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A while back I had a crazy idea about actually using a hybrid character as a hybrid. I’ll post an old essay of mine, just to get it out there.
First some thoughts which are more recent than this piece. Yes it was an oddball idea that I really wanted to try. Hybrids are under-utilized. This was also early WotLK and things may well have changed a lot since then. I also haven’t used a WotLK Shaman at all, so I’m probably wrong on a lot of things.
There are various assumptions about range, positioning and mana usage which are actually quite wrong in practice. Melee-range totems don’t offer too much of an advantage, being very close to a tank isn’t needed, etc.
old stuff begins ∞
It’s something that I’ve had in mind since I started playing WoW.. an enhancement shaman who off-heals. Now with WotLK out, there are additional abilities which make it obvious to do this.
The way I arranged talents and the action-rotation is to make this a very mana-rich character.
Because this is a shaman that’s melee it means that the full melee dps totems will be dropped right next to those that benefit, avoiding awkward totem range issues. Has almost-full melee raid buffing – fewer unleashed rage procs, but has everything else.
Because it’s a melee healer, it means that an off-healer is right next to the melee dps and tank(s), so there are no range issues for healing in that area. This is properly treating the Shaman as a hybrid, positioning them where healers usually aren’t found.
Also, since the mana pool stays more full, the switchover to chain heals – a very costly spell now that downranking is gone – is easy. That keeps melee dps healed without pure healers spending mana for their AoE heals.
If given permission to spread their healing around as-needed, this hybrid takes the strain off of spot-healers like druids keeping stacks of heals on random raiders “just in case”. With someone dedicated to it, it reduces mana-wasteful and stressful “panic-healing” on lower-heal-priority raiders. There’s less temptation to stop healing the primary target to save a secondary player. Spot-healing becomes easier for the player of this build because there are built-in white-damage pauses in the action-rotation.
This build can easily be dedicated to watching a tank and giving that extra spot-heal through varying damage.
It keeps the full melee dps utility of an enhancement shaman – but remember that casting spells means less melee crits which means less unleashed rage procs.
It also allows odd play styles, like the shaman stoneclaw, shock or even chain-lightning any adds to bring them right to the a tank or the melee dps. Yes tanks can range-taunt now, but it’s not always up.
Also it allows “second hand” gear to still be useful instead of being sharded.. any sort of stat will still be useful to this build. So this means that the character can go from nothing to wearing common/unwanted epics faster than a specialist build.
Probably the one big thing is that many people masturbate to combat logs. If a Hybrid ever ranks higher than a focused-spec, then that focused spec player should be beaten with a phone book. A hybrid should rank at the bottom of the dps and healing lists, so there is no real way to judge a hybrid’s value except through raid-wide dps, the number of character deaths, boss kills and general player atmosphere. A hybrid playing well makes the raid stronger everywhere it needs to be, and reduces player stress.
I don’t want to use shock spells. Some tweaking could add flame shock, but I prefer to keep the play style simple. Also, an offhand Flametongue and using Lava Lash is an interesting idea. Can Lava Lash miss? I don’t see anything I really want to sacrifice to give me lava lash.
Play-Style 1: Focusing on melee damage ∞
www.wowhead.com/?talent#hZGMxc0xdIhuoMZEcx0ccoxk
As a melee dps, it’s missing Feral Spirit and Static Shock, but it otherwise good dps. However, spell casting reduces the chance to melee crit, which will mean less unleashed rage and flurry procs.
- Gear is more melee-oriented, preferring crits and +haste
- Main and offhand windfury weapons. This also might allow heavy/slow weapons, but I’m not sure if the weapon speed effects have changed since I last checked. This is a big topic to research.
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Rotation would be stormstrike, pause, healing wave, pause, healing wave, pause, healing wave
- Pauses are for white damage, to try proc a crit (for unleashed rage / fury)
Play-Style 2: Focusing on healing ∞
www.wowhead.com/?talent#hZGgxI00dchuoMZEcx0ccoxk
As a healer, it’s missing lots and lots: Weaker chain heals, less Earthliving, no Ancestral Awakening, Earth Shield or Riptide. Its Healing Wave, however, is solid and is only slightly weaker than a full healer, and that’s compensated for by having nearly inexhaustible mana.
- Gear is more spell-oriented, preferring +spell haste and +heal
- Main and offhand earthliving weapons
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Rotation would be the same stormstrike, pause, healing wave, pause, healing wave, pause, healing wave
- Pauses are for white damage, to try proc a crit (for unleashed rage / fury)
- Replace healing wave with chain heal as needed, spot-heal lesser healing wave as needed
Thoughts ∞
I think for the more dps-oriented version, I would rotate flame shock and lava burst, and I would sacrifice cleanse spirit for shamanistic focus.
www.wowhead.com/?talent#hZGMxcoxdIhuoMZEcx0ccoxo
So a rotation might be something like this (it’s a guess, it would need to fit over 12 seconds):
flame shock, pause, healing wave, pause, healing wave, pause, healing wave, pause, lava burst, flame shock
Also, having Flametongue might be quite useful for keeping dps high. From what I can tell the enhancement dps is mainly from white damage, lava burst (always hits!) and then flame shock (always hits when white hits).
Lava lash seems to always hit as well..
I also did a bit of research on the healing, and it seems that healing wave is still a pretty useless shaman spell. If that’s true, then that strongly diminishes the value of an oddball build like this. I could redirect 8 resto points elsewhere then.
