Blizzard, you said you’d work with the community on the types of QoL changes they’d like to see in TBC Classic. Dual Spec is the most talked about change and the consensus is clear, the players want Dual Spec.
Nethaera: Why are we allowing players to dual spec after all this time? Ghostcrawler: We really felt like this was a great way to increase the flexibility available to players and encourage them to take part in more aspects of the game. To use just one example, some players like to participate in both raids and Arenas, which is awesome behavior that we want to promote. But, there are some talents which are more useful in one part of the game than another. Currently, players have to pay respec costs and go through the process of setting up the desired talent spec and action bars whenever they switch.
21,000 response poll taken by WillE:
1,401 response poll posted on this forum:
503 response poll from Nano of Nostalrius fame:
Classic TBC subreddit poll:
Source for polls:
Virtually every single thread on any board is majority in favor of Dual Spec. You can check for yourself. Here’s an example, read the replies:
Here are the top two threads on the Classic WoW subreddit about Dual Spec. The upvotes are 79% and 82% respectively:
I’m not going to debate the merits. I’m just telling you, this is what people want.
I wills start with: I want dual spec, as it was in wrath, in tbc. I know it probably won’t happen, but for the sake of argument I do.
However, I will devils advocate that 21000 players is a very small minority relatively speaking. So I wouldn’t say the classic community wants it, but “There is interest within the community to get it”
Dual specs a good thing though, zero downsides I’ve seen and only been argued against by hypothetical sitautions.
If given the choice the community would essentially turn Classic into Shadowlands and then complain 24/7 how awful the game is.
Players don’t know what they want. The will beg for features and then whine about the effects…just like they have for 15 years. The best, safest design decision is to be as authentic as possible. Be guided by the 2007 dev team. They’re the ones who created the most successful mmo ever.
I do not want Dual Spec in TBC. I don’t typically participate in these debates, but when I see a title claiming ‘The TBC Classic Community wants Dual spec’, it kinda rubs me the wrong way.
You’ll see a majority agreeing in these posts because they’re the loudest, the rest of us are perfectly content not yelling our demands out for all to hear.
We both know that’s not how it works. Maybe if you want to play very casually, then sure, go ahead, don’t buy it. But for those of us who want to play on a more competitive level, buying dual spec and maintaining a secondary spec to swap around based on optimal comp will be mandatory.
It’s understandable why people want dual spec and why they make these threads. Players have grown accustomed to the fact in the Modern game that choice means nothing. That there are zero consequences and no negatives in anything they do. No sacrifice made. That they can craft their character to excel at every aspect of the game at any time.
But maybe, just maybe, the TBC devs didn’t design the game the way. Maybe they wanted a significance to the choice players made about how they spec their characters. Maybe they didn’t want every character swapping to ideal specs for raiding, pvp, grinding, soloing, leveling, etc. Perhaps a tradeoff was a good thing.
Dual spec brings so much to game play from finding tanks, and healers while leveling, to pvping with the boys, to yes even having an optimal spec for trash, to allowing tanks and healers to have a dps spec so they can quest without being punished by the system.
Then you have these players that say the sky is falling because retail. if we make changes it will lead to a retail like environment. you know what else led to retail? The launch of TBC. maybe you should keep your characters in classic. That way you’ll never ever have to worry about retail. Have fun being penalized for wanting to quest or pvp while also wanting to raid. you can just buy boosts from mages to level your characters and then pay for gear through GDKP runs.
21K is a small sample size. Could there be more that would support it? Sure. I think Blizzard would have to conduct a forced survey to everyone that logs in in order to come up with “The community wants this”.
I’m not saying it’s a bad idea. I think people asking for it during TBC is what prompted them to do it in Wrath anyway, so it tracks for people to want them to install it earlier.
Could you give an example of this? The two main dps classes Hunter and Warlock would gain nothing from respeccing mid raid.
In TBC the meta is caster and ranged dps focus so everyone respeccing and then drinking to full negates any time save you could conceive. I’m sure Rogues and Warriors could find some spec to swap to during trash for faster times.
I can see some players tanking certain bosses that require more tanks and respeccing back to healer/dps after which in my opinion is just a net positive compared to having to bring an extra tank for every boss even when its unneeded or having the player hearth and respec and get summoned back in.
IMO this is one the reasons retail is so bad. Blizzard is so focused on hamstringing the elite world first players with systems and timegating and convoluted BS that it makes the game horrible for a normal player who doesn’t give a flying frick.
These anti-dualspeccers think there is going to be some neurotic raid leader that is going to force them to carry two specs. If you join a guild that is like that, you will most likely have to have two specs anyway. The only difference is it costs you and your guild 50g (eventually) to do it. Dual spec is already in the game. ITS ALREADY IN THE GAME. it just costs 50g each time you switch. If you are having difficulty on a boss you will be asked to switch to a more optimal spec anyway.
It was likely almost the exact same dev team that created Dual Spec in WoTLK. We’re getting the 2.4.3 experience, Dual spec was most definitely in development at that point.
I’d just like to address the retail bit before jumping back into topic, but it’s actually the other way around. Catering to the casual player mentality is what led to the current state of Retail with every spec being right at your fingertips, insta-teleport to dungeons and LFR.
But back to Dual-Specing, if you have a look at guilds currently recruiting, you’ll see that a good number of them (or at least, the raiding focus’d ones) have some fairly strict requirements regarding things like professions, consumables, world buffs (for the ones still prog’ing on Classic), and in some cases, mandatory Alts.
If Dual Spec becomes a thing, the meta changes and secondary specs are now added to the list of requirements raiders need to keep up with. I personally plan on playing a Shadow Priest, and I guarantee you if Dual Spec becomes a thing, I’ll be required to swap to Holy based on fights and current raid comp.
I understand respec’ing is a thing that already exists and there will be Super Hardcore guilds that go the extra mile with those regardless of dual spec’ing features, but most of us aren’t in those super hardcore guilds nor interested in that level of ‘optimal play’.
If you find ANY guild that keeps you forcing to pick certain specs then YOU are the problem because you accept that kind of behavior. Why on earth someone who’s NOT crazy would do that?
Dual spec is for people who wants to do more things with the same toon. I want to be BM for PvE >AND< PvP, and trust me, the build is different. Or maybe if I want to pvp as MM then have the oportunity to do so. I work in my life, 50g each time I want to respec is a number for me and i’m very sure that everyone who has a job agrees with me.
That kind of “if dual spec is a real thing, guilds will order people to have 2 specs” is FALSE. I will believe you if you give me a screenshot of it.
You can’t let players decide what goes into the game. Granted some are intelligent and would put a lot of thought before casting their votes. Unfortunately, they are not anywhere close to being a majority.
If you start letting the window lickers decide, they will turn Classic into Retail within a year. Have you not seen people asking for things like … tokens, dual specs, and retail models? You can’t trust people like that to have input on the game.
