I agree whole-heartedly. I've been playing a mage since Vanilla. I love my mage and ranged DPS as an idea in much the same way it seems you love 2-handers. One of the constant issues that I have had with mages comes from the fact that no matter how you slice and dice it, we have one role to fill: ranged DPS. As such, unless our 3 trees are perfectly balanced (in which case my entire spec decision comes down to what color thing I want to throw) there will ALWAYS be a "right" answer for what a mage should spec.

I think that part of the solution is not only to make everything a hybrid, but to make every class a hybrid at the same time- every class would be able (and expected to) do 2 things at once. Part of what would need to happen is here is we would need to expand the definition of "role" beyond the strict Tank/DPS/Healer. Bring back the idea of a buffer and a de-buffer- expand upon the Disc Priest idea of pro-active healing. These things aren't necessarily fun on their own two feet, but they'd be much more fun when paired with something "pure."

Back to my mage example, what if the mage was broken down into 3 specs: Fire is DPS/de-buffer, Arcane is DPS/buffer and Frost is DPS/proactive healer(protector). All of a sudden, my job is far more engaging than it is right now (stand there and pew) and it opens up the field for another class to do equal DPS to me while fulfilling another role.

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