respec
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What about respec costs?
I've heard a lot of arguments in favor of making it easier to respec your character. After all, a particular talent build may let you get into raids but not solo effectively -- and that's never fun. Or perhaps it lets you grind effectively but gives you no viability in your favorite PvP battleground. The ability to respec lets you switch from one speciality to another and allows you to do many things viably -- but at an increasing cost of gold each time you do so. Currently, the cost for a respec maxxes out at 50 gold, which seems like a high enough amount that it's not a completely trivial choice. However, on the forums, poster Murlourin suggests respecs need to more expensive and difficult to obtain. The argument? With the daily quests available in Outland, the gold to respec every day can be easily obtained, making talent differences essentially meaningless, since an interested player can flip back and forth quickly. And while Blizzard has said that they want careful thought to be put into your talent selections, currently they're telling us that they believe respec costs are still fine. Well, here's the chance to voice your opinion -- is gold so easily obtained in Outland that the respec cost has become meaningless? And if so, is that a bad thing for the game as a whole, or does it just allow hybrid classes more versatility?
Insider Trader: Sock it to me -- a little respec
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products. One of the questions you'll generally always come across on the first page or two of the Blizzard profession forums is The Respec Question: How do I respec from X specialty to Y specialty? With drastically varying procedures from profession to profession and scattershot updates and changes from patch to patch, it's hard to know when you've finally come across an accurate, definite answer – yet if you get it wrong, you could be wasting hundreds of gold and hours of skillups. Bindar of Aggramar has compiled a guide covering specialty respecs for all professions. We'll take a look at the basics right here for you. The first thing you need to know about changing your profession specialty is how to drop your current spec, a spot where a surprising number of players run into a brick wall. Don't get your netherweave in a twist – it's just a technical difficulty, easily remedied. If you speak with the appropriate NPC to unlearn your specialty and select that option only to find that nothing happens, it's almost certainly an add-on conflict. Open the World of Warcraft folder on your computer and find your interface folder. Rename the whole folder with a temporary name, which disables all your add-ons. Then hop back into game and try the dialogue again; you should be back in business. (Don't forget to go back and rename your interface folder to its original name when you're done.)
Must I lose my felguard?
Arie my lock has been speeding toward the level cap at lightning speed. It really is a joy to play a character that can solo with ease. Ever since level 50 Flaaghun my trusty Felguard has been at my side, my pocket warrior, there to shield me from the baddies. It's been sixteen levels, and he is still a large part of my damage, but I am wondering if I shouldn't try something new. Arie has been all about the pets ever since I created her. In fact, she's one of the characters that I never respecc'd, because Demonology just seemed to be the tree for me. This might have been because when I started playing WoW she was my first character, and I admit I really didn't have an understanding of Warcraft lore nor of the role warlocks actually play. When I did finally understand the evil underpinnings of my character, I shelved her, until I came to grips with my little blond ball of destruction. Now that I have justified her origins with her class in my own personal lore, I wonder if I should seek out more power from her and leave my trusty Flaaghun behind. I'm not even sure if I need to, but as I understand it Demonology is largely a defensive class, and the real punch to the dps meter lies elsewhere. I currently have 15 points or so in Affliction, but in order to maximize my damage, do I have to part with my dear friend, or is there somehow a viable Demonology spec that will allow me to keep him and blast things to bits with the darkness in my soul?
Breakfast Topic: Spec for yourself, or for the guild?
This question actually came from Guild Chat in <It came from the Blog>. A few evenings ago, there was some question about the best spec to level a Druid with, and while many people returned Feral, just for ease of soloing, it actually brought up another point. You see, our little Insider guild on Zangarmarsh is very much focused on being completely laid back. This means we have no intent of running endgame raids, or anything of that nature. Obviously, this means you can level as hybrid or off-spec as you like -- points in all three, or points in none if you're out to try something completely off the wall! But this got me to thinking about a guild I had been in. Once upon a time my main was a Mage, who I took to endgame on a combination Arcane/Fire spec that I had an absolute blast playing. Once I got to endgame, I specced her Frost as all Mages at endgame were then expected to spec for raiding. After raiding for a while, I got incredibly bored with her. I wound up switching full-time to my Rogue when the chance came. Now that Burning Crusade is out (and my Rogue is comfortably at 70 with my Druid catching up) I've finally taken my Mage off the mothballs. After speccing her back to Arcane/Fire, I'm having a lot of fun tearing around and burninating the countryside with her again. For those of you who have ever switched a spec for a guild/group/battleground, how did you feel about it later on down the road? Did you miss being able to tinker with your build? Did you resent having to do it? Did you get bored with it? And for those of you who say that you would never spec for a guild's progression, would anything ever induce you to reconsider? Have you ever switched back, progression be damned -- or even left a guild over being required to keep a certain spec?
Breakfast Topic: How often have you respecc'd?
My mage began her time in WoW as a fire mage, blasting everything in sight. I was in love with blastwave, utterly, but I couldn't seem to deal with crowd control at all, and since I was spending a lot of my time soloing, I respecc'd to frost. That was my first time switching specs. Since then I have respecc'd one more time, this time to one of the frost dps spec's recommended here on WoW Insider's Build Shop. I absolutely adore my spec now, and can't see ever changing it, despite my occasional longing for my Water Elemental by my side. As I was talking over this little respeccing history with a friend yesterday I realized that I imagine that's fairly rare for players. I know in his case, as a paladin, he's had to respec numerous times, depending on the situation. It seems that being a jack-of-some-trades class means that you spend a lot of time and gold at the trainer erasing your talent trees. What is the most number of times you have respecc'd a character? When would you consider enough to be enough?
Breakfast Topic: Would you change your race?
The other night we finished the Path of Conquest quest chain in Shadowmoon, and I found myself running around blasting Colossi as a Blood Elf. It was fascinating to see what I would look like if I had rerolled my character, something I consider on and off just for fun. Often times we get a chance to respec our talents. What if we could respec our race? If there was a free chance to reselect your character's race, would you choose differently? I know despite the faction shift the Blood Elf race is looking very tempting after playing a human for so long.
Blue Notes: No free respecs, Polymorph bug is a bug
Several classes are having talents changed in 2.1, but apparently no-one's going to be getting free respecs. From Drysc to you:Free respecs are only given in cases where talent positions actually move and would break a build, and not in cases where talents are simply altered as far as the benefit they provide.So if I read this right, it means you will only ever get a free respec if they move a talent, not if they change it, no matter how radically. Yes, Improved Sap Dirty Tricks, I'm looking at you -- I'm sure there are a lot of Rogues, myself included, who had seven points in subtlety that will no longer be there post-patch. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy about the change, but this seems like the kind of situation where a respec is merited, at least for players who had points in the affected talents. On the other hand, even the maximum respec cost of 50g is fairly painless to make these days, so perhaps it's a non-issue.And in case there were any doubts, Polymorph is still meant to restore health; the version on the PTR right now is bugged:This is a bug on the PTR at current, yes.
Revisiting respec costs
We've covered the idea of changing respec costs (and even having more than one talent build) before, but the issue continues to get play-- Good has posted a very in-depth analysis of respec costs and why they need to be lowered or done away with completely.Good claims that the problem with respec costs has to do with the tanking and healing classes. The DPS classes-- Mages, Hunters, Rogues, Warlocks-- can fill their role in any spec, but tanks and healers, Good claims, have to be raid specced to do well in a raiding environment, and putting respec costs in the game just creates a barrier to keep them from playing other parts of the game.To the normal arguments, Good has answers. Lots of people say losing respec costs will just create cookie-cutter builds, but he says it will actually allow for diversity within groups-- instead of having two holy priests, one can switch to shadow. And for those who say 50g to change respecs isn't much (especially considering how much money is in Outland), he says then it shouldn't be in the game in the first place-- you're just burdening those classes who need to change to enjoy the game.Still other respec cost suggestions include allowing them to be paid for with BG tokens-- to let PvPers have the chance to switch back. Unfortunately for Good, I don't see it happening. Blizzard wants you to choose a spec and stick with it-- I'm known throughout my guild as a resto Shaman, and that's the way they want it (even if I have to switch to my Rogue to do PvP). The 50g respec cost isn't much, but it'll keep most players from switching, while still allowing those who really feel they need to switch to do so without too much trouble. People who want it all won't like hearing it, but I think respec costs are "working as intended," and will stay so for a while.[ via Paladin Sucks ]
Breakfast Topic: How many times have you changed your talents?
With the new talent trees and the challenges of leveling, I've had to adjust my talents several times. On my warlock, I did a post-2.0 build before the expansion pack that was very heavy demonology, a leveling build that was heavy affliction, then I tried multiple builds for post-70, settling on a hybrid 40/0/21 build similar to my old raiding build.Fortunately I'd had my old raiding spec for a very very long time, and my cost to switch everything now is up to just 30G. How many times have you unlearned your talents lately? What's your re-spec cost up to?
Druid and Rogue talent calculators updated
Blizzard has updated the druid and rogue talent calculators to reflect the changes in today's patch. To recap talent changes for each class from earlier today: Druids:
