Core classes get owned

The holy triangle in fantasy RPG's since the time of Dungeons and Dragons hitting the shelves in the 70's has been Warrior, Priest and damage dealer. Even more so in the MMO's, where it has been defined as Tank, Healer and DPS. It has been under the constant discussion, heated debate and polite argument over the years whether it should be as profoundly basic and necessary for the contemporary MMO's and obviously Blizzard has listened to the public. It has been much quoted that Blizzard has stated that "Bring the player, not the class" to the newest dungeons and instances, which makes it obvious that they have been devised for 1) casual player (rendering the dungeons too easy), 2) players who want to play their class well, and 3) making all dungeons more or less independent of the holy triangle.

However, this leads to the problem we encountered on our Thursday run in Dire Maul: East, a problem which Tobold posted about so nicely. As we are three, Tank, Healer and DPS, we represent the triangle perfectly. Granted that the Tank is higher than the Healer, who in turn is higher than the DPS, we still depict the former norm of a adventuring group.

And even though Tank and Healer over level the instance, we are not prepared.

I have run Dire Maul with lower level Druid earlier, when being druid meant you were the laughing stock of the group. And then we didn't have any problems with the mobs, none at all. All around 50-55 at that time, and we cleared the DM: East without a problem, and tackled West with ease and North while we were upon it.

Not us, not on Thursday anyhow. It wasn't that the mobs would have been too hard. It wasn't that we couldn't pull them in reasonable groups. It was the lack of CC, for us being only 3 we didn't have the versatility of a full group.

But I can imagine replacing the warrior tank with a druid. Enter roots, enter CC.

I agree with Tobold completely, that the Hybrids are way too 'balanced' when compared to the specified single classes. Warrior should be able to be The Tank or The Damage, depending on the build. Priest should be The Healer instead of the emergency button. And Rogue's melee DPS should be able to strike fear into the hearts of the AI mobs. Not just the stunlock, but also the damage. And Mages... well, they are pretty good on the ranged dps and cc already, but then again, I don't have intimate knowledge of their current situation.

Hybrids should be hybrids: jacks of all trades, but masters of none. That's what they were when I started almost 3 years ago: laughing stock but surviving almost everything.

So yes, we had fun run in Dire Maul: East, and for a change the only one gaining from the run was Förgelös who finally got a very nice shoulder replacement to compliment his new Assasin build.

Off we go and we'll see what West and North holds for us next time.

It was fun.