Jug: Heavy Tank or DPS

Shadow: Stealth Tank or DPS

Powertech: DPS or Tank

Sorc: Healer or DPS

Merc: DPS or Healer

Operative: Healer or DPS*

 

*No one in my guild everyone wants to take an Operative DPS into progression runs, is that just closed mindedness or is there something lacking with Operative (PvE) DPS?

Only because the minmaxers consider the Operative DPS branch to be half-assed. You can't fully support heals and you can't output as much DPS as a sniper.

First off, it's important to remember that there is a difference between a tank with self heals and a class that can heal or tank via separate specs. The primary difference is that one can offer substantive healing to other people while the other can only offer substantive healing to their own person (as balanced against the other tanks as part of their mitigation/survival paradigm). There isn't any explicit reason why it would be broken to have a class that can fulfill all 3 roles within discrete specs based upon this: tanking would be discrete from healing by virtue of tank stance and gearing and healing would be discrete from tanking for much the same reason that DPS with heals are discrete from legitimate heals (talents are required to make most heals worthwhile).

Secondly, because spec differentiation has to be effectively enforced (so that you can't be an effective healer without being heal spec, effective DPS without being DPS spec, or effective tank without being tank spec), you would have problems with the early game and skill tree design. Because all 3 of the specs would receive, baseline, all of the minimal tools to be effective at their relevant roles (2 hardcast heals, a tank stance, some effective attacks) and the ability to create hybrid specs, the most important skills to the relevant roles would have to be delayed until late (4th tier) in the trees to prevent unintended hybridization (and, even then, there would still be a risk; just reference tank Guardians and you'll see why). The problem with this is that it would make it a complete *chore* to be a low level member of this class. While it's normal for a class to not be effective at its intended role until the low-to-mid-20s (at least in TOR), this one would have to wait until the early-30s most likely.

The most likely reason for not having a single AC that can fulfill all 3 roles is twofold: it's a crapton of work to design a class that can fulfill all 3 roles without having the other roles bleed over too heavily into the others and the developers didn't want there to be a single class to do absolutely everything. I expect it was as more of a specific design decision than a developmentally difficult problem that they didn't want to deal with, however.

Just imagine a class that could damage like a marauder, heal like an operative, and tank like a juggernaut, assassin, and powertech combined.

Oh yeah, i just went there.

But marauders can't heal a group of people...

Just imagine an ops group of eight, or even 16 of that class. they would be invincible.

what the OP wants, is a Paladin

WoW ---> this way

I've always thought those freakish mostrosities (the paladin class) were OP, cause they can do everything.

Death knight was the next best thing with self heals and a group heal every what? 2 minutes? if talented.

But marauders can't heal a group of people...

 

Just imagine an ops group of eight, or even 16 of that class. they would be invincible.

actually, a marauder can heal the whole group (his group).