Adventures of a Dwarf Priest

I thought I’d start off with my first rant of the year.  Everyone has a different idea in there head when they think of dual specs.  When Blizzard first threw around the idea it had little to no description. My immediate thought was oh finally they are going to have a PvP spec for when your in the arena/BG and then you can have your regular one every other time.  I thought wow, what a great idea that will be really neat and make PvP more fun.

Then I’m sitting in Blizzcon when they put more form to the idea.  They are talking about having a button you push that switches between 1 of 2 preconfigured specs, including a second set of glyphs.  I immediately turned to Inian and said what a horrible idea!  Now we still don’t have all the details for this and how it is going to work.  They did say they are not going to force you to go back to town, and the intention was to not have pally’s switching between holy and prot between boss fights though they didn’t specifically say they were going to prevent that.

One thing everyone assumes is that it isn’t going to cost gold.  That all the people that whine they have to respec for arena’s then back again for raiding spend all this gold.  If it isn’t going to have cool downs or restrictions on when/where you can do it then it is going to have to cost gold.  I for one hope that it costs the same as it does now, 50g.  The reason of course is because I think it is a horrible idea and want to discourage people from using it.

I’m sure you thinking what could be so horrible about having two specs you can change on the fly?    Well I’m thinking mostly from a hybrid perspective here, but it is going to be bad.  I PUG a lot, and always have as you may have read here.  I run into a lot of unskilled players in this process.  I really fear the day when you start getting holy paladins joining a group as the tank, enhancement shamans becoming healers, and holy priests going shadow.  Some people in this gave have a hard enough time being vaguely skilled at one spec and job, give them the ability to take up another and now they are even less skilled.

The other reason it bothers me so much is it waters down the only individuality in WoW.  My one and only complaint about WoW is there is very little you can do to be different from another person.  I am a Disc Priest, that Dwarf Priest over there wearing nearly identical gear, has my face, done nearly the same achievements and farmed the same rep is a Shadow Priest or is he?  Now taht guy presses a button and he is a Disc Priest too.  Now I could say I’ve been healing for 4 years, and am quite a skilled and experience Priest.  The guy who pushes a button and becomes me will more than likely not even be close, but no one will be able to tell that.

The Mages are in full whine mode about this change as well.   Another counter argument to the idea is that the pure DPS will have no place in a raid anymore.  So that’s rogues, hunters, mages and warlocks.  All they can do is DPS, they have no other job.  They claim how can they compete with a raid slot when you can take a Ret/Holy Paladin, or a Boomkin/Feral Druid, or a Shadow/Holy Priest.  If they implemented the dual spec like they have mentioned, this is one mage whine that could come true in some hardcore guilds I suppose.

In closing I think WoW needs more individuality not less.  Yes I’m sure there will be a group of people that go all out, have the proper sets of gear and capacity to be skilled at both.  For the most part though, I believe this system will hurt WoW.  My only hope is that Blizzard will not go through with it as originally discussed.  I have faith in both Blizzard coming to their senses, and Mage whinning

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