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The Light and How to Swing It: Wearing metal dresses
Every Sunday, Chase Christian of The Light and How to Swing It invites you to discuss the finer side of the paladin class: the holy specialization. This week, we discuss what's in store for our precious plate dresses in a post-mastery world. If you've been following along with Blizzard's release schedule for holy paladin information, it's clear that there are going to be some serious changes. Imagine if you rounded up the four healer classes of WoW side by side, in terms of playstyle and capability. I am certain that paladins would stand out in the lineup. Trying to normalize us into the universal healthcare -- I mean, universal healing system is going to be a difficult task. Because of this, it's not a surprise that the other three healer classes received their talent previews this week, while paladins are left wondering what's in store. The previews for the other classes show us that Blizzard intends to make nearly all caster gear come with spirit, while adding talents for the DPS casters to convert spirit to hit. I remember the complaints when healing power and spell damage were merged into spellpower, but I can say now that I think it was a great change. Not having to shard a piece of cloth gear with hit on it because none of the healers needed it will be a welcome change as well. All casters will be able to share gear with their fellow cloth/leather/mail wearers. The question is: Where does this leave holy paladins? We're still stuck sporting plate armor, and there are no other casters around to use the same gear.
Offspec gear and Cataclysm raiding
One of the things I haven't seen discussed much concerning the 10-man/25-man split in Cataclysm is how hybrid players are going to gear offspecs. This is the situation I'm in, and I suspect it's one that a lot of other hybrid players would recognize; I play restoration in most guild 25-man and 10-man raids, but I tank just about everything else. On easier content, or on nights when we have too many healers show up, it's not unusual for a few people to haul out their DPS sets and go DPS for the evening. As such, hybrid players (and particularly hybrids who have dual-specced into a role requiring a completely different set of gear) have an interest in keeping their offspec set up to date, and the best way to do this has typically been through 10-man raids where there's not much gear competition. I got 3 Sanctified feral pieces from heroic 10-man ICC, and I'm still using a few ToGC-10 pieces to tank as well. When you only have 10 players in a raid, the number of players angling for a given piece is necessarily small, and items go to offspec quickly.
