Zifna

The issue I have with Blackheart the Inciter is that it really helps if most of your party has terrible gear. If you have a well-geared tank and healer, and poorly-geared dps, the fight becomes fairly easy. The tank takes a relatively small amount of damage... unless your elemental Shaman throws out a nasty Chain Lightning on everyone that your mage has just frost nova/arcane explosioned as your rogue backstabs him from the frost nova.

Encounters should get easier, not harder, with more gear.

 

GrizleyCQ

I hate Blackhart because of just that. Group composition makes a huge difference too.

I once tried pugging it to finish my rep. When I join the group we have a warrior, mage, rogue, hunter and me as enhance spec healing. I had a bad feeling about this but went with it anyway.

Blackheart was completely unkillable. With all those DPS classes it was inevitable that one would die in the space of a charm even starting from full hp. Basically if you have very high party dps with low defenses he is going to suck. The bright side is he only gets harder with gear to a point, then you can drop him before a charm and he becomes probably the easiest boss in the game.

 

Elsia

Have never had any persistent issues with the Inciter, no matter what the group composition was. Slap on stamina gear and tell people to blow their long offensive cooldowns, while keeping the defensive ones was all that was ever needed, except for a bad aggro situation after the MC phase, we usually make it through the "time for fun" phases OK. Just have to have people at max health when it starts, so bandage if needed. Use position to your advantage. I love to put a freezing trap down near a dangerous damage dealer, bang they are actually much less dangerous than they could be come fun phase. The trap usually gets broken, but it buys a few damage-free seconds. Also prevents unintended trap use while MC'd by putting them on cool.

And if you feel that you are too dangerous, why not remove a few pieces of equipment? Maybe even weapons for casters and rogues, that you can reequip for the "time to kill" part. Not that we ever needed to do that.

 

Evalara

You can kill him in <30 seconds? I can't imagine even 3 full-tailored-epics mages/warlocks with Bloodlust/Heroism being able to do that, especially while eating mana burns.

 

BeeLz

I've solohealed skyriss multiple times and I basically dislike non solohealing normal 5mans. It brings no challenge at all.

I dislike blackheart the inciter though. He's ok on normal mode but the MCing is just retarded, spending 8k mana during 1 MC sucks cock. On heroic he decides to oneshot me every single time 0.5secs after the MC is finished.

 

Keline

There are 27 different talent trees and only 4 of them are for healing.

and a shadow priest / elemental-enhancement shaman / feral druids idea of fun is NOT equipping the healing gear whenever it gets rough.

 

Northerner

If it isn't their idea of fun then they probably should rethink what class they are.

Hey, our warlocks sulk when they have to use an imp. Our shadow priest prefers dealing damage over healing. Mages and hunters hate babysitting CC and our dpsWarriors probably dislike offtanking. This isn't news. Still though, good players actively enjoy using every single ability that their class has and if that means I am bandaging Rogues on an encounter, then so be it.

 

thejdawg

I have no problem throwing on some healing gear when I'm not tanking and the group/raid needs it.

A spec won't eliminate a player's choice to heal. Only a player himself can do that.

 

• Snowy

Why not? I think he only has ~80K hp, I was surprised at how low it was. Even if each of your casters only averages 800 dps, that chews thru over 70k hp in 30 sec. (800 dps over 30 sec = 24k per caster) Now you toss in trinkets and if you have lust, it's trivial.

Not to say that it's amusing afterwards when you have no mana and you're wanding the felhounds to death.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah

 

Keline

Yes clearly they should have to reroll their perfectly fine hybrid spec because Blizzard pigeonholes them into healing at every chance.

Listen to yourself! We have these talent trees for a reason, they're the "excuse" for only 9 classes. If the non-healing trees aren't viable fulltime, then we might as well scrap them entirely.

Having to use an imp isn't completly changing the way you play (in PVE), neither is casting sheep or icetrap every 30 seconds.
And I can't think of a single instance where I'd want the DPS warrior to offtank.

But somehow it's perfectly fine to ask a damage dealer to stop playing the damage dealer and heal instead?

You probably didn't play EQ as a necromancer in 2002.

 

Quasar

If they're worth a damn, they will when they need to. I offtank Karazhan but that hasn't stopped me from getting the 15% mana regen resto talent, amassing 1300 +heal and slapping expensive enchants like Spellsurge on my gear. I don't want to have to heal an entire instance as feral, of course, but be damn sure I'm ready to do what I gotta do to help my group/raid. I don't ignore a major aspect of my class just because I would rather scratch things to death (and I would).

JUICE! Aww I'm sorry. Did... did anyone want some juice?

 

Keline

I'm not talking about raids, where the "fun" shifts from playing your favorite playstyle to success as a whole. Fact is that we have 23 talent trees not for healing, therefore any 5 man should be doable with one heal specced main healer - so far that is true for my class. If any 5 man encounter required a second healer, that encounter imo is poorly tuned.

Or would you consider it decent design if the first boss of an instance required max dps from 3 damage dealers and the second required 2 full healers?

 

Mosh

That would be a great time to bring something like an Elemental Shaman or a Feral Druid though -- they could function as a DPS'er on the first, and a healer on the second. I don't understand why so many of the people (mainly druids) who cried out in joy with the boost to hybrids, insist on being the exact opposite of hybrids: locked in one role.

 

Quasar

Sure. If I know an instance might need extra healing, I either bring a hybrid if I tank or a warrior if I hybrid; I almost always have one, the other, or both in any case simply because they're useful to have around.

Indecent design would require particular classes or strongly discourage others, which unfortunately many (heroics) do. But just asking for some backup healing on a fight just encourages bringing a hybrid that isn't worthless.

JUICE! Aww I'm sorry. Did... did anyone want some juice?

 

Keline

They probably are still afraid of it because they were locked in the healing role for 2 years. We're pretty close to square 1 as it is already, most shamans, druids and paladins raiding are heal spec again. Only the incredible utility (paired with subpar healing compared to Paladins) left shadow priests shadow.

 

Amera

I think his point is just that people don't seem to find it unreasonable when a fight requires 2 healers, but they probably would if the fight required 2 tanks or 4 DPSers or some such.

Paladins yes. But bears have a pretty solid non-healing raid role now, and so do enhancement/elemental shaman. Paladins do not.

 

• Chicken

I have to agree with that as well, it's why I specifically tried figuring out a hybrid spec like I have now. What's the point in playing a hybrid if you're only going to make yourself capable of one thing?

buff /bʌf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of

 

• Snowy

Swamplord Muselek? There's a good example where you need an OT, but certainly isn't a strenous task.

In a lot of those cases, having a group of 1 tank, 1 hybrid (druid/pally especially) 1 healer and 2 dps'ers is really good.

Paladin: Pyla
Mage: Pylah

 

Keline

Do bears really tank? Without shield block, they can receive massive bursts that warriors usually avoid. I can't imagine a bear tanking Gruul after 10 grows. It's 2 crushings in a row -> game over. Bears are nice for Karazhan, but that's it.
The shaman roles are there, but are they really used? I didn't spend a day on the Armory to find out, I just know that our 3 shamans are restoration, our 4 druids are restoration and our 3 paladins also are Holy. We only have one druid that is actually feral and he's raiding with the B team.

Just focus the bear down, he doesn't last that long and hardly does any damage. You certainly don't need to OT him

 

Quasar

On heroic when he can reduce the tanks armor to 0... you sort of want an offtank. A Paladin can work for that fairly well. Had a Holy Paladin doing it while a Shadow Priest healed us.

JUICE! Aww I'm sorry. Did... did anyone want some juice?

 

Amera

You don't need an off-tank for him. You can use one, but it isn't much more difficult just having one person tank both, even on heroic, especially if it is a bear. But yes, it does seem to be "intended" that you have 2 tanks.

Bears are great tanks for Maulgar, since his specials don't crush or crit, and as hurtful tanks for Grull. And by great I mean generally accepted as "the best," all things being equal.

I can't really speak for other guilds, but we use an elemental and an enhancement shaman in our normal raid force, alone with 1-2 feral druids depending upon the fight. All paladins are holy and we completely dominate the healing charts over other classes on most fights (#1-4 on Mag kill, for example).

Conceptually, yes, this is hard to disagree with. Nevertheless, hybrid class has typically meant a singular role for raiding throughout WoW, for good or ill. Like I think Bekah said once, most people who played hybrids learned long ago to spec for just one thing to be good at it, rather than being sucky at 2 or 3 things. TBC has made some definite improvements with certain classes, but the forced specialization in talent trees coupled with some poor talents/itemization and so on continue to make it difficult to be a true hybrid.

But this is pretty off-topic, so... back to "unfun encounters" and design issues therein.

 

drats

They're few and far between, but they're out there. A feral druid, enh shaman, 2 rogues and a dps warrior make a hell of a melee group.

 

Morghus

Being a hybrid I sort of fall into the 1.5 category, but I've been through alot of instances on heroic and similar where the need to pop out of bear to do additional stuff has been completely unnecessary. I've done Skyriss without popping out of bear, except to chug a healing potion because healing was getting tight due to screwing up for a few seconds, which I doubt counts. You just have to be willing to eat some potions on the way, and most instances are a breeze. You don't have to have a hybrid along, it just makes it alot more easy and practical. If you wipe due to that small chance, you just go again.

The only encounters I truly loathe in this game ( that I've been up against ) is Zereketh the Unbound on heroic ( I detest resistance-fights ) and Warchief Kargath Bladefist ( not sure why, I just dislike the fight ).

 

Keline

He shouldn't be on the tank. Rogue with evasion or kite him or whatever. Heck I could probably offtank him throughout the entire fight just by putting up IRF and hold him with nothing but healagro.
That fight really is not the example you are looking for

Maulgars regular melee damage is nothing weak either, so if that crushes and the bear gets arcing smashed and mightily blowed after a WW, he's dead. Is Bear mitigation still so far above warrior mitigation?

 

Northerner

I was a necro in '99 but by '02 I'd stuck with the Rogue full time :kaubel:

My point isn't that you need to learn to play or anything remotely along those lines. My point is that if you do not use the abilities that your class has, then you lose your right to complain. Hybrids typically are capable of healing in addition to filling a dps or tanking role. They should either a) carry a set of healing or hybrid gear and use it for some encounters or b) move along and choose a class that is not burdened by responsibilities such as healing. You are not a damage dealer, you are a hybrid.

There are lots of classes that are pure dps and cannot do anything else essentially. If your class can in fact do other things though, I think it is fair to expect that you will have to do those things on occasion. You appear to want to be viewed as a dps class only and frankly, I think that's myopic. Blizzard clearly wants hybrid classes to perform hybrid roles through encounter design just like this and personally I think that's great.