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D.Turtle wrote:If you want to be effective as a hybrid you have to choose one spec on which to focus (as a Shaman either melee, caster, oder healer).

Just a noob question, but isn't gear the key factor in whether you can succeed in a role? I was told that for the plain, simple dungeons and even simple raids, talents don't prevent a hybrid from doing other roles, its the gear.

So, won't it be a simple thing of switching a meelee gearset for a spell gearset? Similar to what warriors do now for their tanking/dps gear?

PainRack wrote:

D.Turtle wrote:If you want to be effective as a hybrid you have to choose one spec on which to focus (as a Shaman either melee, caster, oder healer).

Just a noob question, but isn't gear the key factor in whether you can succeed in a role? I was told that for the plain, simple dungeons and even simple raids, talents don't prevent a hybrid from doing other roles, its the gear.

So, won't it be a simple thing of switching a meelee gearset for a spell gearset? Similar to what warriors do now for their tanking/dps gear?

Utter bullshit. Putting awarrior in tank gear makes me such a piss ass tank, the only thing/reason I do it for are when people want to do say Black Morass on normal and cannot find a tank.

Gear helps your build, now. Used to be Gear was all powerful with build helping the gear. Now? You have to be a dedicated build, and gear to suppliment it.

The whole point that build now determines what you are is what screws most hybrids.

Ghost Rider wrote:Utter bullshit. Putting awarrior in tank gear makes me such a piss ass tank, the only thing/reason I do it for are when people want to do say Black Morass on normal and cannot find a tank.

Gear helps your build, now. Used to be Gear was all powerful with build helping the gear. Now? You have to be a dedicated build, and gear to suppliment it.

The whole point that build now determines what you are is what screws most hybrids.

I can't qualify for Warriors, but for Priests (for example) you'll be fine to be a healer in any 5 man up until the Shadow Labs/Caverns of Time instances (like you mentioned Black Morass), even if you're Shadow spec'd by just switching to some +healing green items. This includes all the pre level 60 instances (and lets be realistic no one runs the 60 ones any more). The same is true of hybrid healers; Druids, Paladins and Shamans.

It's when you get to the 70 instances/Heroics/Karazhan and beyond, where spec and gear are essential.

Now that's for healers, I've never played a Warrior so I can't say from that perspective.

*shrug*

Crown wrote:

Ghost Rider wrote:Utter bullshit. Putting awarrior in tank gear makes me such a piss ass tank, the only thing/reason I do it for are when people want to do say Black Morass on normal and cannot find a tank.

Gear helps your build, now. Used to be Gear was all powerful with build helping the gear. Now? You have to be a dedicated build, and gear to suppliment it.

The whole point that build now determines what you are is what screws most hybrids.

I can't qualify for Warriors, but for Priests (for example) you'll be fine to be a healer in any 5 man up until the Shadow Labs/Caverns of Time instances (like you mentioned Black Morass), even if you're Shadow spec'd by just switching to some +healing green items. This includes all the pre level 60 instances (and lets be realistic no one runs the 60 ones any more). The same is true of hybrid healers; Druids, Paladins and Shamans.

It's when you get to the 70 instances/Heroics/Karazhan and beyond, where spec and gear are essential.

Now that's for healers, I've never played a Warrior so I can't say from that perspective.

*shrug*

It can be applied on most classes.

For TBC, up until Black Morass, you can pull it off with off specs doing major material. I've had Feral Druids heal the place because they have the presence of mind.

As for even something as upward as heroics? No. From there, you need either a dedicated build or someone so fucking overgeared...he/she is only doing it for guildies or badges.

Warriors, like I did, suck because they have to compensate pure damage for threat...given that Defiance is the first really big stepping stone for the Protect tree.

Only the BT geared are doing whack shit like "We're using Enhancement shamans as healers for our Kara run!!!".

This will likely propagate into Wrath, with Death Knights being some weirdo Druid like tank. Really the no shield bit has me wondering given....shield block is one of the major reasons why a warrior survives. It seems pitiful but taken over a period of 10-15 minutes, it saves on mana like nothing in the game. So unless Death Knights are taking Druid level damage....it's going to be ugly and funny.

PainRack wrote:Just a noob question, but isn't gear the key factor in whether you can succeed in a role? I was told that for the plain, simple dungeons and even simple raids, talents don't prevent a hybrid from doing other roles, its the gear.

So, won't it be a simple thing of switching a meelee gearset for a spell gearset? Similar to what warriors do now for their tanking/dps gear?

Short answer: You need the gear AND the talents in order to be useful in a dungeon - unless you massively out-gear the dungeon, in which case you only need the gear. For raids, do not even dream about going as a hybrid spec, or wearing gear that doesn't support your spec and role.

Your advantage as a hybrid is that you only need to respec in order to fulfill a completely different role (if you have the gear). You can also jump in for a different role in an emergency, but usually if it gets that far it already is a wipe.
The disadvantage is that you need to gather several sets of gear, in which there is no overlap.

Long Answer:
For all of the old world dungeons, you don't need the spec or the gear. Once you get to Outland you need the gear and the spec to be effective (unless you massively outgear/outlevel a dungeon, then you don't need the spec, but you DO need the gear).

Taking the Shaman as an example:
To be effective as a melee Shaman you need to be able to dual wield, which means you need at least 31 (35 for stormstrike and hit-chance), otherwise you are pretty much useless as a melee.
To be effective as an elemental Shaman, you need Lightning Mastery (reduce the cast time of Lighning Bolt/Chain-Lighning) and usually also Elemental Precision (hit-chance and threat-reduction), which would be 33 talent points.
For a restoration Shaman, there is no one talent that is absolutely needed (though Earth Shield and Mana Tide are extremely useful), rather you have lots of talents that you have to put points in, which make you effective.

No matter what build you have, you always need the gear to support that build.

Don't know if it's elitist, but the thing that drove me nuts and eventually made me delete my 'main' was people who had absolutely no idea what a tank was and how they did their job.

Most people realize what a dps-er is or a healer, but for some fucked up reason, the job of tank escapes them. They either thing your just an odd dps-er with better armor, or that you can magically take agrro and hold it no matter what.

And god forbid if you lose that aggro because of a massive crit by a healer or mage two seconds after you burn your taunt on the asshole that stole your agrro on the pull. Cause if you do, it's your fault and your a shitty tank.



It got so bad, that by end game I didn't even want to run large raids. I had to run Black Morass for my key and really just didn't want to go through the hassle. I fucking hate Shadow priests and Pallies, the Priests being the worst at stealing aggro (in my experience) and Pallies who think they can tank.

that's ok I'm mostly solo Rogue and Hunter....

yes, folks who just live to kill quietly and than leave...

Knife wrote:Don't know if it's elitist, but the thing that drove me nuts and eventually made me delete my 'main' was people who had absolutely no idea what a tank was and how they did their job.

Most people realize what a dps-er is or a healer, but for some fucked up reason, the job of tank escapes them. They either thing your just an odd dps-er with better armor, or that you can magically take aggro and hold it no matter what.

And god forbid if you lose that aggro because of a massive crit by a healer or mage two seconds after you burn your taunt on the asshole that stole your aggro on the pull. Cause if you do, it's your fault and your a shitty tank.



It got so bad, that by end game I didn't even want to run large raids. I had to run Black Morass for my key and really just didn't want to go through the hassle. I fucking hate Shadow priests and Pallies, the Priests being the worst at stealing aggro (in my experience) and Pallies who think they can tank.

Seconded, though with less vitriol. My own bad experience with other people is when I run in to get aggro, followed almost immediately by a high-aggro attack from a clothie. For other tanks, yeah, this is bad, but it's really bad for a pally tank since we rely on getting hit to do damage and keep aggro. We get aggro, we get hit, we do damage, we get more aggro, and so on; or, conversely, we don't get hit, we don't do so much damage, and so on. My biggest peeve is that, aside from the mana-costly Consecrate and Righteous Defense, Tankadins have no way of "taunting" foes, so if somebody else pulls aggro they're fairly well screwed unless they drop DPS enough for me to match their aggro.

Actually, let's just condense the above into a single sentence: People who think it's good to top the DPS meter and damn the aggro are my personal biggest peeve.