Tanking/Healing isn't encouraged if asked to?

Well, i’d argue if you’re not having fun, it’d be more healthy to force yourself away from it than to try to change it to re-cater to you.

That’s a separate conversation - but this still stands:

Even if the benefit was to fulfill the selfish desires of players wanting to feel glorified by themselves as a particular spec - is that really the reason Blizzard wants to give as the benefit for restricting/punishing players that would rather fill a role to fit the need of something (group/raid/etc) greater than themselves?

Is it not equally selfish to desire having your versatility at absolutely no cost? Anyone who lacks that versatility has no choice but to reroll (which is far more time consuming) vs the far cheaper option of respeccing (Which has only gotten easier over the years).

Yes, you are choosing Druid for a selfless reason, that doesn’t mean your goal for the change is not selfish to those who chose classes incapable of the versatility.

I mean you’re essentially strawmanning your opposition into seeming selfish while you seem like a selfless individual, that is simply not true. You have the power of versatility, you just don’t want to have any costs to it. Would you like your mana costs removed? Have everything for free?

No, games have costs, and in a way that can bring fun as well, because it helps keep things from being too easy, too simplistic, and can make aspects of a game feel more fulfilling because of the effort it took/takes to reach said goal.

In a way, you’re just ignoring aspects of a game that may, in the grand scheme of things, generate the fun of someone else. That is also selfish.

Costs may not be fun, but they create a tone, a standard for the game, that may make it fun for other reasons. If you only focus on the “fun” and ignore the underlying fundamentals, then you’re left with…Kirby’s Dreamland I guess?

It’s one of those things that’s hard to explain, one of those “you don’t get it until it’s gone”. Costs are just another coin of challenge, that sets the tone for the game. They’re not grandiose in any way but without them the game loses something.

I went on a bit of a tangent, but mostly because the idea that anyone opposed to this is selfish just feels…well…selfish to me. It’s not really any better.

There are plenty of costs.

I now have to worry about trying to acquire the trinkets/weapons for those other specs along with gear with secondary stats and corresponding enchants.

I don’t get to play as dps where all the big numbers are cool and fun because I’m blowing things up.

I have to spend even MORE time analyzing my gear for these additional specs.

In the end these are worth it to help others out - it would be nice to have one less layer of “cost” (azerite trait reforging) associated with filling in needed roles.

My personal goal for the requested change is to allow the WoW community to have more access to the tanking/healing roles that are needed more than the dps role. Everyone wins. Less queue times, more people to choose from. More ways to play the game without having to be punished for it.

And yet you’re still not having to do as much as someone who would have to roll 1-2 additional characters to fit additional roles, on top of the analyzing, and without having a strong role to gather higher ilvl gear with.

And also: Legion is the only expansion that you’ve ever been able to ignore a few slots, and in the end it had it’s own issues that people despised. There’s been expansions where you’ve needed full sets of gear for each spec. And surprisingly I remember a lot less complaints back then.

So you think azerite is what’s holding back the tank/healing counts?

it’s not

Sorry, but no. This by no means fixes that issue.

I mean, is it seriously that difficult for you to find a competitive piece of azerite gear similar to the one you already have, and spec that to a different specialization? I mean sure Titanforging makes it a bit harder, but if the traits what is holding you back then you probably can lose a few ilvl.

I swear some people have forgotten how to gather gear in one expansion…

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It certainly doesn’t fix the issue. But it influences the game in a way that promotes more players taking on the tanking/healing needs.

Maybe you’ve gotten lucky with the layers of RNG behind azerite gear - but some people have gotten 4-5 copies of the same piece of gear that has some of the worst traits for all of their specs.

If there was a way to work for the gear like you can for trinkets/weapons/etc. from M+'s - that would be a different story and a great option to allow players to earn their azerite gear like all of the other pieces. But this doesn’t exist - so “difficult”? No. It’s just rolling the dice. Some get lucky with their dice rolls, some don’t.

Exactly this. I think I may have changed traits once. But I’ve had to acquire separate sets of gear for over a decade. This isn’t new.

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The problem is that this could influence a lot of things…If it’s not even going to fix the issue, then I would argue it’s more detrimental than anything else. You should never aim for a solution that’s going to change something other than the intended purpose.

That’s how gear works though. Did you not curse the RNG Gods while building your first set?

It just so happens those with the power of more roles, also have to deal with RNG longer than those who do not. That comes with the power of versatility.

And hell, sometimes the classes without additional roles still have to deal with the RNG, because their other DPS roles have incompatible traits.

And again, this is how it’s always been. Really i’d argue if anything, remove titanforging, because then it becomes much easier to get that “Best” piece of gear for each spec.

I think the question is to elaborate on what those detrimental effects would be and what the benefits are. Right now the intended purpose is a shell without being able to understand the goal and reasons.

No one can answer that but Blizzard.

You MAY very well be right - and there’s benefits being realized by this approach. But right now - those benefits aren’t apparent.

I know this is a late response, but the only issue with that, is no 2 specs have the same ideal stat set up.

I also am collecting different Azerite pieces for this Druid. One to tank and one for feral. Having each spec have its own Azerite traits does make a prettt big difference. But as Guardian I favor Mastery and Vers. As Feral, I want Haste and crit. And as I main Guardian, that means my feral gear is heavy on the Mastery and extremely low on the Haste.

So it’s not ideal. Saving 14 slots in my bags for an entire different set of gear is what would need to be done

It is supported, in multiple ways:

You can level a dedicated Tank or Healer toon.
You can collect a second set of gear for another spec.
Or you can pay a premium and reset Azerite traits.

The cost of resetting has an upper cap, and goes down over time. It is a surcharge for convenience, and a gold sink. And, if you dislike that, there are alternatives.

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Well

First off, that can be the case, but it is a fairly rare occurrence just because the likelihood you will achieve full BIS before a new tier for even one set of gear can be fairly low.

Second, there have been plenty of expansions where this very much was the case. This isn’t new.

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By no means am I complaining. I remember when I started in wrath, I had 3 bags for gear and my gold cost was capped at the 2,000g mark for swapping specs.

Would tank dungeons, heal raids, and Ret was for fun/pvp

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What is the benefit gained and fun added to the game in exchange for having to pay for this support with this option?

It’s like a gas station. Inflated prices for convenience. That’s all

And we’ve been doingf that for over a decade. We have how many bag slots with how many inventory slots? I’ve been carrying around three or four sets of gear for longer than some have been playing.

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What you are seeing is a view into how Ion thinks. Remember during the Legion alpha/beta when they decided it would be a good thing to charge players 500 gold to respec? It’s the same thought process that was involved with coming up with that “solution”.

They like to have players make hard choices, even if forcing players to decide between dps, healing, or tanking means that there will be a shortage of healers and tanks.

Look at your talents. Doesn’t everyone have to choose between “talents” that used to be all baseline?

If you read what Ion says carefully, and not just in this carefully written answer, you learn a lot about how he thinks and why the game is designed now as it is.

Fun Added, zero. But not everything can be done for the sake of fun.

The goal of these premiums is essentially to enforce Specialization. If you want to truly be the guy who does everything, then you need to work harder to do that, and the cost is just one of those things.

Keep in mind that when this was originally done, it was in Vanilla, and it was on the spec itself. It was also only really added to fix mistakes in your specialization, as in Diablo 2 (Where specializations first showed up), you could not respec without rerolling.

Essentially, your spec is supposed to be a defining part of who your character is, you are the Holy Priest, or you are the Protection Warrior, or you are the Retribution Warrior.

If you want to do 3x what everyone else is doing, then you need to push a little harder. And really, is “Have a spec for each role” really more to ask of you than “have 3 characters for each role”? Even now you’re paying less for versatility than someone else would be.

I mean, let’s try this for a moment, let’s say for absolutely zero cost, you could be a maxed Tank, maxed DPS, maxed healer, all at a moments notice.

What do you say when someone looks at their single spec, and says “That’s not fair”?

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What you are saying puts you squarely in the camp of purism over practicality, which is why the healer and tank shortage will only be getting worse.