybrid' class is, not being able to shift from tank to healer in an instant (or should that be, an instance?), but having the flexibility to see which spec suits your particular interests and style of play. I've tried resto, feral and moonkin on my druid, when I get bored of one spec I can try another without having to level another toon to 70.

I find the following 2 statements to be conflicting:

"I'm using World of Warcraft as my foundation for two reasons: 1) I have extensive experience playing the game"

whatever else he said after.

Seriously though, his criteria for a hybrid doesn't exist in W.O.W. unless some player is trying to fool around and knows not to be taken sersiously. Let's take another hybrid class ... the PRIEST. Oh yeah forgot about that one. If he can qualify shammys as hybrid, he had better place priests right next to them. Spec shadow, you can buff and heal, just not great. Spec holy, you can spam smite, but go oom before you' kill a tram rat.

I have seen numerous occasions shammys top wws or whatever heal meter for heals, even with equally geared priests present in the raid. For dps race type fights you better have a bear tank to hold aggro. I would love to see a warrior do heroic SH in the same time that a tankadin can.

My point is there are only 3 "pure" classes in the game. Those 3 are mage, hunter, and rogue. Even among them there are slight variations which make one spec better at CC than other specs. The rest of the classes all have a choice in which way they go. They can be pure dps, pure tank, or pure heal depending on class. A warrior can't heal, but can choose between BM hunter like damage (fury) or tank. A hunter can choose pure dps (BM) or CC and raid/group buff (SV). End game SV hunters can do huge dps as well as add power to the raid.

If his point was that no class can just switch gear and change rolls in the middle of a raid and not be key, he's wrong for reasons many have alreaty stated below. I will refrain from calling him an nub until I see his article on what he thinks might be a replacement to the current way of doing things.