I was reading the Leveling Specs (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1154) thread and came across this gem:

Selexin wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Although I will likely stay feral/resto at 60 for versatility (1/32/18). That way I can tank, heal and pvp. Not amazing at healing/dps, but certainly viable.

And it struck me that in a world with Dual Spec (as I have seen many people opine for on a certain other forum), such a personalized and unique spec would not exist. The Ret Pally 21/0/30 or 25/26/0 specs would cease to exist as well, instead with two separate cookie cutter specs for healing and pvping, without a thought to how to make things work for both.

I understand that there are a lot of classes where their raid and alternative spec are vastly different, but hard choices are what this talent system was all about initially. It was based on the Diablo 2 system where when I messed up my character's spec the final time, I realized I couldn't beat the final bosses to get the items I needed to fix it and it would be quicker to just restart my character than try.

Without Dual Spec you get talent builds that are unique and fun without everyone's character being cookie cutter, though I expect a lot of them to still be.

Thoughts? Is Single Spec going to put you into the poorhouse? Slaves to raid leaders? Talent trees and it's relation to armory? (Personally hoping no armory - personalized specs that you put a lot of thought and time into shouldn't be blantantly copied or worked around with a simple click.)

I agree with you. I think that many things people see as falws in Vanilla Wow are actually great game deisgn choice that were made, like the one you just listed! I usually improvise my talent build every time I create a new char, and it's funny because in this way I never had two character with the same build. It gives a lot of replayability to the game

I was considering Shaman like you but the idea of being forced to blow 100g every time I raid sounds horrible. A guild that would tolerate a 30/0/21 hybrid build would be ideal but finding one seems like a long shot. On the other hand Hunter's raid spec can do anything. It's just sad that people will be punished for wanting to heal.

I think the bigger draw of no dual spec is having a persistent identity as people were prodding at in this thread. It's almost like having more than 9 classes in the game.

Lendryn wrote: ↑

5 years ago

A guild that would tolerate a 30/0/21 hybrid build would be ideal but finding one seems like a long shot.

Don't lose hope! With Classic I believe (and strongly hope) that a bit of that good old sperimentation that old MMORPG had will arise again. Maybe this time you will get a luck shot and find the kind of guild you are looking for?

Lendryn wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I was considering Shaman like you but the idea of being forced to blow 100g every time I raid sounds horrible. A guild that would tolerate a 30/0/21 hybrid build would be ideal but finding one seems like a long shot. On the other hand Hunter's raid spec can do anything. It's just sad that people will be punished for wanting to heal.

I think the bigger draw of no dual spec is having a persistent identity as people were prodding at in this thread. It's almost like having more than 9 classes in the game.

I don't think 30/0/21 is a long shot at all - at least not on a PvP server. Even if you're missing some nice stuff in the resto tree, what are your guildies going to do, farm your mats and fight your battles for you 24/7? I can't imagine that you wouldn't be able to find a guild where the other healers felt the same way. Undead Priests are notorious for wanting to go Shadow, Druids wanting feral, etc., even if you're all healing on raid day.

I wouldn't consider the Hybrid dps specs unviable at all when they're performing their standard raid role, it's only when they want to be Elemental DPS within the raid that people start giving them shady looks.

(I'm not actually rolling a Shaman - I just managed to get Alliance Shaman as a class combo through a bug and I'm keeping it, but my real class is undecided.)

@fendor Even if I found one that allowed hybrid shamans I wonder how long it would slide. I've read BWL and Naxx need every bit of optimization you can get.

@Linguine I'm sure it's fine until you hit some point like the raids I mentioned. Mana tide on a caster group would fuel a lot of damage and at least one shaman would have to be running Ancestral Healing.

Lendryn wrote: ↑

5 years ago

@fendor Even if I found one that allowed hybrid shamans I wonder how long it would slide. I've read BWL and Naxx need every bit of optimization you can get.

@Linguine I'm sure it's fine until you hit some point like the raids I mentioned. Mana tide on a caster group would fuel a lot of damage and at least one shaman would have to be running Ancestral Healing.

Sounds real rough, and like Shaman got the short end of the stick. As far as I know, Paladin's most popular hybrid specs only miss out on 5% spell crit.

I honestly was on the fence about dual specialization but after reading this I think you're right. The game isn't designed around having to be perfectly optimal and while some classes get shafted harder than others, overall these hybrid specs help add variety to the game and uniqueness to everyone.

On the other side of the coin. I remember vividly being a protection paladin in Burning Crusade and having trouble even completing dailies because my damage output was too low so I am not completely sold on it.

Lendryn wrote: ↑

5 years ago

A guild that would tolerate a 30/0/21 hybrid build would be ideal but finding one seems like a long shot.

I hear this a lot on the forum, and its likely because a lot of the more knowledgeable players tend to lean towards min/maxxing. I think that the min/maxxers can give a false perception about the necessity of optimizing. I am part of this problem. Understand that finding 40 players has always been hard and will always be hard. It was hard in retail vanilla... It is hard on private... It will be hard on Classic. In most cases guilds will need players with a pulse to fill their raid. We can talk about the BEST racials and the BEST specs and how to generate the BEST throughput; the reality of Classic is that you are needed. YOU. YOU will be needed by guilds regardless of what you choose. The content is easy, forming and managing a 40 man team is challenging. Forced interaction. Players are incentivized to play together and often times that requires the raider to compromise on their preferences for the sake of the raid and sometimes that requires the raid to compromise on their expectations to fill the raid... Now, will finding that spot be easier if you have leverage? Of course. Leverage comes in the form of desirable specs, desirable gear, desirable experience etc etc etc... You can take an oddball spec and still get into guilds but you're going to need to provide value in another way or find a guild that is in need of players (there will be A LOT of them).

On private we had this warlock that was level 40-50 while we were raiding. He didn't play often and when he did, he was PAINFULLY slow at leveling. We were a min/max guild. Every raid night, he logged on 30 mins pre raid and had himself posted at the front entrance of the raid to help with summons. This warlock was an AWFUL player. Just terrible... But we spoiled him. He showed up every raid night to help with our summons and so we ran him through TONS of dungeons and quests. At 60, his DPS was worse than a hunter pet, but he started fishing/herbing at 60 providing us with consumes and was still there to help with summons every night. He knew his own shortcommings and he provided value in other ways and thus gained leverage and earned his spot on the team. He made it all the way through AQ40. This story is from 2018. This still happens. You are needed, you just need to find a way to provide a team value. The more meme you are, the more creative you will need to be. Being a sub optimal spec is an uphill battle. Being an awful player is an uphill battle. If you are willing to find a way to provide your team value, they will value you.

One thing I can see a lot of guilds doing is using their schedule to reduce respecs, thus minimizing the gold cost of respeccing every raid. If you progression raid Monday and Tuesday nights every other week, you clear 2 weeks of resets in 48 hours, and thus have to respec half as much. This is a hardcore strat for really min/maxxing, but it's something that I could see casual guilds trying if it means they have a greater number of optimized specs come raid time.

@Stfuppercut I'm sure that's all true but it's not really any different in my case — if I'm going to put in extra work to offer utility i.e. giving everyone consumables I could just put in extra work to afford the respec.

(Also I'm strongly considering hunter for a bunch of separate reasons so I won't have to deal with this anyway.)

Lendryn wrote: ↑

5 years ago

@Stfuppercut I'm sure that's all true but it's not really any different in my case — if I'm going to put in extra work to offer utility i.e. giving everyone consumables I could just put in extra work to afford the respec.

(Also I'm strongly considering hunter for a bunch of separate reasons so I won't have to deal with this anyway.)

Yeah, I totally understand where you're coming from. That's sort of the reality of raiding, you will need to provide value and gain leverage somehow. The easiest way is just to play something desirable. I will also be playing hunter for the same reason. The path of least resistance.

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Being a sub optimal spec is an uphill battle. Being an awful player is an uphill battle. If you are willing to find a way to provide your team value, they will value you.

This is a great aspect of vanilla WoW that I think we all want recpatured with Classic.

yeah, i always liked single-spec. some people are crazy enough to constantly shill out the respec cost, but i feel like the games intent was to mold you into a specific type of player. if a druid wants to spec feral dps, they focus on dpsing as feral and get good at it. they get gear for that spec and dedicate themselves to mastering it. same for a druid that wants to go resto. that becomes who you are. if you're more interested in pvp or something, you can go for hybrid builds. maybe THATs who you are. but a character should be what it is, and if you want a different experience, level an alt. but maybe thats just me....and all the raid leaders that are tired of settling the "yeah, but i need it for my off-spec" loot drops.