Overly Positive

 One of the breaking news things that came out of some recent news regarding WAR was a change to the Archmage and Shaman on a variety of levels – career, mastery, and most of all, something that will make their core mechanic different. Instead of damage feeding better healing and vice versa, damage will cause better damage and healing will cause better healing.

Just like with any hybrid change, there’s a bunch of people who are gnashing and wailing regarding the change, although some of them seem to think that the mechanic will make more sense.

You have to feel sorry for hybrid classes, because they don’t fit into any particular role. Hybrids are the middle children in the family of any MMO’s class makeup. They can’t do any one thing particularly well and they are sometimes ignored for the more outstanding and overachieving older siblings or the extremely cute younger ones. Hybrids are often pigeonholed into one role or another, despite being able to do multiple things. And this isn’t even counting when hybrid middle children become petulant and demand that they can do one thing particularly well when in truth they can’t do it better than someone else who’s focused on it.

But hybrids like the Archmage and Shaman should be looking forward to this change. After all, it focuses their role so there’s no ambiguity. Now, if you see an Archmage and they are shooting pew pew laser beams, you know they’re out to kill something. If you see a Shaman with a green beam shooting out like the Ghostbusters, then you know you shouldn’t be waiting around for a heal.

I think what people tend to forget is that hybrids provide utility, not necessarily effectiveness at one role. If in the course of a battle you have a swiss army knife that can cut with one blade and bandage with another, consider yourself lucky that the battle might just turn out in your favor because of it. Sure, the cynics might say the swiss army knife is broken and only contains one tool that is bent and the other that is twisted, but the utility and potential is nevertheless there.

Hybrids should feel happy that they can provide a dual role. Sure, that role is probably not as exciting as a button-spamming melee dps’er or a dedicated healer saving the day for their group, but the little things are important. Like any middle children out there, Hybrids can be meaningful and unique in their own way, and heck – if they end up being the butt of jokes or taking a dirt nap, they at least provide some kind of interesting entertainment trying to be viable. Doesn’t every child in a family?