Dual Specialization (Update)

I'm not sure where all the hostility is coming from; nobody is QQing or whining. We're merely pointing out one possible unintended consequence if they do add talent switching during raids: paladins might be under more pressure to heal more often than they would otherwise have to.

The big issue to me is how raids will be designed. Will the required number of tanks change much fight-to-fight? How about the required number of healers? If a 1-tank boss doesn't require extra healers, there's not much problem: the non-tanking tank can dps and everyone is (reasonably) happy. If the 1-tank fight requires more healers, there's a problem. Whether it makes more sense for a tanking druid or paladin to switch to healing, or for a hybrid dps heal and have the tank dps doesn't matter too much: someone is doing something they don't want to do, and that's not fun. I hope that most fights will require the same number of tanks, and the few that don't will be tuned for extra dps and not healing.

Also, a talent like Touched by the Light is especially confusing with dual-specs. Why does it add spell power and extra healing on crits instead of AP and extra damage on crits? Are we supposed to stay prot to heal? I'd be interested to hear a developer's thought process behind talents like this, or their overall philosophy behind dual-specs.

Personally, I would have been much happier if they would make sure the same number of healers would carry you through every raid evening, and have all 4 tank classes offer enough (DPS/Buff/Debuff) value when not tanking. I think they tried for a while, but especially with arenas, this was probably over constrained.

Still, I do not like spec switching. I agree it makes encounters easier to design (no excuse for switching healers/tanks numbers), but in a way this is against the intention of a talent system - they could have build a base class that would have situational auras (with ooc/CD switch) to make them healers, tanks, whatever.

Extermi

The main problem I see with how this will be implemented is, how would you motivate taking a rogue/hunter/mage to a raid now?

The shaman/priest/druid/paladin will be doing the same kind of damage, they can pull off CC good enough and they can freely switch between healing/tanking/dps.

What exactly does a pure class offer to a raid that makes up for the ability to change your combat role on the fly?

Generally when you compare classes you're meant to assume equal skill.

I don't want to derail the thread but I don't see why in WotlK a guild would want to maintain more then say 2 active mages(to fill 1 spot).

I think this will change raiding quite a lot, for example karazhan(I know, old low lvl content) is much easier with 2 tanks up to opera, but after that the offtank gets almost nothing to do, now he can just press a button to become a full dps spec for the rest of the raid.

You can also look at Mount Hyjal

First boss: 1 tank
Second boss: 2 tanks(some do 3)
Third boss: 1 tank
Fourth boss: 2 tanks
Last boss: 1 tank

The poor tank that only got something to do every 2nd boss will now get to spec dps in order to make himself more useful.

I was also under the impression that Blizzard had been stating repeatedly that they wanted to "simplify" raids... that's why there's going to be so much buff overlap, right? I really don't think that Blizzard is going to start tailoring raids to people switching spec between every boss fight. That's a complete step backwards. Not to mention, collecting two entirely disparate gear sets is going to be arduous for a lot of people; how long does it take a paladin to find a full T6 level set, and now people expect them to show up with two? I do think that this will be fantastic for PvP, grinding, dailies, doing a little more DPS when the warrior wants a shot at tanking and we're second string that fight, etc., and I can only see this being positive. That, and it will favor specs in many cases where the gear can somewhat overlap; elemental/resto for shammies, balance/resto for druids, etc. I think that a lot of GMs are going to realize that trying to stuff a tank into a healer role will be detrimental given the tremendous difference in gear, not to mention glyphs, consumables, mods and plain style of play.
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maybe the gold cost still pops up and u have to pay each respec??


this is just saving the raid time for having to hearth and resummon ppl maybe?

I just hope most people will be in decent guilds that allow them to chose their 2nd spec instead of forcing them to go holy.

I know it'll be a struggle for some though.

Without a cd on respec it sounds a lot like "Tank trash, spec holy for bosses kk?" though...
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