Tax Reform
October 29, 2009 :: Posted by - Plectical :: Category - Other
A recent post by Ghostcrawler on the forums caught my interest. It discussed the difference between “Pure” classes and “Hybrid” classes. GC stated that it is the policy of Blizzard to enforce a “Hybrid Tax” on players that play hybrid classes. This tax means that if you had a Shaman and a Rogue going head to head on DPS, all thing being equal, the Rogue would beat out the Shaman. Hybrid classes receive this tax because of the different roles that they could potentially play (dps, heals or tank) while pure classes can only play one roll (dps).
My first reaction to this post was that GC was taking a very topical look at the contribution that hybrid classes make to instance and raid groups. If you’re looking at the DPS contribution of a Shaman to a raid, shouldn’t the raid wide increased damage of totems and heroism also be added to their DPS? Further, wouldn’t that actually make Shamans much more powerful than other DPS classes, thereby making undermining the entire notion of the tax?
Also, why is the Hybrid tax only applied to DPS? There seems to be no indication in the post that the hybrid tax applies to healing or tanking roles. The implication here is that Blizzard considers it okay to lower the DPS of hybrid classes but not their ability to effectively tank or heal (read tanks and healers are more important to the raid than DPS).
This may seem to be one of those DUH conclusions but it carries huge implications. If Blizzard favors healers and tanks over DPS (favoritism in this case means not applying the tax to these roles), than what is to stop players from simply moving into these roles in droves (obviously there are significant gameplay differences between tanking, healing and DPSing but whether or not one is more difficult than another is an entirely subjective opinion)?
Overall, GC’s post left me with more questions than answers. Revealing such a keen insight on Blizzard’s perception of class balance and then giving such a cursory explanation of it leaves me wishing for a Hybrid Tax Reform (or at least a clarification).
