Posted by Bastosa on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 - 41 Comments
Tags: dual spec, hybrid, PvE, quintuple spec, raid design
No one will deny that the impending release of dual specs in patch 3.1 will be a game changer, particularly for the hybrid classes out there. The ability to easily change specs based on an encounter (we need more healers!) or for an activity (no more tank farming!) will make many people’s lives much easier, not to mention save some cash at the trainer.
As someone who respecs once a week to do PvP, I was very excited about this announcement. Now I’ll be able to PvP whenever I want to! Not only that, but I get to save the 100g I spend a week on respecs.
It did get me thinking, why is Blizzard stopping there? They have made it clear they don’t mind people changing spec mid raid, and they do not plan on balancing encounters around this new dynamic, so why not let us have more than 2 specs? On my Paladin I could easily have 5 specs, and I wouldn’t mind one bit paying 1000g a piece for them!
I can see it now, with the push of a button I could be a tank, a healer, DPS, or even a PvP healer, or PvP Ret Pally. It would be great! Maybe I’m going a little overboard here, but you see my point. While this benefits hybrid classes over the pure ones, if Blizzard is going to take away limitations, why not take them away completely?
What do you guys think? Would you use tri specs, quad spec, or even the dreaded quintuple spec? I know I would.
Related Posts: Are Dual-Specs Working Out?, Dual Talent Specialization to Cost 1000 Gold, Ulduar To-Do List!, Dual Spec: No Reagent, No Cooldown, Requires Level 40, Ghostcrawler Reveals Dual Spec Details,
By 1n5an3 on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 2:01 pm
Interesting point. I’m happy enough with dual specs coming out. Three+ seems a bit overboard and takes away the point of having different specs all together.
By Conxcore on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 2:04 pm
as a pally, i couldn’t agree more
By Unknown-Man on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 2:05 pm
It would be useful for multi-spec such as a pally.
I would go as far as Quad Spec on my opinion so I can have a PvP spec, 2 PvE DPS (with minor heals or minor tank) spec and a tank or heal spec.
That’s my preference but I can see pure dps classes such as mage, rouges, hunters, etc. to use it as an experiment to try other trees to see which is best for leveling, pvp and instances.
By Ethan on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 2:09 pm
The cost of 1000g seems a little arbitrary to me - it strikes me as being a wall to stop everyone who could benefit by it from being able to afford it. at lvl 40 who’s got 1K of gold to spend? even in latter levels you have epic and flying mounts, riding skills and the (arbitrary) cloud flying skill to pick up.
Don’t get me wrong I love that their doing this, my druid will find new life being a healer again while still being able to quest solo, but the high cost seems a bit odd to me.
By TenTonApe on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I’m happy with dual-spec, I like my arms/fury for PVE, but I hate being DPS in instances, so I want my arms/fury for PVE and prot/arms (some def bonuses in arms) for instances. Maybe tri-spec might be good for a fury/arms spec, but I won’t be upset if its never implemented.
By Kreion on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 2:26 pm
any more than dual defeates the object od specs so id rather stick with dual or in my case just the one as i owe money to people alrready (650g XD)
By macbethy on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 2:49 pm
As a hunter there is really very little in this new facit of Wow for me. However I think this will help the dreaded pug no end letting players replace those who storm off much more easily.
By El Wero on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 3:10 pm
I can´t wait to make my Unholy PvE and Frost PvP DK, but like Ethan said “who’s got 1k gold at 40?” this is a feature that only 80’s and their alts can afford.
By Crash on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Two specs is enough, so you can toggle between PvE and PvP specs, anything more kills purpose of “pure” classes. Why roll a mage, if I can get shaman and be melee, ranged AND healer, in the same time?
Oh, and the all new loot drama. “I need it for my 464th spec, get lost, stupid rogue!”
By kiley on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 3:25 pm
this could prove useful for many of the hybrid classes, but as Macbethy pointed out- there is little use for 4-5 specs for a NON-hybrid class. So if the go any higher than duel spec i’m guessing that they’ll drop it after 3.
none the less i’m excited for the step blizz is taking with duel spec
By teeters on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 4:02 pm
i see your point i personaly would stop at 2 but i can see why lots of people would love this especialy healers.
i wouldn’t go over 2 cause i not a pvp guy, i don’t really like enhancement (have played on a mates shammy) and i’m really poor XD still no epic flyer 
i am looking forward to it being a shammy now a healer i was ele all the way to 80 and when i’m soloing i miss being able to kill quickly lol so am looking forward to that once more
By erik on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Does anyone else realize how dual specs will make getting gear alot harder. instead of dps druids rolling for dps gear they can just say there tanks or healers and roll for that gear also.
By Baek on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 4:37 pm
I’d like to have at least tri-specing since I too am a Paladin if I want to DPS I will still spend 50G to switch to it if I decide to go Prot/Holy which again, as you said, defeats the purpose of the saved spec idea.
As for hybrids rolling on gear, you should be smart enough to know who you are running with, what their main spec is and they should be honest enough to only roll on their main spec. I know for those that pug this may be an issue, but all it would take is the ability to inspect someone and look at their “Primary” and “Secondary” talents to find out if someone is shoveling some BS on you or if they are being truthful.
By erik on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 4:43 pm
true
By alex on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 4:55 pm
yeah personally I have pure classes and hybrid classes and a tri spec in all cases would be nice cuz there are benefits in all of the talent trees even in the pure classes.
but yeah i agree why stop there may as well take it to the extreme and remove all the restrictions BLIZZ.
kinda like all the other things going on in the upcoming patch hense all the class nurfing. blizz may as well make only 1 class ALL MELEE that’s the reason we play different classes and the different races is for the abilities and racials but now blizz in the upcoming patch are like reduce this reduce that oh and we may as well reduce this and make this not do what it has done for over 2 years we’ll make it to where you get what the racial ability was ment to stop forcing you to use the ability constantly remove what the ability used to prevent prior to patch or instead of a HoT for draenei we’ll make it instant 1 time still with the CD so instead of a HoT to keep ya alive or in conjuntion with a healer in a group or raid to keep the tank or off tank alive so the group or raid don’t wipe we get a ruduced affect and instand instead of HoT effect
I mean come on when do we all say enough and just stop playing because it’s not interesting anymore. with the upcoming patch you may as well all roll a priest for PvP they’re the only 1’s not getting nurfed much all the rest are either getting nurfed alot all together or having their abilities getting nurfed and nurfed again in a PvP sense example: druid: (Faerie Fire and Faerie Fire (Feral): Now decreases armor of your target by 5%. Has a 5-minute duration, and a 40-second PvP duration), priest: (Vampiric Embrace duration increased to 5 minutes, up from 1 minute. PvP duration is now 60 seconds. Cooldown removed.)
to see what all nurfs are coming see the official blizzard test realm patnotes here’s the address
http://www.worldofwarcraft.com/patchnotes/test-realm-patchnotes.html
By Vacant on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 5:40 pm
@erik
So what? roll for the gear. if you dont want to run with them dont. fucking whining!
look, dual spec is a reality, its coming this is just a ‘what if?’ post so the rants ive heard and had to hear over the last weeks are just absurd.
Its a done deal folks, dual spec is what you are getting. period. its blizz’s game, they own it. they run it. and that is it. period.
Plz stop your endless complaining! i play for fun, because i want to play, i dont care at all how ppl i dont know and dont want to ever meet feel.
I just want to kill the boss and move on. why is that so hard?
By banikk on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 6:39 pm
@ Vacant
Yes i agree with you. There is no turning back. Dual speccing is coming and there is no stopping it.
The thing is…even though most classes ARE getting nerfed, dual speccing still hurts the PURE dps classes. Atleast Blizzard give the pure dps classes an increased damage or dps or something. I will not say its UNfair that hybrids can pretty much switch talents anythime they want (when they are out of combat, of course) and still beat out a pure in the dps charts. That comes down to gear, the player, rotation, etc. Lets take a hunter for example, with dual specc he/she can go from survival to…idk lets say BM. BM is great for questing and can pull out tons of dps. But the point is, the hunter is STILL A DPS. And always willl be a dps. If Blizzard could think of something to help out the pure DPS that would be great! I love my hunter and i will continue to play even if the pure dps classes dont get what they want. These are just my opinions so please everyone lol dont freak out!
Dual speccing is great, but anything more, like tri speccs is ridiculous haha A great idea though. This will change the way PUG groups will play and even guild runs.
“We only need a healer!” *One Click and Ret Pally Switches to Holy* “FINALLY!! Ok pick up a dps in trade and lets GO!”
I can see that happening…..hahahaha
By Tom on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 7:00 pm
“i dont care at all how ppl i dont know and dont want to ever meet feel.”
Then why are you reading these comments? Then responding to them? No one’s really even “whining” we’ve been more discussing if more spec’s would be useful or not and what the impact of this will be.
Dude chill out.
By Kyle on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 7:30 pm
well, first off, to say that you dont mind speding 1000g a piece for another spec is kinda overboard, not everyone is rolling in the gold, id be happy to have 1000g, but the ore is just too cheap on my server and i cant sell it. and having too many spec at one time would make the game way too easy. 2 specs is enough and i really doubt that bliz would make more than that simply because they dont want every paladin to just be paladin, they want to have holy specs and tank specs and dps specs, not just one person who can switch between them in a matter of seconds. then ther is the choice of gear, how can you find the time to grind pvp gear for holy and ret, and pve gear for holy, ret and prot? that would just flag you as a no life imo.
By Lovekillsall on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 7:44 pm
Pvp sucks in wow. Whats the point in a pvp spec? stick with 3.
By Dieoxide on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I would be happy with three specs. Affliction for Grobb/PvP, Demo for idk/PvP, Desto Pvp and some kind of boss
By Nextgener on Wednesday, April 1st, 2009 at 9:25 pm
2 specs is fine.
I mean, then a group could be comprised of anything.
5 Druids and 5 Paladins could do any 10 Man They Wanted!
By André on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 1:35 am
Dual spec is gonna kill pure dps classes. Fun times.
By Athelias on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 4:11 am
one word ” BADASS”
By FritzTheCat on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 5:00 am
Yes, dual spec is going to kill pure dps classes, because hunters won’t want to switch to their BM spec to show off their rare pets, mages won’t want to be arcane sometimes and frost other times, rogues don’t generally have different specs for pve and pvp, warlocks never ever change their specs for any reason, ever.
Oops, this is text, you can’t hear the sarcasm.
Dual spec is fine. Two is enough.
By Drstealth on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 5:28 am
I would just add two things.
1) Hopefully the developers wrote the dual spec code in such a way that upgrading to 3,4,5 specs would be fairly easy to implement at a low risk level
2) I would add escalating price.
Dual spec = 1000g
Tri spec = 2000g more
Quad spec = 5000g more.
By robingtons on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 6:58 am
i dont know if its gonna b bad or not my main is a paladin and when i used 2 get bored of him i just used 2 respec him i’ve tanked kara etc healed and dpsed but my alt is a lock and i dont really bring much 2 the table apart from a ss, hs and dps i just hope pure dps classes out their get some love
By cvjohnso on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 7:44 am
I don’t know what to think of dual specs yet. I think it’s a good and bad thing. As I am building my alt-Paladin, I can’t wait to be able to switch from tank to healer or dps. But then again, I wonder how easy it will be to pick-up groups now that the demand for tanks and healers will be trumped by the paladins and druids who can easily switch to accommodate any need on that level of context (not to get in-depth with particular needs). Also, as someone has stated above, how is looting going to work out.
I haven’t made a decision on how I feel and probably won’t til I see it in the system. But positive or negative, it is coming to the game and nothing is going to stop that.
By Kalgorn on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 8:49 am
To be honest, as a Hunter, two specs is enough. But, i can see what you mean if you play one of the hybrid classes.
By FrostSeer on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 10:00 am
I actually heard that Blizzard might be improving this feature by adding the option to purchase more specs in the far future.
By Ombrenoire on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 10:10 am
Personally, I am going to adore being able to easily switch between BM and SV (or maybe MM - haven’t really decided yet), for the increase in DPS and usefulness of my Hunter.
While I agree that dual specs are a little restrictive in terms of hybrid classes, I see this as a kind of test by the BlizzTechs to figure out the mechanics and dynamics of this new ability.
Kind of defeats the purpose to have dual spec if it ends up bombing in the end, no?
After a few patches following 3.1, possible 5 or so, the techs will no how viable and valuable this ability is. With enough people posting in the O-Boards about how grand and good it would be to have multi-specs, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see tri- or quad- or even quint-specs becoming the norm.
(*whimsical thought*) Can you imagine having your toon with every possible combination spec out there to play with?
From a Hunter’s PoV = BM with SV - BM with MM - SV with BM - SV with MM - MM with SV - MM with BM - even spread…
OP much?
By iTZKooPA on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 10:11 am
With the amount of sets required to roll that many specs on the fly, would you even have any bag space? It can already be an issue as it stands now!
By Qes on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 10:25 am
I got a Druid dps(feral) and i got to say i cant wait for this to be implemented. I do think 3+ specs will be a bit overboard though. As to the looting problems, ive been steadily getting boomkin gear from instances no problem. If nobody needs the itm i ask if i could have it for my boomkin set for when dual spec comes out. Now i got lvl 73+ blues for my boom set COMPLETED. When i turn 80 naxx won’t be any different. My guild is cool with it and will make rules to the looting process. I say whatever spec your currently using, roll on that gear. If anyone has problems with that just talk it out. Same with pugs. Just talk it out people will listen(read your comments lol).
By Matt on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 1:13 pm
Im sure we’ll get to 3+ specs some time. We just have to see how the 2 Spec feature works. I for one, think it would be cool with 3 or more specs; like an entire collection. For my DK, i could make a leveling, dps, and PvP build for each tree is i desired so. This is possibly the best WoW mechanic implemented in a long time
By elion on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 2:22 pm
tthats the whole point the duel is mainly for 80s but just you dont wine about “we want duel spec to” when have little or no use of it tthey cut he level reguire ment in half keep the price the same it genous if your rich you can get the duel spec if your beginner noob tuff luck baack to the subject i think we should get a tri spec who whouldent get a use of that even the pure specs one moment youre pve spaced another monent instance spaced and the next pvp spaced just imagine the use the hybrids whould get
By Dave on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I can see what u mean changin to what the group needs like in naxx cahnging from a tank to a healer on saph or changing to a dps for abit not in stead of starting a low level alt i think its a great idea
By Vyllanas on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 4:05 pm
I always hated the idea of having to pay to respec to begin with. It doesn’t do anything to encourage creativity in playstyle or expirementation. All it does is make me go to some forum and seek the cookie cutter spec and stick with that. Then I’m either gimped for pvp or pve depending on what I went with.
They could have just eliminated the cost of a respec and saved a lot of development time. No one really needs an insta-respec.
If anything, it will make people play their mains more in order to gather more gear.
By Illithian on Thursday, April 2nd, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Absolutely not. It would be loot insanity. Can you imagine if every pally said “I have a tank, ret, holy, tank offspec, holy offspec, half ret offspec, and pvp set. Can I roll on half the drops plox?”
Two specs are fine, and any more would be absurd. I can already testify that two specs are annoying from all the guild PTR DKP drama that we’ve been having *rolls eyes*. Atleast my purist priest has no trouble =)
By L on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 4:55 am
if theyre ganna put out more than duel spec, well then they may aswell take away talent trees and give everyone all the talents. the point of this was originaly to make it less costly for people to change spec when they want to pvp or pve, and it would make life easier for people to farm and do dailies, that is why originaly they had it set so that you needed a lexicon of power to change spec, ofcourse that has changed. i personaly dont understand why, the lexicon requirement was a great idea, kept things underprespective, it wouldnt make raids so much easier, thats from the prespective of a guild that pregresses at an ok rate, they wouldnt need to respec mid raid, only respec before raids to occomadate the raid groups needs. but for guilds that progress at a lower rate becouse of guildies tight schedules, taking away the lexicon of power requirement is a great idea, a heaelr who is in the military gets called up for an emergency meeting, one of the dps who has a heal set changes onsight, or anyone who they could replace easily changes. and from the prespective of WTFROFLSTOMPEATSHITPIEHOLEOWNSHIT guilds, this shouldnt really matter to you guys, your already owning shit
By Ubu on Friday, April 3rd, 2009 at 10:22 am
Triple spec FTW!, Seriously, I need one extra slot so that I can try out experimental specs without killing myself.
I think it would totally help people try out some new stuff, maybe some crazy stuff. It gets kinda boring when all people ever do is look up the popular specs and copy paste. Making talent points cheaper makes it so that everyone is more willing to try stuff!
By Sardit on Sunday, April 5th, 2009 at 4:31 am
i’d love tri spec, as a holy priest atm i’m stuck with no pvp survivability, and very slow questing.
With dual spec that will have to become holy + disc, simply to be able to survive horde while questing, the only reason i don’t have northrend loremaster is the bloody kill 15 player daily they have there. It seems like someone posts in general when they see a holy priest. Within 2 minutes i have 20 hordes chasing and killing me.
Tri spec would allow me a shadow spec aswell. That way i’d be able to get a pure dps spec to go instancing with aswell. I’d really like it but everytime i put on an offset, respec and try to get in groups it ends up with me speccing back holy and putting on healing gear again. Never a healer there, or when they are they are so lousy in healing its just embarising to see.
And unfortunately since i’ve spent so much time in healing everyone expects me to heal. They’ll just beg and beg me to respec to healing all the time. At least with dualspec i can do it a lot easier since now every time i try it its wasted gold 90% of the time.
It will still be a long time untill i get to mind seer in a raid i think..
Unfortunately, grinding is more important so offspeccing shadow won’t do it