This is a rant so if you think they are working 100% fine, feel free to ignore this post.

 

Isn't it kind of silly that Bioware ignores the fact that people can queue and be matched against DPS even though they are a hybrid? Let me give you an example, 4 DPS on my team, marauder, assassin, sorc and merc versus Hybrid powertech tank/dps, hybrid Sorc healer dps, and 2 marauder dps. You can guess what happened next, while we try to focus down the hybrid healer who is guarded and damage the hybrid tank, we get burnt down by the DPS. When we try to burn down the dps next round and pressure the healer, by relying on their defensive cooldowns, the enemy marauders are always able to avoid being totally killed and are able to be healed by their hybrid healer.

 

I'll give you another game that just happened, 3 dps on my team, marauder, sorc dps, assassin dps and a operative healer versus Hybrid powertech tank/dps, Hybrid Sorc healer dps, 1 operative dps and a sorc healer. What happened was fairly simple, we try to burn 1 healer down, it gets crosshealed, we try to burn the dps/tank down it gets healed by 2 people, at the same time my own operative healer got focused and went down over time.

 

So bioware, Where Is The Damn Balance? Sure hybrids are weak in actual 8v8s and PVE situations but in PVP they give far more advantages than disadvantages. 4v4 are supposedly supposed to be balanced by actual Roles but hybrids don't follow that logic. lets have it like this, if they have more than 12+ points in a tree such as healing or tanking, they are queued as such. Its stupid they can sneak in as a DPS despite being able to tank and heal to an extent. So for example 2 dps, 1 healer and 1 tank will be matched against 2 dps, 1 hybrid healer and 1 hybrid tank if thats what they choose to queue as. I'm sorry for the rant but when queuing at particular times when the population is low, you can often fight against the same groups of hybrids over and over again.

Edited November 18, 2013 by Warhams

Well I can't really answer for the PT tank hybrid but the reason you see hybrid sorc healers is because pure heal sorcs have no defenses. At all. I'm referring to solo queue especially when we can't be sure of a tank or getting peels.

 

In an arena we can't afford to use Force Barrier for longer than a second before someone else gets burned down. It can negate an incoming smash/maul combo, or double smash, but that's about it before the other team switches to someone else (and back to you as soon as you leave, unless you throw a grenade and H2F with them faceplanted).

 

We have to go hybrid to get any survivability at all if we want to heal. Bubblemez still buys us time to eat stuns when they're trying to smash us, or pull/dongcleave us, and at least then we have a chance to do something even if our heals are weaker than pure spec.

 

However I personally run 26/18/2 so matchmaking still (accurately) counts me as a healer.

 

If you want to get hybrid sorcs out of your arenas I suggest you join us in telling Bioware to fix our pure specs. For healers, this pretty much involves reverting all CC nerfs except for team bubblestun (that one was deserved) and possibly giving all sorcs instant WW baseline. At one point CC was our defense but we pretty much don't have it anymore. Even our Electrocute is unreliable because other classes know we have nothing else that we can actually get off (hardcast WW=interrupt and/or 3 seconds of ungodly pushback) so they instantly break it even before full resolve.

Edited November 18, 2013 by AdrianDmitruk

I understand your reasoning behind sorc in arena but and I like to quote your sentence.

 

However I personally run 26/18/2 so matchmaking still (accurately) counts me as a healer.

 

That I the sticking point I have, I don't care what sort of crazy hybrid you run but If you put enough points in a role be it tanking or healing even though it might not be the majority if your skill points the game should not allow you to 'hide' as a DPS in the match making. That's what I have issue with to be honest.

i think its totally ok.. your role should be determined by how much points you put into a tree. tehre is an easier solution to all your problems... just let BW change the tree so that you can only skill in another tree if you have 36 points in a single tree. thast the easiest solution.. if they dont want to do it then you can beg as long as you want and nothing will change

I understand your reasoning behind sorc in arena but and I like to quote your sentence.

 

That I the sticking point I have, I don't care what sort of crazy hybrid you run but If you put enough points in a role be it tanking or healing even though it might not be the majority if your skill points the game should not allow you to 'hide' as a DPS in the match making. That's what I have issue with to be honest.

 

Yes I understand that I could go something like 22/24/0 and completely blow up the matchmaking system, and this is a problem. (Though personally I don't see the point of an extra 6 points in lightning beyond bubblestun--I still can't get to the root overload, so meh.) But tactics vanguards running ion cell to tank have hybrid speccing way too easy. Doesn't help that most of their good DR talents are in one of the DPS trees.

 

Theoretically the matchmaking could also give weight to what cell the hybrid VGs are running, but it can't do that with sorcs because we don't have stances.

 

I think we can both agree that Bioware is pretty clueless when it comes to class balance/making pure specs desirable.

Nothing is funnier than the guardian on the bastion who does 23/23/0 which is classed as a dps and he thinks it's good because he's a hidden tank haha then you basically have 2 tanks on your team and 1.5dps. Ruins the whole team and not enough dmg to kill anything

I hardly think it's an issue for healers. Sorcs can hybrid for a little extra survivability but you're still gonna get trained into barrier and then killed in solo queue 99% of the time anyway. Mercs and Operatives have no viable heal hybrids. Not so much an issue for Juggs or Assassins either, their actual tank spec is total garbage (damage for jugg, survivability for Sin) and the only way to really run one is as a hybrid imo. The problem is AP tanks are both massively popular, far easier to play than the other two and are enormously widespread.

 

However, I don't really want to see them nerfed. I want bioware to come up with a solution that is fair relative to solo queue without destroying them in team 4s. I really don't want to see 3 DPS heal no guard or full tank spec full tank gear 2 dps healer become a thing. It either speeds up or slows down the matches far too much. Locking in your stance/cell was a decent idea but that also further nerfs DPS juggernauts as tank stance is their only good defensive cooldown lol. Maybe just disable guard for solo queue unless you're flagged as a tank?

Hmm, guess theres no choice but to play the Ranked solos as they are and hope you get the useful hybrids in your team.

I hardly think it's an issue for healers

 

Its an issue because when you queue as a healer one side can have guard while other not and that is significant, especially if guarded healer is a decent operative one team will have far harder time and probably lose.