Unorthodox specs accepted?

[Magnifican]

If you want to play an odd spec just do it but don't complain if the leader prefers another helping hand rather than you.

Because odd specs arent any help at all? This is the mindset we are arguing against and this whole thread is about. Just give it a rest already

Are we talking mc on farm or are we talking about clearing progression? IMO, hybrids are perfectly fine for easy raids. I wouldn't bring many if I was trying to progress through aq40 or naxx though.

I know it sounds cool to fight the system and go against the holy trinity and highlight the benefits of rets throwing out offheals and other small things hybrids bring to the table, but I don't think they outweigh the raw dps pures bring. You do and that's great but you gotta respect the opinion of people that don't. I would rather bring a 800 dps rogue who only does damage than a 300 dps ret who can throw a heal out every now and then. If you wanna bring that ret, you go for it. Im not going to stop you but I wouldn't make that decision as a raid leader.

We can talk about progression as well as what you call "on farm". MC wasnt hard to begin with so who cares? They are not suppose to bring as much dps as a pure dps can and no one ever argued that point either, but since they also bring heals and utility you'd have to count them a half a healer/debuffer/dps etc. For example, as Shadowpriests buff warlocks damage by approx 20% then you could take that 20% of warlocks damage and apply that to shadowpriests and Boom, the shadowpriest are infact top dps considering what he just brought. Hybrids werent designed for the holy trinity by blizzard, so its not "fighting against the system" or being "cool" in any way but in fact playing them as blizz intended, flawed as it may have been. TBC changed that and sadly alot of people seem all stuck in that mindset.
The only thing that happens when you bring "odd specs" is that the boss might die a few secs later, but in a raid of 40 people, having 5-10 oddies have been proven again and again is perfectly fine for anything other than maybe naxx (and even then the odd specs really start to come into their own at that point).

Odd specs are detrimental to a successful raid, thinking anything else is delusional.

What a sad and delusional statement. detrimental to a "successful" raid, yet raids have been cleared perfectly well with 5-10 or even 15 odd specs present. We are talking about 40-freakin-man raids here, being 10 years old. If you think you need to minmax, have full consumables and the ultimate raidcomposition of warriors tanks, pure dps'ers and pigeonholed healers to be successfull than you are indeed delusional.
If you are a hardcore guild going for world first or wanna rush through things ASAP and then farm the sh*t out of it until next content release months later until to rush through that with overgeared people then fine, but dont go around spewing that elitist sh*t on others that are somewhat "normal" and casual veteran raiders.

We will be making guild soon, when we hit 50, and we will not mind what spec you are if you play well. Most of us already cleared most instances back then so we know what we're doing, and we know what kind of players we need. It wasn't about spec or class for us back then, it will not be now. So, you're welcome to join, and if you're good, we'll enjoy content together

Alliance side? Be sure to hit me up!

[bdan]

We can talk about progression as well as what you call "on farm". MC wasnt hard to begin with so who cares? They are not suppose to bring as much dps as a pure dps can and no one ever argued that point either, but since they also bring heals and utility you'd have to count them a half a healer/debuffer/dps etc. They werent designed for the holy trinity by blizzard, so its not "fighting against the system" in any way but in fact playing them as blizz intended, flawed as it may have been. TBC changed that and we are all stuck in post-vanilla mindset.
The only thing that happens when you bring "odd specs" is that the boss might die a few secs later, but in a raid of 40 people, having 5-10 oddies have been proven again and again is perfectly fine for anything other than maybe naxx (and even then the odd specs really start to come into their own at that point).

I agree with you. Im just saying for my raid, the benefit of bringing in pures to do more dps, outweighs the benefit of brining in hybrids for utility. In easy content like mc, bring whatever you want. the boss dying a few secs later is no problem when its easy content, but when you are wiping at 5-10%, stacking pures is more than likely going to improve your raid.

However, if I was leading a guild and knew that harder content was coming up, I would still bring hybrids to current content if they wanted, but I would make sure to gear up the pures first. They will drive the progression.

[Parachute]

Best way to play unorthodox specs:

Join a guild, play a standard spec for a while, get good and make friends. Then when you're established and proven to be a reliable guild member respectfully tell them you want to try an alt spec.

Or you can show up as an unknown quantity and making demands of people you don't yet know, which usually doesn't go over well and marks you as a potential pain in the butt.

Bottom line is, the population is high enough here that guilds can be choosy who they take (likely so even on the PvE server) and even the rarer classes aren't the least bit rare, so you got to learn to play ball before making demands. On other less populated servers guilds are more likely to just take whoever they can get.

[cmill78]

I think you need to remember that you are also in a bit of an echo chamber. You are in a thread about unorthodox specs so obviously a bunch of shadowpriests, moonkins, rets, enh/eles are gonna flock to this thread and give their opinions. You also should look at the composition of raids that actually cleared naxx back in the day. Sure there were hybrids but not many and they stacked pures for a reason. Yes we have come a long way in theory crafting since then but you gotta understand why people think the way he does and there is nothing wrong with it.

Not sure why you getting so upset about it.

Naxx was going to be a beast, and hardcore raiders knew this. They didn't bring many hybrid specs because the VERY FEW guilds that entered Naxx, and the EVEN FEWER that cleared it, had already built their raid groups over time to the absolute easiest to absorb stupidity. That's how most hardcore raiding guilds did it. Take away any chance a person can screw up or hold the guild back. I totally get it, I do. All the work put in a raid you certainly don't want the few bad experiences you've had with hybrids screwing up your raid.

But there-in lies the problem; Hybrids got a bad name because a couple screw ups ruined hardcore raiders opinion of people capable of doing it well. Elitists will say that it is impossible to successfully raid with hybrids. That is where the argument becomes invalid. Words like "delusional thinking" are thrown around because Johnny Raider Champ had a bad run with a Boomkin. The stacking of "pures", as you put it, was not a mathematical equation that someone cooked up in the lab of raiding to prove there was a perfect raid group that could clear any content. The stacking of "pures" was simply the easiest way for a raid leader to deal with his raid.

The thing is, though, with so many hybrid success stories it all really comes down to time management. Hardcore elitists believe Hybrids are time consuming and faulty. This thinking comes from the segregation within original retail vanilla because of the wrongly worded "broken specs" and a few bad apples. It continues to flourish because of how retail went full gear and stats out-weigh actually game play skill after the release Cata.

Finally, I have never said Hybrids were better, nor have I said that they should be forced into raids or else. I have simply defended a persons choice to play their way and tried to help disprove the "hybrid success is delusional thinking" comments. Yes, it is probably futile, but I succeeded at it, as well as several members of our very successful raid guild in retail.

[joshbpepper]

If 40 people want to RUSH their way to their nerd meccah go ahead. If wiping is such a blow to their ego obviously they need to make it as easy as possible.

[ceen2]

If 40 people want to RUSH their way to their nerd meccah go ahead. If wiping is such a blow to their ego obviously they need to make it as easy as possible.

I wish you good luck in Naxx where it becomes mandatory to have the best setup possibru, but anyway most of us won't see it if it's retail like anyways.

[joshbpepper]

Bro, its been done. Boomkins and enhancement shammys been in naxx. Its all been done before. I know you like to pretend its still 2006, but that's okay men. Keep meandering about azeroth with the rest of your man child guild mates.

[Magnifican]

But there-in lies the problem; Hybrids got a bad name because a couple screw ups ruined hardcore raiders opinion of people capable of doing it well. Elitists will say that it is impossible to successfully raid with hybrids. That is where the argument becomes invalid. Words like "delusional thinking" are thrown around because Johnny Raider Champ had a bad run with a Boomkin.

Im starting to believe that most of these people never actually raided with hybrids but are just following a mindset they are told by others without question. I mean how many times do we see these threads pop up in class forums or these questions asked in general chat whether people should play a certain class and these "know-it-all" people always reply with "reroll" or "if you wanna heal", like anything else is impossible.

Also alot of these broken specs were even more broken early and mid vanilla, but at the time of 1.12.1, the client and talents we go with, they got alot better. Once we get up to speed with itemization, debuff slots and AQ and ZG gear these hybrids really start to become stronger. Blizzard changed alot during the course of vanilla but the classes are remembered for what they were during vanilla, not at the end of it.

I wish you good luck in Naxx where it becomes mandatory to have the best setup possibru, but anyway most of us won't see it if it's retail like anyways.

But its not mandatory though is it? Back in vanilla it might have been more so because of what, 0.2% of the population cleared it? That was like 8 years ago and its not gonna be a big problem this time around. Also Naxx werent out that long before TBC hit so that is also a reason why so few people got into it. I think people overstate how hard naxx really was, it had a high gearcheck to enter so only the most hardcore guilds got in, that is going to be different this time around. We all know naxx the wotlk version and the mechanics of it by now, its all just a big gearcheck tbh

[squishums]

But there-in lies the problem; Hybrids got a bad name because a couple screw ups ruined hardcore raiders opinion of people capable of doing it well. Elitists will say that it is impossible to successfully raid with hybrids. That is where the argument becomes invalid. Words like "delusional thinking" are thrown around because Johnny Raider Champ had a bad run with a Boomkin.

Im starting to believe that most of these people never actually raided with hybrids but are just following a mindset they are told by others without question. I mean how many times do we see these threads pop up in class forums or these questions asked in general chat whether people should play a certain class and these "know-it-all" people always reply with "reroll" or "if you wanna heal", like anything else is impossible.

Also alot of these broken specs were even more broken early and mid vanilla, but at the time of 1.12.1, the client and talents we go with, they got alot better. Once we get up to speed with itemization, debuff slots and AQ and ZG gear these hybrids really start to become stronger. Blizzard changed alot during the course of vanilla but the classes are remembered for what they were during vanilla, not at the end of it.

I wish you good luck in Naxx where it becomes mandatory to have the best setup possibru, but anyway most of us won't see it if it's retail like anyways.

But its not mandatory though is it? Back in vanilla it might have been more so because of what, 0.2% of the population cleared it? That was like 8 years ago and its not gonna be a big problem this time around. Also Naxx werent out that long before TBC hit so that is also a reason why so few people got into it. I think people overstate how hard naxx really was, it had a high gearcheck to enter so only the most hardcore guilds got in, that is going to be different this time around. We all know naxx the wotlk version and the mechanics of it by now, its all just a big gearcheck tbh

I do not mean to say that hybrids are garbage. But, I want to point out that with only one exception, there is a very clear difference between hybrids and pures. This makes it tempting to dismiss hybrids as broken. The reason is mana.

Pure classes either do not use mana at all, have infinite mana, or are very very mana efficient.

The hybrid classes were designed to be mana-limited. If you include both factions, there are 7 hybrid specs (5 dps, 1 tank, 1 mix), 6 of them use mana. Most of them use mana far more recklessly than even the most mana-intensive pure classes. Feral druids are the only exception.

Although I know great players will know how to get the very most out of their mana (and in many cases this will be enough!), it is a very uncomfortable feeling as a raid leader (or even group leader) to know that your dps can run out of mana.

I dont think it is discrimination against "healers" trying to do something different. I think it is blizzard's game design that ensured that if a class does not need to worry about running out of health, it instead has to worry about running out of mana.

[Magnifican]

I do not mean to say that hybrids are garbage. But, I want to point out that with only one exception, there is a very clear difference between hybrids and pures. This makes it tempting to dismiss hybrids as broken. The reason is mana.

Pure classes either do not use mana at all, have infinite mana, or are very very mana efficient.

The hybrid classes were designed to be mana-limited. If you include both factions, there are 7 hybrid specs (5 dps, 1 tank, 1 mix), 6 of them use mana. Most of them use mana far more recklessly than even the most mana-intensive pure classes. Feral druids are the only exception.

Although I know great players will know how to get the very most out of their mana (and in many cases this will be enough!), it is a very uncomfortable feeling as a raid leader (or even group leader) to know that your dps can run out of mana.

I dont think it is discrimination against "healers" trying to do something different. I think it is blizzard's game design that ensured that if a class does not need to worry about running out of health, it instead has to worry about running out of mana.

This is actually very interesting input and I wanna thank you for being one of the few that actually have some constructive thing to add here about hybrids. One thing I personally find so interesting about playing a hybrid is mana managing, playing a shadowpriest for example is really fun/challanging in this regard. You get to use more abilities than just Shadowbolt spam which makes the class alot more fun for me, while also being watchfull how much that next Mind Blast gonna cost. And you get a more complex gearing process which I also really like. To bad Spirit Tap is broken...