While i agree that it’s less and less usefull, it is still usefull and you can construct scenarios where the moonkin can transform a wipe in a kill (let’s say the PC healer dies on Anub10 normal or hm for example).

It’s not a problem of this happening often or not, it’s a problem of “why take a dps if i can take a dps + X”. Even if you don’t use X often, there’s no point in not taking it.

So, yes, there really is no such thing as a hybrid class any more.

To be honest, i don’t remember switching to heals in the last few months. I still don’t agree with discounting that ability totally.

Does it justify a penalty ? I tend to think that yes, and it would be somewhat hypocritical to say no since hybrids were all begging for higher dps saying “if i can’t dps, why would they take me” ? It’s the same for pures, if they do the same dps but have less options (second spec, offspec skills, …), why would anyone take them ? Of course it’s only a case of mib-maxing guilds, but it’s an important population enough to be meaningfull i’d think (especially looking at the number of people who just blindly follow what top guild say without addapting it to their situation)
But not a big one like in BC. I want to be able to contribute meaningfull damage, ie be in reasonnable range of the other dps’ers (ie a gap small enough to be bridged by a difference in skill). This means that i’m actually often going to be in the top 5 of my guild most of the times.

In all seriousness, though, I just like trying to contribute positively to the moonkin community. I try to take a realistic approach (as opposed to so much of the whining one might witness on the WoW forums or elsewhere) and prefer to focus on logic and math. I do most of my “work” on the TMR forums, but I enjoy the more intimate discussion and unique ideas presented by your blog and others.

Cheers!

Also during Burning Crusade, I leveled Xiera, intending for her to be capable of DPS and healing using the balance tree. Her primary role was DPSing, which was mediocre at best, but she would often throw out a heal or two during certain fights, particularly if a healer was crowd controlled.

Wrath has changed much of that. Now, talent trees are even deeper and we have dual specs. There is no conceivable way for any class to be hybrid now. If you want to switch your role, you need to switch your spec and your gear to be a viable option. Obviously, this can’t actually happen in the middle of a fight, so our role as “hybrids” has been effectively diminished.

We’ve arrived at the point where you are either a damage dealer, or a healer, or a tank for any given fight. There is no in-between, there is no hybrid. So I really don’t see a reason why any hybrid class should be inferior to any other class. All healers and all tanks are roughly on the same level, each capable of handling certain situations better, so why aren’t all damage dealers on the same baseline?

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, the true difference between DPSers these days are those who are heavily dependent on RNG for procs and those who are much less dependent on RNG. I would argue that those who are RNG-dependent should have higher top-end DPS and lower low-end DPS than those who are not as affected by RNG. In an effort to seem less biased, I’m going to take moonkins out of my comparison here by using fire mages and arcane mages as my example.

Fire mages are heavily dependent on RNG. The core of their DPS rotation is watching for Hot Streak procs and hitting their instant Pyroblast. Hot Streak is doubly dependent on RNG because it requires two rolls to proc, namely two crits in a row. Another layer of RNG is added by Ignite, which is a fairly powerful talent, giving the fire mage more damage per crit than any other class. To offset the RNG involved in their rotation, fire mages have a cooldown Combustion that increases their crit chance.

Arcane mages, on the other hand, have very little RNG in their rotation. The DPS-optimal rotation is simply spamming Arcane Blast, but that results in poor mana efficiency. They have two ways of improving their mana efficiency — using Arcane Missiles to drop the AB debuff or using Arcane Barrage to drop the AB debuff. Their one prime element of RNG dictates which of those two spells they’ll use — Arcane Missiles if Missile Barrage has procced (a chance on hit, not chance on crit, mechanic) or Arcane Barrage otherwise. Their two cooldowns directly increase the damage they cause from their normal rotation — Arcane Power increases damage directly and Icy Veins increases their haste (yes, it’s a frost talent, but how many top arcane mages don’t have it?).

If fire and arcane mages have the same top-end DPS potential, then arcane will almost always be better than fire because there is less RNG involved in that rotation. If, however, fire has higher top-end DPS potential and lower low-end DPS potential than arcane, fire mages will prevail in some fights, arcane mages will prevail in other fights, and they’ll be equal on others.