dual-spec
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All characters to receive free respecs in patch 3.1
This may seem obvious considering how many changes are coming with patch 3.1, but we've been asked the question enough that I'm glad to finally see a confirmation on it: Yes, characters of every class will have their talent points refunded when patch 3.1 hits, Ghostcrawler says.Reading further into his comments, however, it looks like the amount of changes happening to the talent trees may not be the reason for the free respecs, but rather the result of it. The free respec actually seems to be something that was necessary when implementing Dual Specs, and they went ahead and did some extra fixing and cleaning because of that.That sort of makes sense, in the past it seems like they've mostly tried to target a few classes at a time rather than making heavy changes to all of them all at once. Patch 3.1 has hefty changes for every single class, and I don't remember very many content patches that had such widespread class changes. One way or another we would all need to respec after dual specs went in, so they saw an opportunity to make some additional changes and they took it. I'm okay with that.
World of Warcraft dual-spec requirements massaged for your enjoyment
When dual talent specializations were revealed in the upcoming World of Warcraft 3.1 patch, Blizzard had some pretty stringent rules in place. Players had to be level 80 to access the ability and also needed to be near a Lexicon of Power (found in various capital cities) to even switch specializations. But Eurogamer as discovered that things have changed!Now, the required level is 40 and training costs 1000 gold -- which is easy for someone to do if they've got a character in Northrend. Also, players can proceed to switch talents anywhere they like, so long as they're not in battle, a PvP Arena or Battleground. The talent switch will take 5 seconds and reset class resources to zero. In addition to these changes, a one-click equipment manager will also been added to streamline switching from one build to another.
The Queue: Progression
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.I would have had this written and posted earlier in the day, but I was too busy refreshing the official World of Warcraft site and praying for more news regarding the WoW Mountain Dew. I guess when they say they'll have more information in the 'coming months' they don't mean 'tomorrow afternoon.' Disappointing, really.Taylor asked..."I am just getting back into WoW now that I have a bit of free time. I am trying to get to 80 on a relatively new character of mine. I am around 50 right now and I am wondering how end game will work when I eventually get there? There are heroics and raids and all these things I hear about, but I just don't understand the progression yet. Mainly, I am worried that once Ulduar launches, I will be woefully behind without gear from Naxx. I know the whole "gear doesn't matter" argument, but I can't be in quest blues/greens and keeping up in a raid."
Official site updated with new UI additions
The official World of Warcraft website updated recently with an addition to their Under Development section. Call it a preview, reminder, whatever you want. They've added a listing of all of the new UI features coming in Patch 3.1, and I'm willing to say that there's more UI additions in this patch than in any content patch before it. Am I wrong? Possibly, but I can't remember this much coming all at once before.If you've been following WoW Insider since patch 3.1 hit the PTR, not much of this stuff will be a surprise to you, we've tried to cover the UI additions as they were pushed onto the test realm. Regardless, the new UI page details all of the following: Talent Dual Specialization Equipment Manager Updated Objectives Tracker Looking For Group Improvements Queueing for Battlegrounds From Anywhere Go on, give it a read, and make sure you're not caught off guard by all of the shiny new UI elements slapping you in the face the day you load up patch 3.1. You can also check out the galleries below that we've done previously, which will walk you through a few of these things. If you're the type that likes surprises? Well, don't look at them!%Gallery-45754%%Gallery-45780%%Gallery-45755%%Gallery-45767%
The Queue: You have been pwned by a grue
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today.What is a grue?The grue is a sinister, lurking presence in the dark places of the earth. Its favorite diet is adventurers, but its insatiable appetite is tempered by its fear of light. No grue has ever been seen by the light of day, and few have survived its fearsome jaws to tell the tale. (source) Who wants to go start a WoW based mud with me?Jeni asked..."Regarding the shift in glyphs...what happens if you want to use a Glyph of Levitate in both specs? What if you don't care enough about your off spec to get new glyphs each time you switch specs (for instance, keep your holy glyphs when you switch specs to shadow to quest?) Does it eat up your glyphs anyhow?"
The Queue: WoW Insider Mobile and more
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.Ah, Monday afternoon! Does it get any better than this? ...Actually yes. Yes it does. Someone throw me off of a cliff, please. I want to go back to bed. Yes, I know it's almost 4 PM. I don't care.Thander asked...When you pay for the dual specialization do you also get separate gem slots?
Sunday Morning Funnies: Jammy Jam
Kissybear is back! The amazing Ding! will return and we will no longer have to cringe on Sunday mornings. Who's excited?We also have some great comics today, including a newbie to the list that was tipped in last week's comments: Check out the latest from Cru the Dwarf. Rooster Teeth: Come Here Often Continued, Come Here Often 3, and Come Here Often 4. Thanks for the tip, Oozebull! Check out NPC's WoW version of Dressup. Take A Break From the Cold with Dark Legacy Comics. The latest from Flintlocke vs the Horde got me laughing. Shakes and Fidget got an update! GU Comics: Suggestive. LFG. I love the latest from NoObz! Translatoxx ftw. Woot! Kissybear is back! Check out the latest from Teh Gladiators. Patch 3.1: Double the Specs, Double the Fun, from The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf. I was wondering when this form would come up! Also, if you ignore the antlers, it sort of looks like something that Dr. Seuss would create. World of Warcraft, eh?
Insider Trader: Patch 3.1, profits and preparation
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.Patch 3.1 is looming ever closer, and things are about to change in a big way. Today I'll be discussing how the patch is going to affect your professions, and how you can take advantage of this by maximizing your profits on the Auction House. Players have become increasingly bored with raiding because the content that was released with the expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King, was too quickly conquered. Across the board, players are showing up to raids on an inconsistent basis, and many people now spend much of their time on the Public Test Realm playing through Ulduar. This has contributed to falling prices on the Auction House for raiding materials and consumables, because not only have many people stopped raiding, many others have decided to save their gold and raid without being buffed to the gills. What should you do in these tight times? Aside from the things for which you are currently saving, the patch will bring with it a 1000g bill to learn how to dual spec, costs to fund raid wipes, bring new consumables, and enchant and gem new gear. By learning what to sell and purchase and when, you can minimize your post-patch costs and make some gold while you're at it.
The Queue: Eight
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Alex Ziebart will be your host today.In yesterday's edition of The Queue, my partner in crime Adam Holisky did some speculation about Battlestar Galactica that was taken as a huge, massive spoiler. As far as I know, it wasn't actually a spoiler. I'm here to fix that. I'm here to give you a real, true spoiler. Are you ready for it?They shoot Old Yeller.hold up asked...Is the Realm First Ulduar Achievement based on completing Ulduar on Easy Mode or is it based on clearing the entire place including the optional Algalon "the Raid Destroyer"?
The Daily Quest; Of Mage lore, Elemental builds and Player Housing speculation
The Daily Quest brings you interesting, informative and entertaining WoW-related links from around the blogosphere. Today we bring you a lot of lists. Foofy has posted part 3 of her How To Moonkin video covering Idols and Enchants. CriticalQQ is exploring the major lore character of Azeroth that are Mages. The Thunderstorm blog has a new guide to speccing Elemental for Shaman. Blessing of Kings has a prediction about who will be the big winners and losers with the new Dual Spec system. The Druid Team has been writing a series of on-going posts detailing how they see Player Housing working in WoW. They have designed housing for many major starting cities as well as for Crafting, complete with floorplans. Part 1 - Stormwind and Thunderbluff Part 2 - Personal mailboxes, vendors and more Part 3 - Darnassus and Silvermoon Part 4 - Secondary profession housing items Part 5 - Orgrimmar Part 6 - Gathering professions housing items Submit a guide, post, podcast or resource for inclusion in TDQ, by using our tip line and we'll consider it for a future TDQ post.
WoW, Casually: What 3.1 means for casual players
Robin Torres writes WoW, Casually for the player with limited playtime. Of course, you people with lots of playtime can read this too, but you may get annoyed by the fact that we are unashamed, even proud, of the fact that beating WoW isn't our highest priority. Take solace in the fact that your gear is better than ours, but if that doesn't work, remember that we outnumber you. Not that that's a threat, after all, we don't have time to do anything about it. But if WoW were a democracy, we'd win.As you are no doubt aware, content patch 3.1 is being tested on the PTR. There is the new dungeon of Ulduar, which really isn't going to affect most casual players for a while. And there is a long list of class changes that are ever evolving and that you can check our 3.1 Guide for the latest about your favorite class(es). Professions are getting some balancing, so keep an eye out for what's going on there as well. Players with limited playtime should also be aware of new features and functionality that will affect your daily play sessions, regardless of class or profession. Following is a list of what I think is most interesting for the casual player.
Blood Pact: Educating myself on fel / emberstorm
The editors of WoW Insider have spoken the dark words, and another edition of Blood Pact has appeared to wreak havoc on the readership. This week, the first installment of Operation: Respec. And yes, columnist Nick Whelan is well aware that other classes have it way worse when dealing with respec costs. Please don't hate him.I'd like to begin a new project for Blood Pact, which should prove both entertaining to play with, and interesting to write about, if this week is any indication. In an attempt to expand my perspective on the Warlock class -- thus expanding the perspective of this column -- I will test out a variety of different 'cookie cutter' specs, and detail my experiences playing with them. I've ever-so-inventively dubbed this project 'Operation: Respec.'These won't be perfect tests of course. My contract with WoW Insider doesn't allow me to bill them my expenses, in or out of game. So any money spent on these tests will come straight out of my own digital pocket. I say this not to complain, but rather to explain why I won't be buying new gems, enchants, and gear for every test. Fortunately the stat requirements of the different Warlock specs are relatively similar. Mostly it's just crit rating and haste rating that get switched around, and for those I can at least switch between Spellstone and Firestone, as well as by using different statfood. Glyphs, unfortunately for my bankroll, have become rather essential to different play styles, so I will of course be switching between those within reason.
Encrypted Text: Rogue videos from Patch 3.1 PTR
Every Wednesday, Chase Christian of Encrypted Text invites you to enter the world of shadows, as we explore the secrets and mechanics of the Rogue class. This week, we look at some of the new animations coming in patch 3.1.Since the departure of BigRedKitty from our site, we haven't had many new videos for you to watch while idling at work. I decided to step up to fill this gap in programming by FRAPS'ing some of my adventures on the patch 3.1 PTR. With several changes to Rogues in this latest content release, I wanted to stay ahead of the curve by testing the modifications out before they are deployed to live servers.There were reports of new animations for several spells, as well as moves that had been changed mechanically. Catching any bugs that had slipped through QA was also a top priority. I copied my Rogue over to the PvP PTR realm and started shooting, and the results of that labor follow after the cut. A few caveats: all videos were shot without UI addons or keybindings, and so I do click quite a few of my abilities. I tried out five specs in about 30 minutes, and so my action bars are also disheveled. That said, let's review the videos.
The Queue: Six
Welcome back to The Queue, WoW Insider's daily Q&A column where the WoW Insider team answers your questions about the World of Warcraft. Adam Holisky will be your host today. Ah, Rambo. He has a striking resemblance to certain staff members here at WoW Insider. But in the good way, sort of like the good way where I answer six of your questions today - with perhaps the best question saved for last.Ghaundaur asked..."If you dual spec at 40 and in the process find out that you made a mistake on either one of your specs and need to fix it, is the cost 1000g again or the normal progression in cost to change a spec? Also, say you are leveling a pally and dual spec Ret and Prot and then get to 80 and want to do Prot and Holy. Are we looking at another 1000g?"
GC: Dual spec will not change design decisions
Dual specs have been one of several hot topics while we watch patch 3.1 progress on the PTR. People have waffled about whether they mean to spend the 1,000 gold it's going to cost, we've learned that you'll be able to do it anywhere and at level 40, and players of all ten classes are pondering what to use their second spec slot for. However, according to Ghostcrawler, Blizzard is pretending dual spec does not exist. Maybe I should clarify: with respect to design decisions, they're pretending dual spec does not exist. Raids and talent trees will be balanced without reference to the fact that some players will be able to easily swap out. GC gives some specific examples of things the devs will not be doing, such as "Have a fight that requires 8 tanks, because you know, half the raid can change specs," or "Let Arms be the PvP tree and Fury be the PvE tree, because warriors can just switch out." This is good news to many, including myself. Although if I had been asked to guess, I would probably have predicted they would take this direction, it's good to know that (for instance) raiders won't be effectively required to take spec X and spec Y in order to complete encounter Z. Dual specs are there to offer us more flexibility, not as another way the devs can make us jump through hoops. And I know I'll be taking it on at least a few of my characters. %Gallery-45780% Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
The Daily Grind: Will you be taking advantage of Dual Specs?
One of the things coming to World of Warcraft with the upcoming 3.1 patch is the option for players to have what's called a dual specialization. As we've heard from Zarhym, they will be available at level 40 for a cost of 1,000 gold, and essentially will be a button that will swap you from one spec to another in a matter of moments. This will also cause your glyphs and action bars to swap around as you change specs, so you don't have to screw with swapping glyphs around. (You'll still need to swap gear around, but most people who've paid to swap specs are pretty used to that - and besides, there are mods to do that.) This will be of great use to those who play hybrid/healer classes, or have different raid and PvP builds. It won't work in the Battlegrounds or Arenas, though. All that said, will you be making use of dual specs in World of Warcraft, or are you pretty set with your current spec? If you're not going to use it regularly, will you instead use it for trying out other builds for fun? If you will be using it, have you got your two favorite specs planned out yet? What will you be switching between?
Scattered Shots: Dual specs mean double the fun for hunters
Scattered Shots is your weekly guide to improving your Hunter skills, brought to you by Jessica "Lassirra" Klein of The Hunter's Mark, covering a variety of Huntery topics. Today, we'll be diving into what hunters will have to look forward to from the world of dual specs.So far the uproar about the dual spec feature coming to us in patch 3.1 has been predominantly from classes that are able to fill multiple roles in a raid environment, giving them more flexibility to swap between tanking, healing and dealing damage based on the needs of their group at the time. The 1000g price tag on this feature may seem a bit daunting to some, but the benefits of being able to swap between tanking and healing at a moment's notice without costly respec fees or inconvenient trips to the nearest not-so-nearby trainer are obvious. This all begs the question, though: what's in it for us pure DPS folks?The easy answer to that is being able to swap seamlessly from a PvP build to your raid build when invites start going out for the night. And lets not forget that Survival Hunters are the new Shadow Priest, right? If you're missing one of your friendly neighborhood mana batteries one night, you can swap into a spec for that at the drop of a hat. There are also plenty of opportunities for enterprising young Hunters looking to farm old world raid bosses solo, and there's a spec for that, too. There's plenty of fun to be had for us Hunters, and this new dual spec feature will make the transition from conquering the wilds of our world as a lone tracker to wiping the floor with the deadliest of raid bosses that much easier.
Patch 3.1 Dual Spec walkthrough gallery
One of the first things I did when I hopped on the PTR today was try out the new Dual Spec feature. I was a bit nervous that they would overcomplicate the whole thing, especially because of what was said in the interview with Ghostcrawler from awhile ago. It seemed like there were so many hoops to jump through that it would be an irritation, but it's actually not so bad at all.The changes that Eliah mentioned a bit earlier today make it pretty smooth and sexy, the only real drawback being the gold sink component of 1000g up front. I hope they don't go back and complicate the process again, because I'm a real fan of how it works right now. If you're interested in seeing how the process works yourself, I screenshotted and documented my first time going through the process and you can check it out in the gallery below. The pictures may not all be incredibly obvious as to what's going on in them, but I try to explain the process the whole way through.%Gallery-45780%
Dual spec available at level 40, reagent requirement removed
Dual spec is one of patch 3.1's headline features: for the price of 1,000 gold, you can unlock the ability to keep a second spec for your character, which you can switch to for free. It was stated a while back by Ghostcrawler that dual spec would only be available to level 80 characters, which was upsetting to many (including myself). It's a feature that has the potential to be amazingly useful for those who like to do dungeons while leveling - why remove that possibility? I am happy to report, therefore, that Zarhym has just reported that dual spec will be available to characters of level 40 or higher. This is an excellent compromise between not wanting to confuse newbies, and giving players the flexibility to heal dungeons (for instance) as they level while not being gimped in solo play. The real game might begin at 80, but it's important not to neglect 1 through 79. Furthermore, the announced reagent requirement has been removed - no longer will players need to be in a city or find an inscriber to create a portable lexicon of power for them. Now that's a dual spec feature I can love, even at a 1,000 g cost. Update: Zarhym has clarified the processs a little bit. "You literally just click a button," it's a five-second cast, it swaps your glyphs and action bar along with your spec, and there's no cooldown. You can't use it in combat or in BGs/arenas. Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.
An in-depth look at the dual class system in Runes of Magic
One of the trademark features of free-to-play Runes of Magic is the dual class system. There are six primary classes in RoM, including the warrior, rogue, priest, mage, knight, and ranger. Once you reach level 10 you can choose a secondary class option, which means there are up to 30 possible class combinations. For a full description of how the system works, visit the RoM website.Obviously a system like this leaves you wondering what primary and secondary classes work best together. Well fear not, MMORPG.com just did a bunch of dual-speccing on your behalf and wrote a guide on which combinations work and which don't work. The guide is a two-parter, and this week's takes a look at the priest, mage, and knight as secondaries. According to the article, each primary class will benefit from a priest secondary, which makes perfect sense. Mage secondaries are suggested for priests and scouts, but not so much for knights due to issues with aggro, mana management, and gear stats. Apparently rogue-knights are amazing too.Next week they will discuss the remaining three secondary class options. You can experiment for yourself in the RoM open beta currently underway. The game is set to officially launch March 19.
