Poll: How do you feel about being punished for switching specs (not classes)

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  1. #21
    Quote Originally Posted by Spazzix View Post
    The reality though, is that a 1 week wait period on covenant swaps (I think that's still the current system?) is actually vastly preferable to getting BiS for some specs. My season 4 M+ BiS azerite would have required 60000 titan residuum if I wanted to be purely pve or 40000 + pvp luck for a 475 trohpy OR even worse than any of that: 40 quartermaster tickets.
    So, I could be BiS what...4 or 5 months into the patch? Vs covenants sometimes being suboptimal BUT completely in my control and completely accessible?
    Know what though, I never got BiS and somehow managed a top 10 for my spec. Crazy that a few percentage points don't actually make an actual difference to more than one or two-hundred players worldwide...
    If the community wants to erroneously weight the importance of sims and disparities, that's on it. I have a lot of issues with Blizzard's design decisions, but there choice to not dumb down covenants to a picture-book level isn't the evil that people are so hell bent on making it.
    First of all, my argument was couched in the reality of the design philosophy, you can argue its validity but not it's accuracy.
    As you pointed out in the past it was possible to control being fully optimal in more than one at a time and as I also pointed out whether the extra effort was worth it to you is up for debate.

    Secondly "but it doesn't actually matter though" is a false premise. Some people like optimsing their character as much as possible, it follows then they would dislike barriers to this.
    A cursory look around these forums would show plenty of people like to play dress-up dollies with their characters instead of the actual game. Would they not be within their rights to express displeasure if transmog was artificially limited in some capacity or if blizzard removed a hairstyle?
    Races "don't actually matter though" yet for some reason more people play blood elves than female dwarves?
    Specs and classes "don't actually matter though" to the vast majority of players and yet they have varying levels of popularity.
    What about shitty knock off pokemon? Doesn't matter but people enjoy it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hitei View Post
    Not really a witticism. Par does not mean equal to complete optimality, it means reaching the norm, an average. You being inclined to grind gear isn't going to suddenly make your subtlety off-spec as good as outlaw for mythic+. You have literally always been "consigned to the whims of the sim". All you've ever been able to do is bring your off-spec up to the best level possible after for its capabilities after the resource investment of your main spec, be that gear and weapons, or artifact power, or which covenant you picked.
    That was my point, Thanks for agreeing with me? I wasn't ever trying to say you could grind one spec to be as good as another, that's not even the topic of the thread.

    Right now a fully BiS frost DK with necrolord will never have the same performance cap as a fully bis Kyrian frost DK in a raid, that is a step backwards for design (and balance) for the game. As you have so correctly pointed out, in the past you have had the option to grind for that performance cap (again, whether that was worth it to you is a separate question).
    Last edited by Saltysquidoon; 2020-11-14 at 01:23 AM.
    Tonight for me is a special day. I want to go outside of the house of the girl I like with a gasoline barrel and write her name on the road and set it on fire and tell her to get out too see it (is this illegal)?

  2. #22
    Pandaren Monk AngerFork's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by NabyBro View Post
    You are basically playing either a mage, a rogue or a warlock if you make this stupid af post.

    Name one instance where you HAD to play multiple specs at once with any of these pure dps classes?
    While I disagree with OP and I've stated why above, I will say that most Rogues I know do keep an Assassination set for single target bosses/trash and an Outlaw set for multi target bosses. That's at least one valid use case for multiple spec DPS classes.

  3. #23
    Quote Originally Posted by Saltysquidoon View Post
    That was my point, Thanks for agreeing with me? I wasn't ever trying to say you could grind one spec to be as good as another, that's not even the topic of the thread.

    Right now a fully BiS frost DK with necrolord will never have the same performance cap as a fully bis Kyrian frost DK in a raid, that is a step backwards for design (and balance) for the game. As you have so correctly pointed out, in the past you have had the option to grind for that performance cap (again, whether that was worth it to you is a separate question).
    That wasn't your point, please actually read what you are quoting. If you weren't claiming you could grind one spec to be as good as another, then you probably shouldn't have said, explicitly the words:
    if you were inclined with past systems you could grind for equality
    There is a performance cap for A Necrolord Frost DK, and a performance cap for a Kyrian Frost DK. The two are not equal, just like there is no equal cap between the mythic+ performance of a Night elf Unholy DK and a gnome Unholy DK, and there is no performance cap equality between an Unholy and Frost DK, or a DK and a better class. In the past you have never had the option to grind past the lack of optimization created by your own choices.

    You've simply accepted that there will be some lack of optimality inherent in your choices (picking a DK, picking Frost) and then optimized within the confines of those choices you made in opposition to optimality. Nothing is different in 9.0. You will decide how much optimization means to you (picking a covenant) and then you will optimize within the confines of that choice.
    Secondly "but it doesn't actually matter though" is a false premise. Some people like optimsing their character as much as possible, it follows then they would dislike barriers to this.
    There is no barrier here, full stop. If what you find fun is optimizing your character, you pick the best spec for the raiding (or whatever activity you main), you pick the best covenant for that activity: Your character is optimized. Off-specs are off-specs. Your covenant not being good for an off-spec is no different than you dumping all your artifact power and relics into a mainspec weapon and not having those resources to put into the off-spec, or spending your DKP on the trinket for your mainspec that is bad for your off-spec. You make your character the best it can be within the choices you have made, and people who chose for pure optimality where you didn't will be more optimal. Just like that person that picked Night Elf DK is more optimal for m+ than someone who picked Worgen; just like the person who picked a better class or spec is going to be more optimal than someone who didn't.

    There is nothing new here.

  4. #24
    Quote Originally Posted by awadh View Post
    Remember those good old times when we were maining a class, not a spec? Those times where you weren't punished for changing a spec within the same class?

    It doesn't look like it's changing anytime soon, at least in Shadowlands. We're once again being fucked with systems that punish us for playing a class instead of a spec, ie:
    • different covenants being bis for specs within the same class depending on the main covenant ability
    • then soulbinds/conduits (afaik) also punishing us for changing specs.
    • legendaries also being spec specific
    • + who knows what else blizzard will try to sneak in during the expansion like they did with essences or corruptions in BfA

    What are your opinions of this? Do you actually like that?

    EDIT; sorry, in my post I have only considered DPS classes only. Yes, you had to have two or three gearsets if you wanted to multi-role, but that's a different thing. Also, still a better solution that what we have right now.
    Haven’t we always played a spec? Even as far as Vanilla. You spec’d into multiple trees, but even having branching paths you were playing a spec based off of tier gear, dungeon sets, and costs of respec.

  5. #25
    I don't care, dude, I play a spec. I'm not changing specs unless I'm rerolling to another spec, and I guess most players are like that as well.

  6. #26
    Quote Originally Posted by Hitei View Post
    That wasn't your point, please actually read what you are quoting. If you weren't claiming you could grind one spec to be as good as another, then you probably shouldn't have said, explicitly the words:
    The only way this argument gets here is if you either have a lack of reading comprehension or you're trying to filibuster (Which I heavily suspect based on the latter majority of your post).
    Clearly based on the context of the thread and what I posted multiple times I was saying in the past it was possible to for example grind your ele gear to be as good as your enhance gear so you have access to the theoretical performance cap for each spec only differentiated by your skill as a player.
    At no point did I state or imply that:
    1. You could grind Ele to be as good as enhancement (in this theoretical ele is worse than enhancement); or;
    2. You could grind Ele to be as good as a Sub rogue (in this theoretical ele is worse than Sub).

    Let's stop talking about theoretical arguments you wanted me to have made and focus on the argument I actually made.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hitei View Post
    There is a performance cap for A Necrolord Frost DK, and a performance cap for a Kyrian Frost DK. The two are not equal, just like there is no equal cap between the mythic+ performance of a Night elf Unholy DK and a gnome Unholy DK, and there is no performance cap equality between an Unholy and Frost DK, or a DK and a better class. In the past you have never had the option to grind past the lack of optimization created by your own choices.

    You've simply accepted that there will be some lack of optimality inherent in your choices (picking a DK, picking Frost) and then optimized within the confines of those choices you made in opposition to optimality. Nothing is different in 9.0. You will decide how much optimization means to you (picking a covenant) and then you will optimize within the confines of that choice.
    Except that in the past if I was playing a troll destro lock and it turns out troll aff lock is the best spec that tier I could grind my aff set up to my destro set (if it was bis) at which point I would be at the theoretical performance cap for both specs and the only factor at play would be my skill as a player. Or if MM was the better spec in PvE and BM was the better spec in PvP I could grind PvP gear until again I had reached the performance cap for BM. Also, I don't know why you're bringing up inter-class balance, a single character can be multiple specs but only one class, we're talking about character optimization, you can't 'optimize a DK by rolling a mage' that's a total non-argument.

    This is the issue at hand, there is nothing you can do if your bis covenant is different for different specs or content, the system innately adds an extra barrier to optimization that cannot be overcome by playing the game.
    Like I said previously you can't argue that statement is not accurate because it objectively is. You can only argue that you don't believe that being able to fully optimise every aspect of your character is valid.

    Quote Originally Posted by Hitei View Post
    There is no barrier here, full stop. If what you find fun is optimizing your character, you pick the best spec for the raiding (or whatever activity you main), you pick the best covenant for that activity: Your character is optimized. Off-specs are off-specs. Your covenant not being good for an off-spec is no different than you dumping all your artifact power and relics into a mainspec weapon and not having those resources to put into the off-spec, or spending your DKP on the trinket for your mainspec that is bad for your off-spec. You make your character the best it can be within the choices you have made, and people who chose for pure optimality where you didn't will be more optimal. Just like that person that picked Night Elf DK is more optimal for m+ than someone who picked Worgen; just like the person who picked a better class or spec is going to be more optimal than someone who didn't.

    There is nothing new here.
    But again if I wanted my prot artifact to be the same level as my ret one I could grind maw of souls 10,000 times a week If I was so inclined. Whether or not that was worth it, that was a choice for me. Blizzard has taken that choice away.
    Also, your examples here a false equivalences because as I've stated multiple times you can always grind more or come back next week or log alts and farm trash for hours.
    Really the only leg you've got to stand on here are racials, which I agree provide a barrier to optimization, however, blizzard continually takes steps to lower the impact of racials and not raise them. Further, I think they're bad for the game on both a micro (it inhibits direct player comparison in situations where everyone isn't just playing a troll) and macro (since they killed high-end alliance raiding) scale.

    The fact remains spec X with covenant y will never be as good in content w as spec x with covenant z. You literally cannot debate this because it is objectively true. The only argument here (should be) whether you think that is a step forward or backward for the game's design.
    Tonight for me is a special day. I want to go outside of the house of the girl I like with a gasoline barrel and write her name on the road and set it on fire and tell her to get out too see it (is this illegal)?

  7. #27
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    For some reason, maintaining two entirely different sets of gear (in my case, prot/holy paladin) in, say, BC didn't feel as annoying as Legiondaries or Azerite #$!@.
    Quote Originally Posted by trimble View Post
    WoD was the expansion that was targeted at non raiders.

  8. #28
    They effectively transformed each spec to a separate class. This is a bad idea for maintainability and they are paying the price now. Not to mention no one likes it. Blizzard's system designers aren't as smart as they think they are.
    Last edited by Kuntantee; 2020-11-14 at 06:10 PM.

  9. #29
    I mean it's pretty clear WHY they do this: it adds more grinding to the game, forcing people to build up systems for a different spec from scratch (with or without acceleration, depending) and sometimes making it more efficient to simply roll another character of the same class just for that spec, rather than switching back and forth constantly. It all produces virtual content, by extending existing systems over a greater time period.

  10. #30
    Quote Originally Posted by Biomega View Post
    I mean it's pretty clear WHY they do this: it adds more grinding to the game, forcing people to build up systems for a different spec from scratch (with or without acceleration, depending) and sometimes making it more efficient to simply roll another character of the same class just for that spec, rather than switching back and forth constantly. It all produces virtual content, by extending existing systems over a greater time period.
    They also spend more time balancing/designing/extending specs.

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