Are you a robot?

I read a post on WowInsider about the difficulties of playing a Ret Paladin. Someone commented that while DPSing as a ret paladin was pretty simple, there are very few who know how to use other abilites to prevent deaths, wipes, or other things that make raids go wrong.

This touches on a few things, namely situational awareness, but it also concerns how well you know your class, its specs and capabilities.

I’ve known a few people who play hybrid classes as DPS specs. But they played like their toon was a pure DPS class. Even more so, it seemed as if they wouldn’t press a button if it didn’t cause damage. I liked to call them DPS robots, since really, a bot could do what they do. To a certain point this is OK, but to really be good at your class and affect how your raid performs, you have to use all of your available abilities when they’re needed. Of course, this doesn’t just apply to ret paladins, but I’ll use this particular example.

I raided with a ret paladin who lived up to what I described above. He never did anything except press one of his three dps buttons (pre 3.1). He barely even wanted to cast blessings, but he at least cast Blessing of Might on himself because it boosted DPS. During raids, you would never see a self-cleanse, a blessing of protection on someone who had aggro, a hand of salvation. This same person usually died to void zones or fire as well.

Point is, there are a lot of abilities that every class has, that most people never use. The best players will learn how, when, and where to use them. Rogues can blind or vanish/cheap shot a mob. Mages can polymorph, frost nova, decurse, spell steal, etc. DKs can save a healer by using chains of ice, or death gripping and using chains. A feral or balance druid can barkskin/tranquility to save a raid. I don’t play every class, but I’m sure every class has these tricks that can save a fellow raid member, save him or herself, and even just make the raid go more smoothly. It’s up to the player to know these things however, and to use them without needing the raid leader to ask you, or to have it done before the raid leader asks you.

Even though you may be a hybrid class, it doesn’t mean that you should limit yourself to what your tree offers. Pure dps classes shouldn’t think that since they can’t heal or tank, that their class has no utility.