I finally got my 7.5 helm and, as much as I usually dislike helms, I just have to have this shown for at least a little while.  *grin* Shaman tier 7(.5) looks awesome and I really don’t want to lose it to the atrocity that is tier 8. /sadface

In other news, I’ve been bashing through some achievements that I’d been meaning to do for a while and finally took the plunge to get myself Leading the Cavalry and the albino drake which happens to come with it, hehe.

I also finally got exalted with the ‘puppy-men’ (dinging my 20th faction at the same time), and hugged or killed a whole pile of critters. Next up?  Who knows, but I’m having fun!

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Since around the first few weeks of Wrath there had been much debate over the usefulness of some professions and the direction of top ‘tier’ crafted epics. There has been growing disquiet ever since over percieved disparity between the professions in terms of stat bonuses, crafted items and the money which can be made out of them.  This post is partly about those niggles – they caused me to start thinking about it – but also a look into professions as a whole in Wrath.

Professions currently in WoW are:

Gathering: Herbalism, Mining, Skinning

Crafting: Alchemy, Blacksmithing, Enchanting, Engineering, Leatherworking, Tailoring, Jewelcrafting, Inscription

Basic / Secondary: Cooking, First Aid, Fishing

All of the professions have changed in Wrath – most moreso than just added recipes.  The type and variability of the new recipes are an interesting new factor but there are also new perks for most in the form of self-only buffs.  The percieved uneven spread of these buffs has led to the current unrest with regard to professions – and favouritism towards those which are thought to be more of a benefit to the individual.

Personally, I love professions.  They are a large part of the game for me and the amount of time spent on them in Wrath is rather nice – they feel less tacked on and more thought through – but if it was all perfect, this would be a dull post so…

The Growth

In Wrath, the number of craftable items per crafting profession has gone up considerably for some compared to those available from the trainer, discovery and non-rep vendors at the start of The Burning Crusade.  These include cross-discipline items (i.e. tailoring contains all three main craftable sets) and jewelcrafting is counted from skill level 300 items and above for the BC portion.

• Skill : TBC / Wrath
• Alchemy : 32  /  56
• Blacksmithing : 65 / 99
• Enchanting : 27 / 64
• Engineering : 47 / 41
• Leatherworking : 29 / 119
• Tailoring : 33 / 65
• Jewelcrafting : 31 / 185
• Inscription : n/a

The items crafted by all of the professions are not all useful to a single character, of course, and several of the items may be ‘for fun’ or ‘junk’ items intended for levelling but either way, with the exception of engineering, every single crafting profession has gained a considerably larger cache of recipes from the trainer, vendors or discovery compared to The Burning Crusade.

(Information scoured from the wonderful Crafter’s Tome recipe lists – any errors, of course, are my own.)

The Broadening

The reason the crafter only weapons were done away with however was that most people chose to take the profession purely for the purposes of being able to skip ahead of the content or not do the content because smithing provided them with something far easier to attain than anything else they could normally get. While this is ok from time to time with an occasional piece of gear, the concept of crafters making “best in slot” items was more or less considered bad from our end. When many people dropped the trade skills they enjoyed simply because taking a different trade skills made them more powerful (Stormherald, Frozen Shadowweave) than that is clearly not what we intended.

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In fact, they didn’t just make the max level created items slightly less powerful in Wrath, they also made them available to anyone who could stump up the mats and find a crafter for any item they wanted.  This was, to my mind, a bit of a necessary change – if you’re going to make the items less powerful then they should be available to all – they’re useful to perhaps make some gold and outfit yourself before hitting Naxx but it’s a leg up and not the major buff given by your profession.

However, I do slightly miss the one or two craftable items from a profession which really showed off your dedication to that profession – a complete primal mooncloth set took time to make and max level skill, as did, say, a Lionheart Executioner etc.   There aren’t many things like this in Wrath as even the best of the profession recipes are often replaced too quickly for any one item to become iconic.

Most crafting  professions now have a self-only buff which is better than similar buffs available to players without that profession or give a buff which others cannot get at all.

• Alchemists: Flask and Elixir buffs are longer and better
  
• Blacksmithing: Two extra sockets (prismatic)
• Enchanting: Ring enchants
• Engineering: Various item enhancements
  
• Inscription: Shoulder enchants
• Jewelcrafting: 3 better gems
  
• Leatherworking: Wrist ‘furs’
  
• Tailoring: Cloak embroideries

Whilst some of these could be argued to be better than others and some may change in worth as the game progresses, the norm has now become that professions have a decent self-buff which isn’t tied to a singular piece of equipment.  Similarly, all gathering professions were given a self-only buff too, bringing them closer on par with crafting professions.

The upshot of this is that, for the most part, which profession you pick is irrelevant – almost all offer a benefit which is very similar and you won’t be completely screwing yourself over by not taking a particular profession.  Of course, some people are irked that engineering and tailoring befits don’t stack up to be as great as the others but in 3.1 the dps cloak embroidery is getting significantly buffed and Blizzard has stated that the purpose of engineering is fun – not necessarily straight up buffs.  You have my sympathies, engineers, you really do, but afer an expansion of perma-goggles I can’t help but feel blizzard is trying a little too hard to make sure nothing in engineering is overly powerful again.

We don’t want to provide really good and/or best-in-slot items that you upgrade throughout an expansion. We kind of set a precedent for this in The Burning Crusade, but we weren’t happy with it so we are trying to get away from it now.

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The other profession which has gained a ’sort-of’ buff for its adherents is cooking – cooking dailies give spice, which can then be used to make better food – a small benefit but the time spent daily doing these quests is also not very long.  I have seen a great number of people take up cooking because, without it, the ‘best’ food is simply too expensive or unavailable to them.

It is rather nice to see both cooking and fishing becoming more common but, at the same time, I find it odd that Blizzard are making it more necessary given that they claimed they took away things such as weapon enhancements because they were a burden on upkeep and raiding costs.

‘Integration’

The two new professions we gained in The Burning Crusade and Wrath – Jewelcrafting and Inscription – both introduced new aspects to the game just to accomodate the profession (well, chicken or egg argument there but nonetheless, neither would exist without the other).  This level of integration has affected the usefulness and economic potential of both pofessions – i.e. both were made with large-scale consumable production in mind or with the knowledge that it would occur.

Although new slot upgrades became available in both TBC and Wrath for the other professions, I feel that the original professions (with the exception of alchemy and enchanting) suffer from being of the mindset to create lesser numbers of higher-quality items.  Belt buckles were a lovely idea in the vein of leatherworking leg patches and tailoring spellthreads, though limited (it would be nice for it to be a general socket, unique(1), stacking with blacksmith slots so they don’t lose that bonus), but most other professions do not have the mass-market consumables because of slot limitations and them not having the same level of character integration that the two newest professions have.  Whilst you will buy one leg patch and one belt buckle per outfit, you’ll need anything from two to ten or more gems!

Being able to sell one item once a week to one player who will only ever need one of that item is a far cry from selling hundreds or more smaller items per week which people will need to buy again if they re-gem or respec – though inscribers will possibly be more out-of-pocket after dual specs.  Jewelcrafting gets it nicely from both sides though, as its epic rings an necklaces are also very good large-sale items for a decent cash injection once in a while.

So, we have an uneven split between the utility of some professions outside of the ‘benefit to player’ sphere.  Jewelcrafting, enchanting and alchemy come out well here, as all three have decent bonuses and mass-marketable produce.  Further, both alchemy and jewlcrafting have player-only trinkets which are best-in-slot pre-raid and beyond for some classes.

Secondary Bonuses

Some professions have better secondary bonuses than others – as mentioned, both alchemy and jewelcrafting have trinkets which aren’t counted into their ‘profession bonus’.  Leatherworkers get self-only leg patches, as does tailoring, which are cheaper if not not better than available equivalents – jewelcrafters get a few blue quality, bop rings as well as jewelcrafting only trinkets, blacksmithing has a few nice BoP blues if you’re specialised into armor or weapon smithing and alchemy has the BoP trinkets.  Engineering, I’m not sure watt you’d consider the smaller bonuses, if there are any, because it’s the one profession I don’t have at or near max.  Inscription and enchanting lose out a little here – everything aside from their main profession boost (shoulder and ring enchants) is available to anyone else – especially now that inscription’s tomes are BoE.

To my mind, it’s these secondary bonuses which affect how enjoyable and useful a profession can seem, especially on an alt – things such as the cheaper spellthreads and armor patches are a great benefit to the player and the lack of these in some professions seems a little sad – especially with inscription where, once a player has used their six glyphs, the only personal benefits they get from their profession are the shoulder enchants, which are not changed very frequently.

Recipe Aquisition

This is one of the few things which bugs me a little about professions in Wrath.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I do love the idea of discovery and profession quests but what I don’t like is the disparity between professions.  Some, like engineering, tailoring and blackmsithing, are pretty much handed every recipe they’re going to get – others, like Leatherworkers, have to spend what are now very rare items (arctic fur) to purchase a good chunk of their recipes as do enchanters (shards and even abyss crystals!).  Alchemists have to spend a small pile of herbs to discover a random potion or flask every few days and inscription has to do the same, but with nominally more expensive materials, and jewelcrafters have to do dailies every day for months just to get all their patterns.

I think this is more than a little unfair – why should it cost one profession really expensive materials to buy their recipes than others? Why should one profession require that you do it only once per day, or three days, but others you can buy every pattern at once if you have the cash or materials?  Whilst it is better than random world drops (the bane of jewelcrafting in TBC) and doubly better than boss-only, low-drop-rate recipes (y helo thar mongoose), I think there are still some flaws in the new methods of recipe aquisition.

Give enchanters a discovery mechanic – useable once every few days for half or one third the shard numbers, give jewelcrafters the ability to buy recipes using blue quality gems, give inscibers the chance to use some snowfall inks to buy recipes they want now rather than having to buy some glyphs for themselves from the auction house because they’ve not discovered them yet.

What disturbs me further is that it seems with 3.1 they will be adding  world/boss drop recipes again – Ulduar will come with several new recipes (BoE recipes for BoE items) for many professions but, as noted above, no upgrades for existing items.  There has also been talk of world-drop glyph recipes but I cannot not find the blue post which said so.

The other slight dissapointment I have is that there are few or no vendor or rep recipes for some professions.  Whilst frustrating to grind in TBC, rep in Wrath is considerably faster and I am surprised that only a few professions – mainly tailoring and jewlcrafting – have vendor or rep based recipes.  Having a recipe at the end of a rep grind was also a big motivator for me – especially now when you’re more likely to outgear the exalted rep faction items before you actually manage to get exalted with them!

Even just having to wander to a random vendor somewhere is missing – was it really so bad for people to have to go buy a recipe from a vendor in Shadowmoon Valley or Nagrand?

Ok, enough about crafting!

The other professions which gained some nice benefits in Wrath are the gathering professions – I really like the idea that they get a small bonuses for their profession, though there are some discrepancies between them.  First of all, the skinning and mining buffs are character boosts, where the herbalism one is not – a hot, to me, does not seem as useful as extra crit rating or stamina though it certanly has its moments – I know that BigBearButt swears by the hot as a nice save-the-day heal when tanking.

However, that aside, the fact that they get some benefit made them a little less undesirable to some people and a relatively easy way to gain some personal buffs without the expense of levelling a crafting profession.  To others, it was probably simply a nice boost to a profession they liked to have!

Mining, in Wrath, was given a daily smelt – akin to the tailoring cloth, or alchemy transmutes.  Given titansteel’s worth, it would be nice to see a similar benefit given to all of he gathering professions – perhaps a daily herbalism cooldown similar to that of the Un’goro soil pouches of yore – you germinate some seeds or a few herbs and they have a chance to germinate a frost lotus, or more of the herbs you used, or an on-use item (like fire seeds used to be).  Skinning could have something akin to the old leatherworking salt-shaker – creating a special cured hide used in some special recipes or suchlike.

What about Secondary Professions?

As I mentioned above, cooking and fishing have become more popular.  I’m really not sure about first aid, to be honest, but the lack of cloth has made it painful for me to level across multiple alts as I have a tailor hankering for every piece they can get their hands on!

Cooking and the cooking dailies are somthing I have enjoyed – the act all of the cooking dailies are based in Dalaran is something I find rather cute and I do hope they eventually add more.  The need for spices is something I’m so-so on – whilst I have found it rather easy to keep on top of my spice needs (I have three high level cooks) I know others have been struggling to level cooking in the past few months, despite not really being ‘into’ it.  Whilst I love professions, I can understand why they’d be annoyed at having to do this.

Fishing, too, seems to have become more popular – though I think this is partially because of achievements, I know that the need for buff food which is impossible get any other way (I believe the +str fish food?) has motivated a lot of them to boost their fishing skills.  I missed the fishing dailies of Burning Crusade (though I still do them from time to time) and am looking forward to new ones in 3.1.  The fact that they have said they will reduce fishing time after 3.1 will also help towards making this profession slightly less tedious – I love fishing at times, but currently it takes so much longer to ‘gather’ fish than it would take to go mining and sell the ore for the gold I need to buy the fish. *ahem*

What I’d Like To See

• More vendor / rep recipes
• Parity in saleable items
• Parity in recipe ‘collection’
• Better secondary buffs for inscription and enchanting
• More benefits to gathering professions

Summary

Wrath has changed professions – they have become broader but with perhaps a little less depth – they are more appealing and are being made easier to level every couple of patches.  The newer professions are more integrated with the game, and the older ones have gained buffs but lost many of their iconic epics / items.  I think there is less disparity now than there was in both vanilla WoW and TBC, but it still exists and some professions seem to come off a lot worse – engineering and tailoring especially seem to be underdogs at the moment.

Wrath has been dominated by the achievement system but outside of cooking and fishing there is little integration of professions and achievements.  Although I can understand this, it, and making recipes and items more general and easier to get / craft has meant that, to me at least, professions don’t have the same level of pride associated with them as they did in The Burning Crusade or the same depth or sense of achievement.  I would have preferred the achievements for professions to complete when you maxed your profession skill, not when you bought the minimum level.

Still, on the whole I have liked the changes to professions in Wrath and I can only hope that Blizzard begins to address some of the points made above as we move forward throughout the expansion.

(The usual /cookie for reading the whole post applies, hehe).

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This year Keeva of Tree Bark Jacket will be carrying the flag when it comes to Azeroth Arbor Day.   First run by Phaelia, last year, Azeroth Arbor Day celebrates the rather distinct druidic flora much like it’s real life counterpart does for slightly less mobile trees.

Anyway, Keeva has asked for the word to be spread and so I’m trying to do my bit – as the proud owner of  an occassional tree, I want to support Azeroth Arbor Day once again as  the wonderful community project that it is!

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Back in the day you had to gear up just to do a heroic, never mind a raid, and things took more ’skill’ and we had to dps, heal or tank uphill in the snow just to get a damn key for a heroic (which was further up the hill in deeper snow)!  Many complaints have been levelled about the ‘easy’ nature of Wrath and how fast people have out-done the content and I don’t entirely disagree (nor agree, either), but I have come to a conclusion in the last few days.

Easy heroics and easy starting raids are not bad!

Now, I hadn’t really been against them being easy in the first place (even though  for an organised and geared group, Naxx is now a chain-pull, over in 2 hours, snoozefest) but I hadn’t really realised how, long term, the ease of these could help Wrath have a little more lasting power or fun.  Now, this is coming firmly from an altoholic point of view but it also encompasses rerollers and slow levellers / starters.

In the Old Days…

When my shaman first hit 70 it was a nightmare – I had to run instance after instance to get my rep up, even if I didn’t need anything from that particular instance, and had to gear up to do heroics – even then, only the easier ones.  Crafted items were some of the best-in-slot pre-raid.  It took a veritable age for me to get Avarix Kara-ready because I wasn’t a huge fan of running instances over and over in one night and expecially not in pugs.

The reality was, too, that guildies rarely wanted to do normal instances – I couldn’t blame them, afterall it was almost two years into TBC and everyone had done them to death.  When the badge vendors were out, though, heroics at least were still relatively fashionable and a group was usually going – though I missed out on some of those, too, due to lack of rep.

Getting groups for normal instances was tough and, even just a few months into Wrath, its the same.

Now when I log on with my Death Knight, despite having just turned 80, I can go do a heroic with my guildies!  I’ve mostly stuck to the easier end of the spectrum so far but I’m still able to do heroics and contribute to them enough that I’m not a negative impact.  To put it more simply – I don’t require to be ‘carried’ by better geared friends.  Now, pugs might have looked at my few greens and said ‘no thanks’ and that is a limitation for newly dinged 80s without such a friendly guild or a guild who have higher constraints on their time (i.e. one with a lot of families or younger members) but reasonable upgrades are out there so that most classes can start with a relatively cheap, blue heroic kit or better as soon as they hit 80.

In Burning Crusade, in the time it took me to gear up from normal instances, my heroic buddies would be heading for Karazhan and I wouldn’t want to drag them through instances just for my alt etc.

Gear

With the exception of a few items (notably some crafted ones) most items from heroics were ‘easily’ replaced by Kara epics – that is, there was little by way of sidegrades or small upgrades – almost everything was a direct upgrade!  Whilst cool, it somewhat dampened the feeling of ‘winning’ against those tough heroic bosses (or at least doing them 25 times for that one upgrade).

Now, though, that is hardly the case.  Naxx 25 gear might replace heroic gear a little more quickly but there are a few heroic items which last well into Naxx 10 and many ‘upgrades’ are partial sidegrades.  That you can raid Naxx in quest blues is kinda nice – that you can raid Naxx smoothly in heroic gear means that, as with on Wednesday night this week, a bunch of mostly-alts and late starters / rerollers got through most of Naxx in a few hours.  Unfortunately we had to stop at Saph because it was getting late but I don’t doubt that we will finish the place later in the week.

Skill Level

Another factor in this ‘ease’ is the faily soft levelling curve between normal instances, heroics and Naxx.  Running from one to the other seems a much more smooth progression than in Burning Crusade where the ‘curve’ was more like stages you had to go through and big leaps in difficulty.  I remember walking into Heroic Sethekk (I think) with my shaman and just being gobsmacked by the amount of damage I was suddenly expected to heal compared to normal instances!   Despite the many cries of ‘must have more than 3k dps and have achievement’ people in LFG, most heroics in Wrath are entirely doable with slightly sub 2k dps and a not-amazingly geared tank and healer – I know because half of the instances I’ve run this week were with both a tank and healer who had decided to reroll / go back to an old main and have only just started gearing up!

Hell, we even almost completed a timed Stratholme this morning – only jinxed by an accident which ended in a wipe (we had 4-5 minutes left and were past the ‘breathing point’ already).  Some heroic achievements do take a little more skill or gear – say doing a 5-bronze Oculus to batter out two of the achievements at once or some of the speed-skill achievements (having two dps doing 4k dps on Maiden of Grief sorta guarantees the under 2 minutes achievement…hehe) but heroics on a base level are entirely doable with a hodge-podge group who at least have half a clue.

Tokens

Heroic tokens in Burning Crusade were a blessing and a curse – a blessing in that they allowed you to get gear from running heroics and Karazhan over and over.  There was a wide variety of gear on offer for badges – much more than there currently is for 5 and 10 man tokens at the moment but the gear quality varied enormously.  You might think the lack of badge gear would discourage people from running heroics over and to some extent I’d agree but I also think that it works out well as it sort of gives you a little push into Naxx or Sartharion.

Where in Burning Crusade most alts only ever got to go to Karazhan (maybe Maggy, Grull, SSC depending on your guild and time constraints), now alts could actually follow your main in progression at the 10-man level (or be equal to your main if you do 10-man as your main progression).  Personally, I’m not a huge fan of 10-mans on my shaman, not because I don’t like them, but because I feel shamans are more suited to healing larger groups and I enjoy healing larger groups. Also, ten mans are my ‘fun runs’ and I’d rather sit back and tank or dps for my giggles.  Or at least heal as a different class /shame.  Of course, this waits to be seen as, currently, we really only have one level of progression!

Keys

It is a shame keys were so frustrating as I do like the idea of keys.  However, in a system which encourages people forward into raid content a bit faster, and where normal to heroic progression is very easy, keys don’t make sense.  They’d just be a huge stumbling block.  Indeed, they often felt like that in Burning Crusade – I remember having to buy an epic flying mount on my first druid as, despite having done all the quests and buying my skill, I didn’t have enough Lower City rep to enter Sethekk Halls and summon Anzu!

As with gear, keys acted as another barrier to progession with friends – after they changed it to honored, it became a little less tough but getting revered just to be able to go to a heroic meant you were usually already sick of the place from running it on normal.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

So, overall, I can’t help but feeling Wrath is better for its simpler curve, its easier grouping, its ‘everyone should join in’ policy.  Perhaps people are too bored at the moment to see it or perhaps I’m being my usual, over-optimistic self but I can’t help but hope that, in the year to come, we find that this system is one which works out for the best long-term.

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After a brief sojourn playing my squishy priest, I decided to finish levelling my death knight – trying to get as many instance groups as I could rather than slog through more questing.  I think I had worn myself out a little bit going so fast through the 60’s and low 70’s that I needed a break from the class to refresh me and remind me why it is so enjoyable to play!

To that end, my third character hit 80 this evening – completing my trinity of Heals, Tanks and DPS!

I dinged handing in a quest from a Gun’Drak run  I’d just done – unfortunately because it was so random and I hadn’t entirely been paying attention to my XP bar I completely missed getting a screenshot. /sadface

I’m starting to see more dual-weilding death knights these days – until the last few weeks most of the DK’s I’d run across hd been using the biggest phallic symbol they could get their hands on, but it seems more are converting to the idea of the faster-paced dual-weild specs.  I could just be noticing them more, though!

Not more than an hour or so after dinging I was in Vault of Archavon.  I’d gone off to have dinner, came back and jumped right in when a guildie mentioned it.  Here I was scuttling along in half greens, no food buff and feeling incredibly guilty – even more so aterwards when I also realised I hadn’t even trained my level 80 skills! Still, although I was low on the meter I was still pulling over 2k dps and we managed to 22 man the boss well outside of his enrage.

I know I’ve been terribly slacking on the posts at the moment – but I’m not one to constantly repost patch notes  just to have something up here.  I am working on a post about professions which might get up sometime soon but more regular posting might not resume until I am doing something more interesting in game!  That being said, I’m having a wonderful time outside the game at he moment, too, which probably doesn’t help either! *ahem*

/hugs

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This week, when I have been bothered to play, (which isn’t much) I have been playing on my baby priest – Ahnara.  She’s spent six levels grinding red dragon whelps, with very little questing (around 3 quests which happen to be on my way to-and-from the whelp spot).  I have found my tolerance for grinding levels has grown and, even though I very quickly run out of rest xp, the extra 10% of rep from killing critters from my spiffy heirloom shoulders makes for rather reasonable xp per mob.  No luck with getting a whelpling yet, but the mobs are still green for another level so here’s hoping…

On hitting 30 I, of course, went to pick up my new mount – it’s so nice to be able to run the length of Wetlands that little bit faster – going between Menethil and the whelp grinding spot was the only tedious part of grinding there!  A lovely black stallion to go with with my Haliscan set (which I’ve thankfully not gotten sick of looking at yet).

I am enjoying the priest ‘experiment’ – as I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve never really been a cloth-caster player but playing my shaman as elemental has been a nice bridge to that – I’ve learned how to play ranged caster without being stomped into the ground all of the time.  Also, priests are hardier than I could have hoped – with shield, renew, piles of dots and the odd holy nova I have taken down about 5 same-level mobs.  I do have the advantage of extra hp through my twinky enchants, though (around 26 extra stamina overall at the moment) but I still feel more comfortable playing my priest than I had imagined I would.

Still, I’ve not hit the dreaded mid-30’s Stranglethorne borefest yet, so we’ll see how long I last! hehe.

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Tonight was a pleasure – a nice calm raid full of people ready to get out there,  do their thing and slaughter Sartharion and all of his cronies.  We weren’t sure at first if we were going to do three drakes tonight, but we had the right group with the right mood so we decided to give it a shot.  From the outset it looked good – the usual ‘warm up’ problems occurred, with people taking voids and flame waves who never usually do and then things started to gel.

Most of our issues were not real issues, even – just a matter of the tanks and healers settling into the ‘feel’ of the encounter – it actually felt a lot simpler than the transition from one to two drakes had been.  It was also nice to have that really cheerful ‘we got it!’ feel to the raid which has not been there for a while.  I had, honestly, expected to take more than a few hours to get this down – several nights of attemptes at least…

So, a big thanks and congrats to all Lightwalkers for their efforts tonight!

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Gleeful doesn’t describe it, quite.  Big props to Myze’s guide without which I wouldn’t have even thought to try soloing him!

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So, after that last mammoth of a post, this one will be somewhat frivolous and short.

After rolling again and getting a 47, I wandered over to my priest and pottered around a bit.

She has the [Tattered Dreadmist Mantle], [Haliscan Jacket] with [Enchant Chest - Exceptional Stats] and [Haliscan Pantaloons] with a [Runic Spellthread] on them.  Just a little bit of shiny to make the lower levels a bit easier on a squishy char.  It feels a little weird to be playing her as she’s been my bank alt for a long while – I had to transfer things over to a new bank alt – but I am kinda enjoying it.

I have taken a priest to 30-odd before but I had help and boosting at the time – I’ve never managed to get any other cloth wearers past their mid teens so this will be an interesting experiment.

Yjin

Currently, my Death Knight has just finished levelling in Grizzly Hills – not doing all the quests but doing all of those I liked first time around.  I have slowed down a bit now that I’ve hit Northrend but she’s managed to get to 440 blacksmithing, at least! I really need to get my head down and get her to 80 before I start seriously levelling my priest!

Blog Stuff

I’ve managed to get the recent achievement widget working – it was causing some weird issues before the most recent version – and I’ve taken down my character page as it was constantly ending up up out of date and I might work on a more general ‘about’ page.  Maybe.

/ramble

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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!

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