| That would be fine and good Patricio, if your theoretical half-breed existed. Unfortunately, it doesn't, and the reality is different from the theoretical in this example.
There isn't a hybrid class in game that does only half their damage via melee and the other half via spells. The closest thing to that you have is bards, and they're not real "hybrids" in the classic sense since they work so drastically differently from all others.
Last time I checked, Knight classes did roughly 90ish percent of the Melee DPS as warriors with equal weapons (a situation which doesn't really occur very often due to itemization issues). Sk's rise above that with spells, but they don't do another 90% of warriors' dps with their spells, to say so would be sacrelige.
What I'm getting at is that hybrids aren't 50/50, they're already quite close to pure melees without casting too much, and the mana based AA's actually DO result in a higher level of effectiveness overall than melees with their melee only AA's.
Let's have a look at the differences:
A Beastlord, to effectively double/triple his DPS summons a pet and buffs it with a proc buff. This is not a huge cost in mana, and it brings his DPS quite close relatively to monks. If he focuses on melee AA's, the gap narrows, it continues to narrow without ever spending a single point into mana based AA's. Any mana based AA's that he has don't affect his melee damage output one whit, and therefore don't affect his balance to monks one iota.
A Paladin, to increase his or her tankability, spends points onto defensive based AA's. CA3, ND3, CS3, ID5, LR5, Planar Power, Planar Durability, Physical Enhancement.... are all available to Paladins and all affect tanking, to such a degree that there's very little to any substantive difference between them and warriors in terms of the ability to absorb damage on non-defensive mobs (defensive mobs have zero to do with AA anyhow, so they're irrelevant). The thing is, that through AA's they've also GAINED ground, and ONLY in melee based AA's on warriors, through the giving out of things that were more or less specific to either warriors or melee classes in general. For example, critical hits, triple attack, two hand bash (negates the kick advantage warriors have historically had). Remember, this is ONLY in melee AA's, not one AA point must be spent to see these improvements, which don't "keep knights up" with warriors but move them closer. Mana based AA's are an added bonus rather than a penalty, none of which affects their balance in terms of melee damage output or absorption. An argument could be made that in order to have the mana to keep mobs stunned, they have to spend certain points, but aggro generation can be kept with a level 9 spell called "cease" and a level 15 spell called "desist", and mana is not an issue on either of those spells that I'm aware of.
I just don't see the advantages as being equal, I'm willing to listen if someone presents evidence otherwise, but as it stands, the costs are quite equivalent with the benefits, and I still maintain that no "aa penalty" exists. |