Master of 1 or Jack of All?

[idunnowatdo]

Here is my question. Would you rather be a master of one spec, able to play it to close to 100% of its capability OR would you rather be able to play all the specs of your class to 80% of its capability. I ask because I have a lock in my guild that plays demo, has played demo and will always play demo. Played it through the good and the bad. His fuck up ratio is is damn near nill. So I ask this to you folks in a would you rather question.

[Smeeh]

I feel theres gonna be a lot of "i play all specs 100%" in this thread.

Personally i prefer to play all specs well, rather than one really well. That way when spec 2 played 80% still beats spec 1 100% i can play whatever is on top.

[Alextros]

Im like being a bit versatile with classes, but I keep myself to specific a few specs. So, I can change between 2/3 healer specs, 3-5 dps specs and 2/3 tank specs in general. Can I do all perfectly? Nope. But I know the baselines, and I work myself up pretty quickly. But if I go from lets say Prot warrior to Shadow Priest, and then back to the Warrior, then I got to get into the rythm again which takes a few days/weeks.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I like variety; I'm decent with about 6-7 (8 if you include the gladiator talent), specs right now (Arms, prot war, prot pally, ret, BM, survival, balance, and guardian), but I only consider myself really good at the two prot specs.

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No, I take that back; I'm a master of Guardian and prot warrior. Decent on prot pally.

[Polarthief]

80%? Fuck that. 100% with one.

If it was more like 95%, like it should be, I'd take that.

[ThrashMetalFtw]

If you can play one, you can play them all (with a raid or three for the musclememory to properly adjust).

I know there are exceptions, but most ppl who suck at playing alts, are usually not superb at their main either (the guy in your guild that shows up and doesn't fail at mechanics, but never truly amazes anybody with his dmg). The overachievers who really try to do everything to maximize their dmg, are also usually the ones who can effortlessly switch class and be at the same lvl as they were on their old class within a couple of raids (assuming equal gear etc).

[melodramocracy]

Master of 1, no question. I've yet to play a class where I didn't think one of the 3 (or 4) specs were far more enjoyable than the others.

[Blueobelisk]

For serious raiding master of one.

If I'm just gonna dick around in dungeons lol jack of all for hybrid classes is best. Everyone usually sucks in those things anyway so 80% is huge.

[draganid]

i would say im really dam good at frost and blood and my unholy abilities are pretty decent but i find it aids to play unholy in pvp

[thpthpthp]

Personally I prefer being stellar with a single class/spec. There are players out there who can perform flawlessly regardless of what class they're playing like ThrashMetalFew said, but I think those players are in the vast vast minority and personally I've only ever had the pleasure of raiding with 1 or 2 people like that.

[Mavecryst]

I'm a Master of 1. 1 Character :/ I play everything involving a rogue really well, across all specs, and the keybinds are mapped so well in my head by now that even after coming back from an almost 2 year hiatus, I could immediately play my rogue and do it well enough that it almost felt like I had been away a month or so only.

Definitely can't say the same for any of my other characters, as much as I love playing them as well (mainly my shammy and my warr) Took awhile to get back into the swing (heh) of things, and shifted around keybinds to newfound preferences.

[Kanegasi]

I strictly play a paladin. Throughout most of cata, I was pretty close to "100%" as ret and prot, with the "80-95%" as holy, matching other healers most of the time in raids. Stopped healing when MoP came because I realized Blizzard isn't backing off of their dogmatic "specs mean something" excuse to not expanding a simple UI function. Since then, I'm still near that top point with ret, but haven't seriously tanked since MSV due to work cutting off my raid times.

I've never liked the "master of 1 or jack of all" philosophy, since it's just a stereotype. It's perfectly possible to be a master of 2, a few, or most, and I'm sure there's at least one player that really is a master of all.

[Deleted]

Considering most people can't properly function within their class on top of doing extra tasks in raids I hardly doubt that people can even function at 80% if they play multiple chars.

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I strictly play a paladin. Throughout most of cata, I was pretty close to "100%" as ret and prot, with the "80-95%" as holy, matching other healers most of the time in raids. Stopped healing when MoP came because I realized Blizzard isn't backing off of their dogmatic "specs mean something" excuse to not expanding a simple UI function. Since then, I'm still near that top point with ret, but haven't seriously tanked since MSV due to work cutting off my raid times.

I've never liked the "master of 1 or jack of all" philosophy, since it's just a stereotype. It's perfectly possible to be a master of 2, a few, or most, and I'm sure there's at least one player that really is a master of all.

It's possible, I can count the people who could play 2 different classes perfectly on my 2 hands over the 8 years I played.

[Deleted]

How do you play all specs to 80%? You mean like switch between specs every now and then?

[lokinrond713]

Can one of those specs heal? If so, then yes.

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How do you play all specs for 80%? You mean like switch between specs every now and then?

Prob get some of the abilities

[Deleted]

You have to spend the time to actually learn how to play the class/spec, scouring the various class related forums, youtube guides, icy-veins like sites, checking out twitch PoVs and mainly trial and error. Don't be satisfied with anything, learn what prepot is, take some risks, pay attention (do i move now or can i finish this cast?), grab every edge you can. That kind of mentality gets you to the top of your class, as long as you have the talent.

Considering that not everyone is suited for everything, you should stick with what feels good and is fun for you, beating a dead horse makes no sense.

To answer your question, everything I do is 99%. If I can't reach that 99%, I just drop it.

It's possible, I can count the people who could play 2 different classes perfectly on my 2 hands over the 8 years I played.

There are a lot of fotm chasing pvpers for whom we can say they play their class near perfect (perfection is impossible, of course). Also, pve fotm should also be kept in mind, many top guild players have every class for their spec on max level and can play it near perfection (tanks, healers and dpsers to some degree since they have a lot more to pick from). We are probably talking about 0.001% or smth along those lines, but yeah, it's like that in every game (mobas especially come to mind). Above average is still "crap" since it actually includes 50% of the players.

[Deleted]

Prob get some of the abilities

You can't get any of the abilities, you need to be in that spec to get them.