Please add Hybrid role to dungeon finder queue and fix class design

I don't even play bard or have archer leveled at all, but I see huge problems with the direction this game is heading.


Creativity with class design is going to be severely hindered if every DPS class has to remain within a certain range of performance in order to be viable.

Hybrid role will fix this. Instead of Tank/Healer/DPS/DPS, parties will also now have the option to be composed of Tank/Healer/DPS/Hybrid. And not the type of Hybrid in WoW which actually aren't hybrids, but merely classes that can change roles out of combat. I'm talking about true support/dps/healer hybrids.

That is a can of worms you may not want to open.

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

That is a can of worms you may not want to open.

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Only because people whore DPS meters instead of taking into account actual contribution to a fight, direct or not.

Bard was a pure support class in FFXI and was highly sought after.


Fine tune it? Yes. Add more depth/gameplay? Yes.


Ignore it and stick with a one-dimensional trinity system that has been beaten to death in games like WoW? Please no.

So go back and rebalance all dungeons for Tank/Healer/DPS/Bard.

Pretty sure that's not going to happen.

Make the other 4 DPS jobs fight for ONE spot? Seems like an asinine thing to do.

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Originally Posted by Exstal

So go back and rebalance all dungeons for Tank/Healer/DPS/Bard.

Pretty sure that's not going to happen.

Make the other 4 DPS jobs fight for ONE spot? Seems like an asinine thing to do.

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Every time I suggest something that may have been in another game, people make all these assumptions about how I'm asking for it to be exactly the same. I'm asking for a hybrid role to be interchangeable with a dps role, not replace it (with a maximum of 1 hybrid for a 4 man party or 2 for an 8 man). I'm also looking ahead into the future where Red Mage, Blue Mage, and a bunch of other iconic classes are going to be stuck doing one thing when they were designed to do many things.

Except hybrid and DPS are NOT interchangeable.

For the sake of reference and in hopes you understand why things are as they are, I'll give you an example out of my favorite battle horse, WoW's Retribution Paladin.

The spec was a hybrid melee and magic, but planted right in the middle. Its DPS was considerably lower than any of the actual DPS specs. It's gear had stats spread all over the place because it was being treated as a hybrid, (I really hate this term) jack of all trades spec. It had "decent" heals, "decent" DPS and "decent" buffs. So what ended up happening was every raid ignoring them, or at worst ridiculing them for playing a sub-optimal spec (common response to ret threads back then was "STFU, respec to healer and heal me"). Funniest part was when the best raiding guild in the world (at the time) went on record to explain why Ret was worthy of the lolRet meme. So, a specialization designed to intentionally underperform as the price for being hybrid. Shunned by everyone with a good head on their shoulders.

This was changed when Ret went through a revamp from "middle of the road hybrid" to "DPS with utility". The excluded spec suddenly became one of the better and more accepted melee specs in the game. They were still hybrid (access to heals, retained most of their buffs), were given new utility (Judgement of Light on a mob healed everyone that hit that mob for a small amount of HP based on the paladin's attack power) and then some while toning down on their mana pools and healing/defensive potential since they were a DPS spec.

The lesson to get from all this is that hybrids don't work in MMORPGs. Specially not MMORPGs built around the holy trinity of Tank, Heals, DPS. FFXI's Red Mage went through this. WoW's paladin went through this. Let's not ask for history to repeat itself. That said, i can haz melee DPS + utility RDM?

No, actually I was thinking more along the lines of Burning Crusade's shadow priest.


You know, before it became another cookie cutter dps.



Sometimes raw dps/healing isn't required to be useful or even vital to a party's success.

I'd like to see a support role put in. tank, heal, damage is very boring.

Having a support role and support jobs at least will allow some more creative fights.

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Originally Posted by Nofacekiller

Only because people whore DPS meters instead of taking into account actual contribution to a fight, direct or not.

Bard was a pure support class in FFXI and was highly sought after.

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That sort of thing would require readjusting all dungeons. If it turned out that the Tank/Healer/DPS/Support was easier then everyone would run that and the Tank/Healer/DPSX2 combos would be unseen and frowned upon. They would almost have to adjust the dungeons to properly challenge both combos and that is a rather large task with lots of inhouse teasting needed.

Also, I tanked on my BRD in FFXI so I wouldn't call it a full support (I tanks for about 6months before they nerfed BRD tanks. ^^)

Usually the problem with support is how useful it gets in larger groups and how useless it is in smaller groups by comparison.
A support would probably be balanced around an 8 man party, which would make them weak in 4 mans.

If you required a support for each group, you'd be segregating the roles by a huge amount and queue times will go up like crazy. This may have worked with a 5 man party for dungeons, but it's unlikely with four.

You'd also have to give them enough damage for soloing, since then it'd just be hard on them outside of raids. But you can't give them enough damage or people will just stack support and they'll all buff each other into an Omega Weapon. It's really a balancing nightmare.

I like support classes. I mean, TRUE support not just subpar dps with some extra healing. The ones that manages multiple damage, healing and defensive buffs. It's just horrible to balance and players complain if they're useless outside of raids (which is reasonable).

IF, however, you could scale the balance to the party size and maybe the amount of other support (limit stacking of buffs), then it may work. However, there's already only four dps slots per raid(calling 8 mans a raid, bite me) and 2 per dungeon, so this may divide the roles too much.
Support works better with bigger groups.

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Originally Posted by Allyrion

stuff

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Pretty easy problems to fix. Give them buffs or stances that help them solo monsters so they can level up, and scale their buffs based on party size.

Also make their buffs scale on party size like you said, or make it so only 2 buffs of each type maximum can be on a player at a time, so you won't see 3 bard stacking, etc for raids.


I'm looking more towards a burning crusade shadow priest balance ballpark. Probably like 60-70% of the dps of pure dps classes but utility that makes up for it.

The problem with support class... is that in progress they're good. When you're geared, they're useless 'cause you can zerk.

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Originally Posted by Shamirah

The problem with support class... is that in progress they're good. When you're geared, they're useless 'cause you can zerk.

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FFXI proved this also applies to tanks. >.>

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Originally Posted by Nofacekiller

Sometimes raw dps/healing isn't required to be useful or even vital to a party's success.

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You mean because shadow priests were mana batteries, which is only a quarter-step above being relegated to cure-botting? It wasn't much of an upgrade.

It still wouldn't work. Firstly because bard already has a cooldown for TP and MP regen (and BRD is DPS). Second because you'd make getting a group together infinitely more difficult and much more time-consuming. In case you forgot, finding "support" was always what would make or break a party, moreso than a tank or healer would.

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Originally Posted by Shamirah

The problem with support class... is that in progress they're good. When you're geared, they're useless 'cause you can zerk.

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My group doesn't even need any of my songs in T5 anymore. It took us awhile to down it on our first time because we didn't have much attempts on.. people's schedule and all, but even our first kill on twintania I never had to use ballad or army's paeon or even foe requiem.. atleast I still do decent dps for now but that's slightly getting nerfed/adjusted come 2.1

I would like them to implement support/debuff classes but instead make regular dungeons 5 instead of 4 and leave 8/24 parties alone.

Can't add a hybrid class when there are none...if your talking about BRD then it's a support class, and it's the only one ATM. So all you would end up doing is extending your que times to fill the spot for the single support job currently and every group would have a BRD.

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Originally Posted by Nofacekiller

Also make their buffs scale on party size like you said, or make it so only 2 buffs of each type maximum can be on a player at a time, so you won't see 3 bard stacking, etc for raids.


I'm looking more towards a burning crusade shadow priest balance ballpark. Probably like 60-70% of the dps of pure dps classes but utility that makes up for it.

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That kind of utility is wasted if you don't have the right party comp. It would not be worth the damage loss. I played a shadow priest in wow bc and in a melee group i was just a lesser dps even in sunwell gear.

If you are talking about multiple types of ultility that you can activate while having reduced dps... well... *points at a bard*

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Originally Posted by Duelle

FFXI proved this also applies to tanks. >.>
You mean because shadow priests were mana batteries, which is only a quarter-step above being relegated to cure-botting? It wasn't much of an upgrade.

It still wouldn't work. Firstly because bard already has a cooldown for TP and MP regen (and BRD is DPS). Second because you'd make getting a group together infinitely more difficult and much more time-consuming. In case you forgot, finding "support" was always what would make or break a party, moreso than a tank or healer would.

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Shadow priests also brought passive healing via vampiric embrace and increased magic damage for the entire raid via misery.


One step above cure-botting? This is the DPS meter mentality I'm talking about. Had blizzard removed their mana restoration from vampiric touch, their rotation would not have changed.

Too many limitations because of 4/8 man parties