Authors CurseForge

I completely disagree with that, orionshock. I don't know what makes a casual from a hardcore player, nor am I gonna bother listing my reps/achievement points/played time/gear... etc, but the fact of the matter is, there are several aspects to this game and I enjoy several of them. I get tired of seeing so-called hardcore players kick others out of forum discussions because they decided to focus on one thing only and "outsiders" are frowned upon.

I happen to enjoy both PvE and PvP and therefore have a use for dual-spec. That doesn't make me causal. I still try to accomplish as much as I can from both ends. My alt is a healer who would like to level without being specced resto, while at the same time, be able to heal instances. There's another use for dual-spec.

None of this means I don't know where my place is. I know exactly what my toons can do and which spec to use to maximize that. I do want to raid for epics, thank you very much. But you're right on one thing at least: of course I don't want to level up. Honestly, who wants to re-do the same things over and over again ? The only problem is, people don't get to learn the abilities as they were intended if they start at high level right away. Which is why the DK starting area was a genius idea which worked really well. Something like that would be great for every class, specially if they ever allow us to start at higher level.

You say classic wow took forever. Indeed. But does that make it good ? Does that have ANYTHING to do with dual-spec for that matter ? I don't think so. I give props to Blizzard for trying to give us other grinds than the repetitive ones. They're not quite there yet, but it's better. It's not grinding that I mind, it's how it's done. In BC, I got exalted with Consortium before the keys and their quests were introduced to the game. There was only one way to grind it: Zaxxis Insignas. That was NOT what I call fun. Mana-Tombs heroic was another way, but it has a 24 hour lockout. Doing dailies, like for the Sons of Hodir, is at least a little more varied than farming for turn-in items, even though now, it's possible for the Sons too !

Either way, this has nothing to do with dual-specs and is getting off-topic. I think that this variety actually promotes dual-speccing, which, in turn, promotes trying different things. And THAT is a good thing for the game.

LOL sorry, doesn't work that way. If you post your opinion on a forum, you open yourself to replies.

Aye, the moment you show us your asshole, you lose all rights to complain when we show your ours.

Since the Talent system has been put in place it's been possible for a character to re-spec. The dual-spec system simply make this less time consuming and less costly.

It's completly wrong to say that introducing dual-spec will change (or destroy) the game, when it only simplify something that always has been possible.

Blizzard did post about raiding guilds sending characters to respec between bosses in Sunwell, and that was really just time and gold consuming, not impossible at all.

Dual-spec goes in the same direction as the recent changes about raid buffs. Blizzard wants raider to bring people they want to play with, not the right class/spec for the job.

With theses changes, you can now try to raid at the best level with a core group of friends. You still get flexibility in composition via dual-specs.

The simple fact that this is bothering people that take the game as some kind of job makes me smile. Find your own enjoymentin the game itself, not by refusing others to enjoy it.

I see this as a potential boon to smaller guilds who are likely to have fewer tanks/healers than they would like. Tank and healer burnout is a very real possibility, and allowing them to save some cash to play a different role solo/bgs/pugs/whatever can only be seen as a good thing from my perspective (from personal experience as a tank).

They don't want to understand that spec == game, thus dual specs..

I'd like to think I know my spec quite well, as I've been playing it for some time now. Dual specs will just allow me to experiment and learn an additional spec of the class first hand, without constant respec fees for when the guild still needs me to tank (which will be often as the guild's MT). No, I guess you're right, I don't want to understand my spec, rather I want to understand multiple specs for my class as a whole. :)

While you have a point that this feature may be more useful to some than others, it doesn't mean that it is a bad thing in general.

No one is forced to use it, but the fact that you may not doesn't mean that others shouldn't be able to use it.

I suspect that "pure" classes will start to look at alternative specs too, as most fights are not equally sensitive to the same spec, even for pure classes (resistance or sensibility toward a specific school, heavy armor, fights where pets are less important, ...). A player of a "pure" class may wanna have a handy alternative spec for these fights.

Yeah, it won't really change anything between hybrid and "pure" classes. Currently, most hybrid classes who collect offspec gear will just pay the 50g to respec if their guild needs them to do that, or their guild will cover the respec cost for them. I can't even remember the last time I was in a guild or raid where we sat someone out instead of letting them respec, or where someone wanted to be sat out instead of respeccing. Especially with dailies in the game, 50g is nothing.

And don't forget that not all players with a hybrid class are interested in playing all of the roles their class can fill. My main is a shaman. I've been resto since level 10 when I got my first talent point. I don't take offspec gear. I have no interest in playing as elemental or enhancement. If I want to play as caster DPS, I'll play my mage. If I want to play as melee DPS, I'll play my ret paladin. Likewise, my paladin doesn't take healing gear (if I want to heal, I'll play my shaman) or prot gear (if I want to tank, I'll play my bear druid). In fact, the only one of my characters I see having any use for a dual spec would be my druid (cat vs bear spec, a difference of less than 10 talent point assignments). It will hardly be game-changing. :p

Orion, look at it this way:

Let's say you have two raid spots left, and three players to pick from. Tom is a warrior, with a prot main spec. Joe is a rogue. Sam is a mage. The encounter you're headed to first requires a third tank, so Tom gets a spot. That leaves Joe and Sam. You know that they have about equal gear quality, so you take the more skilled player, who happens to be Sam. Off you go to the boss, and take all his purples.

Now the next encounter only requires three tanks, so you don't need Tom to tank anymore. You have two choices: you can sit Tom out and bring Joe in, or you can let Tom respec to DPS. Now, if Tom is horrible at DPS, or has poor DPS gear, sure, sit him out and get Joe. But what if Tom's DPS gear is just as good as Joe's DPS gear, and Tom is a more skilled player than Joe? Why should Tom have to sit out and let a less skilled player get to have all the fun (and loot)? What's wrong with letting Tom put on his DPS gear, put on his DPS spec, and continuing with the current group?

Really, dual speccing will only change how respecs happen mid-raid. Currently, in order for Tom to respec to DPS, he would have to hearth to Dalaran, take a portal to Orgrimmar (or wherever), run to the warrior trainer, pay 50g to unlearn his talents, spend a minute or two clicking his talent points into place, spend another minute or two rearranging his bars for easy access to DPS skills instead of tanking skills, and then accept a summon from a warlock back in the instance. With dual speccing, someone will summon a Lexicon of Power, Tom will click a button or two, and voila - all of his talent points will be in their place, and his action bars will magically change to DPS buttons!

Now that respeccing is cheaper, faster, and overall easier for everyone, why wouldn't you want to keep the more skilled player in the raid?

From a managerial standpoint, dual speccing won't change anything either. Tom will still be primarily a tank, and Sally the priest will still be primarily shadow DPS. Dual speccing will just mean that for those few encounters where you don't need that third tank, or where you need that extra healer, you can keep your more skilled players in the raid instead of sitting them out and bringing in less skilled players to fill those special needs.

Dual speccing doesn't force you to let anyone show up for any raid as whatever spec they feel like playing that night. If Tom shows up one night with a fury spec and announces that he doesn't want to tank, but you need him to tank, too bad. Dual speccing actually gives him less of an excuse -- now it doesn't cost him anything to switch back to prot spec. If he absolutely refuses to tank, it doesn't matter if dual speccing is in the game or not. His primary role in your raids is to tank, and if he doesn't want to do that anymore, he can either discuss with you the possibility of changing his primary role to DPS, or he can find another guild to DPS in; either way, showing up and refusing to do your job for a raid has nothing to do with dual speccing.

Plus, many players will simply use dual speccing to make it easier to enjoy both PvE and PvP, without having to spend hundreds of gold every week going back and forth.

It's indeed an old debate. Orionshock is an elitist player, and I don't mean that in a bad way. Elitism can be good.

I see the game as a whole quite differently. I have stopped raiding because the raid group (that I was leading) started having an elitist approach to recruitment and general handling of their members. I totally agree with Blizzard on their recent attempt at allowing another way of handling group composition. I hated to have to deal with the resto shaman that knows perfectly well that his presence is crucial and keeps on being an asshole, and I much prefer to play with friends and people I like, not classes/specs I need.

There are a lot of player which look at their raid progression as a competition, and who are ready to make the choices that go with that raid progression. I understand that, I disagree, but I have no problem with it. But I don't see why giving other options change anything. Except for the number, you can still pretty much handle a raid group as you did in the "good old days", and just bring class/spec that you need and nothing else. But it's quite different than refusing that other do things differently.

Well what I really hear orion saying is this:

While i can see the value of buffing the off specs to do the job they where intended to do as well as the pure classes, it however blurs that line of knowing that you have a specific place in the raid. It just complicates things, and complication usualy is lost on a good number of players

While I get the fear, really the problem here isn't dual spec, it's trust in your players. In my RG I can guarantee you that people cannot just go "oh I'm dual spec now so I demand to be DPS".

If you have a raid group of 25 people who think they can individually decide what happens and have their specific wills met you have a problem and you have a problem pretty much independent of what the game puts in front of you.

The right answer to this is simply to hire more mature players. It will help you in all areas of raiding whether it's loot distribution, destinations, doing what it takes etc.

And it has nothing to do with hardcore vs casual.

Very few people will have equivalent gear for both specs either, so if you do not already have the notion of a main spec and an off-spec it may be worth introducing it. But really lots of raid groups who tried to have composition flexibility had that for a long while and won't be phased by dual-spec at all. For those it really just means that instead of HS+respec+waiting for reglyph+waiting for action bar setup+lock summon is replaced with tome+dualspec.

The rest of the difference is social and blizz cannot really design that. And it's the type of social problem that a lot of raid groups have long solved.

I.e. if an individual player's desire with respect to how to use dual-spec goes ahead of how to have a raid group function, then you have a problem with that player, not with dual-spec. It's no different than that player respeccing for every raid day now and demanding that he can play in whatever spec he happened to choose. I don't see dual spec changing anything there. Yes that player doesn't "know his place" but he doesn't know it regardless. I would put it differently and say that he puts himself ahead of the group but I think in terms of content it's roughly the same.

The problem, Orionshock, is that you are so-called hardcore, and this change isn't aimed at people like him. It's for so-called casuals. And yes, like it or not, the game is geared towards more casual players. And this is a continuing trend. Blizzard is still trying to provide more hard modes for hardcore players, as yesterday's news about Ulduar show.

We don't always have 25 people on for a raid. People get burned out. People have real-life obligations, have to leave early... etc etc. No we don't always have backups online. We're not that hardcore. Therefore yes, this will help us, when one of the hybrids can simply go respecc heals to help us get a run together (and we don't really need 25 people to clear current content, let's be honest).

Your main argument is that re-speccing mid-raid shows you should reconsider your group make-up if you can't down a boss without it. Whoever said that this was the reason dual-specs came out ? It's there to help people accomplish different things, such as PvP alongside PvE. Such as a tank going dps for a boss where less tanks are needed (Phanx gave a good example). Your argument is the first time I see someone say it was designed to make encounters easier. What made you come up with that ?

Of course we're gonna have people stick to a spec. We're not gonna suddenly allow peolpe to roll on gear for both their specs. I really don't see the complications. Nothing changes, except that if you're in a bind, you can have people switch around easily. It HELPS, it doesn't HURT.

As far as skill goes. Someone who sucks will still sucks. I don't see how that makes it worse. Dual-spec or not, they can only play one at a time. You're not gonna see the population of bad players suddenly skyrocket. And by using this argument, you also conveniently forget the population of good players who are going to be good at both specs. So to counter your "it gives sucky players more opportunities to suck" argument, I'll say "it gives good players more opportunities to be good".

Quote from Shadoweric

"it gives sucky players more opportunities to suck" argument, I'll say "it gives good players more opportunities to be good".

Question is if the glass filled equally with water and air is half full or is half empty. I am really looking forward to more flexibility. Doing things i was unable todo for the respeccing costs (yes epic flying == 100 respecs it does sum up). Werther it's {tank, heal, dps} and {PvE, PvP} i can finally take part in more of one without having to fear i might be bankrupt oneday or be force todo dailies whenever i got spare time.

I find it disturbing that hardcore player's say that others suck - but rarely educate them to play better. Giving (willing) players hints on where to improve (tactics, gear, information) wise will yield better players in the future. Yelling at them - calling them names and other stuff won't yield a similar outcome. But now we drift off-topic....