dual-specialization
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Blizzard: No triple spec on the horizon, but it's not ruled out
When Blizzard introduced the dual spec system in patch 3.1, speculation almost immediately turned to the concept of the "triple spec." The idea seemed like an all-too-real possibility, gated behind the caveat of "We want to see how the system works first." Two years later, we have plenty of information on how the dual spec system works. Its initial price tag of 1,000 gold kept it limited only to the most serious of players, but even that high cost couldn't keep the more casual set away. The pricetag has since been slashed all the way down to a mere 10 gold, making it something that everyone can, should, and will train. Dual spec has become so popular that Cataclysm's new stat system seems as if it was built around it. You can now be a successful shadow priest and healing priest in the same gear; a feral DPS druid can change into an able feral tank with very few gearing changes. Dual spec's been such a terrific and natural fit that it's hard to imagine the game without having it. To that extent, it's been a smashing success. And so, if dual spec has worked so well, why not consider triple spec? For paladins and druids especially -- both of whom can heal, DPS, and tank -- it'd be a godsend. Triple spec would lead even more people to create a PvP spec, an aspect of the game that Blizzard wants more of us to experience. Unfortunately, triple specs aren't on the horizon, or so said Community Manager (and blue poster) Bashiok on the official Blizzard forums today: So ... Why don't we have Tri-spec yet? Obviously having an array of possible specs to choose from would be convenient for any number of reasons, but it would also encourage situations where people are using it to shift their builds around for each individual encounter or task. Those are the kinds of options that quickly stop being options, and instead become a requirement. And as they become a requirement our necessity to design and balance around it changes it from a nice convenience option to a core piece of the game design puzzle. source
WoW Rookie: The basics of dual spec
New around here? WoW Rookie has your back! Get all our collected tips, tricks and tactics for new players in the WoW Rookie Guide. World of Warcraft is a game of specialists; even (and especially) the so-called hybrid classes end up playing in specific, focused roles in group and end-game content. The higher you level and the more talents you learn, the more specialized your character becomes. Your "spec" (specialization), determined by where you've distributed your points among the three talent trees available to your class, begins to define and inform your gameplay as you group with others more and more often. At some point, you'll want to experiment with another set of talents -- that's time for a respec. (Look for talent recommendations in our leveling guides and our Class 101 series.) Soon enough, you'll be wishing you could switch between one set of talents and another -- and you can, with dual specialization. Before we dig into the basics, we should note one of the more exciting changes for leveling players coming up in Cataclysm. The expansion will lower both the required level and cost of dual spec, giving players more flexibility for group and individual play than ever before.
Breakfast Topic: What do you think of 3.1
It's been a long old twenty four hours but the US servers have had Patch 3.1 running life for a little while now. I can just imagine the thousands of people swamping Ulduar, the Argent Tournament and every class trainer from Azuremyst to Thunderbluff will be stood on by thousands of toons trying to dual spec. Now over the last few weeks Breakfast Topic has been, quite understandably, a little Patch 3.1-heavy. We've asked about your most anticipated feature, whether your guild is ready and where your toon will be when the realms restart (just in case you were wondering, Serisa is waiting outside Ulduar to see if the above happens on live as well).So if you're lucky, you've had a few hours to poke around and take a look, I want to know what your impressions are of The Secrets of Ulduar now that it's gone live?
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.
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%
