Why have specs at all?

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

Because I know a mod will stroll in here looking for a reason to close it. This thread is made in response to the popular "tri-spec" thread right now. It is not made for the purpose of trolling. This idea has been bandied about by myself and others in response to tri-spec ever since speculation began.


So WoW is a game based on three specs. Always has been. These specs allow you to perform certain roles better than others. Druids get four specs because the devs always felt feral was a bad tree, and it was.

Dual spec has also been a longstanding part of the game, allowing players to not get pigeon holed into one single role for the rest of their lives.

But now there's a vocal group of players that want to see dual spec expanded into tri spec. "Why not give us the ability to have all 3 specs at once, it's only a gold sink to change now anyway" they say.

Well if we're going to give players the ability to have all 3 specs at once, why not remove the time and mana sink as well. Why not just get rid of specs entirely?



All current spec abilities/passives would be given to the class baseline at their respective levels. Dual spec would just become action bar & gear changing. So if you need to switch from DPS to healing for that next boss, you just hit a button and now you have your healing action bars and set on. Need to switch to tank because your OT just died? Another button push and you're there.

Surely this system is more appealing than simple tri-spec, right?

[Belloc]

"Alright, healers, there's nothing to heal for the next 30 seconds, start DPSING!"

"Huge incoming damage, everyone heal!"

"ADDS!" "Don't worry, I've got it!"


In other words, it's impossible to balance PvE AND PvP without having specs.

[melodramocracy]

Poll needs another option.

d. You shouldn't be able to have more than 1 spec per toon to begin with.

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Also, pleas for tri-spec are nothing new, folks have been asking for that as long, if not longer, as dual has been in the game.

[Darsithis]

Because I know a mod will stroll in here looking for a reason to close it. This thread is made in response to the popular "tri-spec" thread right now. It is not made for the purpose of trolling. This idea has been bandied about by myself and others in response to tri-spec ever since speculation began.

There is no need to do that. That only causes trouble.

I don't see a reason to remove specs. I'm not fond of games that try the all-in approach. I want to dedicate specific characters to a certain role or task.

[Slowpoke is a Gamer]

There is no need to do that. That only causes trouble.

I don't see a reason to remove specs. I'm not fond of games that try the all-in approach. I want to dedicate specific characters to a certain role or task.

Maybe. But I've seen a lot of interesting threads started in response to existing topics get shut down mostly because people assume it's for trolling purposes.

[DSRilk]

Because I know a mod will stroll in here looking for a reason to close it. This thread is made in response to the popular "tri-spec" thread right now. It is not made for the purpose of trolling. This idea has been bandied about by myself and others in response to tri-spec ever since speculation began.


So WoW is a game based on three specs. Always has been. These specs allow you to perform certain roles better than others. Druids get four specs because the devs always felt feral was a bad tree, and it was.

Dual spec has also been a longstanding part of the game, allowing players to not get pigeon holed into one single role for the rest of their lives.

But now there's a vocal group of players that want to see dual spec expanded into tri spec. "Why not give us the ability to have all 3 specs at once, it's only a gold sink to change now anyway" they say.

Well if we're going to give players the ability to have all 3 specs at once, why not remove the time and mana sink as well. Why not just get rid of specs entirely?



All current spec abilities/passives would be given to the class baseline at their respective levels. Dual spec would just become action bar & gear changing. So if you need to switch from DPS to healing for that next boss, you just hit a button and now you have your healing action bars and set on. Need to switch to tank because your OT just died? Another button push and you're there.

Surely this system is more appealing than simple tri-spec, right?

Because specs change play style, not just action bars. These two ideas aren't remotely related.

Remove time sinks? Well, pointless ones should absolutely be removed. If a time sink in and of itself is valuable, then wouldn't the game be improved merely by the programmers quintupling flight point times and the load times between screens?

I'm not sure what you mean by mana sink in this context.

I'm also not sure why you started this thread. It seems like it was merely because you felt ignored in the other thread.

- - - Updated - - -

Poll needs another option.

d. You shouldn't be able to have more than 1 spec per toon to begin with.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, pleas for tri-spec are nothing new, folks have been asking for that as long, if not longer, as dual has been in the game.

He's also confused as to why people want tri-spec. It's not to avoid the gold sink. That part should be removed from the poll as I think most tri-spec supporters would be fine with being charged a fee when hitting a third spec button.

[Monteverdi]

I think the talent specialization idea is outdated, especially with the new MOP talent system. I think a player should have a role that they choose to specialize in, rather than what in essence becomes a prestige class - this to me just feels like the next, natural evolution of the system.

[Lovestar]

It would take a lot of design changes to completely remove specs and switch to a stance-based free-for-all system, and it would also make fight tactics very bizarre.

I actually think it's a very, very cool idea for MMO design — but I don't think WoW could sustain a change like that, especially not a sudden one. Switching to a freedom system that can only be switched outside combat would be a reasonable change, though.

[Lefeng]

Without a confined set of parameters (the few spells that fall into a spec) there will be a greater number of clueless people playing their class. That's the exact reason Blizzard killed hybrid specs after WotLK. Currently the gap in performance between a great player and a bad player isn't very wide because of the confined parameters within a spec.

[Vongimi]

So WoW is a game based on three specs. Always has been. These specs allow you to perform certain roles better than others. Druids get four specs because the devs always felt feral was a bad tree, and it was.

Lol wat..... That was never the reason it was split. It was split because it always felt like two specs anyways due to the fact you could spec into two different roles in the same tree.

[hrugner]

I'd much rather it go back to one spec. Adding more available specs makes people of every class more similar, as does removing specs. Now that talents can also be changed at a moments notice I'm not sure removing further distinction between individual players is an appropriate decision.

[Drilnos]

Lol wat..... That was never the reason it was split. It was split because it always felt like two specs anyways due to the fact you could spec into two different roles in the same tree.

It didn't feel like two different specs, it was two different specs. Two trees shared the same space. It was a throwback to the Vanilla-era vision of Feral as a "hybrid" tree, constantly swapping roles mid-combat and doing an awful job of each one. That idea fizzled, but they were stuck with the tree. For years they tried to engineer the tree so that you couldn't dump points into Feral and be good at both dps and tanking without a respec. It grew huge and bloated. But that's not the reason they finally split it. The real reason is, the Mists talent overhaul made it completely impossible to lock one role out from the other using just talent points. It was either bearcat all the way, or finally disentangle the two specs. They chose the latter.

[lopk]

There is no need to do that. That only causes trouble.

I don't see a reason to remove specs. I'm not fond of games that try the all-in approach. I want to dedicate specific characters to a certain role or task.

One of the reasons why I didn't like Path of Exile. It gave me too much choice, and often not enough direction with my abilities. Having specs may be an artificial way of telling you what you can and can't do, but I honestly think it gives some much needed structure.

[Guywhoneedshelp]

so people can customize instead of the same

[Itisamuh]

Why not mix both ideas? A way to play all specs, without having to respec? Both, or either, would be better than the current system.

[Synstir]

I don't like specs.. I think it would be better if we just could finetune our characters with talents.
The talents system should be the feature which differentiates between different locks, warriors, pala's etc.

But, I guess, this would be like impossible to balance...

[dexx]

I'd prefer if they made specs just like the "equipment manager". ie create as many as you want and tie each to gear and keybinds.

[elrot]

Guild Wars 2 style? Eh ... no.

Specs are good. Specs are life.

[Daffan]

"Alright, healers, there's nothing to heal for the next 30 seconds, start DPSING!"

"Huge incoming damage, everyone heal!"

"ADDS!" "Don't worry, I've got it!"




In other words, it's impossible to balance PvE AND PvP without having specs.

This made me laugh so much, but it's so true.