Dual-Specs – An Anti-Rant.
Dedicated to Kes.
So, dual specs, an issue of contention it seems. This post was spurred, in the main, by one Big Bear Bottom and, thus Dinear’s post too.
What I took from Dinaer:
- People should pick a spec and stick to it, that used to be a fundamental part of the game.
- That the new system is designed to allow swaps inside instances.
- That raid leaders will force offspecs.
- That hybrids being able to change roles affects non-hybrids negatively.
Forgive me for this rather short summation, but these where what seemed to be the main points of his argument.
What I took from the honorable Bear:
- That it was unusual for someone to have an offspec which they recieved raid loot for.
- That raid leaders will enforce or expect an offspec.
- That non-hybrids will be negatively affected by dual specs.
- That non-hybrids should be compensated for dual specs.
- That raid leaders would choose a hybrid over a non-hybrid, all things being equal.
- That because someone has the ability to play both they will as good at both roles and thuse useful as both roles.
- That 4 year old information on the WoW website states a class must be one thing so that should still be true.
- That dual specs will unbalance the game.
Like I’ve said, this is my personal take on what he wrote and what seemed to be the gist of the argument.
Before I begin I will state the biases I know I have -
- I am a PvE’er in a progression minded guild.
- I do not do PvP more than ocassionally.
- I do not generally PuG.
- I like alts.
- The characters I play most are: Shaman, Druid, Death Knight, Rogue, Hunter.
I come from the perspective, blatantly, of someone who plays hybrids and will benefit from the change but I also come from the perspective of someone who has played non-hybrids and can understand that perspective also.
First, I will start with the points that both Bear and Dinaer brought up on the basis that if both brought it up, it’s a common theme to the argument at hand:
Raid leaders will enforce off-specs.
First off, clearly this is not a problem with dual-specs, it is a problem with the raid leader. I do not often pug because my views on group leadership often do not tie with pug views on group leadership and thus, I choose not to put myself in the position where I am subjected to the rules of others. I will not join a group with enforced looting (you can come but if x drops, so and so will get it) and will leave if it is mentioned as a rule. I will not be bullied into a role I do not wish (oh come on, any feral can tank, just do it or we’ll be here all day) and I will not respec to please a guild.
This is very different from the issue of respeccing because I want to help my guild. If my guild decided they needed x role and I wanted to try x role then I would offer. If I did not wish to do it I would not and my guild would not force me. If your guild would that is not the fault of dual specs.
If you offer your offspec as an availability that is no different to offering it now – except that more might do it and it will be easier.
That non-hybrids will be negatively affected by hybids getting dual specs.
I want to point out here that the big issue at hand is not that dual-specs themselves will negatively effect non-hybrids, but that hybrids having dual specs will negatively effect non-hybrids.
This is somewhat akin to saying that because I have apple juice and you got orange juice, that I am negatively affecting how much you enjoy your juice. Ok, maybe that’s a little flippant… The ‘big question’ here is whether my being able to fulfill multiple roles will mean that your enjoyment is lessened because of the effects thereof. So lets split this up a little bit further.
–Raid Spots
If my druid can tank, heal and dps then why take a rogue or a mage? For one thing, my druid would have to choose two of those and personally it would be tank and healing so I’m not competing with the rogue and mage anyway. I could go like another druid I know is planning and have a feral tanking and feral dps spec side by side for just an extra bit of dps when not tanking or being able to pick up an add on the boss which needs three tanks instead two. This means I’d still be, as my druid, taking up the same spot, utility wise, as my current raid role – tank with the ability to dps on bosses which do not need me to tank.
Lets take a case study as its the wider effect of this which will make more apparent why I think the issue is a bit of a non-issue:
As a raid leader I have, at the moment, a choice something like: 2 DKs, 1feral, 1 rogue, 1 warrior, 2 Retridins and 1-2 Enh Shammies and I have five melee spots.
Now, going by what bear and Dinaer say, I’m gonna ignore that rogue there and take only hybrids- they can fulfill other roles, dontcha know?
I know that DK1 has a good off-set for tanking and can probably hold adds in any current bossfight and is willing to be an offtank if the need arises, cool, and that Shammy1 and Retridin1 are our top two physical DPSers by virtue of having the best gear and being at almost every raid since Wrath began. I choose them both for their dps and for Retridin1’s good replenishment uptime. So, I’m left with 1 feral, 1 rogue, 1DK, 1 Warrior, 1 Retridin, one shammy and only two spots. Who do I give them to? On a progress night I will choose whomever is the highest dps, most reliable and least idiotic. I will not take Shammy2 as he barely raids and pulls about 1k dps when the mobs stand in front of him really really still and I will not choose the other retridin for the same reason. The warrior’s dps changes from night to night, depending on the phase of the moon and other such odd factors – he’s unreliable dps. The rogue is a frequent raider and, although his frequent deaths to whirlwinds are noted, is good dps and generally competent and the druid, whilst only just starting back to raiding and undergeared, is reliable, quick with tactics and pulls more dps than the much better geared Shammy2 and Retridin2 so I will chose the last two, obviously.
This is how things should be picked – based on skill, gear, ability and dps. I don’t give a flying saucer if my druid can offtank because I have two other available offtanks (the retridin and DK) and I’m not even taking the shammy for heroism because we almost always have one resto shammy who could cover that.
Just because someone can take a role and could do it marginally better than abysmal does not mean a raid leader will even consider it. This is how I currently have to make these kinds of choices, and it likely won’t change post-dual specs. I’m not saying there won’t be isolated circumstances but, really, every single dpser is not going to lose their spot because of dual specs. Its not necessary or even useful to sit a good dpser of any kind just to allow for a fourth or fifth offspec tank / healer which you will almost certainly not need.
As an aside, currently, our top dps is often a mage and we routinely take 4- 5 mages to raids, despite them not bringing any extra buffs after the first one because they are good players and solid signers – again, this will not change after the patch.
– A DPS Issue?
The other thing I’ve noticed is that the arguments surrounding dual-specs are primarily to do with dps. DPS of a non-hybrid variety worry that hybrids will take their dps spots. I don’t see many people talking about tanks or healers being worried that their spots will be taken by hybrid dpsers. Why? Tanks and healers are harder to find, DPS spots are generally limited? This might be so for some but, currently, we’re actually having a harder time finding the required number of dpsers!
That aside, some dps seem to assume that healers or tanks all naturally want to be dps. I’ll let you in on a little secret – we don’t all want that! What I personally want is to be less useless when I’m ’superfluous’.
As my druid, tanking, what grates me most is being asked to dps on some fights – I’ll not only not be doing the thing I want but I’ll be doing it badly as my talents, glyphs and gems are set up for being hit in the face, not for shredding the arse end out of something.
As a healer, I already dps some fights! Thaddius, Loatheb, anything where the healing need isn’t so heavy I’m up there throwing out lightning bolts. I don’t really enjoy it all the time but I do wish that I could pull more than 800-1k dps – so that I’m not only useless as a healer because I’m not needed, but am also pathetic dps.
DPSers are never useless. I can’t think of a single fight where DPSers have to sit out or do what amounts to almost nothing the whole fight. I can think of a few where dps isn’t as important but they’re still there, needed, to do their job. I wonder how many people who’ve only played pure dps know what it is like to have to sit back and perform a secondary function which is only barely useful?
–Mage Tanks / Rogue Healers
In one breath they say that they want and think that non-hybrids should be especially good at what they do – that they should excel in their one role. I would actually not mind them giving rogues tanking but I would assume a lot of people in those classes, since they picked them to be the bestest ever dps, do not want to heal or tank.
They also use the recently oft-abused text from the World of Warcraft sites and manuals which say that mages and rogues should be the best dps. Well, sure, but then druids, shamans and paladins can go back to only being healers, warriors may only tank and rogues and mages can go back to being able to two-shot things. The way things were four, three or two years ago was not always good, to my mind, so why people use the excuse of ‘but blizzard said so in my manual!’ to justify mages and rogues being better than hybrid classes mystifies me.
The other thing which causes me some confusion is the ideal of rogues and mages topping everyone else – since when did hunters or warlocks have any role other than dps in raids? Surely they are similarly disadvantaged by the changes? Bear thinks not, using the same logic of ‘but blizzard said so four years ago’. Sorry, Bear, but I respectfully disagree with that point. Blizzard said a lot of things back then and have changed a lot of things since which have gone against in your favour – like druids being made not only viable but good tanks.
You cannot ask for one aspect but deny the other – if rogues and mages are to be better than everyone else for that reasoning then warriors must excel at tanking and priests should be a lot better than all other healing classes (ok, so they already outperform shamans and paladins by a large margin but thats an issue for another post..).
Oh and don’t forget, shamans should be able to tank some things again - the ability to do which, they have removed. One of my first ever instances was actually with a shaman tanking -it may have only been Scarlet Monastery Cathedral but, still, he was considered a viable tank for non-raid instances at the time.
Arguing that someone specced, glyphed, gemmed, and playing their class as best they can should automatically be worse than someone who plays another class ‘just because the manual said so” is absoloute nonsense in my book – because they have the ability to change to a different spec is just as ludicrous a reason to me.
The Purpose of Dual Specs
The one thing I agree with Dinaer on totally was that choosing one spec and sticking with it was a tenet of the game. Up until last year Blizzard had been very much against the idea of ‘free’ respecs and encouraged the idea that picking a spec to stick with was an ideal situation.
However…
On the one hand we have the fact that Blizzard is really pushing pvp. I think they see that as the ticket to making this franchise last, not an idea I’m in love with but, again, that’s totally another issue. Having dual specs, when first implemented, was said to be to allow people to have a pvp spec so that the pve and pvp aspects of the game would be a little easier to integrate. I commend the idea even if I would not participate in it.
Dinaer and Bear seem to be looking at it from a wholly PvE perspective, as is their right as, with me, that is where their interest lies (at least, for Bear, I’m afraid I’m unsure for Dinaer). Either way, they are examining the purely PvE consequences of this change – which is fine but short sighted.
I know several people in my guild (solid PvE players) who will be taking a pvp spec as their offspec. I also know there are some people, like myself, who are considering a second spec for the same role – I want to try an interesting healing spec but want to be able to change back to my normal spec if the other doesn’t turn out well, this will likely be my personal first use of dual-specs.
On that note, we may say ‘dps only have one role’ but they all have three (or more) specs. I’ll use my rogue as an example. Now, as I have evinced several times, I do not really pvp so having a pvp offspec? Not an option I care to take up. What I might have, however, is a grinding spec. When I was dpsing full-time on my rogue I specced into the most effective raid build at the time – combat-swords. This was an ok grinding spec but I would have loved to have dropped some talents which you mostly don’t need outside of bosses and picked up improved gouge or the talent which makes you walk faster in stealth. Oh how I missed that… So, to say offspecs are not useful to non-hybids who don’t pvp is simply lacking imagination. Wether those little changes are worth the 1k asking price for dual specs is another matter entirely.
To further that, I will find it so much more enjoyable to be able to switch specs as my shaman outside of raids. I don’t want to dps in a raid, I don’t much like it, but for dailies? Do I want another 1kdps almost instantly and be able to do killing based dailies in less than half-an-hour? Yes please! I love being resto, I can grind as resto if I have to, but I do get fustrated at watching DPS specced players zoom through their quests happily whilst I lag behind, frustrated because I know it could be easier and because half of all dailies are biased towards killing things – an improvement on the 90% of TBC dailies, to be sure, but still not great.
I put up with it for now because I love my spec, I love healing, but why should I be punished my whole play time for something I want to do when grouped and a role which is maximised for grouping? Some people would tell me to group for dailies but, between having an odd schedule (I usually do my dailies right in the early hours) and not liking to have to bother others for my own needs, I don’t do so well with that idea.
Loot
Loot is an issue many people feel strongly about and, as I mentioned above, I don’t stand for pissing about with it in a selfish way, that’s just not cool. Wanting loot is not inherently bad – its a way of measuring your progress and a little ‘ding’ once your character has had his last big ding – hitting 80. Wanting loot at the expense of others happens frequently because often multiple people need the same item. Wanting loot which you are not going to immediately use and would be of more use to someone right now is dickish.
If someone takes an item off of you for their offspec when you need it for your main spec then that is a problem with the player, not the system. If you group with them again and they do the same thing then that is a problem with your attitude, not the system. If you do not state clearly when in a pug what the loot rules will be or have it made clear to you before you begin and then an issue happens which you don’t agree with that is, in fact, partially your fault. I’m not saying you’re an idiot or naieve, just that you cannot entirely blame someone else for assuming something different to yourself. You can blame them for being an arse, but, again, not the fault of the system.
I will often ask if I can take a resto offspec item for my druid on runs – but, of course, only if it is not needed by the healer. I am happy to roll against another person who also wants it for an offspec. This is natural to me. Lightwalkers has been, as long as I’ve been in it, a guild who would rather offer an offspec upgrade to someone than shard an item. When you get to the point where you cannot use all of the shards in your guild bank for people’s enchants (goodness knows how many void crystals we had in there when WotLK hit), it doesn’t make sense to waste loot.
Get to the damn point!
I like dual specs, I’m not totally enamored with how they are being implemented but I can understand why they are being created that way – random roadblocks being put in simply to serve as a barrier or annoyance will do only that, annoy. I fully expected them to change this but I honestly thought it would not be until after dual specs had been on live realms and people had complained.
Dual specs allow hybrids flexibility but I don’t think they will affect non-hybrids in as strong a way as some people are evincing and I do not believe that it calls for some form of ‘compensation’ to those who do not have a different role spec – hybrids have been able to perform multiple roles for years, all that is changing now is that they are able to switch with less pain. I know some people have always thought that hybrid should mean lesser but I have never agreed – having to play second fiddle to a warrior tank who barely bothered to enchant his gear or learn tactics has made me somewhat militant on this subject – if I try my best I should be able to compete on an even basis in my chosen role at the same level as others in that same role.
The time and dedication it would take to be able to do as well in two specs as one at the flip of a coin is to be lauded. It’s also, to my mind, an improvement over systems whereby guilds will sit a certain player out so that they can get the required group setup and furthers Blizzard’s idea of take the player, not the class. If I choose 25 people I stick with them – if that means doing Razuvious with four healers because we had no shadowpriests than so be it. If, once dual specs are out, I can ask one of the hybrids to switch over to healing then thats nice but I won’t choose them specifically to do so and I won’t demand it of them. One of our shadowpriests, when we first did Patchwerk, helped with healing – we didn’t take him for that but it happened – I guess he was screwing some non-hybrid out of a spot then? No? Why does dual-speccing make any difference then except to make people who already have to sit out or do something other than their main raid role more effective?
If you read through all of that you deserve a cookie.
/cookie
/hug
Thanks to Bear and Dinaer both for giving me something interesting to write about – I’ve been champing at the bit to write all week but nothing had come to mind which I could really get my teeth into until this evening!
35 Comments so far
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/applaud
Read it all the way through. Interesting piece. Makes me wonder if I have enough to say to write something about it ;)
At this point I don’t like the planned implementation of dual specs yet.
Let’s see it from a PvP standpoint first: This is where I could have seen the biggest potential. I’m not really intereste into arenas, one big reason for me is the respecc: As shaman healer I’d like to pvp with a different build but 50g for 10 games and then 50g to specc back is too much of an annoyance and lets not forget the change of glyphs that would be necessary. But as a dedicated raider I prefer having two PVE specs, and being in an ambitious raid guild I feel like it is a great contribution I can bring if I can switch into a dps role in a second, I wouldn’t want to miss that for 10 arena games a week. So as a hybrid the dual spec absolutely fails for me if it purpose was to interest me into pvp (which I would have liked, but then I’d need 3 possible specs). So from a pvp perspective the winners are non-hybrid classes that like both, PVE and PVP and can now easily switch between one and the other.
From a raiders standpoint I am very unsure if I like the dual spec or not. I do see your points, but I still think they are points you are missing:
- It is incredibly easy to get gear. If you raid regulary 25 man raids you have no problem at all to get 2 Tier7.5 pieces for your offspec and can complete your set with 2 tier7 pieces from 10 man emblems and other emblem loot. Especially druids and shamans will have absolutely no problem to have a splendid healer and caster dps set. And there’s not just emblems, actual content makes everyone drown in epic, it is so easy to have a top notch offspec gear.
- Good players are very very likely to master two specs. So I see that people might expect good players to have an offspec. So my guess is that we will se a shift towards raids that always bring their 25 best players. Many players who probably die a little bit more often in the fire will get less raid time because there is the possibility to replace them with people who respecc and they loose even more of the “bring the class not the player”-bonus which isn’t so extremly bad in my oppinion.
- I do see the pressure of having a good offspec coming. Let’s look at the example of tanks: Druids in raids are expected to have kitty and bear gear if they go feral. That’s what they like and often that’s why they’d go feral. Prot warriors on the other hand I know many who have no interest at all in dps, but from now on I guess every def warrior is better of with some good dps gear. Because there will always be that boss where the trash needs 2-4 tanks but the boss himself just one MT.
- Let’s not forget that dual specs might have impact on boss design. Every good guild will have more room min./max. not only for their raid night lineup but for every single encounter. Blizzard has to design bosses around guilds that might begin every encounter with the perfect lineup. We’ll see much less prot warriors or paladins trying to do some damage in a boss fight because only one tank is needed but much more perfect settings for every encounter.
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I like to see both sides of the coin, and i appreciate your viewpoint, Aurik. :) As it is…I’m still undecided. So much to think about!
Well written article.
@drug: Blizzard stated at Blizzcon that Dual Specs will NOT affect how they design bosses. They won’t be designing a boss that needs 8 tanks, or 12 healers or something crazy like that.
[...] reading /hug’s post about Dual-specs, which lead me to Big Bear Butt’s post on Dual specs, which [...]
Great Post. I totally agree with all of your points.
Realistically I think the whole dual specs debate comes down to your guild and the quality of your raid leader. If a person does not want to have to heal then they shouldn’t and if you have a good raid leader they will not ask you to do something you don’t want to do. I think we can all agree that if you try and force someone to do something they do not want to do, in most cases, they will not try their hardest at it, and quite often it will end up having not been worthwhile even to ask them to.
If you have a good raid leader they will take you even though you can’t switch specs to help heal or tank.
A raid does not need 15 dps who can all either switch to healing or tanking, so why would any raid stop bringing mages, hunters, rogues, and warlocks?
My guild usually brings 2 rogues, 2-4 hunters, 2-3 warlocks and 4-6 mages on any given 25 man instance and I can’t imagine that dual specs will change this.
There is a big social aspect to raiding in my guild, and I imagine most other guilds, we want to raid with people we like, so if that means we bring 6 mages to a raid, then sure, we bring 6 mages, and dual specs won’t change that.
Really nice article. :)
I keep thinking that there’s a fundamental disconnect that I’m not seeing, because I just don’t understand on some level BBB’s argument.
Does a PuG really force anyone to respec? Would it matter? If someone wanted to get in a vault run, would the leader there force someone to respec? That just doesn’t make sense to me. Do raid leaders force people to respec? In my experience this only happens when there’s no alternative.
Kal, I agree with there being a disconnect. I think we have tons of people arguing (always in a nice friendly manner of course) about a bunch of different things.
The main argument seems to center around dual specs, but the smaller arguments are about implmentations, limiting, cost, etc. Its very hard to separate out the issues. I think BBB’s argument was more that dual specs the concept = good, but that the implmentation, as it stands now, may create problems. In that, I agree.
There has to be some happy medium between just flip flopping on the fly or having barriers that are completely annoying. Personally, I thought being able to port out to a lexicon to swap for free and then being summoned back presented a tolerable, fair implementation. Plus, it gave the scribes something to do and that profession is in some need of some excitement.
My personal ire is directed towards the switch of the implementation to basically being “push of a button” anywhere you want it with no consequence. We can do better than that can’t we? To me, that completely breaks the point of speccing in trees and such. Why not just let everyone do everything in their tree then? Why spec at all? I mean, then we wouldn’t even have to deal with any of this right?
At some point, a line has to be drawn for it to continue being a challenging game and not just “god mode”. I think the disconnect exists where individuals draw that line and then we argue about different lines without realizing it. At least, that’s my long winded two cents.
Sorry for the long post, and a well written counterpoint btw. :-)
I can’t speak for BBB, that was a pretty fair summation of my points. I will point out, though, that the “hybrid vs non-hybrid” really came from BBB… my points were about enforced raid respecs and traditional raid roles. I don’t worry too much about hybrids vs non-hybrid because skill > spec in that regard.
It is true that my post was purely from a PvE perspective. Dual specs are MUCH more useful for those who do both PvP and PvE, and I fully support a dual spec system for those people. Its the anytime-anywhere implementation that drew my ire.
Its just my opinion that they are removing things that were previously an essential part of the game, and not making a substantial improvement in the process. That’s my opinion.
Back in the early days of BC when lower Kara was still a challenge, on the Maiden of Virtue fight I was almost useless as a rogue. If I went into melee range I took too much damage and put a strain on our healing. If I stayed out I did almost no damage with ranged weapons. Sure, I felt useless on that fight. But the raid and I were forced to work around it. I found ways to be useful. I ran into melee whenever I had Cloak of Shadows available to protect me from damage. I used Holy Protection Potions. I used DoTs so my damage would still tick when I was standing out of range. Heck, I even bandaged people who took a Holy Fire. I did what I could to contribute in any way. Letting me suddenly transform into a fully-specced healer for that fight would seem like a cop-out… like I couldn’t find a good way to make use of my abilities so I’ll just give up and do something else.
Everyone sees this in light of their own personal circumstances. I know that I won’t be paying 1000g for it. I also know that I’ll still assemble our raid teams on the assumption that if I bring a resto druid in, he’s going to stay a resto druid the whole time. It just seems like the way the game was meant to be played.
I do enjoy the discussion, though.
@Fulguralis: My personal ire is directed towards the switch of the implementation to basically being “push of a button” anywhere you want it with no consequence. We can do better than that can’t we? To me, that completely breaks the point of speccing in trees and such. Why not just let everyone do everything in their tree then? Why spec at all? I mean, then we wouldn’t even have to deal with any of this right?
I don’t see a problem between making something easy and making something annoying in terms of no consequence. Right now, respeccing has no significant consequence. Money is easy to come by. It doesn’t take that long (and a lot of people have addons/setups specifically to handle this already). It takes a bit of time for the summon, but we’re not talking significant amounts, and if you could plan reasonably you could get around it. Now, you might argue that this is also a problem, and that’s fine. I’ll agree to disagree and move on.
But what you’re really railing against is the ability to do this now.
Why not let people do everything in their trees, everywhere? Because they’re making a choice. They’re making a relevant choice to each encounter they face, if they so choose. If you’re DPS, you now have the choice of deciding which of your two specs is most advantageous to that encounter.
And choices like this separate out good players from mediocre ones.
Sure, you can choose an okay spec for everything. Or you can have two specs to choose from that work better or worse depending on what kind of encounter it is, or what you have in your raid. Or you can be a hybrid and be more flexible for meeting raid requirements – though this sort of thing is gear limited.
The thing is, this is all an option. This is a choice. This is a variable that you control. It is not the same as doing everything, all the time. It’s certainly not the same as having that flexibility during combat. This will reward those who research the most and can reasonably play multiple different ways (or roles) with the same skill. And you think this is dumbing things down?
It’s not hard at all to take the cookie-cutter spec du jour for a class and never think about your spec again. It’s a lot harder to have options and choose different specs depending on your role, then have to define that role, pick options, and know when that role is best to be used.
Making individual decisions more important is more interesting to me as a player. If you don’t like that, nothing is forcing you from using that choice.
That’s one facet of it: being able to have a specific spec for a certain kind of encounter. That’s probably not what you were talking about though.
The second facet is having the ability to have different roles for a raid’s normal night and be able to swap through them repeatedly. As I’ve said before, this is already a problem, and it’s already solved largely through gearing. Raid leaders seldom ask someone to respec unless they need to. Most players don’t have a second set of gear that is as good as their primary spec until well after the level of raiding is on farm. Most players don’t really want to do this normally; they’ve picked a role they like and want to stick with it, but you know what? They’ll still switch on occasion. I know plenty of DPS players who tank sometimes because they have to. They don’t like it, but they’ll do it if they want to get something done. I know a few DPSers or tanks that’ll heal too. Again, nothing they want to do but they’ll do it in case they need to. This is already being done, and it’s in response to an overwhelming shortage of healers and tanks.
And you’re saying you’d rather make people stay in static roles so that there’s even worse of a shortage?
Like I said, I see nothing but upside to this and I literally do not understand the problem here. Those that don’t want to have different roles won’t, and they won’t be forced to. Those that do, will. Why is this so problematic? Because it makes it easier to find a group? Because that’s not how people were defined? I really just don’t get it.
This is such BS. You’re in a position to say it’s all nice and good. You’re not the one now going to get the shaft looking for a raid guild. My main is a mage, I have no choice but to be DPS. I’ve been doing well in my current guild, but we are currently very short on everything when it comes to 10-mans. I can now see very shortly that as our guild recruits the raid leader is going to pick up hybrids to replace all straight DPS classes, and why not, DPS can only bring DPS to the raid, where hybrids can bring DPS and heals or DPS and tanking. There is absolutely no loss for a raid leader to replace DPS with hybrid given that their is equal talent on both sides. I just see being edged out of the highest level raid guilds once again because of Blizzards lack of foresight.
[...] BBB seems to agree with the noobish rogue that there is something off about this whole thing. Aurik disagrees and /hugs the idea of frequent spec [...]
@Eldren – tbh any raid leader worth their salt will want to take the *best dps*. As a kitty druid (I usually play resto), no matter how well I place my points, the gear I have, or the glyphs I possess – someone who’s a mage through and through will easily beat me in a dps fight. Why would my raid leader take me to dps, even if that’s my other spec? Unless I’d spent a LONG time playing that spec and got good at it, I would never replace a mage (or [insert your own primary dps class in here]). Surely, you’d take the dps class for face-melting? Sure, I would have resto as another spec… but if you’re already taking your compliment of healers, why take another? The only reason I can think of is if there’s a particular boss fight that needs a little more healing or tanking than usual. What this dual-spec thing means is if there’s not enough of a specific role to go AT ALL, then someone can respec to plug the gap.
And, if I’m honest – doesn’t this happen anyway? Just instead of all the extra cost involved, people pay a one-off chunk and they’re done. And, my dps alts will most likely be using this as an oppertunity to get into PVP. So it’s good all round.
When you think about it, the cluey straight dps classes should be able to use this to maximise their output over the hybrids. An AoE/Single Target dual or some other form of dual spec that takes into account different conditions. Hybrids have 1-2 less dps trees so will have less options. Mages should love it, they’ll be able to swap from control when needed to out and out bang.
As a protection paladin who’s not the main tank of the guild, I feel utterly useless in the 1 tank encounter. With dual spec, at least I can pretend to dps when not tanking.
[...] Slashhug has a terrific post up covering all of the concern&… about the new system and how it will [...]
Your opinion on Raid Spots is totally subjective. I’ll give you an example of why this sucks for pure DPS classes. I’ll use a 5 man to keep the math simple. 5 man is typically 1 tank 3 dps 1 healer. Pre-dual spec the pure DPS has a 3/5 chance of answering the call, the holy priest has 1/5 and the prot warrior has 1/5. The sum of these is 5/5. This gives the dps a (3/5) / (5/5) chance at the spot. Now assuming dual-specs are available. The dps has 3/5, nothing changes. The priest now has 2/5, DPS or heals, the warrior now has 2/5, DPS or tank. The sum for these three is now 7/5. This now gives the pure dps (3/5) / (7/5) chance. That’s probability amigo. It’s a difference of 60% vs. 42%. I realize this is an over generalization but when the sum of the chances increases your initial probability of a spot goes down.
Youre crazy to think that everyone is in a guild as easy-going as yours. The hard core raiding guilds will configure the most efficient way to clear content as quickly as possible. Because the pure dps classes are no longer unmatched in their damage as they should be, they are expendable to the shrewd raid leader. Cruel? Yes. Unfair? Absolutely. But a raiding guild will take advantage of this new option and the hard core raiders who can, will spec to better the raid. Rogue and Mage dont bring as much to the table – its undenyable. Blizz may have created this spec for pvp/pve but it is advantageous to raiding – especially when acheivements are all the rage.
And by the way, the information about mage and rogue being four years old is still relevant when blizzard hasnt changed their stance on these pure dps classes. They are meant to be fierce and untouchable in damage. They arent and its an issue.
I really can’t even begin to understand why all the mages and rogues out there think they are going to lose their raid spots to hybrids. What sane raid leader would take 15 hybrids to dps because they have a healing offspec? I can understand taking one or two hybrid dps that can switch to healing if the need arises, but that’s it. And most 25 man raids already have dps filling those roles anyway. We have 2 boomkins and 1 enhancement shaman already in our regular group that will have healing offspecs, there is absolutely no reason to take another player with a healing offspec over a mage/hunter/warlock/rogue.
Life for mages and rogues is going to become very stressful before better. I certainly hope Blizzard has some serious changes planned for these classes.
First off, awesome wall of text =D
Secondly: “On the one hand we have the fact that Blizzard is really pushing pvp. I think they see that as the ticket to making this franchise last, not an idea I’m in love with but, again, that’s totally another issue. Having dual specs, when first implemented, was said to be to allow people to have a pvp spec so that the pve and pvp aspects of the game would be a little easier to integrate. I commend the idea even if I would not participate in it.”
I agree – It’s as though there are three completely different games within WoW: 1. Leveling, 2. End game PvE, and 3. PvP. I can understand how Blizz wants to make PvP more viable for people while they also do PvE. Personally, when I PvP (which is not as often as PvE), I don’t respec for it. I just go with my PvE spec. It’s just not worth the gold for me to switch back and forth between the two. When dual spec arrives, I’m going to dual spec a PvE tank build, but I can see how people would rejoice over being able to respec into PvP for a one time fee.
“If, once dual specs are out, I can ask one of the hybrids to switch over to healing then thats nice but I won’t choose them specifically to do so and I won’t demand it of them.”
This is totally right, and you can do that. At the moment. Because Naxx, and probably Ulduar, aren’t designed for dual specs. But you’re a raider in a progression guild, so you must be able to look ahead.
Some raiders in hard-core guilds will min-max via dual-specs, and it will become more common-place. All off-tanks will be expected to have a solid DPS spec and gear for fights when they aren’t needed to tank. Likewise healers.
Eventually this approach will trickle down, and Blizzard will realise what’s happening and dual-specs will likely be required for progress in future raids.
Going back to your example, come the 3.2 patch raid, your hybrid best be able to switch over to healing, and he best have a full set of epic healing gear, know how to play, and be as effective as any of your main healers. Because the encounters will be designed expecting him to do that.
Put another way, Kara was designed for 2 tanks, 3 healers and 5 dps. Prince only needed 1 tank, so you could trivialise the fight by switching out your second tank for a mage. It was easy, as you got around a 15% boost in dps. With dual-specs, you can keep the same player, just have the tank switch specs and gear, for the same effect. 15% more dps. Massive buff. So encounters will be designed assuming you do that to prevent them being trivialised.
[...] here. Until then, you can read some rants on that topic from Dinaer and Big Bear Butt, and an anti-rant from /hug. They should set the mood a [...]
Look,
As a warlock this is what I see. I beginning raider (just starting 10 naxx) but I am very skilled. I understand fights and am good at analyzing our problems and finding solutions. I have decent gear and can pull far better dps than would be expected from said gear. BUT I have done alot of runs where Hybrid classes are very close to me in dps (sometimes more). So when it comes to hybrid specs, and a raid leader has to choose who comes, hes gonna see a warlock with good dps, or a shamman that does similar dps but can swtich over in a second to heal on certain fights or can swtich from heals to dps on others. Whats the leader gonna choose? Not me. If I was out dpsing the shammy by +300, then yeah I’d get chosen – but the fact is that all dps specs achieve similar top level dps and having raid utility will probably count more than 200 dps or even a more skilled player.
As a Holy Pally I applaud dual specs. I don’t want to DPS in raids, but I do want to do my dailies at a better than agonizing pace. I probably will make my second spec a PvP Ret spec because I play on a PvP server. I will appreciate being less useless on dps race fights where less healing is needed, rather than the Holy Shock spam which is almost all I’m good for if I have to dps.
I’m surprised so many “pure” DPS’ers seem concerned that raids in the future will suddenly be 25 hybrid classes so you can have 12 healers and 13 tanks if needed. Why should a raidleader who knows what he’s doing pick someone with a DPS offspec they rarely play over someone playing a DPS class for years and being really good at it, only to have 3 more healers and 3 more tanks in the raid which will never be needed anyway? You can’t change specs and gear in combat, so “jumping in when a healer dies” is something you won’t see happen with dual spec. There are no encounters so far where you’d suddenly need 3-5 extra healers or tanks. And if you’re a healer or tank short for a raid, what does your guild do atm? Ask a hybrid with good offspec gear to spec tank for 1 raid. The only difference will be, that in the future, that respec won’t always cost 100g anymore.
I have my doubts even the top raidguilds will, in the future, only or mainly pick hybrids for their raids. What for? You don’t need 10 healers or 5 tanks for any fight. You don’t need half the group to be able to respec during the raid. Yes, maybe 1 spot or 2 might go to people who can respec on the fly during the raid. But where is that different from those people porting out of the instance to see the class trainer and get summoned back if a respec is really neccessary? You’re already taking those 1 or 2 people along on your raids atm anyway, you just save them the extra 100g per night if they get asked to respec.
If your DPS is higher than that of the other DPS’ers competing with you for the spot, why should someone with a healing/tanking offspec be chosen when there will be no need for that additional healer or tank on the raid? Just because it’s possible to raid with 25 hybrids that all have a tank/healing + DPS spec, it doesn’t mean it would actually be better or in any way more useful to indeed do so.
Personally, I think this is going to lessen pugging overall in the game, as pug raid leads will not want the headaches of asking 10+ players all about their dual specs for a raid group that is not too well or guild organized to begin with.
Very nice summary
We’ll have to see how things play out in 3.1 but hopefully the net effect of this change is that more raids and instance groups happen than otherwise would have.
For instance a 5 man pug with Fury Warrior, Rogue, Mage, Balance Druid and Enhancement Shaman currently has zero chance of pugging a heroic. After dual specs come in maybe they can get to enjoy more instancing and less queueing.
I have certainly been in the situation where raids have been cancelled when needed specs don’t turn up and it can be very demoralising and bad for the guild concerned.
As my two main characters are a DK – which I like to respec between tank and dps – and a holy pally – who is quite slow questing – I’m probably somewhat biased in my opinion that dual specs are a good thing.
I’m not exactly happy with the cost of 1k, but that’s probably due to the fact that I’m an in-game spendaholic who can barely stay above 100g, and less due to the overall idea of the fact.
[...] Spinksville points out that the issue is with raid design, not hybrids, and Aurik of /Hug posts an anti-rant in support of dual specs. There are doubtless many other posts I’ve missed, [...]
Wouldn’t it just be super cool if you can attend 2- 10man Nax raids on one character in one week. One for each spec. (assuming you didnt use the other spec in the same raid)
I agree with this post, duel specs are nice. I’m a priest and it would be nice to be a disc priest as my main healing build, but also have a holy spec for when I need better AOE heals, just depends on the instance I’m doing.
I’m really enjoying this thread. Lots of good (and bad) viewpoints, but there is another
point of view that I haven’t seen. I, personally, don’t enjoy PVP, but I Love the priest class. I play with my family and my hunter husband hates it when I try to dps when I’m supposed to be the healer. Darn it! I like nuking things! So now I can be a Holy/Shadow priest and he can stop whining/complaining. I’ll be a Holy when we play together and a Shadow when I’m on my own – gathering for the family or just feel like kicking the crap out of things. I hated respecking thus why I have a level 70 holy Troll and a level 64 shadow BE on the same server. I also enjoy playing a hunter (not to out perform my husband), but having that pet makes leveling more fun and gathering that much easier. It sure would be nice to get those cool beastmaster pets, but I’m a marksman who really doesn’t want to give up all that power. So now I can have them both. When I feel like stomping around with my giant dinosaur or core hound (insert your favorite exotic pet here) I can visit the stable master and let him loose on low level mobs while I gather to my hearts content. Then when it’s time for serious questing switch back to marksman and enjoy my other non-exotic pets. Oh yeah, I know Blizzard would rather I PVP, but all that really matters is I pay my monthly fee to keep the machine’s wheels turning.
I’m not too concerned about the fear that dual specs will kill the utility that is my rogue main. Bliz has already said that cc will be important again starting in Ulduar, so that means mages, rogues, and hunters will still be useful. Add to that the abilities like misdirect and (I’m sorry mages, but its true) conjured refreshments, well, we’ll still be wanted. Besides, everyone’s a dk now anyway.
As a side note, I also have a hybrid spec alt that I play and I intend to utilize dual spec with her. She’s a holy pally, she will always be a holy pally, and I will raid as a holy pally. But now I can daily as ret every day and actually kill something.