It's like you got one guy shoveling rocks, and you got the other guy shoveling rocks and chopping wood and you say "well the guy only shoveling rocks shoveled more rocks so he's more helpful". You're using the wrong metric.
Okay, correct comparison:
Generalists: You have two people. Both shovel rocks and chop wood. Each one produces 1 unit rocks and 1 unit wood per day, so at the end of the day you have 2 units rocks and 2 units wood.
Specialists: You have two people. One shovels rocks, one chops wood. Each one produces 3 units of its resource type, so at the end of the day you have 3 units rocks and 3 units wood.
So, which is better? That depends on what you actually need. If you actually need 3 units rocks and 3 units wood, you're better off with the specialists. On the other hand, if you only need 1 unit rocks and 4 units wood, you want one generalist and one specialist. Cosmic fights usually need enough of whatever they need that you want specialists (note: it would be possible to adjust the way hybrids work so this is not true. For example, if auras on others scaled with superstats instead of presence and functioned the same regardless of role, hybrid aura dps would be quite viable. It's nice to have most or all aura types, but that's more healers than you typically actually need).
It's quite challenging to think of a build that would allow a Hybrid to be as helpful as its dual passive equivalent which can take advantage of the role bonuses. Maybe an Offtank/Healer in TA + Qzone OMs? Even then it'd likely be better to swap to support role as soon as the Healer is able to.
I honestly think I could swap Composure out for Regen or possibly even LR and look into Threat advantages or snagging the Defender Gloves for that Off-tank position when it's demanded. His damage isn't all that impressive and it wouldn't affect the core Healer potential Turando has already.
Now that I think about it, that's probably what I should do anyway. Would give a much more defined role than just the "**** it, I'll do whatever" position I push him in.
In any case, I think we've gone slightly off-topic from the OP.
and now you've gone from "good enough to get the job done" to "optimal efficiency"....
As for "only doing one thing at a time"... on Tsin'xing I spam Poz in cosmic fights. Anyone standing near me gets healed. It's a small heal and something I mainly do to trigger MSA. For keeping tanks alive while Teliosaurus is chewing on them, it's utterly worthless. But for keeping ranged DPS from getting worn down by incessant bubble spam it's actually useful. Sure, you could have a dedicated healer do it, but you don't NEED a dedicated healer to fix it when people lose 10% of their HP every few seconds. Also Tsin'xing has AoPM.
Lautna is an eclectic mix of ranged damage(mostly Burst Shot, but she can do enough damage just by spamming Burst Shot to qualify for rewards in a quick run of Kiga), melee damage(her best DPS involves spamming BB, but she also has EotS), with a defensive passive(Lightning Reflexes), and the ability to rez other players with Resurrection Serum. I've heard CCers at Qwyjibo like it when there are people who can rez them any time they eat a fireball at random. I've also done runs of Cybermind where I had to rez every other player at least twice. And Lautna's my favorite character to use in Gravitar because there is always someone who needs to be rezzed, usually more than once. But Lautna is a lot harder to kill than a dedicated healer.
You should never use hybrid auras. In many cases they're worse than nothing (seriously... if there's a support aura present, you should unslot your passive), because the sum of a hybrid aura and a support aura is weaker than the support aura by itself (this should not be true, it's bad code on Cryptic's part, but it is true).
And Lautna's my favorite character to use in Gravitar because there is always someone who needs to be rezzed, usually more than once. But Lautna is a lot harder to kill than a dedicated healer.
Gravitar is an example of 'specialist not needed'; I actually switch my tank into hybrid role for Gravitar because it gives better self-healing and damage and I have adequate threat for most dps even in hybrid role. That said, a lot of healers are fairly tanky and/or have self-res abilities.
A hybrid is less competent at one role than a specialist, yes. But that completely misses the point of a hybrid. You're judging them on the performance metric of one role, when they're not one role and the point of the hybrid was never to fulfill only one role.
I'm using the metric that people use when they say "X is up we need Role Name".
It's like you got one guy shoveling rocks, and you got the other guy shoveling rocks and chopping wood and you say "well the guy only shoveling rocks shoveled more rocks so he's more helpful". You're using the wrong metric.
When people said "we need help shoveling rocks" I would totally say that the guy who shoveled more rocks was more helpful. Would you say that he was not more helpful?
Also the parts you highlighted in green don't really disagree with what I said. Saying "people don't have to be helpful all the time" doesn't really say "hybrids are helpful"... it pretty much says the opposite, "when someone is playing a hybrid they are not being helpful".
It doesn't say that Hybrids are helpful and it doesn't say that they're not helpful. It says exactly what it says.
Here is another quote that says exactly what it says:
I don't know what you thought that context would say, but it says pretty clearly that you don't find hybrid builds to be helpful and you'd prefer it if they changed to a dual passive
When rocks need shoveling, rock shoveling specialists who shovel more rocks and are more helpful than people who chop wood and shovel rocks. That has nothing to do with what I prefer. It's just true.
The guy who chopped wood also shoveled some rocks and was helpful. I have not said anywhere that they shoveled 0 rocks. And in several places explicitly addressed this point.
The "my character does one thing, and everything they have is all about that" characters are neat, but versatile characters can be pretty great too.
As long as lame things like dps checks exist, a specialized damage dealer is always going to be preferred to a hybrid who does damage + something else. If the devs were to get rid of dps checks (and they should) all those "I do damage, and generate some offhealing too!" hybrids might find themselves a lot more useful to the group. The "I deal damage and am tanky" hybrids would also be useful because they'd be less inclined to die due to mistakes or a lack of overall healing. Those types would never be a substitute for a proper tank, though.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
As long as lame things like dps checks exist, a specialized damage dealer is always going to be preferred to a hybrid who does damage + something else. If the devs were to get rid of dps checks (and they should) all those "I do damage, and generate some offhealing too!" hybrids might find themselves a lot more useful to the group. The "I deal damage and am tanky" hybrids would also be useful because they'd be less inclined to die due to mistakes or a lack of overall healing. Those types would never be a substitute for a proper tank, though.
Even if dps checks don't exist, beating the boss faster would be preferred, and in practice 'some offhealing' translates as 'a pitiful trickle of healing', a Pre-stacked Compassion healer heals about 5x as much with any given heal than a hybrid. Tanky dps has a different problem: if you increase incidental damage to levels where tanky dps is actually important, the result is an encounter that's unplayable for squishies. We already have an example of that with Gravitar, if you can't absorb one of her force cascades to the face that fight is hellish and people will complain, and increasing damage to the point where a defensive passive is actually a good investment would make it completely unplayable for squishies, including a bunch of ATs who have no option to retcon for greater survivability.
When rocks need shoveling, rock shoveling specialists who shovel more rocks and are more helpful than people who chop wood and shovel rocks. That has nothing to do with what I prefer. It's just true.
I think a better way to look at it is "We need to shovel 100 rocks." Obviously the faster the rocks get shoveled the better. The real question is: "How fast is fast enough?" I didn't pick this because it's my best, it's actually not. It's simply the most recent one. That fight kinda sucked. But not because of low DPS. Sure, there's people on the scoreboard with 3x my score. What of it? Most of the people in the fight scored even LOWER.
Even if dps checks don't exist, beating the boss faster would be preferred, and in practice 'some offhealing' translates as 'a pitiful trickle of healing', a Pre-stacked Compassion healer heals about 5x as much with any given heal than a hybrid. Tanky dps has a different problem: if you increase incidental damage to levels where tanky dps is actually important, the result is an encounter that's unplayable for squishies. We already have an example of that with Gravitar, if you can't absorb one of her force cascades to the face that fight is hellish and people will complain, and increasing damage to the point where a defensive passive is actually a good investment would make it completely unplayable for squishies, including a bunch of ATs who have no option to retcon for greater survivability.
It's not a question of IF Gravitar will hit you in the face with a Force Cascade, but WHEN. But if I'm on Lautna I will rez you so you can get hit in the face again. I have seen people hit respawn because they were tired of getting rezzed. Why do I do it? I have seen what happens when attrition takes over. Once you're down to less than 5, surviving becomes a lot harder.
Honestly... playing a glass cannon and expecting to NOT have survivability challenges seems dumb to me. Gravitar is hard for squishies because you can't just tank her. Tanks are useful to cut down on the damage dealt to the DPS. But they can't actually stop her from damaging them. IMO that's a good thing because it means the DPS needs to actually pay attention to the fight instead of just standing back and attack cycling.
When people said "we need help shoveling rocks" I would totally say that the guy who shoveled more rocks was more helpful. Would you say that he was not more helpful?
The thing is no job is ever just shoveling rocks. It's always shoveling rocks, chopping wood, and whatever third arbitrary task we want to include for the metaphor. The only tasks in this game that could be considered "just shoveling rocks" are, oddly enough, the kind you don't need a rock shoveling specialist for either.
Yes I do. It's not the game that works this way, it's player's thinking that works this way. We justify our entire specialist meta based on one mechanic in two encounters. That's what it always comes down to, "they can't do the dps check" and by extension are never as useful as a specialist in any capacity and so the preferred method is specialists in every role. Yes, you highlighted that you said that they can be useful... but then you also highlighted a statement saying that a specialist is always better. I'd like that to be "a hybrid can be equally as useful as a specialist", because that's what matters, but that won't happen until people actually accept it as a possibility. "You're useful, but someone else is always better" isn't something people would be satisfied with being told, and currently an entire spectrum of potential builds is being told that. Why are we settling for this narrow definition of best builds?
As long as lame things like dps checks exist, a specialized damage dealer is always going to be preferred to a hybrid who does damage + something else. If the devs were to get rid of dps checks (and they should) all those "I do damage, and generate some offhealing too!" hybrids might find themselves a lot more useful to the group. The "I deal damage and am tanky" hybrids would also be useful because they'd be less inclined to die due to mistakes or a lack of overall healing. Those types would never be a substitute for a proper tank, though.
I've actually been having a lot of fun and getting some pretty great scores on my healer/dps hybrid. I certainly don't feel useless on her. I don't think those mechanics are as restrictive as you believe.
I'd like to clarify that what I'm talking about does not imply slower boss clears. In fact, the end result could very well be even faster boss clears.
The way you get a fast boss clear is by maximizing true dps -- i.e. dps adjusted for the amount of time and resources you spend staying alive or recovering from death. This is characteristically a curve with a peak at some combination of attack and defense, and then lower on either side of that peak.
It's probably possible to construct a fight where that peak is in the design space of hybrids, but for the current cosmics it isn't. The peak probably also isn't in the total glass cannon range (you lose too much time respawning, particularly at Qwyjibo), but it's closer to that than to a hybrid.
This is in large part because many of the attacks that can hit dps are set up so toughness doesn't do you any good. Kigatilik's aura ignores defenses, as do tomb explosions. The DoT on Teleiosaurus's spine burst is a percent of hp attack that ignores defenses, and both her hold and knock are powers you want to block even if their damage is not a threat. Geysers at Eidolon ignore defenses, though hit points help. Red phase includes a percentage of HP DoT. Defenses are reasonably useful against Qwyjibo's lava and fireballs, making that probably the most hybrid-friendly fight, though I think his lava still partially penetrates defenses. All the event cosmics have percentage of hp attacks that ignore defenses.
< Need to watch out for there being a support aura of the same type present in teamup. If so then a Hybrid role aura hurts the bonus to the group.
Even with Presence PSS? That bug kicks in even if the bonus *should* be the same?
That's super annoying, for a game bug to mess up a potentially useful build.
If you are in Hybrid role then bonuses are not the same as Support role bonuses on Auras. Even if you have the same amount of PRE. Hybrid bonuses buff mostly you. Support role bonuses buff mostly the team.
Even with Presence PSS? That bug kicks in even if the bonus *should* be the same?
The bonus isn't the same; if you look at the power description, the bonus to others is dramatically lower in hybrid role, even with no change in presence (and the bonus to self is higher in hybrid role).
The real problem is the way aura stacking was limited; whatever formula they're using produces different results depending on the order in which the auras are applied.
The thing is no job is ever just shoveling rocks. It's always shoveling rocks, chopping wood, and whatever third arbitrary task we want to include for the metaphor. The only tasks in this game that could be considered "just shoveling rocks" are, oddly enough, the kind you don't need a rock shoveling specialist for either.
What encounters are missing and the requests that go out are pretty specific. No one says that we need some healing and some damage, because they actually don't. People request healing or DPS when they need a lot of it. They need someone to pretty much just shovel rocks.
Let's talk in terms of actual builds and what happens in the game.
If the "job" that needs doing is healing....that's what is requested and that's what a healer does - they show up and heal 5-10X the amount of a Hybrid player.
If the job is to deal damage, DPS role players tend to deal 2-10X that of Hybrid role players.
If the job is to main tank, Tank Role players tend to hold aggro much better than Hybrid ones.
I think the difference in our opinion comes down to how we're defining what needs to be done to maximize chances of success for an encounter. And whether that's mostly shoveling rocks or it's doing a bunch of other things in addition with one character. To that end I'll quote Panta again since he's putting this in clearer terms than I am.
Generalists: You have two people. Both shovel rocks and chop wood. Each one produces 1 unit rocks and 1 unit wood per day, so at the end of the day you have 2 units rocks and 2 units wood. Specialists: You have two people. One shovels rocks, one chops wood. Each one produces 3 units of its resource type, so at the end of the day you have 3 units rocks and 3 units wood.
So, which is better? That depends on what you actually need. If you actually need 3 units rocks and 3 units wood, you're better off with the specialists. On the other hand, if you only need 1 unit rocks and 4 units wood, you want one generalist and one specialist. Cosmic fights usually need enough of whatever they need that you want specialists (note: it would be possible to adjust the way hybrids work so this is not true. For example, if auras on others scaled with superstats instead of presence and functioned the same regardless of role, hybrid aura dps would be quite viable. It's nice to have most or all aura types, but that's more healers than you typically actually need).
Yes I do. It's not the game that works this way, it's player's thinking that works this way.
I can't speak for other players, but I base my thinking on evidence of how the game works. I have not seen any endgame encounter need a generalist. Such content is totally possible and I'd be glad to play it as a Hybrid, but like Panta pointed out, it doesn't exist and it would lead to complaints of a different sort.
I'd like that to be "a hybrid can be equally as useful as a specialist", because that's what matters, but that won't happen until people actually accept it as a possibility.
I'd like that too. Currently it's a very small possibility. I don't see it happening for the vast majority of the time and cannot think of an encounter where it's necessary to be in Hybrid role. Conversely I see plenty of encounters where we need someone in Tank role, DPS role, or Support role.
"You're useful, but someone else is always better" isn't something people would be satisfied with being told
It's not that dramatic. The player is different from the character. "your Hybrid character is useful, but your DPS would be better right now" or "that same character would be more useful in DPS role right now".
It'd be vastly less frequent to accurately say, "your DPS is useful, but your Hybrid character would be better right now".
Better yet, it'd be great if no one told them anything since they can look at the evidence, look at what's needed, and make up their own mind about how useful they are. And if they are not satisfied then they can change things. They're not babies and I'm not their babysitter.
No it's not. They're already doing plenty to promote hybrid-style play
I see examples of specialists being needed on a daily basis. I don't see Hybrids being needed on a daily basis or even a monthly basis. If by "hybrid-style play" you mean that they are doing plenty to promote the need for people to use Hybrid role, I completely disagree. If it's more about being able to quickly switch from shoveling tons of rocks to chopping tons of wood with one character...yeah agreed, dual passives are totally a trend.
If the job is to main tank, Tank Role players tend to hold aggro much better than Hybrid ones.
I've done enough tanking that I can say with no uncertainty that tanking Cosmics is impossible except with very tough builds. Even then you need a healer constantly healing you. Other stuff? Tanya can tank Bleak Harbinger all day long with or without healing. Well, she's a regen tank so... yeah... I once did 2/3rds of the Cybermind boss fight by myself since the team got wiped in the probes stage. that was long and boring... But I digress... As a Regen Tank Tanya's not tough enough to Main Tank Dino with or without a healer. Even as soak tank I sometimes get killed through block. So there's a lot more reason to not try tanking on hybrids than the threat generation.
Better yet, it'd be great if no one told them anything since they can look at the evidence, look at what's needed, and make up their own mind about how useful they are. And if they are not satisfied then they can change things. They're not babies and I'm not their babysitter.
Except when you feel the need to say stuff like this:
I see examples of specialists being needed on a daily basis. I don't see Hybrids being needed on a daily basis or even a monthly basis.
"Needed" as in "The fight will fail otherwise"? Um yeah... ok, sure, but that's a terrible metric to use when 90% of the fight is pounding the boss to death.
Kiga: you need a main Tank(not an easy role to fill), CCer(also not easy), at least one guy to heal the main tank, and the rest doesn't really matter as long as people don't die.
So for Kiga there are three slots out of up to 50 that have a specific requirement that's needed to fill them. The other 47 can be filled by pretty much anything. The same is true of Qwyjibo, as long as the tank doesn't die and people aren't hitting hearts it's simply a matter of time to completion. Why is there any reason to try to tell people they need specialized max DPS builds at all? Yes I know you said something about how you want to pound the boss to death as fast as possible, but wouldn't a more realistic approach involve defining what is useful? Obviously maxDPS is most useful, but you're gonna be hard pressed to actually put teams together if that's all you're looking for. Go ahead and try to tell me I wasn't useful. Don't waste my time with crap like "You could have scored higher if..."
The problem with this discussion is that there are really two different conversations happening. One about what is "best" and one about what is "adequate".
No one has said that. And in multiple places I have said the exact opposite...that "you", if by that we mean a hybrid role dps, were useful. So who are you talking to?
The problem with this discussion is that there are really two different conversations happening. One about what is "best" and one about what is "adequate".
No, there is one conversation happening about "better". You're the one who is making be about absolutes - either best or nothing. Obviously neither position is realistic and nobody holds either viewpoint.
"Needed" as in "The fight will fail otherwise"? Um yeah... ok, sure, but that's a terrible metric to use when 90% of the fight is pounding the boss to death.
Ok so when people ask for specific roles for a given fight, tell them that their request is terrible.
Even if dps checks don't exist, beating the boss faster would be preferred,
Oh I agree, however without dps checks, I'm pretty certain that being hybrid wouldn't be as detrimental to the group. A theoretical group of all hybrid dps would obviously take longer to kill a boss than a group of dedicated dps, but without a dps check, this just means a longer fight compared to the hard stop a dps check would impose on the hybrid group.
and in practice 'some offhealing' translates as 'a pitiful trickle of healing', a Pre-stacked Compassion healer heals about 5x as much with any given heal than a hybrid.
Yeah, just like with tanks, a hybrid with offhealing is no substitute for a dedicated one. Still, a few hybrids using, say, lifedrain or some other group-healing ability could help ease the burden a bit for dedicated healers.
Tanky dps has a different problem: if you increase incidental damage to levels where tanky dps is actually important, the result is an encounter that's unplayable for squishies.
That's why the devs probably shouldn't do that. If a person chooses to give up some dps for extra survivability to allow for more mistake wiggle room, that should be a valid playstyle choice. When you begin to balance encounters around these tankier characters, you risk altering the meta in a way that points glass cannons toward the bench, powerhouse, and/or auction house for a new set of mods.
I've actually been having a lot of fun and getting some pretty great scores on my healer/dps hybrid. I certainly don't feel useless on her. I don't think those mechanics are as restrictive as you believe.
Oh my hybrids (dps with some passive offhealing) are a blast to play and score quite well also, but scoring high isn't the same as making the most useful contribution possible.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
That's why the devs probably shouldn't do that. If a person chooses to give up some dps for extra survivability to allow for more mistake wiggle room, that should be a valid playstyle choice. When you begin to balance encounters around these tankier characters, you risk altering the meta in a way that points glass cannons toward the bench, powerhouse, and/or auction house for a new set of mods.
Instead of making a Hybrid DPS, I have made DPS that use an offense passive, and a DPS role, but have a Con SS, or Con mods, or defense mods/gear that adds HPs. My main is like this: has around 3500 DPS, but good defense (350) and health (8000) to cover an occasional mistake. Hybrid role isn't needed for that.
"[...] but scoring high isn't the same as making the most useful contribution possible."
For dps, isn't scoring high the same thing as making a useful contribution? Same for healing (when it's actually scored)?
How useful a hybrid character is depends on the content, build, and gear. A hybrid character (hybrid mode / tank passive / dps every other way) can be created that can pump out high dps. A pre focused toon with a dps passive and role can also be a decent healer with decent damage. There is little content that *needs* highly specialized roles.
Maybe the "problem" with hybrid characters is that people don't know how to make solid toons or don't have good gear for their toons. Or most people don't care about "bestist practices" when making their dream hero, leaving the real disconnect between player types and content being developed for one of those types.
For dps, isn't scoring high the same thing as making a useful contribution? Same for healing (when it's actually scored)?
Most fights have ways you can get score for things that aren't actually all that useful, and have things that are useful that aren't scored (it's worst for tanks, though; tanking score is based on taking damage, so the better you are at mitigating damage the lower your tanking score is). Still, most of the time score is a decent measure of making a useful contribution.
Maybe the "problem" with hybrid characters is that people don't know how to make solid toons or don't have good gear for their toons. Or most people don't care about "bestist practices" when making their dream hero, leaving the real disconnect between player types and content being developed for one of those types.
The problem with hybrid characters is that, whatever task the hybrid is doing, a specialist or dual-passive setup can probably do it better, and if you have multiple hybrids, multiple specialists can almost certainly do the same thing better.
The problem with hybrid characters is that, whatever task the hybrid is doing, a specialist or dual-passive setup can probably do it better, and if you have multiple hybrids, multiple specialists can almost certainly do the same thing better.
This is such a broad blanket assertation that I don't see any way to prove or disprove it. While it 's possible to make examples where it's true, I think you could also make examples where it isn't. Properly proving it hinges on how you define "better" and also the ratio of possibilities where it is better or worse.
Need to watch out for there being a support aura of the same type present in teamup. If so then a Hybrid role aura hurts the bonus to the group.
Something about this bugged me earlier, and I just couldn't remember what it was, then I remembered.
Stacking auras is a bit of a waste in the first place. I may be misunderstanding how they work, but AFAIK, random dudes standing near you don't get your aura. They need to actually be teamed with you whether it's an auto team or manually created team. So it's usually best to take a few moments of pre-fight prep to arrange things so you don't have dupes.
This is such a broad blanket assertation that I don't see any way to prove or disprove it. While it 's possible to make examples where it's true, I think you could also make examples where it isn't.
Properly proving it hinges on how you define "better"
Define what you want to accomplish. Demonstrate that this is actually useful to accomplish, and that a hybrid will do it better than a specialist. Note that I was really only talking about team content, hybrids are often a fine choice for solo content.
Stacking auras is a bit of a waste in the first place. I may be misunderstanding how they work, but AFAIK, random dudes standing near you don't get your aura. They need to actually be teamed with you whether it's an auto team or manually created team. So it's usually best to take a few moments of pre-fight prep to arrange things so you don't have dupes.
You're misunderstanding how they work. The way they work is pretty simple: it hits the nearest 20 targets that match one or more of the following rules and are not using your aura type as a passive:
They are a teammate.
They are a pet owned by you or a teammate.
They are in a teamup (note that it does not matter whether you are in the teamup).
Most fights have ways you can get score for things that aren't actually all that useful, and have things that are useful that aren't scored (it's worst for tanks, though; tanking score is based on taking damage, so the better you are at mitigating damage the lower your tanking score is). Still, most of the time score is a decent measure of making a useful contribution.
[...]
How did I get quoted for something someone else said? This forum software never ceases to amaze me.
Anyway, I might as well add to this by mentioning CC, which unless something has changed, I don't think gets credited in any way despite being utterly vital in certain situations.
Maybe the "problem" with hybrid characters is that people don't know how to make solid toons or don't have good gear for their toons. Or most people don't care about "bestist practices" when making their dream hero, leaving the real disconnect between player types and content being developed for one of those types.
I entertained that for awhile, but the hybrid tax (how much less effective the role is compared to specialized roles) is just too much to make them anything more than jacks of many trades, but masters of absolutely nothing. If they got rid of role bonuses entirely and instead, let the passives decide the role, maybe then the gaps between roles would narrow a bit. Unfortunately, the direction this game is being taken in heavily encourages specialization over being an all-rounder, and until that design direction changes, hybrids will underperform even if built with all the best powers and practices.
(Hopefully) Useful CO Resources: HeroCreator (character planner), Cosmic Timers/Alert Checklist, Blood Moon Map, Anniversary Cat Map, and more (eventually, anyway).
Anyway, I might as well add to this by mentioning CC, which unless something has changed, I don't think gets credited in any way despite being utterly vital in certain situations.
That was fixed a while back. And yes, this forum software dies horribly on nested quotes.
Time for my 2 cents: I'm a veteran player going on 9 years next month. I have an LTS. But there was a time I was a silver player before I bought the LTS. That said, I have always played my main characters in hybrid role.
But since this thread is about Hybrid ATs specifically I'll mention one that usually gets trashed on: The Impulse.
It seems players hate it but when I was silver I made the small investment to unlock this AT and couldn't have been happier.
I'm one of those players who likes doing the mission chains on every character I create, and as far as survivability goes An Impulse AT with the PFF (yeah I know) passive can solo 99% of the content without even being injured seriously.
That's where it counts, so what if I can't kill mission bosses in 1 hit, when that same boss is only doing 1 or 2 damage to me per attack, if it takes me a couple minutes to kill him it does.
The only non-endgame mob in the game that gives that AT any trouble is the Viper Brickbuster because of their ability "bypass" defensive passives.
I main Freeform character is a modified version of the Impulse AT with the extra power slots filled in with The Gravitic Ripple and Gravity Driver Powers. Those powers turn him into a great mob off tank, sure I don't get aggro in fact I try to avoid it but What I do get is every non-boss mob killed or CC'd while the real tank in the group (if I'm grouping) deals with the boss and debuffing the boss' defense so the DPS can do their "job" better.
With either The Impulse AT or my modified freeform build though it's great doing the mission chains and being "mobbed" by groups of mobs and watch them do literally no damage even though I'm outnumbered 10 or 20 to 1.
In fact there is one particular mision in the desert that requires to to let yourself get "killed" so viper can capture you. On both the Impulse and my freeform I have to turn of both the PFF and IDF to even let them do enough damage including Sidewinder. to "kill" me, while either of those 2 powers or both of them are on even using just the energy builder I kill every mob in that area before they can do significant damage.
This wasn't to brag bu to demonstrate what hybrids are meant for... pure survivability through most of the content, not a boss tank, not and end game DPS. But a casual, I'm doing all the missions I can without the need for a healer or healing devices gaming experience.
I'm one of those players who likes doing the mission chains on every character I create, and as far as survivability goes An Impulse AT with the PFF (yeah I know) passive can solo 99% of the content without even being injured seriously. *Snip*
This wasn't to brag but to demonstrate what hybrids are meant for... pure survivability through most of the content, not a boss tank, not and end game DPS. But a casual, I'm doing all the missions I can without the need for a healer or healing devices gaming experience.
I'm not really surprised. As defensive passives are typically considered the best choice if running Hybrid. Slotting an offensive or support passive in hybrid role are where things go wrong IMHO. Which sucks for AT's because they can't change roles. Not that you can't make up for that in some ways with gearing and creative talent & spec tree choices. But it's much more challenging. That being said... I'm tempted to try an Impulse now. I've been previously scared away by all the nay-sayers!!!
I see examples of specialists being needed on a daily basis. I don't see Hybrids being needed on a daily basis or even a monthly basis. If by "hybrid-style play" you mean that they are doing plenty to promote the need for people to use Hybrid role, I completely disagree.
None of that is what I meant. I think you're not really reading what I'm typing because you're still not talking in the same terms I am. You keep talking about "hybrids being needed" when that's not what I'm talking about at all. I get the impression you don't even want to consider any of what I'm saying and that's why the conversation hasn't managed to move forward one bit. You're still saying the same things over and over, even though I keep trying to tell you that that's not even what I'm talking about.
Consider this. Why are we one second joking about how easily we stomped the hardest content in the game in 4 minutes, and the next we're taking a hard line stance on absolutely needing a specific setup and nothing else will work. There's a disconnect there. Content being laughably easy should normally lead to restrictions being loosened, not tightened.
Oh my hybrids (dps with some passive offhealing) are a blast to play and score quite well also, but scoring high isn't the same as making the most useful contribution possible.
Eh, when I score top of the list sometimes and top 5 often I'm comfortable in saying I was useful. If you have some other metric I should judge by I'll consider it. However my contribution is scored, I'm providing some combination of damage and healing that the game seems to consider worthwhile.
Better yet, it'd be great if no one told them anything since they can look at the evidence, look at what's needed, and make up their own mind about how useful they are. And if they are not satisfied then they can change things. They're not babies and I'm not their babysitter.
Sure, but you are an influential member of the community and when you say something over and over and reinforce it you are going to tend to put trends into motion. "The best player in the game says specialists are always better" will have a tendency to lead people into thinking that mixed-role characters are noob stuff, especially when that player has an entourage of fellow top players repeating and enforcing the message. Just look, you've even got Aesica supporting specialization more and more over the course of this thread.
The problem with hybrid characters is that, whatever task the hybrid is doing, a specialist or dual-passive setup can probably do it better, and if you have multiple hybrids, multiple specialists can almost certainly do the same thing better.
This is only true if you limit your set of tasks to a very narrow scope. If you want to do that, that's fine. It's just a shame that people would do that, in a game where they don't have to. It's also a shame that the top players are reinforcing that, when they would have to do that even less than anyone else. Somewhere along the line, people traded "customized" for "optimal". Again, if they want to do that it's fine, it's just a shame that people do that in a game where customized was such a big deal for so long. It wasn't the game that brought us to this point, it was the players - in order to beat content we settled into one way to do things and now we're refusing to budge for fear that we might not continue to stomp everything into the ground.
No one has taken a "hard line stance on absolutely needing a specific setup and nothing else will work". I do not believe that. I think in almost every one of my posts I've said that Hybrid role characters can and do work, just not as well as specialized ones.
Consider this. Why are we one second joking about how easily we stomped the hardest content in the game in 4 minutes, and the next we're taking a hard line stance on absolutely needing a specific setup and nothing else will work. There's a disconnect there.
None of that is what I meant. I think you're not really reading what I'm typing because you're still not talking in the same terms I am......I get the impression you don't even want to consider any of what I'm saying and that's why the conversation hasn't managed to move forward one bit. You're still saying the same things over and over, even though I keep trying to tell you that that's not even what I'm talking about.
I am describing how the game works based on evidence I've observed. If you're talking about how the game *should* work or about how you *want* it to work that's fine. But it's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how it works today. And if you are also talking about how the game works today based on evidence you've observed then it'd be great to hear about the evidence.
Let's take a specific fight. How about Dino? If you add up tanking damage + healing + dealing damage...then is who is doing the vast vast majority of that total...all of the Hybrid role players or all the specialist role players? What about Ape? Kiga? Is the argument here seriously that nobody does mostly Hybrid role Eido runs just because of perception and not because of how the game works?
I am having a difficult time seeing things from your perspective because I am not finding any evidence for it. I am dropping out of this discussion until there are specific recurring circumstances to talk about in which Hybrid role characters are more useful than those in specialist roles.
I think in almost every one of my posts I've said that Hybrid role characters can and do work, just not as well as specialized ones.
Yes, you have repeatedly said that hybrid characters can work. And then always followed it up by saying that they're always inferior to specialized characters. That second part is the problem. Btw, I'm not talking about the Hybrid Role, I'm talking about hybrid type characters, they don't necessarily need to be in Hybrid Role to qualify.
Of course the specialized characters are doing the most right now, because you and the other top players all play specialized characters. It'd be nice if the top players were more willing to make really good hybrid style characters, to show everyone that truth behind "hybrids can work", rather than always playing specialists and only reinforcing "but specialists are always better". You don't have to obviously, I'm just saying it'd be nice if the elite players tried to expand what "good build" means in this game, because currently the player meta is really narrowing it. Hell, I see guides where people are basically being told to build their characters like we did in the past with just a slight modification. Doesn't seem like it really uses this freeform system we have to do very much. When I see everyone lining up with basically the same build I start thinking of when people say "we might as well be archetypes" and I wonder if maybe they're right... not because of what the devs are doing, but what the players are doing.
I am describing how the game works based on evidence I've observed.
And I'm saying that maybe it's time to actually figure out if that is how the game works, or if maybe people just settled into something familiar as the easiest solution and then never looked beyond.
Btw, I'm not talking about the Hybrid Role, I'm talking about hybrid type characters, they don't necessarily need to be in Hybrid Role to qualify.
In that case you're completely talking past the point of the thread. Yes, my dual-passive CC/offtank gets real benefits out of that, but I never actually use hybrid role...
And I'm saying that maybe it's time to actually figure out if that is how the game works, or if maybe people just settled into something familiar as the easiest solution and then never looked beyond.
If you think that there's undiscovered benefits to hybrids -- discover them and tell us about them. Don't just assert they must exist.
Btw, I'm not talking about the Hybrid Role, I'm talking about hybrid type characters, they don't necessarily need to be in Hybrid Role to qualify.
Ok well I am specifically talking about Hybrid role. I don't know how "hybrid style characters" is being defined so I can't express an opinion on their usefulness.
It'd be nice if the top players were more willing to make really good hybrid style characters
If by hybrid style characters you mean ones with dual passives then that's already being done and even recommended by me and others both in the links in my sig and in-game. Those are still characters that use specialist roles.
I think that the Hybrid style characters mean Melee and Ranged, Ranged and Heals, Melee and Heals, Melee and CC, Ranged and CC, anything that does two or more roles on the same character.
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I think that the Hybrid style characters mean Melee and Ranged, Ranged and Heals, Melee and Heals, Melee and CC, Ranged and CC, anything that does two or more roles on the same character.
Yes, two roles at the same time without having to switch builds or take two passives. It's a very fun and effective style of build and I think it should be explored more, rather than being relegated to "inferior" status. I know I've been having a lot of fun exploring it, so even if nobody else bothers I'm having my fun with it. Then again I've always been more brave in this department than most
I think that the Hybrid style characters mean Melee and Ranged, Ranged and Heals, Melee and Heals, Melee and CC, Ranged and CC, anything that does two or more roles on the same character.
Yes, two roles at the same time without having to switch builds or take two passives. It's a very fun and effective style of build and I think it should be explored more, rather than being relegated to "inferior" status. I know I've been having a lot of fun exploring it, so even if nobody else bothers I'm having my fun with it. Then again I've always been more brave in this department than most
Some combinations of ranged and melee outperform pure melee.....see TK using Mental Storm as one example. Or healers offtanking in TA or being tough enough to live through baby dino breath. Or Main Tanks being able to take the boss and the mobs....etc. This is not what I am talking about at all.
I'm specifically calling out Hybrid role as being worse than specialist roles.
Yes, two roles at the same time without having to switch builds or take two passives.
Can you give me a more specific example of what you're talking about? I mean, all my tanks have dps and a lot of my melee builds have ranged powers for some utility effect or another, but that doesn't make them hybrids.
Can you give me a more specific example of what you're talking about? I mean, all my tanks have dps and a lot of my melee builds have ranged powers for some utility effect or another, but that doesn't make them hybrids.
Someone who deals good damage to Kiga when there's no storm, then heals people enough to keep them up when there is storm.
Variety is not about listed role. Variety is about actually playing differently; ATs should just be given roles that let them best do whatever they're designed to do.
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- Generalists: You have two people. Both shovel rocks and chop wood. Each one produces 1 unit rocks and 1 unit wood per day, so at the end of the day you have 2 units rocks and 2 units wood.
- Specialists: You have two people. One shovels rocks, one chops wood. Each one produces 3 units of its resource type, so at the end of the day you have 3 units rocks and 3 units wood.
So, which is better? That depends on what you actually need. If you actually need 3 units rocks and 3 units wood, you're better off with the specialists. On the other hand, if you only need 1 unit rocks and 4 units wood, you want one generalist and one specialist. Cosmic fights usually need enough of whatever they need that you want specialists (note: it would be possible to adjust the way hybrids work so this is not true. For example, if auras on others scaled with superstats instead of presence and functioned the same regardless of role, hybrid aura dps would be quite viable. It's nice to have most or all aura types, but that's more healers than you typically actually need).Epic Stronghold
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I honestly think I could swap Composure out for Regen or possibly even LR and look into Threat advantages or snagging the Defender Gloves for that Off-tank position when it's demanded. His damage isn't all that impressive and it wouldn't affect the core Healer potential Turando has already.
Now that I think about it, that's probably what I should do anyway. Would give a much more defined role than just the "**** it, I'll do whatever" position I push him in.
In any case, I think we've gone slightly off-topic from the OP.
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As for "only doing one thing at a time"... on Tsin'xing I spam Poz in cosmic fights. Anyone standing near me gets healed. It's a small heal and something I mainly do to trigger MSA. For keeping tanks alive while Teliosaurus is chewing on them, it's utterly worthless. But for keeping ranged DPS from getting worn down by incessant bubble spam it's actually useful. Sure, you could have a dedicated healer do it, but you don't NEED a dedicated healer to fix it when people lose 10% of their HP every few seconds. Also Tsin'xing has AoPM.
Lautna is an eclectic mix of ranged damage(mostly Burst Shot, but she can do enough damage just by spamming Burst Shot to qualify for rewards in a quick run of Kiga), melee damage(her best DPS involves spamming BB, but she also has EotS), with a defensive passive(Lightning Reflexes), and the ability to rez other players with Resurrection Serum. I've heard CCers at Qwyjibo like it when there are people who can rez them any time they eat a fireball at random. I've also done runs of Cybermind where I had to rez every other player at least twice. And Lautna's my favorite character to use in Gravitar because there is always someone who needs to be rezzed, usually more than once. But Lautna is a lot harder to kill than a dedicated healer.
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Here is another quote that says exactly what it says: When rocks need shoveling, rock shoveling specialists who shovel more rocks and are more helpful than people who chop wood and shovel rocks. That has nothing to do with what I prefer. It's just true.
The guy who chopped wood also shoveled some rocks and was helpful. I have not said anywhere that they shoveled 0 rocks. And in several places explicitly addressed this point. Is this a complaint that the devs should do something about by changing how the game works? Because I can't do anything about that.
At the end of my last post I quoted the following to state that it pretty clearly sums up what was being said. Do you disagree that the game works this way?
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I didn't pick this because it's my best, it's actually not. It's simply the most recent one. That fight kinda sucked. But not because of low DPS. Sure, there's people on the scoreboard with 3x my score. What of it? Most of the people in the fight scored even LOWER. It's not a question of IF Gravitar will hit you in the face with a Force Cascade, but WHEN. But if I'm on Lautna I will rez you so you can get hit in the face again.
Honestly... playing a glass cannon and expecting to NOT have survivability challenges seems dumb to me. Gravitar is hard for squishies because you can't just tank her. Tanks are useful to cut down on the damage dealt to the DPS. But they can't actually stop her from damaging them. IMO that's a good thing because it means the DPS needs to actually pay attention to the fight instead of just standing back and attack cycling.
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Yes I do. It's not the game that works this way, it's player's thinking that works this way. We justify our entire specialist meta based on one mechanic in two encounters. That's what it always comes down to, "they can't do the dps check" and by extension are never as useful as a specialist in any capacity and so the preferred method is specialists in every role. Yes, you highlighted that you said that they can be useful... but then you also highlighted a statement saying that a specialist is always better. I'd like that to be "a hybrid can be equally as useful as a specialist", because that's what matters, but that won't happen until people actually accept it as a possibility. "You're useful, but someone else is always better" isn't something people would be satisfied with being told, and currently an entire spectrum of potential builds is being told that. Why are we settling for this narrow definition of best builds? No it's not. They're already doing plenty to promote hybrid-style play.
I've actually been having a lot of fun and getting some pretty great scores on my healer/dps hybrid. I certainly don't feel useless on her. I don't think those mechanics are as restrictive as you believe.
I'd like to clarify that what I'm talking about does not imply slower boss clears. In fact, the end result could very well be even faster boss clears.
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It's probably possible to construct a fight where that peak is in the design space of hybrids, but for the current cosmics it isn't. The peak probably also isn't in the total glass cannon range (you lose too much time respawning, particularly at Qwyjibo), but it's closer to that than to a hybrid.
This is in large part because many of the attacks that can hit dps are set up so toughness doesn't do you any good. Kigatilik's aura ignores defenses, as do tomb explosions. The DoT on Teleiosaurus's spine burst is a percent of hp attack that ignores defenses, and both her hold and knock are powers you want to block even if their damage is not a threat. Geysers at Eidolon ignore defenses, though hit points help. Red phase includes a percentage of HP DoT. Defenses are reasonably useful against Qwyjibo's lava and fireballs, making that probably the most hybrid-friendly fight, though I think his lava still partially penetrates defenses. All the event cosmics have percentage of hp attacks that ignore defenses.
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Just sayin.
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That bug kicks in even if the bonus *should* be the same?
That's super annoying, for a game bug to mess up a potentially useful build.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
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The real problem is the way aura stacking was limited; whatever formula they're using produces different results depending on the order in which the auras are applied.
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Let's talk in terms of actual builds and what happens in the game.
If the "job" that needs doing is healing....that's what is requested and that's what a healer does - they show up and heal 5-10X the amount of a Hybrid player.
If the job is to deal damage, DPS role players tend to deal 2-10X that of Hybrid role players.
If the job is to main tank, Tank Role players tend to hold aggro much better than Hybrid ones.
I think the difference in our opinion comes down to how we're defining what needs to be done to maximize chances of success for an encounter. And whether that's mostly shoveling rocks or it's doing a bunch of other things in addition with one character. To that end I'll quote Panta again since he's putting this in clearer terms than I am. I can't speak for other players, but I base my thinking on evidence of how the game works. I have not seen any endgame encounter need a generalist. Such content is totally possible and I'd be glad to play it as a Hybrid, but like Panta pointed out, it doesn't exist and it would lead to complaints of a different sort. I'd like that too. Currently it's a very small possibility. I don't see it happening for the vast majority of the time and cannot think of an encounter where it's necessary to be in Hybrid role. Conversely I see plenty of encounters where we need someone in Tank role, DPS role, or Support role. It's not that dramatic. The player is different from the character. "your Hybrid character is useful, but your DPS would be better right now" or "that same character would be more useful in DPS role right now".
It'd be vastly less frequent to accurately say, "your DPS is useful, but your Hybrid character would be better right now".
Better yet, it'd be great if no one told them anything since they can look at the evidence, look at what's needed, and make up their own mind about how useful they are. And if they are not satisfied then they can change things. They're not babies and I'm not their babysitter. I see examples of specialists being needed on a daily basis. I don't see Hybrids being needed on a daily basis or even a monthly basis. If by "hybrid-style play" you mean that they are doing plenty to promote the need for people to use Hybrid role, I completely disagree. If it's more about being able to quickly switch from shoveling tons of rocks to chopping tons of wood with one character...yeah agreed, dual passives are totally a trend.
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Kiga: you need a main Tank(not an easy role to fill), CCer(also not easy), at least one guy to heal the main tank, and the rest doesn't really matter as long as people don't die.
So for Kiga there are three slots out of up to 50 that have a specific requirement that's needed to fill them. The other 47 can be filled by pretty much anything. The same is true of Qwyjibo, as long as the tank doesn't die and people aren't hitting hearts it's simply a matter of time to completion. Why is there any reason to try to tell people they need specialized max DPS builds at all? Yes I know you said something about how you want to pound the boss to death as fast as possible, but wouldn't a more realistic approach involve defining what is useful? Obviously maxDPS is most useful, but you're gonna be hard pressed to actually put teams together if that's all you're looking for.
Go ahead and try to tell me I wasn't useful. Don't waste my time with crap like "You could have scored higher if..."
The problem with this discussion is that there are really two different conversations happening. One about what is "best" and one about what is "adequate".
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Yeah, just like with tanks, a hybrid with offhealing is no substitute for a dedicated one. Still, a few hybrids using, say, lifedrain or some other group-healing ability could help ease the burden a bit for dedicated healers.
That's why the devs probably shouldn't do that. If a person chooses to give up some dps for extra survivability to allow for more mistake wiggle room, that should be a valid playstyle choice. When you begin to balance encounters around these tankier characters, you risk altering the meta in a way that points glass cannons toward the bench, powerhouse, and/or auction house for a new set of mods.
Oh my hybrids (dps with some passive offhealing) are a blast to play and score quite well also, but scoring high isn't the same as making the most useful contribution possible.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
For dps, isn't scoring high the same thing as making a useful contribution? Same for healing (when it's actually scored)?
How useful a hybrid character is depends on the content, build, and gear. A hybrid character (hybrid mode / tank passive / dps every other way) can be created that can pump out high dps. A pre focused toon with a dps passive and role can also be a decent healer with decent damage. There is little content that *needs* highly specialized roles.
Maybe the "problem" with hybrid characters is that people don't know how to make solid toons or don't have good gear for their toons. Or most people don't care about "bestist practices" when making their dream hero, leaving the real disconnect between player types and content being developed for one of those types.
[at]riviania Member since Aug 2009
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Stacking auras is a bit of a waste in the first place. I may be misunderstanding how they work, but AFAIK, random dudes standing near you don't get your aura. They need to actually be teamed with you whether it's an auto team or manually created team. So it's usually best to take a few moments of pre-fight prep to arrange things so you don't have dupes.
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Anyway, I might as well add to this by mentioning CC, which unless something has changed, I don't think gets credited in any way despite being utterly vital in certain situations.
I entertained that for awhile, but the hybrid tax (how much less effective the role is compared to specialized roles) is just too much to make them anything more than jacks of many trades, but masters of absolutely nothing. If they got rid of role bonuses entirely and instead, let the passives decide the role, maybe then the gaps between roles would narrow a bit. Unfortunately, the direction this game is being taken in heavily encourages specialization over being an all-rounder, and until that design direction changes, hybrids will underperform even if built with all the best powers and practices.
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But since this thread is about Hybrid ATs specifically I'll mention one that usually gets trashed on: The Impulse.
It seems players hate it but when I was silver I made the small investment to unlock this AT and couldn't have been happier.
I'm one of those players who likes doing the mission chains on every character I create, and as far as survivability goes An Impulse AT with the PFF (yeah I know) passive can solo 99% of the content without even being injured seriously.
That's where it counts, so what if I can't kill mission bosses in 1 hit, when that same boss is only doing 1 or 2 damage to me per attack, if it takes me a couple minutes to kill him it does.
The only non-endgame mob in the game that gives that AT any trouble is the Viper Brickbuster because of their ability "bypass" defensive passives.
I main Freeform character is a modified version of the Impulse AT with the extra power slots filled in with The Gravitic Ripple and Gravity Driver Powers. Those powers turn him into a great mob off tank, sure I don't get aggro in fact I try to avoid it but What I do get is every non-boss mob killed or CC'd while the real tank in the group (if I'm grouping) deals with the boss and debuffing the boss' defense so the DPS can do their "job" better.
With either The Impulse AT or my modified freeform build though it's great doing the mission chains and being "mobbed" by groups of mobs and watch them do literally no damage even though I'm outnumbered 10 or 20 to 1.
In fact there is one particular mision in the desert that requires to to let yourself get "killed" so viper can capture you. On both the Impulse and my freeform I have to turn of both the PFF and IDF to even let them do enough damage including Sidewinder. to "kill" me, while either of those 2 powers or both of them are on even using just the energy builder I kill every mob in that area before they can do significant damage.
This wasn't to brag bu to demonstrate what hybrids are meant for... pure survivability through most of the content, not a boss tank, not and end game DPS. But a casual, I'm doing all the missions I can without the need for a healer or healing devices gaming experience.
Consider this. Why are we one second joking about how easily we stomped the hardest content in the game in 4 minutes, and the next we're taking a hard line stance on absolutely needing a specific setup and nothing else will work. There's a disconnect there. Content being laughably easy should normally lead to restrictions being loosened, not tightened. Eh, when I score top of the list sometimes and top 5 often I'm comfortable in saying I was useful. If you have some other metric I should judge by I'll consider it. However my contribution is scored, I'm providing some combination of damage and healing that the game seems to consider worthwhile. Sure, but you are an influential member of the community and when you say something over and over and reinforce it you are going to tend to put trends into motion. "The best player in the game says specialists are always better" will have a tendency to lead people into thinking that mixed-role characters are noob stuff, especially when that player has an entourage of fellow top players repeating and enforcing the message. Just look, you've even got Aesica supporting specialization more and more over the course of this thread. This is only true if you limit your set of tasks to a very narrow scope. If you want to do that, that's fine. It's just a shame that people would do that, in a game where they don't have to. It's also a shame that the top players are reinforcing that, when they would have to do that even less than anyone else. Somewhere along the line, people traded "customized" for "optimal". Again, if they want to do that it's fine, it's just a shame that people do that in a game where customized was such a big deal for so long. It wasn't the game that brought us to this point, it was the players - in order to beat content we settled into one way to do things and now we're refusing to budge for fear that we might not continue to stomp everything into the ground.
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When I read this: I think this: I am describing how the game works based on evidence I've observed. If you're talking about how the game *should* work or about how you *want* it to work that's fine. But it's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how it works today. And if you are also talking about how the game works today based on evidence you've observed then it'd be great to hear about the evidence.
Let's take a specific fight. How about Dino? If you add up tanking damage + healing + dealing damage...then is who is doing the vast vast majority of that total...all of the Hybrid role players or all the specialist role players? What about Ape? Kiga? Is the argument here seriously that nobody does mostly Hybrid role Eido runs just because of perception and not because of how the game works?
I am having a difficult time seeing things from your perspective because I am not finding any evidence for it. I am dropping out of this discussion until there are specific recurring circumstances to talk about in which Hybrid role characters are more useful than those in specialist roles.
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Of course the specialized characters are doing the most right now, because you and the other top players all play specialized characters. It'd be nice if the top players were more willing to make really good hybrid style characters, to show everyone that truth behind "hybrids can work", rather than always playing specialists and only reinforcing "but specialists are always better". You don't have to obviously, I'm just saying it'd be nice if the elite players tried to expand what "good build" means in this game, because currently the player meta is really narrowing it. Hell, I see guides where people are basically being told to build their characters like we did in the past with just a slight modification. Doesn't seem like it really uses this freeform system we have to do very much. When I see everyone lining up with basically the same build I start thinking of when people say "we might as well be archetypes" and I wonder if maybe they're right... not because of what the devs are doing, but what the players are doing. And I'm saying that maybe it's time to actually figure out if that is how the game works, or if maybe people just settled into something familiar as the easiest solution and then never looked beyond.
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
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I'm specifically calling out Hybrid role as being worse than specialist roles.
PARSER USAGE GUIDE: click here for an easy how-to ٩(๑･ิᴗ･ิ)۶٩(･ิᴗ･ิ๑)۶
Spectre beats Eido in an SG run: VIDEO HERE
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Whoever you are, be that person one hundred percent. Don't compromise on your identity.
...would it kill them to make it 3-4 just so there's some variety? Or just make them all earnable?
My super cool CC build and how to use it.
Epic Stronghold
Block timing explained
Nepht and Dr Deflecto on primus
They all thought I was out of the game....But I'm holding all the lockboxes now..
I'll......FOAM FINGER YOUR BACK!