Are all specs valid?

[eotrampage]

the problem now is some talents are useless in ALL situations though

Give me an example of a talent that is absolutely useless in every possible situation. I bet even Improved Firestone has it's uses.

And many talents which are not so great for endgame PvP or PvE are useful for solo farming/leveling (Wand Specialization for instance).

Why do you think every patch had talent changes? They have never been perfect so its no shame to say this old version of WoW still could use some balancing work thats all Im saying. Not going into theorycrafting Id rather try to get some kills ingame

[willy]

You can raid as Enhancement, Shadow, Balance, Feral, etc. but you must put in a lot more work to justify your raid slot when things get competitive and be prepared to fully utilize your hybridness.
For instance, a Feral Druid who wants to DPS should build and carry a tank set as well as a healing set.

This is accurate. The most challenging aspect of vanilla raiding was having 40 coordinated individuals. People are more skilled at the game now than back in Vanilla, so even if you aren't pulling the DPS of a similarly geared rogue, if you know your class and play to it's strengths you may just be an awesome asset as an Enhance shammy.

Similar for 5 and 10mans; any spec for DPS is fine there, maybe not optimal, but vanilla built friendships and communities on the challenging aspects and non perfect balance.

I'll be playing a hybrid and will be throwing down totems, swinging my axe and the occasional heal to help the main healers.

[Magnifican]

Some of you are just asking for a different game. Is there some tooltip in WoW that tells you that any choice of talents will be good for any situation? Some talents or abilities will always be useless in certain situations. Even in TBC you had PvP specs and PvE specs, leveling specs, etc. There's no reason to make the assumption that Paladins should be able to tank or dps in the first place, just as there's no reason to assume that a Soul Link Warlock should be good at raids, or that Fire Mages should be able to dps in MC and BWL.

Such a bad comparison though. Mages got 2 other specs that works in MC and BWL and you can still fill your role. Same with warlocks, just modify your spec a little and dont go soul link or whatever, the class can still dps the hell out of it. The pure dps classes could always fill their assigned role. The difference with hybrids is that they have one spec for each role (maybe not shamans), and while it was a design intent at the time by blizzard - To make them being able to dps but doing lot less dps then pure dps classes for example, was intentional, most likely because they thought that these hybrids would run around doing all the 3 roles at once. Throwing heals while off tanking while doing some occasional dps. This was the intent I believe, but then came mix/maxing and raid progression and it didnt work out that way. They didnt realize that raiding would become this strict role dedicated set up that it became, and once people saw that the warrior is a better tank is EVERY damn way, the warriors tanked. Once people noticed that paladin dps fell too far behind, another dps class got that spot. And last but not least, people noticed that holy paladins could do everything that was "supporty" all on its own, buff and off tank and ofc heal and whatnot. This effectivly killed the rets and prots out there. As soon as guilds started min/max and progression raiding, it was in fact over. Same can be said for feral druids and oomkins. In the end, these classes were considered a one role thing and this obviously didnt fly with anybody for long and in TBC it got changed for good reasons. Bad things are bad. There is no defending it except for "But i want blizzlike nostalgia, because glory days...".

I wouldnt go so far as to say that any talent tree is completely useless in any and every given situation, but whatever they can do fairly decent, another class can do better. Which again effectivly killed some specs, they became useless when in a composition with other classes.

Sorry for some misspells, im not english

Also...

If you say, but mages can still dps by speccing frost! I'd say, yes, but they can't tank. Then you might say, why did you choose a mage in the first place if you wanted to tank? But then, the same applies to any other class. If you want to tank, choose a warrior.

Lol what? You troll now or? A mage doesnt have a dedicated tank tree, a paladin does! That is one big fking difference right there. What is this silly talk matey?

[eotrampage]

here is one thing that sucks in the original state vs the updated state:
Proffesion trainers, you're not going to tell me you like having to go to 1 specific trainer instead of being able to do your proffesion at all trainers of that proffesion?!

[sloasdaylight]

Also...

If you say, but mages can still dps by speccing frost! I'd say, yes, but they can't tank. Then you might say, why did you choose a mage in the first place if you wanted to tank? But then, the same applies to any other class. If you want to tank, choose a warrior.

Lol what? You troll now or? A mage doesnt have a dedicated tank tree, a paladin does! That is one big fking difference right there. What is this silly talk matey?

Very succinctly put.

Also, as far as a talent that is useless in every situation, I cannot think of any situation I've ever been in in my years of playing a priest where Improved Fade was useful in any way, shape, or form, until they changed the actual ability itself.

[bellerophon]

Some of you are just asking for a different game. Is there some tooltip in WoW that tells you that any choice of talents will be good for any situation? Some talents or abilities will always be useless in certain situations. Even in TBC you had PvP specs and PvE specs, leveling specs, etc. There's no reason to make the assumption that Paladins should be able to tank or dps in the first place, just as there's no reason to assume that a Soul Link Warlock should be good at raids, or that Fire Mages should be able to dps in MC and BWL.

Such a bad comparison though. Mages got 2 other specs that works in MC and BWL and you can still fill your role. Same with warlocks, just modify your spec a little and dont go soul link or whatever, the class can still dps the hell out of it. The pure dps classes could always fill their assigned role. The difference with hybrids is that they have one spec for each role (maybe not shamans), and while it was a design intent at the time by blizzard - To make them being able to dps but doing lot less dps then pure dps classes for example, was intentional, most likely because they thought that these hybrids would run around doing all the 3 roles at once. Throwing heals while off tanking while doing some occasional dps. This was the intent I believe, but then came mix/maxing and raid progression and it didnt work out that way. They didnt realize that raiding would become this strict role dedicated set up that it became, and once people saw that the warrior is a better tank is EVERY damn way, the warriors tanked. Once people noticed that paladin dps fell too far behind, another dps class got that spot. And last but not least, people noticed that holy paladins could do everything that was "supporty" all on its own, buff and off tank and ofc heal and whatnot. This effectivly killed the rets and prots out there. As soon as guilds started min/max and progression raiding, it was in fact over. Same can be said for feral druids and oomkins. In the end, these classes were considered a one role thing and this obviously didnt fly with anybody for long and in TBC it got changed for good reasons. Bad things are bad. There is no defending it except for "But i want blizzlike nostalgia, because glory days...".

I wouldnt go so far as to say that any talent tree is completely useless in any and every given situation, but whatever they can do fairly decent, another class can do better. Which again effectivly killed some specs, they became useless when in a composition with other classes.

Sorry for some misspells, im not english

Also...

If you say, but mages can still dps by speccing frost! I'd say, yes, but they can't tank. Then you might say, why did you choose a mage in the first place if you wanted to tank? But then, the same applies to any other class. If you want to tank, choose a warrior.

Lol what? You troll now or? A mage doesnt have a dedicated tank tree, a paladin does! That is one big fking difference right there. What is this silly talk matey?

Even if we assume that Blizzard's intent was as you said, changing the talents to TBC state will not actually address the issue, because even as a TBC druid or paladin you're just choosing to be a tank, dps, or a healer, not be a true "hybrid." The only way to make that happen seems to be to get rid of talents altogether, so that a druid will simply be a druid, etc.

In the end, even in TBC, you're still a tank or a dps or a healer. In Vanilla there are effectively 1 tank, 4 dpses, and 4 healers; in TBC you have 3 tanks, 4+ dpses, and 4 healers. Is it cool that you get more variety? Yes, I agree. But it's not like there is a fundamental difference.

If a prot can't tank, then I'm not sure how you can conclude that it's a dedicated tanking tree in the first place. Maybe it's a leveling tree.


I'd agree that it's probably extremely rare to encounter a situation in which Improved Fade was useful, but this talent persisted into TBC...