Talent Dual Spec Q&A with Ghostcrawler

[tiberiusix]

Sounds brilliant

This should really help with the problems of never being able to find a healer or a tank. As a warrior I'm now already starting to get some tanking gear so that I can start tanking when dual speccing comes out. I enjoy DPSing, hence why I'm not a tank at the moment.

[Ektoplasme]

Sounds awesome!

If it goes live like that, and if it costs less than 5k it will make me really happy :-)

I think a fee of a few thousand gold would be fair. Obviously they need a money sink (too much money in the game).

[Evilnapkin]

Nethaera: How will you be able to set up a dual spec?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to visit their trainer and pay a one-time fee to be able to use it.

prob only like 5k gold or something.

[SFJake]

prob only like 5k gold or something.

Only?

5k is a lot.

This isn't as much of a useless luxury as an epic mount is. 1k is a much more logical price if anyone bothers to think about it, and to be honest even that is too high. Maybe too many people here think on a non-casual level, but my whole guild (which are mostly casuals) can't make a total of 3k from lvl 1 to 80.

[heerobya]

5k is a lot of gold to most people.

As in people who don't visit forums and instead just "play" the game, which is probably the vast majority of people.

My bet is it'll be much less the 1000g. Probably much less then 500g even.

Otherwise, for those who only raid or only PvP or only farm/run heroics what's the point of spending that money? You're not going to be respecing enough for that to be a cheaper alternative anyway.

I'm thinking around 250g will be what it ends up.

Dual spec is NOT for the "hardcore" players who will already spend 500g a week on respecs. Those players have no problem spending 500g on respecs. Dual spec is going to be more for casual WoW players who want to do both PvE and PvP yet don't have the time to farm for the money to constantly respec.

That being said....

The raids are already designed around the idea that "a tank is a tank" and "a healer is a healer" with only one fight (OS+3) really needing a specific class for a specific role.

Priests switching up between Holy and Disc or mages between Arcane/FfB etc. will not be a big issue for their design plans. Not at all. If anything it'll be expected that serious raiders will have a second spec saved and know what boss fights they need more AoE vs. more single target healing/dps/tanking for.

Being able to summon a lexicon to allow free switching between fights is just a time saver. Otherwise it'll be mage ports to town then warlocks summons back. Just skip that step. It's pointless.

[Evilnapkin]

I was just bringing up the point that no one has talked about yet and yes 5k is a lot of gold. but its dual spec way more useful then an epic mount

[streaky7]

hooooray for dual spec!!!

[sketcher]

I wonder if the gear manager gives us somewhere else to put our gear, or if we need to have it in our bags to be able to switch?

A while back when Blizz told they were working on this they also said they gonna implement the gear in the char screen resulting in more bag space.

[coolcatchris]

if it costs alot of gold, then it's only going to create further segregation:
LF4M with 2 specs.

with all the armory/achievement checking going on it's only inevitable that pernickety people will become even more annoying if these dual specs cost lots of gold.

[Deleted]

As a PVE mage, I have a total lack of care on this whole issue, and would much rather see Blizzard focus their resources on improving WoW as a whole.

That said, I'm avidly against hybrids on principle. This will just helps them distort the game further for pure dps classes. Not that I'm saying we wont benefit indirectly from more tanks/healers - but it will be indirectly, and at what cost?

[Cookiecutter]

This kinda blows, i was wishing for a system where you could press a button on your interface, pay a fee, to change specc, glyphs, actionbars, with a reasonable cooldown, to ease up for my priest... levelling as holy is dreadful.

But no, instead they keep the need for you to run to a city to do it, excluding the need to pay a high respecc cost, or hope there's a inscriber in the group? But meh, they even put a 80 limit on it, so i'll have no use for it. (Shadow levelling, holy instancing, was what i was hoping for anyway...)

It's a nice feature for convenience, but no, the limitations and group-based mechanics ruined it..

EDIT: 100th post had to be one with complaining in it

[Serov]

only 5K gold for the talent? I don't play WoW for a living so maybe that puts me in the minority here but a fee around 200 - 300g seems much more viable if blizzard hopes to maintain the casual friendly atmosphere.

This new option excites me, as a pure DPS class, (rogue, Lock) all my gear is essentially the same so all I have to vary are my tactics and rotations when I switch spec. This gives smaller guilds like mine more flexibility for raiding as well /cheers

[Nozuka]

Prot Pallies and Prot warriors both are viable leveling specs. I went from 70 - 80 prot and tanked every dungeon i could so long as it was guildie's asking.

I was healed by crit-chicken spec'd druids through some dungeons, and disc priests didn't seem too rare. Admitting - pure healers where rare. Just use whomever is willing - and Lots of crowd control

that isnt the point.
the problem is that often you wont find someone to tank for you, because they think that they cant without tank specc. (and maybe THEY reallly cant, them being randoms and all) and the same goes for healers. and it gets even worse when the tank isnt tank-specced AND the healer not healing specced.

its not a perfect world where you'll always have good players available.

[Dio]

Sweet! This will be great. Only need 1 tank on a fight? Ask them to go DPS and it may make the difference between a kill or not. Lacking healers for a raid? Just ask that ret paladin to come as a healer.

Problems with loot? No, just point out everyone can roll on the items that are for their main role, the role they were originally invited for. Easy..

[Skippert]

Awesome feature! For both solo and grouping. Can't find a heroic group as DPS? Switch to tank/healer spec and get ur spot! Simple, easy and effective. Want some pvp? Switch to ur pvp spec. Raid needs some more healers at a certain fight ad only one tank? Sure, summon a lexicon, let some 'hybrids' switch to healerspec and let some tanks spec DPS.

TOO BAD THOUGH, it took them 4 years to realise that experiencing different parts of the game should not be punished but promoted. Now I'm not as addicted anymore as I was before. I would go nuts for this feature 2 years ago, now it's just a "nice thing", if you know what I mean.

WoW is getter better and better, too bad the biggest community-communication and improvements have only come the last 1-2 years, after which the game already's got a bit less exiting. Now it's just a sort of "compensation"

[Skiball]

Thank you for the info regarding dual specs. Several questions I had about how it was gonna work were cleared up. As a paladin, I hope to see this in 3.1 to ease the ungodly respec costs of playing a paladin or druid who gears every spec.

[hurricane567]

Very neat stuff all the way around, but i am bull-headed, i expect drama with my guild lol

Guild Master:"So you have a second spec now?"
Me:"Yup."
GM:"OK, let me see it."
[KAPOW]
GM:"...none of your gear changed, wtf?"
Me:"It didn't need to."
GM:"But...but...you were an 50/21/ZERO warrior, you didn't go prot?!"
Me:"Wat? F that, i went from 2h spec/mace to dual wield/swords."
GM:"I KEEL YOU NAO!"

I went to the talent calc, to go all the way to dual wield on fury then go back to arms only needed 49/22/0 heh heh. Now what swords to get...

[cptrugged]

NOT

THE

POINT.

A lot of people also refuse to, for example, heal if they have a DPS spec. Mostly, its often not as fun. For example, Holy or Disc priest brings more tools that just makes it more fun. Go Shadow and heal? More boring. Tanking in DPS spec as a pally? Boring.

We all know its doable, but I know some people and I know -I- want to heal/tank with the proper spec. Its simply MORE FUN.

Also NOT THE POINT. Fun? Are you serious? Hell you don't even have all your tools for tanking till level 40 or so with most classes, Spec or not. The honest to god point is that people who don't want to tank (like myself) will not tank. My pally won't tank with dual spec or without, my pally won't tank while leveling. Not cause I give a crap about spec... but because I don't care for tanking. People who WANT to tank will tank with dual spec or without, and will tank while leveling.

What this actually does it let people who WANT to tank or heal or dps AND WANT to do one of the others to be able to more easily do both, possibly do both even on the same raid.

As a PVE mage, I have a total lack of care on this whole issue, and would much rather see Blizzard focus their resources on improving WoW as a whole.

That said, I'm avidly against hybrids on principle. This will just helps them distort the game further for pure dps classes. Not that I'm saying we wont benefit indirectly from more tanks/healers - but it will be indirectly, and at what cost?

Hell as a PVE mage I think this is great. Now I can spec to frost for Chow kiting or farming then easily respec to FFB for the times where I want big numbers.

But yes, this does help hybrids ALOT more than most. But it depends on your feelings on hybrids. I don't mind them at all. And tho indirect, a dropped tank or healer will kill most raids/groups cold. If I could switch out my shaman from damage to healing so that your mage can raid tonight period, that seems like a solid trade for my shaman not doing 20% less damage because I have the ablility to spend a ton of time and money gathering another set of gear so that I can change roles with one character.

[jarry]

Highly disappointed in the need for a scribe or a city. Having flavor and flexibility is a good thing. I really don't see the problem of having your tanks go dps, one of your healers go DPS for an easy fight, instantly, with a simple 5 minute CD or w/e as a problem. Scribe may not be difficult and if the item is reusable its not really an issue. Though I wonder what they will do

[Deleted]

Highly disappointed in the need for a scribe or a city. Having flavor and flexibility is a good thing. I really don't see the problem of having your tanks go dps, one of your healers go DPS for an easy fight, instantly, with a simple 5 minute CD or w/e as a problem. Scribe may not be difficult and if the item is reusable its not really an issue. Though I wonder what they will do

Yes, becasue god forbid us scribes making some gold on our profession.