Dealing with off-specs (or being one)
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 5th 2006 at 1:06AM
Righteous Fury has an interesting little piece up about off-specs-- you know them, they're the weirdos who play their class to do something other than its standard role in endgame raiding. Feral druids, DPS-adins, Fury warriors, Enhancement shammys, and (perhaps most of all) shadow priests. The convention says warriors spec prot, pallys heal and buff, and priests use +healing gear, but these guys (and girls) choose to buck the curve.What he says rings true to me because the guild I play with has finally reached the point where we're getting serious about raiding. My GM hasn't asked anyone to respec yet, but he's put it out there that we want to beat these bosses and get the gear-- if you can't do the job given to you because you're specced for PVP instead of raiding, you've got to move out of the way for someone who can, or do what's best for the raid. And I'm right there with him. Holy priests are the best healers in the game, so most priests should be holy and healing. Protection warriors have the tanking tools, so if you're MT, you better be prot.
I'm not saying there's not room for off-specs-- there's a guy in my other guild who's such an awesome shadow priest (shout out to Gregorus on Thunderhorn-A!) that the whole guild has shadow priest alts just because they've seen what he can do. I main tanked for him in Strat, and when he told us early on that he "tanked by healing," he wasn't kidding-- the mobs all hit him way more then they hit me, and yet he kept us all healed and up with Vampiric Embrace and his +shadow gear. After seeing that, of course I had to have my own shadow priest, and when she hits 60, I already expect that I won't be able to raid with her under normal circumstances. No problem-- I'll melt faces in PVP with her, and raid with my prot warrior.
On the other hand, if I need a DPS for a raid, and a shadow priest can roll out as much damage as a rogue or a warlock, then we're talking. But from what I've seen, off-specs can do those things, just not as well. Gear to gear (without extremely expensive potions), can a feral druid tank as well as a warrior? Can a shadow priest out-dps a rogue? Because if not, I'm giving those spots to PVE specced raiders.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Instances
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Finnicks Daerkhiv Oct 5th 2006 2:05AM
I'm definately an "off-spec" Warlock. I'm not sure I fit into any standard spec. I've heard alot about "SM/Ruin" builds and such and suchforth, but personally, I'm sitting pretty at 20/31/0. A perfect PvP build (which is what I love). I've gone raiding with my guild (in ZG) and I did OK. I didn't land any 2000 damage Shadowbolt crits, but between Immolate, Corruption, Drain Life, and instant Shadowbolts (a la Nightfall) that I get every 10 seconds or so does more than decent damage. Plus, Demon Sacing my Succubus gave me a nice 15% shadow damage boost anyway.
Either way, according to my damage meters I ultimately did about 1/6th more damage than the other Warlock who was spamming Shadowbolt...
Rambling. Anywho, I like my offspec. Alliance despise me in battlegrounds because I tend to kill them 1on1, and I've even taken on two rogues in tier 0 gear at the same time (I don't even have any of the high level armor pieces yet).
And I do OK in raiding.
I really don't understand why the other locks in my guild were bitching at me the other day about not being in a standard spec.
Dave Oct 5th 2006 2:20AM
I don't see why everyone needs to be 'standard spec'. We have feral druids who help tank (such as Jin'do), and heal at other times. You can be shadow-specced, but you also would need to heal during raids; which is fine. Just because you spec a certain way doesn't mean you're useless.
Ghost Oct 5th 2006 2:33AM
My main is a rogue, and while I remember the Shadowcraft days of hating ferals trying to steal my gear, I like them in the end game. Put 2 rogues, a hunter, a shaman, and a feral in a group and you have some UBER dps on your hands. Plus after BC when ferals can make our crits heal us, well then all the more welcome.
Rinion Oct 5th 2006 3:03AM
I agree that when you're guild is trying to accomplish something and is having difficulties it's best to either spec for the raids needs or get out of the raid (like if a raid needs more healing and you're a balance druid, nothing against moonkins I just needed an example).
When my guild was starting MC a long while ago my spec was 31/20/0 (I'm a hunter). After a few nights I had the great epiphany of "hey, my pet dies kinda fast in these boss fights and is more or less useless" and spec'd to 0/21/30 for a half raid, half pvp build; granted that a hunter works pretty well for pvp and pve no matter what their build, heh. In the end I wound up in a 7/35/9 build for a more-so raid spec (also spec'd that partially because I got my 8/8 t1 but that's another story).
But on another note there are certainly places for off-spec players in raids if they're used correctly (feral druid with the warriors, shadow priest with the locks, etc).
Finnicks, I agree with you that it was ridiculous for you to be criticized for not having a cookie-cutter build. For a pure dps class our build doesn't necessarily effect our class role, it's simply a method to improve the way we like to play our class (yes, there are exceptions to this in varying situations but I'm being general).
michel Oct 5th 2006 8:05AM
when people are forced to adopt a specific way of gaming to please the raid it's simply becoming a JOB. and it's the signal to stop the video-GAME.
thefury Oct 9th 2006 11:18AM
the off-specs... hsve seen lots of them... strange but interesting enemies
monkeywraith Oct 5th 2006 4:25AM
any spec can be viable in any situation, you just have to know what roles you can play. what matters is that you know your strengths and weaknesses and have some skill. i respecced my mage to strictly arcane simply because i have never heard of anybody doing it before and i like the abilities, and i do just as well as with my frost spec.
anyway, druids are arguably just as good at tanking as warriors, not better or worse, just different. there are plenty of forum threads discussing just that. same goes for healing and dps, the role of the druid depends on their individual specs and skills.
ILT @ ShadowSong-EU Oct 5th 2006 4:30AM
I am end-game tank (BWL, AQ20/AQ40, Onyxia, MC) with only 15 points in protection tree - the rest spent is to reach Mortal Strike (which is really viable for some bosses in BWL for example). So by measurement of your blogpost, i am off-spec as well.
Maybe i will spec to protection if there any talents really worth of spending points. And if protection tank can exist in PVE - being protection specced makes almost impossible to kill anything that everybody other kills. And certainly, does not help to live longer anyway - prot specced warrior is nothing without his healer.
Chu Yeow Oct 5th 2006 6:04AM
Fury warriors are definitely not an off-spec - they're your raid's offtanks and major source of DPS when not tanking, and are an important part of any raid. Since most endgame instances like BWL and AQ40 virtually require 6-8 warriors (feral druids actually work too), it'd be kind of pointless to have all of the specced protection and hitting mobs with pillows since usually 1-2 tanks are actually tanking. Just thought to chime in on this common misconception :)
AC Oct 5th 2006 7:36AM
Priests are the best healers in the game?
Rubbish. Paladins have the most mana-efficient heals in the game. I outheal & outlast any of my guilds Priests in MC/BWL etc ... And I don't even have Holy Light IX.
All you need is +400ish to Healing and you start pissing over Priests who oom faster than an oomkin.
Fabian Oct 5th 2006 6:39AM
I've got my feral druid at level 60, and though I'm not yet a big fan of raiding (too timeconsuming mostly) I must say that I did my share very well in the one time I raided Zul Gurub. I did everything along the run: tank Jin'Do, be a off-healer, do damage (as I have "leader of the pack" the MT and OTs liked me around in feral form). It was pretty interesting and I was able to be of good use to the raid, even with the mediocre gear I do possess.
On my other server I play a priest. I wanted to play holy for the guilds sake and I never had an ounce of fun with that char. Then my guild crumbled to dust and I got into another one. They plain told me they had enough healing druids they didn't need a holy priest. So they gave me one gold and send me to re-spec shadow. Now I love my priest. I even managed to get the kill of a level 62 Onyxia-Elite guard at level 39 because I managed to hit it several times (and be the first to hit it) with Shadowword: Pain.
I *love* my off-specs and I'm not abandoning those builds anytime soon!
Hory Oct 5th 2006 7:46AM
End-game guilds starting MC require people to go with the cookie-cutter builds. Learning an instance takes the best skill set available for that instance. Preists need to be Holy/Disc, Druids & Shaman need to be Resto.
Once you reach a point in the learning process (After Rag) it becomes easier to work as a team and allows more flexibility in the specs. Our guild now has one shadow priest, most hunters are 21/30, moonkin/feral druids, etc. Going into BWL, we may require them to respec if we find it too much of a challenge.
What I'm getting at is, why make it tougher on a raid and spec out of the norm? If you expect to beat new PVE bosses and win new PVE required armor... spec for PVE. Sure you can't get those super high crits you would want in PVP, but you don't want those in raids anyway. Any good tank would tell you to leave if you kept critting and pulling aggro from him.
bigmooma Oct 5th 2006 8:18AM
Hory, thats the sort of generalisation that gets people into the "you gotta have build x to progress" mess in the first place.
Cascade Oct 5th 2006 8:27AM
The proper specs really help, they're not required but they make learning easier...
Guilds run all of ZG in about 3 hours, MC in
Wae Oct 5th 2006 8:28AM
Thank You Michel(12)!!! You took the words right out of my mouth!
Cascade Oct 5th 2006 8:36AM
D'oh, cut off...
High level instances are easily doable with fewer than max people. Good Guilds can do MC with 30 at just a slightly slower pace. If those 10 people don't even need to be there, obviously their spec doesn't matter when they are...
as long as 25% of your raid is geared, knows what its doin and spec'd right, the rest doesn't matter.
foip Oct 5th 2006 8:45AM
Our main healers are Druids, Priests are secondary.
Coma Oct 5th 2006 8:44AM
To # 10, yes Pallies have a great mana eff spell but to say Pallies are the best healers, you must have limited xp imo. At + 770 to heal and 8400 mana I can outlast and outheal any other class. My renew ticks for around 400 a sec and I use lowest rank heal that heals for over 1200 at some ridiculously low mana. You are the reason everyone makes fun of pallies with comments like that. BTW can't wait to Dispel your bubble :)
Gharr Oct 5th 2006 9:11AM
WHen it comes to 'off-specs' you have to realize. Blizzard put them there in the first place. There is no such thing as an 'off-spec' just 'obvious' and 'not so obvious' ways of doing things.
You do not need to respec to be successful in raiding. Ever. Respecing will make things 'easier' but that doesn't make it a requirement. Depending on how well the player knows the ins and outs of the class makes all the difference on how well they perform, no matter the spec.
Of course, if your shadow priest or feral druid don't hop over and assist with 'normal' healing when it is needed, then they are not assisting the raid, and giving those of us who use 'off-specs' a bad name.
I run with shadow priests, I run with feral druids, I have fury warriors that know how and when to tank, the list goes on. I lead ZG and AQ and assist leadership with BWL and MC runs. Know what the class can do, know that the player can 'shift roles' quickly. And you'll do just fine.
Content WILL be harder if you don't spec to make it easier. That's doesn't make the spec any less viable.
Coma Oct 5th 2006 9:34AM
To # 10, yes you have a great mana eff heal but if a pally with + 400-600 to heal can outheal or outlast me then I must have been AFK. At +910 ot heal and 8500 mana I highly doubt you could outheal or outlast myself or any other tier 3 priest. Your comments are why people make fun of pallies. BTW, can't wait to Dispell your bubble :P
To #17, possible but more likely your priests are just bored of spamming heals and just don't try real hard anymore.