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yea i agree but i like to use some hybrid classes because, even though theyre specialized in DPS i can still do, for example, healing like a shaman and paladin or wear plate like a warrior and paladin but i think that pure DS classes should b able to do th most amount of DPS, more than 5% higher than hybrids

Look at it this way... WoW is a lot like rock, paper, scissors. One class can beat another, while another class beats that class, but can't beat the first. I rolled a shammy and have really enjoyed playing it. I love my hunter too, but since the nerf, I gave up on him. I tried a rogue just for the lock picking, but after the patch gave up on him too. I think to date I have rolled every class, leveled them to at least 20, and I still think my shammy is the best class for my type of play. It all comes down to the roll you want to play in the game. Right now, my shammy is enhancment, but as soon as I can dual spec I'll def be spec'ing to be a healer, yet keeping my DPS abilities for quests and soloing. Do you think the dual spec ability will "solve" this problem? Do you think it will open up a whole new set of issues? Doesn't class specific gear play a roll in leveling your DPS vs another class?

All this about DPS... is just sooo boring. Lets think out of the box, shall we?

1. Rogues (yes, this is how you spell it...)

Ok, not so good PvE, virtually no side skills at all. But how about poisons, how about crippling skills? There is no better class at maximizing the DPS against an opponent. He is needed, pure and simple. I won't go anywhere without at least 1 or 2 good rogues, because they make things so damn easy for me. This is what they do. Between 2-3 poisons and cripplings they have to watch their DPS and boom, a furry specc out-DPSd them already. So? Just PvP the dude after and laugh as he is stun locked the whole time while you take down a tank with a butter knife and your awsome skils. The advantage in PvP is enourmous, no one can deny it. They just have tools for PKing in their repertoire.

2. Druids

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the creme de la creme. Sure, we can tank just like (or better) than a Prot Warr. Sure we can pop heals like there is no tommorow, And we can DPS like a mother f#$$#&. But all of this costs time and money we sometimes don't have. Pre-WotLK we had to work our asees of just to come near a warr or rogue in DPS terms, we were there just because its safer to have a healer that can have 15k armor, just in case something goes bad. But we can only do one thing at a time. Pop a heal while DPSing and it all goes to heck. Personally I play druids because their simple, not in skills mind you but they just have a couple of abilities compared to a rogue or warrior. While these guys have 3 darn trees they can pick abilities from and are renowned for hybrid speccing, I can only rely on one good one. Hybridity just won't do for hybrids. So while a warr can charge and intercept me, I can only pop dire bear and hope it won't hurt that much. As for rogues, knowing just how DPS goes, I sometimes decide to start in dire bear, they just have so many abilities to stun me before I do, it seems pointless to try and beat them at their own game.

3. Pallys

These guys were soooo bad pre-WotLK, Blizzard probably just over-did it when it came to fixing this. Ret was a joke, you just had armor but no DPS. Tank as a pally? People would just laugh at you while they casually joked with their building-sized tauren. It proved viable as a healer, but again the choices they had (and still have) are somewhat limited. Especially since Blizz decided to double the talents and keep a measely 71 talent points, going down 2 trees at once is even harder for mixed classes. So cut them a brake and just let them enjoy it while it lasts. You thought they were useless, well now the wheels turned.

As a final point, forget this entire debate. I seriously doubt Blizz planned for hybrids to rule the DPS meters. What would be the point of the pure DPSers? Do you seriously think that they would just forget about such issues? P.S.: be glad to be a warrior or rogue, my druid has to go round town in a green f$#^@ dress designed by 3-year olds to show his newly acquired 25-man T7...

i think rouges do good and are very good at pve and pvp
i seen a few people whoare alive then i look again and they are dead and then im dead

I don't know who wouldn't agree with this, besides a hybrid that's just selfishly wanting the game built around their class.

It's obvious - dps classes are built for dps only. They should do more dps. There's not really an argument here.

Just because someone might make the mistake of rolling the wrong class and realizing they like something else more later (like a dps class) doesn't mean that they should complain that they can't dps. Just a scenario I'm throwing out there to get the point across.

It's pretty simple. There are multiple choices in this game for dps, healing, or hybrids. Know that healers will heal best, dps will dps best, and hybrids will (and should) be able to do both but not as well as the "pure" classes.

@ xplaced: as dovehill stated: where are the pure healer and pure tank classes?

I rolled a hybrid class as a first toon so I could see what I wanted to do. Its just my luck that I took to healing and not DPS. If I HAD decided on DPS, I would always be subpar.

Oh wait a minute!!! There are alts!!!!

Jeez.

I honestly never gave it much thought...may be because i was a rogue so my DPS beat out PLENTY of other classes with ease....but after reading the post i really am wondering about the balance of the game...I mean for a rogue DPS is literally all we have EVERY fight is a race to beat your stuns most fights you can finish before cheap shot is even up but others you need to go through your whole stun rotation...now alot of people hate the fact that rogues can stun the way they do BUT that is something to counteract their weak armor and health...no you take something like an enhancement shaman...first off they wear mail for reasons beyond my understanding so naturlly they are tougher then rogues...they can also heal themselves effectively even if they have 0 points in resto...So not only is said shaman tougher than a rogue and able to heal BUT with windfury procs that shaman is also matching the rogues DPS or coming dangerously close...By all rights why even bring a rogue? you may as well just bring the shaman who can heal itself and saving the healer mana during AoE fights...or in soloing the shaman is taking down elites that a rogue would require someone to help with...in all honesty it doesn't seem very fair

I've played a rogue now for a year and a half did almost all of the bc content and during this time the only thing that could come close to my dps was a mage or hunter and maybe a lock. I have to admit, once Wotlk came out and i started doing some of the normal dngeons on my way to 80 I noticed an emmediate change to my dps. I was none too pleased about this outcome, let me tell you. So after I came to the realization (once I started doing 10 man naxx) that rogues are next to useless in Wotlk i tried rolling a different class, a shaman. I just couldnt stomach it. So now im stuck on a rogue that can do about 3.2k dps fully raid buffed and pretty well geared when in BC i was easily topping out the charts against as i said before dam near any other class. Now why WHY would blizzard change, specifically, rogue dps so much compared to hunters and mages and locks? All i want is a reasonable explanation. I mean okay we pwn face in pvp but any good healing drood or chain fearing lock can have an advantage over a rogue, so that whole reasoning as to why we would get, well, not nescessarily nerfed as much as overlooked is out. I dont know it just frustrates me to no end and to quote a blizzard guide book "HIghest Single Target Damage" what happend to that?? This is probably just some enigmatic blizzard thing that we will never get a good explanation to but hopefully one day there will be one.........

@ Cypherblock

Some Classes at the moment have had their specs nerfed like rogues currently have one of their main DPS specs nerfed which is supposed to be sorted out in the next patch. Many rogues i know have stopped raiding at the moment and moved on to roll other Classes for this particular reason..

All this talk of hybrid Classes should, in my opinion, include Warriors. I really get hacked off that Warriors are seen (largely) as one thing... TANKS.

I, for one have always played my (now L80) Warrior as DPS - mainly because there's not a great deal to inform new players of the flexibility that each Class has, esp. those that most have quoted as (and will generally agree are) hybrid classes, so I wasn't aware that a Warrior could be called on to fulfil any other role than a 'cause damage' role.

Now that I've been playing for over a year (to be honest, it didn't take ALL this time), I've got to realise that a Warrior wasn't the best Class to start playing on; because of the ingrained stereotype that Warriors are saddled with. Or, is it that some players choose to deny Warriors any degree of flexibility of roles...?

I'll also pick up on the reliance of quantification add-ons and hold the stance that they DO NOT show the general level of a characters' capabilities, unless you have teamed with a particular player on several occasions or have run the same scenario with more that one equivalently 'kitted/equipped' player, on more than one occasion. If you take one set of figures to conclude that someone is not suited to a particular role, then at least have the courtesy to 'Inspect' their kit & talent trees and discuss your issues with them AFTER the 'event'... especially if you feel they have underachieved - and certainly in private... man-management has a valid place in group encounters and those who 'spout numbers' all the time (particulary when citing underachievement) have a tendency to do so groundlessly and usually only have themselves to blame if they feel they have 'carried' someone.

On the whole, if you ask someone to fulfil a role, do so because you TRUST them to do so - or don't ask them to DO the job in the first place.

Those that choose to take on a specialist Class as opposed to a 'hybrid' Class should be rewarded for doing so, for example:

1) Choosing to play a Rogue, you are there to 'hurt' people... give them a DPS premium, and

2) Choosing to play a Prot. Warrior, you are there to lessen damage to other players - no need for a DPS premium,

HOWEVER...

Choosing to play an Arms or Fury Warrior, you are there to 'hurt' people, also.. so a DPS premium is to be expected - maybe not 'quite' as much as a Rogue (as they don't have as much of a choice), but it's still warranted.

... and so it should scale, down to Cloth Healers, who aren't expected to 'hurt' people anything LIKE as much as a Rogues, so have no need for any DPS premiuim whatsoever.

This will be greeted with a tirade of "TL;DR", but it's still a valid post.

Speaking as the only cloth healing class in the game...

Why don't we get a healing premium? every other healer class ( all hybrids just as priests are ) have higher healing on at least one area of healing. Paladin have way stronger single target heals ( and cheaper mana costs ) Shamans simply rule in aoe healing and i've yet to see a renew beat the druids hots.

Sure we have shadow, but you can't say thats a good dps spec. Its up there with the other hybrids. Yet priests lack two major things other healers have.

No escape mechanisms for pvp that actually work.

No armour at all. Sure if you create a pure pvp spec in the disc tree you can still do pretty well in arena, but as a holy raid healer, i don't even stand a chance in world pvp.

Add to that the abysmal low damage while soloing mobs. Plus the fact that you don't have armour means simply that any time you pull more then 1 elite on your own, you're toast. No chance to outheal their damage while slowly killing them off with dots. Or to burn them to the ground. It may take 5 minutes, but you still die in the end. Compare that to a deathknight that takes 50 secs to kill both of them and then uses a bandage to regain his health. It simply feels unfair at times.

My take, at least consider priests not just a hybrid but a healer. And give us some bonuses for trading in armour for cloth. I mean locks and mages have insane sustained damage, shadow priests don't come close to it. Give a similar burst that the locks and mages have in dps to the healing that priests do. Its sad to see other classes outheal us by a mile if their gear is of equal level as ours.

It should be more than 5%. It should be more like 15%. You are giving up SO MUCH to be a pure class you should be rewarded with doing what you do much, much better.

Prot warriors and holy priests for example should be a LOT better at their respective jobs than hybrids.

Why would you punish someone for picking a certain class?

Why should someone be able to pay half attention as a pure and pull more dps as a hybrid who had to be completely focused to even compete?

Rogues can pull as much dps as ret paladins.

Magi can pull as much dps as balance druids.

Learn to adapt, people. Blizzard made all specs viable for all classes.

Btw, have you ever seen a ret or prot paladin toss a heal? Think they can solo an instance boss with 6k mana?

QQ more.

As an elemental shaman i feel that i'm more of a support player supporting my raid with totems and hero and a helping heal here and there than just another dps but what sadens me is that blizz did not go all the way, i can't out do any dpsers (only rouges and thats cause blizz over nerfed them) neither is my support truly essential to the raid.

I think a way to over come this is to make sure all dps do the same amount of dmg BUT in a raid the pure dps needs to do more dps than a hybrid that can be done with, let me give u an example.
Lets say a elem shaman do the same amount of dmg as a mage but when they join in a raid/party the mage do the most dps by a lets say 5-10% cause of the buffs/totems the shaman brings with him.

If they do this with all the hybird dps classes all classes is needed and the pure dps'ers shine

Comment on this and let me know what u think

I agree 100% that a pure class should be able to outperform a hybrid class in it's intended roll. When I rolled a mage, for instance, I understood that I would never be able to heal myself without bandages or pots, never be able to res a fallen comrade and never be able to tank like a warrior. I do think it's cool that Blizzard sometimes lets us step outside of our intended function and do something special, for example mage tanking in Gruul's lair, but overall, I picked a mage because I wanted to rain down furious blows of magical death and destruction on my enemies and that's the way it should be. Not to mention that I love to make strudel, nommy nommy strudel, nom nom nom...

Okay, we got Healers, DPS, and Tanks, there's also great functionality offered to Pet classes that allow them to stand above Pure DPS classes.

So, while you Warlocks and Hunters may think your a Pure DPS class, you have a permanent pet which allows you to pull off stuff that Mages and Rogues cannot. Hunters and Warlocks can have their Pets tank (as long as the appropriate pet is used) and heal their pet while still doing decent DPS. You won't be tanking in Raids, but neither will a Shaman. You won't be healing in Raids, but neither will a DK. But you have a Spec option that allows you just enough of all three roles to do some non-raid PvE awesomeness.

As a Paladin, Shaman, Druid and Priest, in order to heal, you generally are sacrificing your ability to DPS. For instance, as a Druid or Priest you must leave your DPS form (Cat, Moonkin, Shadowform) to heal. As a Paladin and Shaman your heals will take time to cast. Except for some cooldown or proc based abilities. Even then, your still using a 1.5 second GCD that could add to your DPS.

Then what about the hybrids, like Shaman, Priest and Warrior who can only really effectively do 2 roles, vs the Hybrids who can perform all 3 depending on spec. Should they have the same 5% deficit? Maybe 5% for Paladin and Druids but only a 2.5% deficit for Shaman, Hunter, Warlock, Priest, and Warrior should be considered because of the limits they have. Death Knights though do have the option to Tank/DPS and also have a Pet option as well so perhaps they should be closer to the 5% as well.

Either way, it doesn't really matter much, because this is purely about Raid DPS and certain classes are going to do significantly better DPS in certain fights (Paladin's against Patchwerk for instance) then other classes because of resistances, immunities, vulnerabilities, armor and other mitigation. So if a class like Rogue or Mage feel they should be always doing the best DPS against every mob, well, that just isn't going to happen.

One of the other things that Hybrid classes have as a limitation is that in Raids, they are often wanted more for their Tank or Healing roles. How many Raiding Druids are Resto or a Feral tank, how many of those wanted to really just play as a DPS role? As a DPS only class, you aren't going to be requested to respec and fill an alternate role. You are secured in your role. You won't have to heal through tears of regret.

i truely believe there wont be a solution to the QQing about hybrid classes out dpsing pure. If they ramp up the dmg of the pure classes the PVPers will cry like bitches. If they nerf the hybird classes it will force them into a role they are better at besides dpsing because more pure classes will fill raids for the best dps.

I personally think they should cut out world pvp all together and have servers strictly for pvp content - meaning servers only for arena and bg's that you can copy your existing character to and participate in pvp that way (similar to copying your character to a PTR0 with exception of only taking your gold at time of copy that could be used to purchase starter pvp sets). The PVE and PVP servers then could have two different sets of rules mechanically and if a fury warrior was banging out 10k dps you could tune a rogue to knock out 12k in PVE but to keep pvp balanced you can tone down the dmg on the pvp side of things. They could go all different directions with it too- adding talents to trees for pvp and removing some unneeded ones for pve. it would streamline the game and give developers much more room to work with when creating new content PVE wise, as well as for pvp. Swapping to the pvp or pve servers could be simple as logging out of your toon on the PVE server and logging into the PVP server or vice versa, which a lot of people do anyway (would be the same thing as logging into an alt, except as stated before it's a copied version of your character). I think this would be a real plausible solution to have a perfect balance to the game between pvp and pve content. Sadly bliz probably wouldn't toss out the money to buy the servers/invest into the hours of programming it would take. They'd rather just keep on trucking with trying to make a balance to something that will never be perfect with the current system..

I play a Dreani Shaman Enh spec alot of 25 man gear, including my weapons.
I think this issue should only realy effect PVP combat where multi tasking is more useful.
I pve mainly and i Rarly use healing spells and only ever on my self if i do, and other pure dps classes have some self heal to use, my shaman is usualy in top 4 dps with a Hunter, Dk (unholy, forst), Warrior (fury) and i think in pve even if a Hybrid tops dps who cares they are on your side helping u kill the boss.
In pvp it's different being able to mutli task is a huge help but with most hybrid class means a comprimise, as a shaman to heal i have to cut my dps by using mealstorm to heal, or melee time to cast.

I think the key thing to rember is blizzard are still playing with the class balance, effects and talents are always changing classes and specs go up and down in dps all the time, for example all hunter spec Suv from BM. Also u have to rember certain classes benifit from stats more, like in BC warlocks did isane dps in t5+ and Ret pallies with WF did even more. In Wotlk Ret pallies do huge dps in blue gear but even when getting into full epic thier dps dosn't rise much higher.

personally i think pvp is terible as a mage. i may as well be getting head from my gf

BUT, even if they do change it to where PURE DPS classes do an average of 5% more DPS, theres ALWAYS going to be a hybrid class who does more DPS than you, not matter how well your geared.
Simply because of PLAY-STYLE! Even though rogues have been hit pretty hard, my brother has always been #2 in 25-mans. Why? Because his play-style is different than most rogues and it fits the way he plays. EVERY class has an infinite amount of play-styles, but theres usually only ONE that fits a certain person.
On my 56 shaman, I can out-DPS most other classes just because of the way my key-bindings are set and my spell rotation. My friend, whose also a shaman, does similar DPS (we battle for #1 when instances and its 50/50 as to who wins), but with an ENTIRELY different key-binding system and spell rotation.

So even though they change the hybrid classes to do less damage (as an average), you will STILL run into hybrid classes that have equal or less gear and beat you in DPS just because they have a play-style that matches them. Of course, this isn't an insult to you if this happens, just means you maybe should rework your play-style by spending maybe an hour on target dummies in SW or IF. I garauntee that if you find the best playstyle for yourself, your DPS will jump! How your current play-style is right now determines how significant the change will be.
NOTE: If you do decide to try to change your play-style, please remember that even a .5% increase in DPS is worth the change!

As an Afflic lock, GM, Raid Leader, i can easilly say that the "Pure" dps classes are good where they are. Never have i seen a hybrid class out DPS a Warlock, Mage (properly gear) (and with the guy/ girl behind the mouse knowing what he is doing). I top the charts every raid night in and night out. Paying attention to my raid, positioning, dots, along with many other things. Maybe its just me but i think ANY class can be on top if the guy behind the screen knows what he is doing.

I think you guys are missing the point. There are many cases where you need ranged DPS vs melee DPS. Sometimes a hunter is necessary for crowd control and kiting, can't do some fights in Naxx without a priest and Mind Control. Sometimes I see a rogue top DPS, sometimes a mage, sometimes a paladin. All classes can have high DPS, its just some classes are dedicated for that role.

Ok here's a slightly different take...

Why not make all 'pure DPS' classes hybrids? It might take a bit of a stretch in same cases but i could easily see a demonolgy warlock tanking in metamorphosis form or for that matter an affliction lock healing via siphon life/drain life (ie directing life to tank)

Hunters could probably tank via some sort of beast talent, either turning into a beast similar to bear form, or using there pet somehow.

Mages and rogues are tough tho i admit. The best i could come up with is a mage tank that uses layers of protective spells to avoid damage. A rogue couldnt really tank but perhaps a form of healing that revolves around less magical means ie surgery talents etc (they do spend a lot of time slicing people up lets face it)

That way all dps specced classes could do roughly the same damage but pure DPS classes would have a little variety as well.

What do you think?