Mazra wrote:
They killed hybrids because of raids. People were whining non-stop that their Druid/Shaman/Paladin was getting benched on raid night due to sub-par damage/healing/tanking. In raids, only three things matter: healing, tanking and damage dealt.
With bosses hitting harder and harder, getting two dedicated tanks instead of one tank and one hybrid became preferable. As more raid-wide damage started showing up, more dedicated healers were needed, removing the hybrid healer. And with two hybrids turned into dedicated healers and tanks, the raid needed a dedicated damage dealer to make up for the lost DPS.
The end.
They could easily make the game viable for hybrids again. They sort of did it with the early Cataclysm heroics where you could end up wiping because of a pull gone wrong. Unfortunately, after two expansions of people getting used to the tank, healer, damage dealer setup, the Cataclysm heroics failed miserably. People were going AOE apesh*t and blaming healers and tanks left and right for wipes, which caused healers and tanks to whine about survivability and throughput, etc.
I went hybrid a couple of times in there (I believe I mentioned this in a thread last year) and we steamrolled the heroics with next to no problems. Then someone looked at Recount and started ranting at me because I wasn't "pulling my weight" in there as a damage dealer. I tried to explain that my damage dealt was low due to my support role (off-tanking adds, backup healing when the healer went OOM), but they brushed it off and told me to deal more damage or get out. I gave up arguing, switched to pure Cat and we wiped on the first trash pull because the tank got one-shot by the mobs.
The game was fine, people just needed to accept that heroic runs required a support class. And Blizzard needed to realize that they'd absolutely demolished the support classes in the previous two expansions. Instead, Blizzard caved, reverted to Wrath of the Lich King standards and proceeded to rip the hybrids a new one.
Point is, people are sheep and would rather bang their heads against a wall for years, while screaming bloody murder at the developers for putting it there, rather than think of a way to bypass it. Until that mentality goes away, this game can only get more homogenized and boring, until the sheeple eventually go BAAAH and leave.
I hate people.
Edit: That came off more hostile than intended. I guess I got caught up in the memories and the anger.
Edited, Feb 11th 2012 12:55am by Mazra
your using rose colored glasses...
"Hybrid" ment one thing: healing. I remember not being wanted in groups for trying to dps on my druid or tank on my paladin. Hell back during BC I had some epic flames with Bodhi over Pallys being worth more then just being healers, I clawed, scratched, and crawled my way up to being and acceptable tank on paladin during BC. I was proud of my accomplishments at the time, but you know what I can say now he was right, and I HATE admitting to that but he was right. Back then my three favorite classes were paladin, druid, and shaman, and you know what, no one wanted me for a "support role" back then... hell getting my pally or druid to tank was a chore, peeps always questioned me if I could do it. I could but everything was built around warrior tanks... :/
Being a former "support" Job for five years in FFXI taught me one thing. It sucked. I loved my RDM. I Even managed to get everything pre abyssa done for him. In the end it was a waste of time. People didn't want me for melee, enfeebles, or nuking. They wanted me for casting refresh, haste or healing. That crap wasn't fun and it took a few years and a angry wife for me to relise that.
So.. why would I pay another company 15$ a month to not have fun?