Is a spec a commitment? Should it be?

[Giscoicus]

Is it a commitment? I'd d say no. A quick change and some regearing and suddenly a fire age is a frost Mage.

Should it be? I would say yes. A paladin trained in healing magics shouldn't be able to quickly jump into a tanking spec. A Druid who learned to fight as a bear shouldn't easily switch to being a cat. Your specialization should be a meaningful choice, not something you easily switch out of. You trained as a combat rogue? You are not going on be the best at poisons. Trained as a frost death knight? You shouldn't be a very skilled unholy DK. I wish your choice was more meaningful, and changing specs meant a significant quest line to learn your new specialization.

[Deleted]

I think a spec should be somewhat of a commitment, but less than it is today. I really like being able to respec to support my raiding group. Now it wouldn't make much of a difference if I used 1 character with an offspec or 2 characters with different specs.

I like the fact that a raid might need a specific spec for a specific fight though and Blizzard hints that they'll go back a bit on their "bring the player, not the class" philosophy considering they said they wanted WoD to bring back some of the mechanics in a fight that require a certain spell or mechanic. I can't really quote it because I don't know where I read it, but it was either a blue post or a direct quote from Blizzcon saying that they made it 20man and not 15man because they could _require_ spells like Mind Control and similar again.

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Is it a commitment? I'd d say no. A quick change and some regearing and suddenly a fire age is a frost Mage.

Well, considering I have crit rating on every single piece except for my neck piece and my belt and I have about as much haste as mastery, so I have very sub-optimal stats as Frost, or at least Arcane. Even with full reforges and regemming, I would still be crit overcapped as Frost. Our Shadow Priest picks up haste items, our Destro Lock picks up mastery items, so it would require a lot of work to get Arcane/Frost-suitable gear.

It might seem like a small change, but in my raid group, I've commited myself to Fire and it would cause a lot of problems if I were to switch spec even though I'd have the same tasks and need the same base stats.

[Aleksej89]

Diablo 2 used to have PERMANENT talents - once chosen, they could NEVER be changed...

Blizzard added a "respec" system about 2 years ago and honestly it is great to be able to change.

I am fine with players being able to easily change specs/talents - as long as you can do it only out of Combat/BG/Arena.

[Deleted]

Diablo 2 used to have PERMANENT talents - once chosen, they could NEVER be changed...

And gear wasn't bound, so you could easily roll a new char, choose different talents and give the items to them.

[Jessicka]

I disagree with this. Anything below high end raiding and you can play whatever the hell you want but the fact that being in a high end raiding guild means you should be able to play all specs doesn't mean that the game is a spreadsheet devoid of emotion. Barriers for changing specs are nothing but artificial nuisances. If you don't want to play other specs, then don't?

If "don't", then why your expectation that a player should?

It was only a big deal because of all the artificial hoops one needed to jump through to actually get his or her spec changed. There is nothing inherently in the fact of changing specs that makes it a big deal.

Without hoops it's even less of a big deal. Hoops make the difference between "Go and do it" and "Is it going to be such a benefit that it's worth the hassle?"

[Deleted]

Playing competitively and raiding heroics in the top 10% of your realm?

Yes, specs ARE a commitment.

[Rorke]

It is afterall, an RPG where your choices in specialisation and talents are supposed to reflect something within your character's character, something that defines them. Too much ease and convenience hurts that, and we've seen countless arguments on how ease and convenience hurt immersion and gameplay itself.

This game WAS an RPG. Those days are gone ever since they released Cataclysm. Now they're removing dodge/parry/hit rating/expertise crucial RP stats in the new expansion. You're playing the wrong game if you're looking to play an actual massive online RPG. SWTOR and RIFT are more closely related to the term "RPG" than anything this game has to offer.

[checking facts]

specs shouldn't be a commitment, but they should be a choice based on flavor, taste and gameplay style, rather than on numbers.

I should play the warlock spec that I enjoy the most, not the one that does the 1337iest dps.

[Nobleshield]

I do think they should be a commitment, but I don't think the game is built on that assumption. I almost feel as though each class should have the advanced classes route like SWTOR has where you pick it and then can't change it, but at the same time as someone who has played a tank and now swapped to DPS I see the advantage of being able to switch without needing an alt or doing subpar because you're using for example a tertiary DPS tree in a "class" designed for tanking. On the flip side I did like how Rift handled the various roles and specs via "souls", although they only have four base classes and the souls are really your class; the drawback to this is since you can have multiple souls (six when I last played and now it's unlimited as I recall) you're pretty much required to know ALL of your possible roles so, for example, a good raiding Cleric is pretty much required to know how to play tank, healer, ranged DPS, melee DPS and support, which can be a bit overwhelming especially with that game planning to make it so any of the four classes can tank/heal/dps/support, which means you can't just want to play one role unless you want to play casually.

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specs shouldn't be a commitment, but they should be a choice based on flavor, taste and gameplay style, rather than on numbers.

I should play the warlock spec that I enjoy the most, not the one that does the 1337iest dps.

Agree with this; I think all specs should be balanced against each other and offer a different playstyle that's still competitive, so you don't run into the issue of "forcing" someone to play a particular spec; obviously this applies mostly to the pure DPS classes than hybrids.

[Deleted]

As a raider, you should know and be proficient in at least 2 of the specs your class can play. To do otherwise is gimping the raid.

This attitude is why I hate dual specc etc...I played Elemental Shaman since the beginning and I never had any interest in healing what so ever. No guild has been succesfull in trying to get me to heal.

[Aqua]

I dunno mentally I've always been 'Retribution talented with spare talents in Holy'. Merely because I identify with the paladin class quite well and my character does feel like an extension of me. And it's always been that way, even in the years where I was forced to play Holy to get by. When dual specs came by it was easy to go okay my second talent spec is holy. My first is Retribution. Done.

So...It's not an issue for me.

However in regards to gameplay...I remember this dude in Vanilla who the guild would chip in to spec change just for raid encounters because he was needed for a certain thing, so... I both miss the locked in talent spec (now that pretty much any spec is viable it could technically work, but nerds will always argue semantics for the sake of a few numbers) and for the reasons in the bracket think it should never return. Like many have said, swapping talents has always been an option. A clunky, costly option, but there non-the-less. Lack of convenience is not really difficulty or consequence. It's just...inconvenient. The best players will always find ways around it.

[Deleted]

This is one of the big reasons I can't bring myself to give retail WoW another try. The new talent system looks just so shallow and meaningless, it seems like Blizzard have just removed as much player choice as possible.

[Deleted]

This attitude is why I hate dual specc etc...I played Elemental Shaman since the beginning and I never had any interest in healing what so ever. No guild has been succesfull in trying to get me to heal.

Personally, I'd rather go without raiding in general than to spec into healing. It simply won't happen.

[melodramocracy]

I still feel like a specialisation should be a commitment; barriers need to exist to allow players to focus rather than feel an expectation of knowing all of the specs. It is afterall, an RPG where your choices in specialisation and talents are supposed to reflect something within your character's character, something that defines them. Too much ease and convenience hurts that, and we've seen countless arguments on how ease and convenience hurt immersion and gameplay itself.

I'm on board with this. The game isn't designed around making this sort of thing feasible of course. Talent trees aren't even trees any longer (and weren't ever very complex in the first place), but decisions imposed on the player are generally a positive thing. I'll take this a step further, and actually say that your main character should be a commitment. The fact that players can spend a fairly average amount of playtime, and wind up with 4+ geared alts says a lot about the content in this game.

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I should play the warlock spec that I enjoy the most, not the one that does the 1337iest dps.

To be fair, in most situations you probably can play what you find most enjoyable, and still experience most of the content. Progression guilds are likely the only ones that would complain about your decision.

[Thage]

Is it a commitment? I'd d say no. A quick change and some regearing and suddenly a fire age is a frost Mage.

Should it be? I would say yes. A paladin trained in healing magics shouldn't be able to quickly jump into a tanking spec. A Druid who learned to fight as a bear shouldn't easily switch to being a cat. Your specialization should be a meaningful choice, not something you easily switch out of. You trained as a combat rogue? You are not going on be the best at poisons. Trained as a frost death knight? You shouldn't be a very skilled unholy DK. I wish your choice was more meaningful, and changing specs meant a significant quest line to learn your new specialization.

Lore characters aren't confined by specs. We are only because of game mechanics.

I'd argue specs being a commitment only serves to make our characters feel limited, when the story builds up our potential to be limitless as the guys who get shit done. Being able to shift our focus between masteries on the fly helps feel like we're always holding something back that we can bring out when the fight really gets serious--like, a mage slinging arcane magic suddenly starts belting out fireballs at you with no prior warning, and turning up the heat (sorry for the pun) causes them to whup you twice as hard as they were before. Or that warrior who picks up her fallen buddy's greatsword and goes apeshit on you with two big-ass swords at once.

[Detheavn]

As it is right now, i dont even know why those Tomes are in the game, when you could just aswell just have talents being able to be changed outside of combat at all times.

Gold sink ;-)

The way it is now I'd hardly call it a gold sink. Compare it to back when respeccing had a cummulative cost and you'll realise buying a tome is just a minor unneeded inconvenience

And this is what I don't get. Under the old system you copied your specc from elitist jerks. Today on icy veins I at least read: This talent is situational better for encounter a and this for encounter B. It lets me chose a passive talent or one I have to activate if I like button clicking.

I think people still fail to see that the old talent system basically is picking a specialisation today. The new talent system is just someting to make you a bit more versatile alongside that.

[Aleksej89]

And gear wasn't bound, so you could easily roll a new char, choose different talents and give the items to them.

Easily roll a new char?

You obviously never got above level 5 in diablo 2, since rolling a new character to reach level 70+ just to replace your old character took EONS - unless you were using character editors.

Not to mention playing a hardcore character who is most definitely not easy to level up...

[Deleted]

You obviously never got above level 5 in diablo 2, since rolling a new character to reach level 70+ just to replace your old character took EONS

Thanks, but I leveled enough chars to know how long it took.

[Redpanda]

be super bad ass at one. pro at the othres

[diddle]

I supported tri-spec until I read this. The realization that knowing every spec will become an expectation...