Friday, May 3, 2013

"Tri-spec"

Apparently "tri-spec" is still a thing people are asking for. To me it always seemed like they were asking for the wrong thing.

These days we can already change any and all of our talents and glyphs within two of our three specs [four for druids] at any time. With the exception of druids, having access to a third spec would just let us change anything at any time. I don't mean that that's a bad thing, I just mean that at that point having a "number" of specs becomes a bit irrelevant. Except for druids.

What would be a much better idea is to just open it all up [so druids would be happy too], but most importantly allow us to "save" spec configurations -- including talents, glyphs and most importantly action bars -- in a similar way that we can currently save gear sets in the built-in gear manager.

I don't think it's going to happen, in either permutation. I think we have already have eroded enough of what makes an individual character unique without throwing a switch that makes a character's spec practically irrelevant too.

I also don't think there is very much need for it. There were some very compelling reasons for adding secondary specs to the game in the first place:

- allow tanks and especially healers to have a damage spec to make soloing easier and more enjoyable [yes I realise there are exceptions]
- encourage those players who wouldn't otherwise play a non-damage role to do so, by making it as easy as possible
- allow your raid's extra tanks to not feel totally useless on single tank fights

In essence it was to ease what was a pretty big deal early in the game; the huge difference between how you would spec for soloing and how you would spec for grouping. Pre-wrath this was even the case for pure DPS classes because survivability while soloing was still relevant.

What are the reasons for needing even more spec options?

- allow monks, druids and paladins instant access to what would be, by definition, their least-used role
- allow a proportionally tiny number of players to mix-max in a more comprehensive way

Not quite as compelling, if you ask me.

2 comments:

  1. As reported by MMO Champion:

    Specs should be saveable, e.g. equip sets. Keep talents, glyphs, action bars. Limit could then be set to 3, 4, 5 w/e

    Yeah, we think an approach like that would take the hassle out of it.

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    Replies
    1. Is that a GC tweet?

      I couldn't remember where I first heard the idea, so I didn't attempt to attribute it.

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