Originally Posted by Graze
No it's not a good comparison, the druids needs to swap gear, something that can be done with the click of a button, the shaman needs to respecc, which is a far more complicated matter.
The shaman has the advantage in, for example a phase shift at a boss encounter, but the druid has the clear advantage in a whole dungeon. This is why we have speccs in the first place, you optimize yourself for your role.
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I think you're missing a point here. A Feral Druid is
optimally specced for (throwing out numbers here) 100% capable tank, 80% capable DPS with a gear swap. On fights where something is off-tanked, they can DPS at maybe 70% capacity of a DPS class in their tanking gear.
What's being proposed is that perhaps an Elemental Shaman, when specced for DPS and just a little healing will be a 100% capable DPS, but also 80% of a healer with a gear swap. On certain fights, I'm thinking Maulgar here, they could wear DPS gear and a healing weapon and shield, heal an off-tank until the add's dead, and then weapon-swap to optimal DPS to finish the fight. No respeccing necessary, and the fight goes faster than if the shaman was resto.
Blizzard could even support this sort of playstyle by requiring more healers for phase 1 of a fight, followed by a DPS race for phase 2. Bringing 4 tanks and 8 healers would be disastrous for such a fight, but 2 MTs and 2 hybrid tanks like DKs or Ferals, plus 6 healers and 2 hybrids like Elemental Shamans and Balance Druids would swing in 4 extra DPS for phase 2. Remember, specs don't exist in a vacuum. The success/failure and fun/boredom of the game has as much to do with encounter design as class design and balance.