I just listened the Twisted Nether Blogcast episode 58 and something that I have been thinking over some time now just clicked. In the interview portion the discussion crossed the ever sensitive subject of hybrid and pure classes and their roles in raids, where the usual split is between DPS and healing. What Lissanna stated was that as a moonkin/restoration druid she has to specialize into either DPS or healing and there is nothing else for her to offer to the raid than either of these traits.
Either it's poor instance planning, total bull or I have completely misunderstood the concept, but isn't the main point of hybrids their vast array of utility? To be able to fill in and use traits not in their direct concept, even at a slightly lower power?
For a tank, the utility is their ability to disrupt the casters, as Tanking for Dummies so cleverly noted in a recent post. I think it was Veneretio mentioned sometime ago the fact that the best utility of a protection warrior is their ability to disrupt the casters, something I'm severely missing when I change to my DPS build. So instead of looking at the dps or anything else, I try to focus on my utility to be of most use in a current 5 man run.
It should be even more evident on a hybrid class that their whole performance isn't measured in the pure forms of DPS or healing, and the over-used DPS/healing meters should be abandoned! If the raid is dependant on the meters only and not evaluating the overall performance, then there is something missing in the system.
If all encounters are measured only by the DPS/healing meters and capping in them, then the encounter design is lacking. Or the players are playing the wrong kind of whack a mole. Really.
I'm sorry for the fact that this blog is turning more and more a tanking blog. Which isn't my intention, but comes naturally from the fact that my main IS a tank.
And I like to tank.
No.
I LOVE to tank. But I hate the meters, because they do not measure anything relevant. Either the mob dies or the party dies, and there are no inbetweens. The rest is skill, gear and interesting solutions to overcome the resistance.
