The Shaman

The Shaman can be said to be the most hybrid of them all. This is because the shaman is geared with damaging spells, decent melee damage as well as healing powers. If you want to do raids you might want to try the melee or healing specs, but it will be difficult to do heroics and five mans as an enhancement shaman. The only viable arena spec at the moment is the healing shaman where elemental is trailing in every aspect except maybe bg’s.

The Druid

The Druids, Dr00ds or Driods, are more of a roleswithcer than a true hybrid. They can, via their forms, unlock abilities and lock others. I.e. no healing while shape shifted. This allows for them to be quite powerful, almost as powerful as their pure class equivalents, in each of their shapes. Especially since there’s no equipment that facilitates any two roles.

The Paladin

The World of Warcraft paladin is heavily armored and can fulfill the tanking role quite well since the last couple of patches. Again you need to spec accordingly since you will lack the necessary tools if you try to play to much of a hybrid. The “retadin”, retribution paladin, is seen more as a battleground/leveling spec now and prot for 5 manning. Thus you often get to play as a healer if you want to do arenas or raids.

What’s a Hybrid?

A hybrid class can be a very rewarding class to play. The definition of a hybrid as opposed to a pure class is that the hybrid can fulfill multiple roles such as tanking, healing and dps. Often the hybrid possesses the skills and spells necessary to fulfill two of these roles.

In WoW the hybrid classes can be said to be the Druid, Palading and Shaman.

WoW Hybrids - Playing World of Warcraft as a Hybrid

It’s not easy playing a hybrid in World of Warcraft at the moment. The game has slowly progressed into a game where single role characters heavily outperform the hybrids. One of the reasons for this is the expansion content (the stuff in the Outlands) being tailored for specific talent specs as opposed to classes in general.