Dual Spec

[Bubba Grizz]

So what is the deal with this? I just read a short snippet stating that they are working on this. I'm not sure I like this or not. Mainly because I don't totally understand it.

[Fairweather Pure]

There's not a whole lot of info out there yet. I have more questions than answers myself.

Will Glyphs change with the spec?

Will there be a cooldown? If so, how long?

For me, changing specs in feral will be easy (DPS to Tank). But when going from Feral to Moonkin or Resto, the biggest PITA is simply swapping out and reorganizing my spellbars. Will they build in something that will change that? If not, I hope the modders jump on that.

[Aardor]

There's not a whole lot of info out there yet. I have more questions than answers myself.

Will Glyphs change with the spec?

Will there be a cooldown? If so, how long?

For me, changing specs in feral will be easy (DPS to Tank). But when going from Feral to Moonkin or Resto, the biggest PITA is simply swapping out and reorganizing my spellbars. Will they build in something that will change that? If not, I hope the modders jump on that.

I believe you can have duel talents and glyphs, but not enchants (something they would like to add later, but would require a massive change to enchanting, is what i believe was said). The cooldown won't exist, but you won't be able to change in combat/arenas/bgs is I believe what was said. The idea behind the lack of a cooldown, for example, is so offtanks can change to a dps spec on a boss they are not needed, then go right back to tank spec as for trash/other bosses.

As far as the UI goes, I doubt it, they will probably copy some mod that does it months after the fact, as they have done in the pass. Personally, I use Nurfed (http://www.nurfedui.net) which stores your hotkeys without using the default blizzard bars. Because of this I am able to back up WoWDIR\WTF\Server\CharacterName, and just replace the current version with any one I want.

[Boogahz]

Would this be something similar to what EQ2 does with the achievement mirror? You can store a spec in the mirror and switch back and forth to another. There is no cooldown that I know of, but this is a house item which would require you to go back to your house (which WoW doesn't have) to use it.

[Bubba Grizz]

I don't think I like this idea. It makes me feel as if it is Transformer'ish. I think that if you should stick with what you are. I know it is old fashioned of me and not the way things are progressing in the game but it is how I feel. I think that for all it's "coolness", the expansion seems to be way more easy than it should be. I don't know if it is because my gear is finally working for me or if the content is just that weak. Not like I am going to stop playing or anything.

[Aardor]

I don't think I like this idea. It makes me feel as if it is Transformer'ish. I think that if you should stick with what you are. I know it is old fashioned of me and not the way things are progressing in the game but it is how I feel. I think that for all it's "coolness", the expansion seems to be way more easy than it should be. I don't know if it is because my gear is finally working for me or if the content is just that weak. Not like I am going to stop playing or anything.

Have you done all the Heroics? A few are very easy, but some of them are quite challenging, even for people in Naxx gear (Halls of lightning, Halls of Stone, the oculus). Yeah, Naxx is very easy, but it was intended to be so. They felt it was a mistake that heroics were required to do entry level raiding, and so that is why the epics from heroics are on par with the first few items in Naxx.

As far as you not liking the idea: it makes me think you are stupid and did not put any thought into it. I wish you were in my guild, just so I could make you sit for an encounter where your spec doesn't work. It's tons of fun to have your offtank sit because your encounter requires a certain level of DPS, and a tank can't supply that. Especially when the boss that you have to have only 1 tank for drops tank loot, and requires a certain amount of gear to tank. Same goes for anti-melee or anti-caster encounters. Also, do you like watching gear rot because it's no use to your people other than off spec? I know i fucking liked having 2 full guild bank pages of void crystals.

Sorry, this is not everquest, and you can't bring unlimited number of people to raids. I actually can not think of any real argument against a duel spec. Care to present one?

[cadalano]

ive always thought it was stupid that blizzard flat-out denies most people from participating in the full extent of their game. specifically PVE vs PVP (there are other examples, but none as straightforward)... its extremely expensive and impractical to try to apply yourself seriously to both. what does the game as a whole gain from this? absolutely nothing. ultimately it detracts from the game because when more people participate in content makes that content all the more enjoyable.

the same goes for dual speccing for PVE to allow specialized classes like tanks and healers to fill DPS roles or what-have-you. Why make it harder to allow people to play your game? the difficulty and challenge of the game should come from the encounters themselves, not from the fact that its hard as shit to field a class/caste composition that you need.

whatever they do, it should still require a visit to a home city to set your spec. otherwise its too abusable without a cooldown. and a cooldown would just be homo.

[masteen]

Dual spec will make having a duel spec feasable for when we're not running dungeons.

Questing and rep farming are fucking painful as a healer. It would be real nice to be able to swap to shadow for a couple hours when necessary.

[Truant]

Aardor, I'll present one.

Hybrid abilities are up right now. DPS spec'd hybrids (pallies, druids specifically) can out dps me (affliction warlock) at present. They can also fill the other roles exceptionally well (and I can't fill them at all). Why would anyone want a pure class that can only do one thing (and presently only marginally as good as a hybrid), when you can bring hybrids that can perform my role, and dual spec to fill the other roles. Why wouldn't you just have a whole raid of dual spec druids and pallies that can adapt for the various encounters.

If pure classes can't perform their roles better than hybrids can, then pure classes will be phased out. That's a lot of time wasted for a lot of people. On the flip side, hybrids need to be able to perform in those roles well enough to be useful or they'll be phased out. It's a complicated balance, and if class balance stays as it is now, dual spec is going to make hybrids even more desired, and pure classes less so.


Disclaimer: My personal experience isn't with end game raiding, but much of what I read about end game raiding seems to carry through with my experience as well.

I do however support the idea of dual specs for making it more accessible to play both pve and pvp, because atm that's not really possible.

[Aardor]

Aardor, I'll present one.

Hybrid abilities are up right now. DPS spec'd hybrids (pallies, druids specifically) can out dps me (affliction warlock) at present. They can also fill the other roles exceptionally well (and I can't fill them at all). Why would anyone want a pure class that can only do one thing (and presently only marginally as good as a hybrid), when you can bring hybrids that can perform my role, and dual spec to fill the other roles. Why wouldn't you just have a whole raid of dual spec druids and pallies that can adapt for the various encounters.

If pure classes can't perform their roles better than hybrids can, then pure classes will be phased out. That's a lot of time wasted for a lot of people. On the flip side, hybrids need to be able to perform in those roles well enough to be useful or they'll be phased out. It's a complicated balance, and if class balance stays as it is now, dual spec is going to make hybrids even more desired, and pure classes less so.


Disclaimer: My personal experience isn't with end game raiding, but much of what I read about end game raiding seems to carry through with my experience as well.

I do however support the idea of dual specs for making it more accessible to play both pve and pvp, because atm that's not really possible.

I agree, the emergence of hybrid classes out DPSing pure DPS classes is a huge issue. Right now, I believe only hunters are out damaging many of the hybrid classes (maybe mages, I know locks and rogues complain about being out DPSed by paladins and druids a ton). It is really complicated....I do not know what should be done. I do think that this problem has existed for awhile, but you are right that dual spec will further bring the hybrid issue to the table.

Another issue with dual spec is that it doesn't even fix all of the problems with the current spec system. Dual spec is great for me as a rogue, I get a PVE spec and a PVP spec, but not for my Druid friend who is our random 3rd healer on raids. He has to respec for PVP, or take PVE DPS hits by making one of his specs PVP oriented. So it seems dual spec fixes the PVP/PVE problem for non-hyrbid classes, but not the raiding problems for tanks/healers. A good solution might be to have PVP specs trigger in PVP (BGs, Arena, Etc), with the choice to switch to pvp spec with some cooldown associated with it (for pvp servers). In a similar manner, have PVE specs trigger in PVE (5 mans, 10 mans, 25 mans), with the choice to switch to another spec associated with some cooldown. This of course has it's own problems (pure dps classes get an extra spec, since they have no need for a heal PVE spec and a DPS PVE spec), but I think it addresses the issue I brought up here (but does nothing to help the hybrid problem).

I read a blue comment about how in the future, they are considering somehow rolling spell power to effect ATK power, to address the issue of some hybrids having to get melee gear and spell gear (since they addressed the melee gear vs heal gear vs spell dmg gear). That could cause all sorts of hybrid vs pure class problems.

[Truant]

I'd read that too about combining AP and spell power into one stat. Someone will have to confirm/deny since I've only played various casters in this game...but I know that atm my items have pretty large amounts of spell power. Are those numbers present for AP in current itemization? If not, it could really fuck up balance. One side would see losses and the other side gains in dps. I need to do some more research about that. Also, itemization would have to be adjusted. As you'll now have more classes competing for the same drops, as opposed to currently having caster vs melee armors of the various types. On the upside, you'll have less wasted drops in raids. It also seems silly that having multiple sets of gear is a concern for them, when PVE vs PVP is just that. You need a seperate set of gear for each of those. Why concern yourself with fixing one, when the other is obviously the same.

And I agree about the dual spec thing not really fixing the problem. Last time I played my priest, Shadow was PVE DPS, Disc was PVP, and Holy was PVE heal. So you'd have to sacrifice one (or farm money for constant respecs) if you wanted to participate in all parts of the gameplay. Honestly, it seems like it's only going to work for pure non tank/heal classes. Which isn't all that many.

[Diae Soulmender]

I dont know what crack some of your are smoking, but I think you need to put the pipe down and head off to an NA meeting....

Duel Spec is purely "The Win"(TM).

No cooldown.
Respec on the fly out of Combat.

Sure it doesnt much affect you PvP turds. Go spec Subtlety/Shadow/Ret/Arms/Elemental whatever and go roll your faces on your keyboards. This doesnt affect you. Move along. In fact why are you playing WoW? Go play a real FPS. Tards. You morons ruin the game with your 'need' for 'class balance'. Oh nos! Class XXXX owns me! Who gives a shit. Yes, I do hate you. If PvP didnt exist this game would be twice the juggernaut it is now. At least in my opinion. Class 'balance' is only to appease the PvP retards. Go die in a car fire. Back to the subject at hand...

Duel Spec'ing for PvE is so wicked awesome to even think about it gives me a little shiver down my spine and yes, perhaps even the tiniest bit of a boner.

I am a Paladin.
I have full sets of Tanking, Healing and DPS Gear.

Generally, as of today, I am Retribution. Occasionally I toss on my Heal gear to 'offheal' for certain encounters, but I am doing so in Retribution Spec. Now this does have its benefits, but I would much rather actually be Holy spec'd while offhealing then offhealing while Retribution spec'd.

Good example of this is 4 Horsemen in Naxx 10 man.

I do hope they figure out Glyphs and Hotbar swapping when you respec. I would hate to quickly respec, itemrack my gear then spend the next 20 minutes redoing all of my hotbars/macro's... That would, in fact, be a PITA.

Anyways, for those nay sayers: Cry more crier. Go wack off to your SUPER AWESOME PVP ACTION and let those of who play World of Warcraft play it.

PS: Yes, we are on Malygos 10 Man.

[miir]

duel or dual?

[Bagar-]

I am a Paladin.
I have full sets of Tanking, Healing and DPS Gear.

Generally, as of today, I am Retribution. Occasionally I toss on my Heal gear to 'offheal' for certain encounters, but I am doing so in Retribution Spec. Now this does have its benefits, but I would much rather actually be Holy spec'd while offhealing then offhealing while Retribution spec'd.

I'm in the same boat as Diae. I play a paladin, and I frequently (several times a day, usually) switch between holy, prot, and ret.

My "main" spec is holy, that is to say that when my guild raids 25man content, I am generally a healer. However my guild has three tanks and two of them don't play much outside of our official raids, so for Naxx and Sartharion, i've been playing prot - so much so that I have a lot more t7 prot gear than holy (i'm actually still using 4pt6 holy). However for fights like Saphirion, Malygos, and KT, where we don't need two tanks, and having extra heals / dps is nice, I spec back to ret or holy. I also tend to go ret for pvp, but since S5 hasn't come out yet, that hasn't been an issue.

I probably spend a little over 600 gold per week on respecs alone. So I fully welcome this change.

When you play a Hybrid, you expect to play all of the roles of your class has to offer (at least, I do. I pretty much do the same shit on my druid; switch between feral / resto / boomkin all the time), and not be locked into one role because of high respec bills. I don't necessarily mind spending the money, i've got something like 20k gold in my bank from Quel'danis inflation, but having it be free would be quite appreciated. Before the end of BC, where I pretty much made like 1-2k gold a day in quel'danis by rotating my main and alts and doing dailies, i'd never have respecced this much. For players that don't have a lot of money, it's really problematic, especially given the rediculous inflation in the AH right now with enchanting materials and gems.

Go ahead and bring an offtank to 10man Malygos and see how fast you hit the enrage timer btw .



Oh, and the hotbars thing doesn't bother me. I use default blizzard frames, and with them you can rotate your main (1234567890-=) hotbar by holding shift and hitting the up or down arrow. The primary one is for holy, the other one is for prot or ret. All I have to do is fill in the talented abilities, everything else is set up with all three specs into consideration.

[Diae Soulmender]

duel or dual?

dule

[miir]

duel or dual?

dule

FUK U HITLER!

[Sinzar]

Have they specifically stated it's going to be 2 specs? I figured they would make it where you unlock multiple talent "stables" so to speak. Say the first one requires X amount of gold and level 80, giving you two specs. A third spec slot would require finishing the Glory of the Raider achievement, or one of the high end arena achievements. Fourth slot unlocked via some whatever super hard to obtain mode. Etc etc.

If they only limit it to 2 specs, it will fix a lot of problems, but then everyone asks for more.

[Bubba Grizz]

I don't think I like this idea. It makes me feel as if it is Transformer'ish. I think that if you should stick with what you are. I know it is old fashioned of me and not the way things are progressing in the game but it is how I feel. I think that for all it's "coolness", the expansion seems to be way more easy than it should be. I don't know if it is because my gear is finally working for me or if the content is just that weak. Not like I am going to stop playing or anything.

Have you done all the Heroics? A few are very easy, but some of them are quite challenging, even for people in Naxx gear (Halls of lightning, Halls of Stone, the oculus). Yeah, Naxx is very easy, but it was intended to be so. They felt it was a mistake that heroics were required to do entry level raiding, and so that is why the epics from heroics are on par with the first few items in Naxx.

As far as you not liking the idea: it makes me think you are stupid and did not put any thought into it. I wish you were in my guild, just so I could make you sit for an encounter where your spec doesn't work. It's tons of fun to have your offtank sit because your encounter requires a certain level of DPS, and a tank can't supply that. Especially when the boss that you have to have only 1 tank for drops tank loot, and requires a certain amount of gear to tank. Same goes for anti-melee or anti-caster encounters. Also, do you like watching gear rot because it's no use to your people other than off spec? I know i fucking liked having 2 full guild bank pages of void crystals.

Sorry, this is not everquest, and you can't bring unlimited number of people to raids. I actually can not think of any real argument against a duel spec. Care to present one?

Nope I haven't done all the Heroics. I am not in that top 10% of the game that does all the end game raiding. While I can understand the desire to have such a thing and the reasoning behind it, I still don't really like it. For me it seems to take something away from the game. I guess I'm just old and see my characters in a certain way like the way I did my pencil and paper characters. (Not enough to make me want to hop on a RP server though.)
I wouldn't care if people use it or not and I wouldn't want to try and push my views on others to change. In fact I will probably use it when it does come out. This doesn't mean that I have to like it. It just changes my view on the game somewhat in a disappointing way. Oh, and yes, I am stupid.

[Truant]

I dont know what crack some of your are smoking, but I think you need to put the pipe down and head off to an NA meeting....

Duel Spec is purely "The Win"(TM).

No cooldown.
Respec on the fly out of Combat.

Sure it doesnt much affect you PvP turds. Go spec Subtlety/Shadow/Ret/Arms/Elemental whatever and go roll your faces on your keyboards. This doesnt affect you. Move along. In fact why are you playing WoW? Go play a real FPS. Tards. You morons ruin the game with your 'need' for 'class balance'. Oh nos! Class XXXX owns me! Who gives a shit. Yes, I do hate you. If PvP didnt exist this game would be twice the juggernaut it is now. At least in my opinion. Class 'balance' is only to appease the PvP retards. Go die in a car fire. Back to the subject at hand...

Duel Spec'ing for PvE is so wicked awesome to even think about it gives me a little shiver down my spine and yes, perhaps even the tiniest bit of a boner.

I am a Paladin.
I have full sets of Tanking, Healing and DPS Gear.

Generally, as of today, I am Retribution. Occasionally I toss on my Heal gear to 'offheal' for certain encounters, but I am doing so in Retribution Spec. Now this does have its benefits, but I would much rather actually be Holy spec'd while offhealing then offhealing while Retribution spec'd.

Good example of this is 4 Horsemen in Naxx 10 man.

I do hope they figure out Glyphs and Hotbar swapping when you respec. I would hate to quickly respec, itemrack my gear then spend the next 20 minutes redoing all of my hotbars/macro's... That would, in fact, be a PITA.

Anyways, for those nay sayers: Cry more crier. Go wack off to your SUPER AWESOME PVP ACTION and let those of who play World of Warcraft play it.

PS: Yes, we are on Malygos 10 Man.

This is a retarded post for so many reasons.

You immediately classify anyone who is against this as PVP only players. Which isn't true.

You say that this is a great idea, which it may or may not be. But you play a paladin, a class that has the most to gain from this idea. You're obviously being very subjective about this, when it requires more objectivity. There are more people playing this game than just you, or just paladins, or just end game raiders, etc. etc. You kind of need to take those other people into consideration. Blizzard doesn't make and maintain this game just for you, they do it for the largest common denominator(s) of their playerbase. It would be pretty horrible business for them to do otherwise.

You immediately discredit class balance as a PVP only concern. This is simply dumb. There are completely different class balance mechanics in PVP and PVE. If you don't (or can't) understand that, you should probably just stop posting.

You say that PVP is holding this game back, and that people that play and want PVP are holding this game back. News flash, Blizzard designed this game with PVP. They didn't add PVP as an afterthought because a small group of players wanted it. Blizzard WANTS PVP in WoW, so get your head out of your ass.

This post was so immature and out of nowhere that I wonder if it isn't you who should put down the crack pipe you previously mentioned.

[Diae Soulmender]

I play a Warrior, Rogue, Shaman, Paladin and Hunter. I just want to put that out there to let you know that I am a well rounded player with experience in playing most classes. Someday Ill make a Druid and a Death Knight, but not in my near future.

I cant even fathom why anyone would be against dual spec'ing. Either they dont understand it or they enjoy running back to an old world capital city to pay 50g and/or they enjoy the 'stand around wait for XXXX to respec so we can summon them and continue the raid..'

For those who enjoy the traveling and the paying of a 50g ransom continue to do even after this feature arrives if it makes your play experience more enjoyable.

Let those of us who see this as a God Send bask in its glory.

----------------

If I am understanding it correctly this is what they wish the outcome to be:

-Can be done anywhere.
-No Cooldown.
-No monetary cost.
-Only 2 Specs. Not 3. No where have I read that they are even considering it.
-Respec out of combat.
-It will swap your Glyphs.
-It will swap your Hotbars/Keys.

They are 'talking' about even having it swap your enchants/gems. I dont see this one happening, but who knows. Personally I dont even understand this one. Lets say you are a Priest with a dual spec of Shadow/Holy. Your gear wouldnt need a change nor would your enchants... Death Knights/Paladins/Druids would literally swap entire sets of gear with no need of an enchant change...

It will supposedly be released with the first content patch (which is also suppose to add more raid zones).

-----------------------

[Bubba Grizz]

I cant even fathom why anyone would be against dual spec'ing. Either they dont understand it or they enjoy running back to an old world capital city to pay 50g and/or they enjoy the 'stand around wait for XXXX to respec so we can summon them and continue the raid..'

For those who enjoy the traveling and the paying of a 50g ransom continue to do even after this feature arrives if it makes your play experience more enjoyable.

Let those of us who see this as a God Send bask in its glory.

-----------------------

I would never try and rain on anyone's parade so bask away. When you use the term 'anyone' I can't imagine that you would be speaking for the population as a whole. I don't know that many people who actually change their builds on a moment's notice. We have maybe 2 people in our guild who do that as needed. For me the reverse is mostly true in that I can't fathom why people would want to continuously switch builds over and over. Don't get me wrong I can see where there could be a need and those in our guild who do swap do it mainly to fill a hole in a raid that is needed.
As I mentioned before, I am not in a die-hard raiding guild who does all the end game stuff. Don't get me wrong we do raid and we are working our way up but at a more liesurely pace. We are hitting Nax tonight for the first time.

[miir]

EQ2 introduced a 'dual spec' mechanic last year sometime.
It was nice because players could swap between a solo spec to a gorup/raid spec without the cost and hassle.
Mind you, specs/builds are not as extreme as they they are in WOW but it offered a lot more flexibility in how you played your character/class.

When I inevitably go back to WOW, I look forward to the ability to easily swap my shaman back and forth between resto and enhancement.

[masteen]

Even though DPS classes have the least to gain from dual spec, wouldn't it be nice to be able to swap to an optimized PvP build from a PvE damage build without any hassle?

I get the "DROODS R TEKIN MAH JERB" angle, but in practice, I see many more instance of them respecing to tank or heal than to fill the last DPS spot. If they don't, the run doesn't happen.

In closing, I'd just like to say to Diae: Meth is bad, mmm'kay? Because it's bad.

[Fairweather Pure]

As a druid, if I'm specced for cat dps, getting a PuG is almost impossible. If I spec for bear, I can get a group within momments, no advertising Many of my guildmates are not happy with me when I'm not bear specced, because they've come to rely on me for tanking Instances in the past I changed my spec more than 10 times in the first 3 days fo WotLK's release, from Resto, to Cat, to Bear. That gets really expensive!

I think my 2 specs will be cat and moonkin though. I will go ahead and pay when switching from cat to bear.

[Bubba Grizz]

Upcoming Dual Spec Option [ 7 Comments ]
Print News | Category: World of Warcraft News - Wrath of the Lich King
Ghostcrawler confirms that the dual spec option will not be available in the next patch, but is scheduled for one beyond 3.0.8.
I'm pretty sure you can find some descriptions of it in one of these role forums. It will not be in the next patch, 3.0.8. If all goes well, we'll get it in the one after that, but we usually don't tell you our estimates so there is less ALL CAPS POSTING when we miss our targets.
Read the original post here.

-- Sprawl @ Sunday, 11 Jan, 2009