Talk: Hybrid class

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Which classes count as hybrids?

I disagree a bit with this. A rogue is actually more suited for DPS, can't heal, and shouldn't tank. Crowd control doesn't actually make off somebody a hybrid class. Because the mages would be hybrids too (polymorph 4tw)

One could argue about the Hunters and warlocks, since their pets can tank, but they don't tank themselves. It depends if you count the pet.

On the other hand, Priests and Warriors are missing. They may be the main heal/tank classes, but, depending off specc, they can do lotts of damage.

/discuss —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Frosti (talk · contr).

Agree on rogues, almost all versions of rogue seem to be about dealing damage, with a bit of crowd control/other utility spells available (rogues pretty much fill a "nukerish" role, just from close up rather than fro ma distance). Priests and warriors are arguable, my personal opinion is that they should or shouldn't be included based on how commonly they use the damage roles in groups. (Paladins, for instance, aren't considered big damagers on this page, even with retribution skills.)Minionman 15:17, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Wrong, the reason why paladins aren't big damage dealers is because they lack any threat reduction. Threat in raiding is everything. As far as I'm concerned half of this page is bunk. As it is defined in the TOP OF THE PAGE: Classes which combine aspects of the three core types - tank, healer, or nuker.

The only classes that can do that are Druids, Paladins, Shamans, and Priests. Warrior is technically under this too, but is hardly ever considered as one. Pzychotix 15:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I took out the rogue section, since the people discussing this agree that rogues are pretty much "melee nukers", or "melee Damagers". Hunter and warlocks can use pets as makeshift tanks, so I left those in until more is sorted out about them. Minionman 16:31, 12 August 2007 (UTC)

Definition of a "true bybrid"

This came up in the editing history. I used the "3 or more functions" in the first paragraph because when people talk about hybrids, they seem to be talking about classes that can performa wide variety of functions, and the different views on "what is a hybrid" seem to fit this definition to different degrees. In the strictest definition, shamans, druids, and paladins are the only hybrids, as shamans can melee DPS, spell DPS, and heal, Paladins can heal, tank, or deal melee damage, Druids can spell damage, melee damage, tank, or heal, and all three classes are competetive with more specialized ones in these roles (Maybe not better, but certainly close enough to be useful in those roles.) Priests and warriors are limited to 2 big roles they can do well (Priests have healing and spell damage, warriors have tanking and physical damage), while hunters and warlocks do have some tanking abilities, but those abilities get out competed pretty easily by the big tank characters in the game. Mages and rogues, of course, end up as damage only (rogues have some tanking possibilities, but very few abilities to support this.)

The definition of "3 or more abilities" usually separated by talent trees could definitely be improved, as it is arguable whether buffing and crowd control count as abilities, or whether melee and ranged damage dealing can be counted separately. Something like "Has 3 or more abilities (out of ranged DPS, melee DPS, healing, and tanking) that are competitive with specialized characters in these roles" may be the way to go on this.

The definition I don't think should be used is the "class with some healing abilities that wears heavier than cloth armor" as this does not address th view of hybrids as classes that can do multiple things. A character with 3 healing talent trees with mostly healing that happened ot wear leather would be considered a pure healer, not a hybrid, while some martial arts monk type of character that wore cloth and could melee DPS, or heal with spells would likely be considered a hybrid.Minionman 19:04, 29 August 2007 (UTC)

Think about how many tasks there are in an instance: Tanking, healing, dps. That's all I can think of atm. What I would consider to be an unqualified "true hybrid" would be any class whose talent trees improve different party tasks.

Druids: dps, tank, heal -- it doesn't matter whether magic or melee; dps is dps

Hunters: dps, dps, dps

Mage: dps, dps, dps

Paladin: healing/dps, tanking, dps

Priest: healing, healing/dps, dps

Rogue: dps, dps, dps

Shaman: dps, dps, healing

Warlock: dps, dps, dps

Warriors: dps, dps, tanking

Judging from this, the only classes that are not hybrid are hunters, mages, rogues, and warlocks. Any class that can spec to dps or to serve any other role, imo, is a hybrid.

On the other hand, maybe spec isn't the right criteria for whether they're hybrid or not. Hybrids don't wear the same gear if they're healing as if they're dpsing or tanking. Priests and warriors are no exception to this. However, you could reasonably say that hunters, mages, rogues, and warlocks wear the same gear in every run -- with the only exceptions being an equipment upgrade, and an especially sensitive fight with a lot of AoE going on where you need to put on extra stamina or resistance gear or some such. But they would not be switching gear so that they could better fill a different role. (Sure, there's even more peculiar exceptions than that, but it's very rare.)

So in sum, I assert that a superior definition of a hybrid is any class that wears the same gear in (essentially) all cases, no matter what task they're assigned--healing, tanking, or dps.

Of course that leaves all classes as non-hybrids. That's a little absurd. But consider this, that when you are in the LFG queue, and you join a group with a warrior, a priest, a shaman and a pally, what are you to think? You'll have to ask (if you have any care to know, that is) who's tanking, who's dpsing, and who's healing. Then ask them if they can switch on the fly. Ask the paladin to heal in his tanking gear. Ask the warrior to tank in his dps gear. Ask the shaman to heal in his enhancement gear. Ask the priest to dps in his healing gear. And then find out who the real hybrid is. Schmidt 13:23, 30 August 2007 (UTC)

I count melee DPS as different than ranged DPS when it comes to figuring out hybrids since they involve different attribute requirements and other gear differences, and different sorts of talents to be useful. (Though the difference is smaller than between healing, tanking, and DPS, butis there in playing style.) If talking about why shamans, paladins, and druids are considered the "true" hybrids, using a physical DPS/spell DPS split 9or ranged DPS/melee DPS split.) provides the definition that people seem to apply when deciding that paladins, shamans, and druids are the only "true" hybrids.

Another possibility for these three is "something that can perform 2 or 3 different functions in group, and can provide a buffs for all different playstyles", which covers these three classes pretty well. (Druids have mark of the wild which is an all purpose buff, shaman totems and paladin blessings have a number of different types that support all playstyles.)

When talking about hybrids in general, it seems the widest definition of "Anything that can perform two different functions in a group" is what works, and what is agreed on. This puts hunters and warlocks in (Though their tanks are weaker than play character tanks, they still exist and can be used pretty well that way.), as well as warriors, priests, and the main 3 hybrids.Minionman 04:10, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

What I'm getting at here is that I think the whole hybrid question boils down to a couple possible veins of thought:

1. A character class that can heal, tank, and dps in one specific gear set, and they can do each task just as well as any other gear set they might wear. (Tanking gear = dps gear = healing gear.) In such a case, no class is a hybrid.
2. A character class that can heal, or tank, or dps, but requires switching gear. And by contrast, any character that wears exactly one gear set (within reason, of course) no matter what they do, would not be a hybrid. In such a case, all classes other than mages, rogues, hunters, and warlocks would all be hybrids, because each of those other classes wear pretty much one gear set no matter what they're doing (because only one gear set really makes sense anyways), and the others (hybrids) would have to switch gear for their different tasks.

However, the player of an otherwise hybrid class (for example, warrior, or pally, or shaman, or priest) could opt to wear only one gear set, and carry only that gear set. In such a case, they are no longer hybrids because they have only one task, they do it well, and do not concern themselves with other tasks. Realistically, this is pretty much all level 70s. Obviously there are aberrations here, and there are some that are still fully hybrid at level 70, but it would be a far cry to say that druids, pallies, and shammies at large are hybrid. They are slightly more flexible than other classes due to their spec trees, but hardly hybrid.

That said, warriors and priests, when you ask them to heal or to tank, quite frequently say that they're dps not tanks or healers. On the other hand, they might accept the invitation to go to the instance and serve their token roles, but unless they're well skilled, they are quite likely to not do quite as well as a protection or holy/disc spec would do.

And still, consider the fact that if you are running a pickup group and you suddenly find yourself with four characters of any class, there are only four classes that are undeniably dps. Any other classes you see, you'll have to ask what role they're taking in the party.

And if the definition of hybrid follows my second point here, then that hybrid still needs to keep his gear up for all his tasks that he's willing to do. That means a protection pally still needs healing gear that he finds. Whether he should roll against his healer in the instance should be decided upon for each item. Obviously the tank wouldn't want to alienate the healer.

I believe the term "hybrid" when referring to pallies, shamans, and druids is just as token as the idea that warriors are the tanks and priests are the healers. It's a relic of the past, and that concept is older than patch 2.0 at the latest. Schmidt 23:32, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Further, if you want to say "but a pally can still heal even with tanking gear on", my response is that a pally in tanking gear cannot be an effective main healer or even an offhealer. If he's tanking, he can't heal himself, or if he's healing himself, he's not tanking. Aside from that, a protection pally's Holy Light and Flash of Light (while wearing tanking gear) is simply a class skill that he happens to wield, but it's hardly effective. Think along the line of the Draenei racial heal, that even warriors have. While draenei warriors do have this heal, it's hardly effective.

Likewise, priests have some shadow skills to improve their dps while soloing, but if they're not specced shadow, they are quite ineffective, and actually holy spells are stronger (if their spec includes improvements to attack spells). Schmidt 23:37, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

When talking about "hybrid classes", we're talking (as the article is written) about the class in general, not particular examples (Johnny, level 55 druid might only have cat DPS gear, but that doesn't mean druids in general are melee DPS.) If you were to pick a druid at random, it could work as a healer, tank, close combat DPS< or ranged spell DPS, and unless in a hard enough instance requiring a lot of specialization, could work in all those roles. If you were to pick a warrior at random, it could work as a tank or close combat DPS, but not as a ranged DPS (unless with really low damage) or a healer. You might argue that a paladin healer without talents just has an "ineffective" healing spell, but warriors have no healing spells whatsoever, unless they go with the long recharge Draenei one (and racial skills/professions aren't counted in whether something is a hybrid because they are not related to the class.)

When the article talks about "true hybrids" it is talking about some people's opinions, and says as much. Using the above description of how to describe the class as a hybrid or not, plus the other definitions described in above discussions, Paladins, shamans, and druids are considered the only "true hybrids" by a lot of people, the reasons likely being that the classes can do several different functions effectively, whereas a warrior only has 2 possibilities for roles, and a mage or rogue has 1. Minionman 01:44, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

And I suppose you think a warrior who is specced to tank can deliver even decent dps? And that a warrior who is specced to dps can tank against a group of dps that is delivering solid dps? The spec is very relevant, even if the gear isn't. And the gear is very relevant, even if the spec isn't. If both of these were irrelevant (as is the case of mages, rogues, and hunters, as far as serving all the roles that they were made for and expected of them), and the class had more than one basic task, the class would be a pure, true hybrid. Failing that, if a pally, druid, and shaman are considered hybrids, so are priests and warriors. Priests and warriors just happen to have fewer options at hand. In all the cases mentioned here, the spec and gear are very relevant -- especially at higher levels.

And I can't understand why you mention that warriors can't do ranged dps. Does it even matter? Tanking and dps (melee or not) are very distinct tasks. But thinking along that line, consider that pallies don't have any reasonable ranged dps either. But of course that isn't relevant to the topic at hand, because the concept that warriors need ranged dps in order to be hybrid is absurd.

Think of it this way: If you have to ask someone of a given class whether they tank, heal, or dps -- or tank or dps -- or heal or dps -- they are a hybrid. Or going the other direction, they are not a hybrid, rather they are dehybridized because if they didn't dehybridize themselves, they would not be marketable in any group because they would suck at all tasks. (There are reasonable exceptions to this, of course.) At some point along the road they can get different gear and respec, but for right now, they're not a hybrid. And if that doesn't make sense to you, consider that the class is represented by characters that you meet. Schmidt 09:53, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

You are not getting it at all. This article is not about whether individual characters can tank, melee DPS, ranged, DPS, or heal with a particular spec and gear, it is about whether the class as a whole can do those roles. Some classes, no matter what their spec, cannot heal, spell DPS, melee DPS, or tank effectively no matter what talent spec and/or gear they have. That is how the class is judged as a hybrid or not. A shaman could possibly be a group healer, depending on the difficulty and type of the fight, their talents, gear, and player skills. A warrior cannot. These possible roles are what make the class considered a hybrid or not.

Secondly, for the "pure hybrids" bit, it is not based on what you or I or anyone else who may join in thinks, but in general how some people classify it . To some people, Shamans, druids, and paladins are the only classes they consider hybrids, to others, priests, warriors, hunters, and warlocks may count also. The point of the paragraph describing different definitions of hybrids is to describe how these different people think about them, not to decide on a certain definition for use in the article.Minionman

I'm not sure how to answer that. You are not getting it all either. The abilities of any given class are available to all players of that class (aside from class racials, and talents). That means that every paladin and every druid and every shaman and every priest has the abilities at their disposal to heal, whether or not they can do it well. Similarly, every warrior and every paladin and every druid have at their dispoal abilities to tank. You might call each of those listed above hybrid because every single one of them can also dps.

Or you can call none of them hybrid because they must dehybridized to be appealing to groups and raids.

One thing you forget is that you do not have a character that is a blank class. What does a pally do in a raid? Well, what is his spec? What does his gear improve? Healing, tanking, or dps? It's not a straight-up pally that can do anything. Same goes with druids, warriors, shaman, and whoever else can do anything other than dps. No member of a class can do everything unless they respec.

A tanking pally with tanking gear and a tanking druid in tanking gear is like a draenei warrior. Sure they have healing spells, but they might as well not except in emergency situations or other times when it just happens to work out that they can take advantage of it. It's not really a "class skill" to them. It's like Elune's Grace for a night elf priest.

To take a more reasonable analog, consider Arcane Missiles to any non-arcane specced mage. There's no reason for them to cast it, and it would basically be a waste of time and mana. Their spec does not improve the spell--and they have other improvements to other spells--so they're not really going to use it, and it might as well not even be in their spellbook, as far as their action bars is concerned.

And to my recollection, I was saying (in my one edit that you whiddled down) what definitions some people might use to describe a class as hybrid or not. I wasn't saying "this is what's really going on" or "these are your options as to what to think because this is what i've boiled it down to". Ultimately, I think everyone in the endgame is at least familiar with what a class can do. What this page is for, I think, is the new people so that they can perhaps decide what class they want to do. On the other hand, there's already another page that aims to help on that topic. To that end, there needs to be no definition whatsoever, nor any other reference, as to what is a true hybrid. All the classes that can either tank or heal or both, in addition to dps, is something of a hybrid and should be listed as such. We don't need a "true hybrid" reference other than to debunk the concept. Schmidt 08:00, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

A "Hybrid class" is a class that can perform more than one role in a group regardless of spec or gear, though the right talents and gear make it much easier. They are capable of performing these roles even if they aren't specced for it (ex: an Enhancement Shaman being the group's main healer); they just don't do as well as someone specced for that role. Warriors (Melee DPS, Tanking), Priests (Ranged DPS, Healing), Shamans (Ranged/Melee DPS, Healing; they can tank if they know what they're doing, but they don't get any actual "Tank abilities", like taunts), Paladins (Melee DPS (they have almost no ranged attacks), Healing, and Tanking), and Druids (Ranged/Melee DPS, Healing, and Tanking; they even get a form for each of these roles) are the only classes that are "true" hybrids.

Buffing and Crowd Control are NOT group roles that are taken into consideration for whether or not a class is a Hybrid; Buffing can be considered a part of Healing, and CC is usually a responsibility of the DPS members of a group. Felindre

Rebirth

I think rebirth is on a 30-60 minute timer. Actually I'm almost sure it a 60 one, as when one day I was in ZF and our couldn't rez the others for a long time, so it left.   Mr.X8 Talk Contribs 15:06, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

[Rebirth] used to be on a 30 minute timer, but it was changed to 20 minutes in the Gods of Zul'Aman patch. Mumboj 02:31, 18 January 2008 (GMT)

You must be thinking of the Shaman's Reincarnation ability; that power has an hour-long cooldown (can be reduced to 50, 40, and 30 minutes with Talents), while Rebirth had a 30 minute cooldown from the start of WoW to the Gods of Zul'Aman patch (20 minute cooldown after GoZA). Felindre

So many hybrid classes!

I saw that there was a lengthy discussion above concerning what is the definition of hybrid class and which classes should be included. This surprised me a bit, though it is understandable. Personally, I only consider classes that can perform two or three of the three basic functions properly: tanking, healing, dps, as hybrid class. If this is the case, there are five hybrid class: warriors, priests, shamans, paladins and druids. In contrast, I consider hunters, warlocks, mages and rogues as pure dps class.

Currently, hunters and warlocks are stated on the article as hybrid class as well because someone claimed their pets can tank. Maybe this is true during some really low level instances but I feel uncomfortable to say they are hybrid classes for this arguement. If the ability to tank during low level is enough, how about mages need to tank one of the elite in HKM fight? Can we say that mages is a hybrid class too? In fact, I had ran a level 30 instance with a level 35 rogue main-tanking. So rogues is hybrid class too! If we follow this logic, there is no class that is non-hybrid!!! WakemanCK 09:54, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality

I have made some changes in an attempt to improve the neutrality of this article. I think it's inappropriate to refer to any particular spell or ability as "best" or "most powerful", unless detailed analysis can be provided to support that assertion.

I also removed the recently added false assertion that "Moonkin form is very mana-inefficient" - that's simply a fallacy, and has been for a very long time now. It's true that some balance druids will still experience mana issues, but that's more down to poor gearing, poor choice of spell-rotation, or poor choice of talent spec, and is certainly not true of balance druids in general. Moonkins can happily sustain good dps across a 10 minute fight at approximately tier 4 levels of gear, from personal, first hand experience, and I believe that there are a few lucky Moonkins that are successfully holding their own all the way into tier 6. --User:Murph/Sig 03:33, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Moonkin Form gets a lot of crap about mana ("OOMkin" is one of the worst), even though none of the other mana-using classes do; We can get mana back by hitting a mob, something that we share only with 41 point Enhancement Shamans. The only way I can think of a Moonkin being "mana-inefficient" is if they're dumb enough to spam Moonfire; Wrath and Starfire should be the major spells in a fight, while Moonfire and Insect Swarm should only be cast at the start of a fight (and when the timers on the DoTs run out).

One way to reduce the mana issues is to get both Dreamstate and Intensity (30% of mana regen continues during casting, plus you get back 10% of your Intellect in mana every 5 seconds (even while casting)); it's possible to get both of them and sill have access to Force of Nature.

Moonkin should always have auto-attack active in a fight, and they should always cast from melee range; this way, you can smack the mob to keep your mana up. Felindre

At tier 4 levels, and with good gear, Dreamstate alone is sufficient, and it's quite possible to sustain DPS for a 10 minute boss fight, although many either choose both, or Intensity instead. That does assume a sensible spell rotation is used, and that mana pots are used as required (chained, if needed).

As far as the melee mana regen goes, it's of relatively limited use in tier 4 raids. Personally, having been successfully raiding as a moonkin for quite some time, I recommend staying well out of melee range, and actually trying to stay at maximum practical range as much as possible (36 yards, but you still need to be within the range of other party members, as appropriate). Staying well out of melee range allows your aggro to burst to 130% of the tank's, rather than 110%, which can be very important once you reach approximately 1000 spell damage, as a good run of crits can relatively suddenly push your aggro through the roof. It also keeps you out of various additional damage and debuffs that certain bosses apply to anyone in melee range. I generally view melee mana regen as a last resort, or limited situational measure. --Murph (talk · contr) 07:08, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

4-way hybrids

If there are three talent trees, how can a class be a 4-way hybrid? Rolandius (talk - contr) 03:36, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

Think of druids. With the balance tree, they are ranged DPS. With the restoration tree, they are healers. With the feral tree, they can either be tanks or melee DPS. --Sheffi (talk) 15:40, June 21, 2010 (UTC)

How I See Hybrids

The way I see it, there are 4 main roles one fills in a group, not 3. Tank, Healer, Melee DPS, and Ranged DPS. A hybrid is any class that can fill at least 3 of those roles if specced properly. This means that the only true hybrids are Druids (All 4), Shamans (Heal, Melee, Range), and Paladins (Heal, Tank, Melee).

Some of you may be asking, whats the difference between Ranged dps and Melee dps, they're both dps. Well, there is quite a difference. The Melee dps classes are in the front lines and do not require the same play style as the squishier ranged dps. With the exception of hunter, the ranged dps is mana heavy compared to melee dps which either relies on Energy, Rage, Rune Power, or an easilly refilled mana pool (If you run out of mana as a ret pally or enh shammy, you're doing it wrong) The tactics for the two are vastly different, the largest being that all ranged dps has to ensure that they are a good distance from the enemy, inversely melee dps has to get in close. Spells and physical attacks deal damage differently as well. But I'm getting sidetracked.

Pets shouldn't be counted because their primary function in groups is never main tank unless you're waiting for a suitable one. Could a warlock properly tank a dungeon with voidwalker? in most cases, no. Counting pets opens up a whole new can of worms, because where does it end? Almost every class has a pet, be it Water Elemental, Spirit Wolves, or a permanent pet. This would effectively make any class capable of being a hybrid, thereby defeating the purpose of the hybrid group.

This would make only the three above mentioned classes true hybrids, with the Druid being a "perfect" hybrid on the grounds that they can fulfill all four roles. Adamantium93 (talk) 15:22, June 21, 2010 (UTC)