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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Jessica" data-source="post: 6662296" data-attributes="member: 6796107">MMORPGs also put great importance on balance in PvE as well. Playing a underpowered class in a cooperative game is still really crappy because either people don't bring you along, they bring you along if you are insanely skilled at your class(and then you are still lagging behind many other people who are playing classes that aren't underpowered), or you or a friend/relative/SO of an officer. In high end raiding depending on MMO and time in that MMO's life cycle, you might even see certain classes completely put on the bench or forced into one specific playstyle. Back in vanilla WoW* almost every single priest, paladin, druid, and shaman who wanted to raid were told to "heal or GTFO". Even other classes often had their playstyle and choices pre-determined for them if they wanted to remain competitive and not be sat out consistently.Having martial characters and magic characters on equal footing with each other is important simply for the fact that D&D is a game played by actual people. It's poor game design to make some options clearly inferior to other options** and to tell a player that their choices are crappy by design because of a certain bias by the developers. Even if it might break with a caster supremacist's warped and cherry picked view of fantasy sources, the important thing is that every player can feel useful at the table and have fun. One of the big reasons why I quit being a D&D player for a long while(until 4th edition came along) was that I was sick of being made to feel worthless by people who knew how to pick the way stronger classes and build their character more optimally. I was that dumbass who preferred playing her Clerics as actual healers(instead of as unstoppable engines of melee destruction) or who would play such utterly stupid things as....get this.... a DWARF FIGHTER who would prefer such dumb playstyles like using an axe and a shield. I left 3.X for MMOs because MMOs were better at capturing that whole party of fantasy adventurers group up to explore dungeons and defeat evil threats through the power of teamwork that for some dumb reason I thought D&D was always about.*The Warcraft universe has a lot of interesting counter examples to caster dominance. As far as faction leaders go, the majority are definitely martial types with a large representation of what would be Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins in D&D. The general exceptions being on Alliance side with the Night Elf leaders being a Druid and a Priest(in D&D terms similar to a Cleric but without that whole weapons and heavy armor deal), the Draenei leader being a Priest, and the always present and secondary Jaina Proudmoore being a Wizard. Even on the bad guy's side of things, Kel'thuzad(would probably be a Necromancer class wise) is subordinate to Arthas(who is almost iconic in his transition from Paladin to Blackguard), Kael'thas(Wizard) was subordinate to Illidan(who is a demon hunter but I don't think that class translates well to D&D although it is a primarily martial class) before he switched allegiances to the Burning Legion, and Gul'dan(who would be a Warlock although he started off as a Shaman) was subordinate to Orgrim Doomhammer(who would probably be a Fighter) before he decided to betray him and then got killed off by demons at the Tomb of Sargeras although in the alternate timeline that is going in the Warcraft universe now he is alive and well and does lead the Iron Horde.**Barring weird Fighting Game-esque meta considerations where poor characters might have the right moveset or options that make them a really strong choice against certain top tier matchups but are otherwise saddled with great mediocrity.</blockquote>

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