Breakfast Topic: To respec or not to respec?
by Jennie Lees 
Jul 14th 2006 at 7:00AM
Once upon a time, when I was young and over-confident, I said I'd never respec. My talent points were mine; a personal choice about the way I want to play. However, as you can probably deduce, I have respecced -- multiple times, too, on different characters.The respecs I've done have been for good reasons; a talent misclick at level 59, an optimisation of the messy talent build I had, the realisation that there are slightly better ways to do what I wanted. Fortunately, my guild has never made me respec, despite the fact I'm a hybrid/feral druid -- I don't want to be forced into a role that I don't choose. Having said that, I am considering respeccing balance for a short while -- mainly for laughs.
Have you been made to respec, or changed your spec completely for fun?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Tigraine Jul 14th 2006 8:33AM
having almost all my characters at a respec cost of 50 gold I think I can say I have spent quite some money to respec till now.
I myself as a raidleader have never told anyone to respec for something.. But I guess all of our players have spent enough money optimize their spec for our Raids just to get something more out of their character.
Oh.. and I respecced often just for fun.
Till I haven't specced everything that comes to my mind at least once in my char's lifetime I can't decide what's the best.. so I find myself often playing around with the talent calculators, searching for a way to get more out of my spec, or trying to find something new I haven't thought of .. Ending up spending far too mutch money till I have a spec I like
greetings Tigraine
Ollej (Kargath) Jul 14th 2006 11:24AM
I just respecced my main yesterday. A 60 pally. I went from 36 protection/15 Holy to 35 Holy/16 Retribution. The pain in the butt was levelling my 2-H weapon skills, because they were all at 1 since I used to be a Sword/Board kind of guy. And getting rid of the Shield was tough.
Used it for the first time last night, also, at ZG. Didn't go so well at first. I had moved around many of my hotbar buttons. So at the spider boss I was hitting "6" to cleanse everyone's poison, but that was now Divine Favor. So we wiped, but then we did own the Spider boss even through a Lag Spike. (Which also happened at the raptor boss. Lag was bad last night on Kargath.)
the Brightside Jul 14th 2006 11:38AM
I just recently respecced my 49 mage for the first time--I wanted to try out fire/arcane for a bit. That lasted all of 30 minutes before I respecced again to fire/frost (my original build was a bastardization of fire/frost/arcane that was okay but not real effective in anything but fire). However I misclicked a few talents during my rebuild, so I'll probably try respec #3 when I get up the gold. (I'm eternally poor.)
What's been quite encouraging is that being a fire mage has never gotten old yet, I think I picked the right specialization for my playing style.
Tigraine Jul 14th 2006 11:48AM
One thing I have noticed on respeccing.
You usually respec to fit your play style. Till you reach some point where you respec and change your play style just to get more out of it.
For example, a Frost Mage who respecs to fire will completely change his play style AFTER having done the respec, just to see what it's like. Not to get more out of his frost skills he has gotten sick of.
I think the whole respec thing in WoW gets down to the point "let's find something new".. A priest respeccing to shadow does that to have fun doing something else than holy dmg. a Rogue respeccing From Swords to Dagger wants to change his gamestyle, just to get something new from the game..
Just like me, I just respecced my Warlock from Destruction to SM/Ruin to try out something new.
greetings Tigraine
Michael Jul 14th 2006 12:26PM
I am a Balance druid and love it. I too do not want people telling me what to do in the game (probably why I'm not Restro or Feral). I will say, it's a lot of fun and compliments my personal style. Since this last patch I now have Innervate, so people started talking to me again...oh, and Moonkin FTW!!
Nanatsusaya Jul 14th 2006 12:36PM
I set out to create a holy priest from the start and I always play her with my girlfriend's warlock, so levelling isn't a problem. Although, whenever I take my priest PvPing and get owned by a shadowpriest, I get very tempted to respec to shadow and go around owning people.
Thats only a brief thought though, and I'd never actually do it. I enjoy PvP as a healer, its makes me a vital part of a team rather than just another damage dealer.
Mike Jul 14th 2006 2:33PM
I've leveled my Warrior to 50 without a respec, but my talents are a little sloppily placed. I think I'm 35 Arms/6 Fury and there's definitely some stuff I could tighten up to help me make better use of my play style. However, I'm saving my 1g respec option for later so that I can cheaply respec Protection when my guild starts raiding. I tell you what, though... I'm certainly going to miss the giant spurts of blood that accompany an arms/fury build... Impale, Imp Overpower, Cruelty, Deep Wounds, Mortal Strike... The gore that accompanies your crits is so satisfying... Plus, I did a Mara run the other night where I was out DPSing the whole group... Tanking is fun, but it's nice to have that DPS option, especially for levelling...
Vlambaard Jul 14th 2006 3:31PM
After a year as a prot (20/31/0) or raid (24/11/15) spec pally, I finally got my first piece of Grand Crusader gear from Naxx, and promptly respecced 21/0/30.. the dreaded Raiding Retnoob.
I finally understand what the big deal was. Respeccing, though costly, can completely change how you play your game and in my case, actually improve enjoyment of a class after a year of going with 1 playstyle.
If you have the gold, respec at least once into 31/x/x, x/31/x, and x/x/31, just to see how your gameplay changes.
Cliksingles.com Jul 14th 2006 5:30PM
I think a lot depends on your own lvl of experience. I'm on my first character and at 40 I found I had made some goofs on the spec, so I respeced - hopefully I made the right choice this time.