Triple specs appear to be at least possible
by Adam Holisky 
Mar 30th 2009 at 7:00PM
Today Bornakk, a blue community poster, said that right now all Blizzard intentionally wants is to have two specs be available, but that they "...want to see how the system works out first," before considering triple specs. I think it's pretty safe to read between the lines here and take it to mean that it's possible and has at least been discussed by Blizzard to some extent if community people (and not a developer like Ghostcrawler) are already talking about it. Remember here that community folks usually don't talk about development related things without running it by or hearing it from a developer first.
Triple specs would offer even more flexibility to play the class in whatever way is possible. A druid would be able to switch between a healer, tank, and caster role in a single instance / raid. A paladin would have the same amazing flexibility. While each class right now has at least two specs that can really shine in specific situations, triple specs would allow three-role hybrids to become amazingly powerful characters.
Of course, some might see that as a reason not to allow triple specs. I'm sure that thought has crossed the minds of the devs as well. After all, if you can do everything under the sun with your one Paladin, why play a Warlock In Plate Death Knight?
Bornakk goes on to say that respeccing has always been part of the core came, and that they want to keep it around. They want to obviously improve the respeccing process, but not completely replace it. From a gameplay perspective this makes a lot of sense as well. We need to have some sort of consequence and reward system – a game in god mode is no fun after all. Want to play a healer when you're speced for DPS and tanking? Pay 50g. This two spec system coming up in patch 3.1 is obviously better than it was before dual specs, but the cost/reward system is still there.
Bornakk makes the additional point that if they were just going to remove this cost/reward system, then they might as well just allow quad specs or what have you.
This is an interesting subject that I think many people will want to keep an eye on. While I don't see triple or quad specs coming out anytime soon, I think it's obvious based on Bornakk's comments that we shouldn't just write them off. World of Warcraft version 4.0 anyone?
Patch 3.1 brings us Ulduar, dual specs, significant changes to all the classes, and more! We've got you covered from top to bottom with our Guide to Patch 3.1.Filed under: Patches, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, News items
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Angus Mar 30th 2009 7:08PM
2 raid specs and a PVP spec. That'll be nice.
Pure classes can play with both a PVE and PVP spec and with a "weird" spec which allows them to deal with some fights where their normal DPS stuff won't work. (fights requiring a lot more mobility or resistances...)
Kakistocracy Mar 30th 2009 7:43PM
I've toyed with the idea of a single target spec and an aoe spec for raiding...
ziggler Mar 30th 2009 7:59PM
not that weird... one of my fellow mage raiders (who never does pvp) gonna dual spec for raids with/without a boomkin
Wes Mar 31st 2009 1:56AM
I'm going dual raid spec too :). I'm currently a holy priest but thinking of having an off-spec as a shadow priest.
There's an odd situation going on in my guild right now where we have about 8 healers and we are all relatively reliable. However, 8 of 25 slots in a raid do not need to be healers. Nor do we need all the 7 tanks. 4-5 would do for both. So I'd love to be able to switch to shadow.
Three specs would be even better. I could be Disc/Holy/Shadow. So whatever is needed.
smiley Mar 31st 2009 8:08AM
at the tiple spec point why not pull a guld wars? you can change your spec on the fly, not in combat but out of combat play with talent points to better suit fights, it is an intresting part of the game over there. and when mastered makes for some interesting results
nerfed_dk Mar 31st 2009 12:16PM
2 raid specs and a PvP spec is exactly what I was talking about in my guild chat yesterday. The idea is certainly a big wh000t! in my book. I definitely need 2 PvE specs, and I like to run into BGs, and wintergrasp when ever I'm not raiding, but it's a pain as it is now, especially when you port to dalaran from your raid, or dungeon, and they are asking for reinforcments in WG already. There is no time to re-spec, and get your gear from the bank for this. The notion of triple specs is ideal if you ask me. I would also like to do more arena, but with respec costs at 50G a piece it's just not affordable for a person that doesn't have as much time to be in game as he would like.
I really hope blizzard is seriously considering this.
Spec 2 = 500G / spec 3 = 1000G
I think 1000 Gold is a bit much for dual spec. :)
Bill Mar 30th 2009 7:11PM
Why not just make infinite specs? That way every person can have a spec for every possible game scenario they come across?
"Wait! Let me switch into my trash-mob spec". "Now for my Patchwerk spec!", etc. It would help to further eliminate any sense of challenge or fun or pulling something off - "Wow, I survived that surprise elite attack even though I was in full healing gear!"
One of the things that Blizz is messing up on (in my opinion). Is that WoW is becoming less of an immersive game and more about finding ways to manipulate the underlying mechanics of the game.
I honestly think this is Blizz's future development direction - continually changing game mechanics so people are always moving without going anywhere (learning to play with / optimize within the new rules). This prevents them from really making any leaps in actual game play.
Of course, I could just be bitter, but for me the game has lost any sense of real wonder and is nothing more than a bunch of pixels and code that I have to live with.
IvanZephyr Mar 30th 2009 8:04PM
I agree with you in some aspects.
Dual-specs seem MORE than enough for us. Three specs? That's getting ridiculous....
Why don't we just give any class the ability to heal others? To tank? To have any type of CC?
Dual-specs is a cool idea and is more than enough for anyone...
Damn Blizzard...give us at least SOMETHING to differentiate us from other classes.
Otherwise we're going to end up with Warriors who can soulstone, use Chain heal, throw up dots, sheep targets, backstab, and tank....
(And yes I did use a logical fallacy...but it doesn't really take too much imagination to see this happening to at least some extent in the future)
Max Mar 30th 2009 7:31PM
^ this
Plastic Rat Mar 30th 2009 10:17PM
"One of the things that Blizz is messing up on (in my opinion). Is that WoW is becoming less of an immersive game and more about finding ways to manipulate the underlying mechanics of the game."
This hits the nail on the head for me. We don't seem to be playing the game anymore, we're now just focused on playing the system.
VanessaHeartless Mar 31st 2009 1:21AM
I agree. In fact, why don't we just allow EVERY class to fill everyone of their talent points. That way, druids and paladins could tank, DPS, and heal ALL IN THE SAME FIGHT.
Dual specs has its ups and down, and playinga resto druid, itll be a welcome change to be able to do dailies during the week, and heal my raids on the weekends without having to spend the gold I'm already trying to save for my Epic flyer or my raid consumables. But anything more than that, the game will lose it's luster, no longer will there be any semblance of individual players, who identify themselves according to one spec
rosencratz Mar 31st 2009 6:01AM
It's worth mentioning that this information isn't new. This was stated when they fist released the patch notes for the PTR. That's likely the only reason people are atill whining for a third spec and it's also indicative that we definately won't see see triple specs or so in live for a long time.
At the end of the day we shouldn't run before we walk and asking for a third spec is liking asking for running shoes to me. Considering that and the fact that additional specs ontop of the second one is likely to cost even more gold. I'd expect 2,500g at least for another luxury spec.
Sarabande Mar 31st 2009 8:43AM
I agree.
In fact (and people may kill me for this) I think dual specs should have a bit more limitation, such as having to go to a trainer (or some object they could put in towns and settlements) to respec rather than on the fly. Don't get me wrong . . . I think DUAL spec is a great idea - I see so many friends who have to respec several times in a week, and it's nice that the specs are saved so you waste less money AND time. For raiding - for 25 man, at least, I'd think there would be a mage and a lock to send / retrieve people from town if they REALLY need to respec to fill a role left void.
But I think too many specs just end up in homogenization - something Blizz is doing too much of already. Instead of Healadins, Fire Mages, Boomkins, etc. it'll be just Paladins, Mages and Druids. Maybe it's just me but my spec is part of who I am (well, who my TOON is). Three spec would water things down waaay too much.
Slight off topic but . .
I'm not a developer, but I think they can still do much with the environments and encounters to make them interesting, challenging and unusual without messing with existing mechanics and classes. Could they maybe make thoughtful strategy rather than moving around like we're in some FPS game a more integral part of the game? For example, I remember some old school single player RPGs where you have to break up your group, some of them are not well geared, to fight a boss - why not make it so that in parts of a raid, your group is forced to break up into smaller groups - with no combat interaction available until after the fight even as all groups are needed to defeat the boss? Or is there something like that already? Depending on what classes / specs you bring, the fight could be different every time. No reasonable combination would make the fight impossible - just different.
Or have a "game board" set up where you are stuck where you chose to be once the fight starts and the placement of players would greatly change the fight, and also vary with classes and specs - maybe movement would be allowed per "turn" so that at each turn all the players can move to a different square within certain limits - maybe have the movement pattern be different for each class (kind of like in chess). The squares won't kill you but maybe certain ones would limit or buff certain abilities and getting the right people to the right ones would really change the fights. These would place more importance on planning and thinking things out, rather than just moving out of the way of lava / frost / black circles / purple goo . . etc. and maybe mix things up a bit. Have the fast paced action packed ones, followed by the slower, more thoughtful ones.
unvme331 Mar 31st 2009 3:01PM
I couldn't agree with this poster any more, every classes is turning into the same thing, everyone QQ's they want to do what the other class does....i remember when if you want to tank, you roll a tank class, not cry until blizz gives in! Blizzard in the old days didn't give into this crap, now it seems anything someone QQ's about is fixed in the next patch!Not to forget that dumb things like hunter cower pet and other stupid fixes have been sitting in game for how long?!?!?! i guess some PURE DPS classes wanting what they chose not to do....is much more important to blizz. LAME!
mike Mar 30th 2009 7:12PM
Outside the triangle bro...
Still they need to give pure dps classes an alternative to dps for this to happen.
i.e. Healer mages, rogue tanks
Worcester Mar 30th 2009 7:21PM
/agree.
Blizz can do this, so long as they make a solo version of every instance and raid. What else it my Rogue going to do?
artifex Mar 31st 2009 4:35AM
As a lock who has to cut himself for mana several times a day in battle, you'd think I'd be great at bandaging in adverse conditions. I already have incantations to heal my minions, too.
unvme331 Mar 31st 2009 3:00PM
Is this fair to those of use who played classes that was a pain to level because we are healers? did you not understand when picking your PURE DPS classes that all you would be able to do was dps? did you hope that if you QQ'd enough you would have fast leveling/pvping and still get what you want? I may be bitter as i have rolled many classes in all specs, but i think it is unfair my first class was a priest and i had to level as holy/shadow (before all the changes to spell power and what not). I raided as shadow when my DPS was far below any other class, and i didn't QQ, now because all this crying We have every classes turning into the same thing, and nothing to make anyone different, Gear is stupid easy to get and as a high end raider i get dumb things like a different color drake....lame....
I want it to be back to the days when you can tell the difference in the raids/levels of each toon.
Eisengel Apr 1st 2009 4:37PM
I agree, this is the issue:
"While each class right now has at least two specs that can really shine in specific situations, triple specs would allow three-role hybrids to become amazingly powerful characters."
shadowhaxor Mar 30th 2009 7:12PM
Triple spec'? Well, thats one way to completely eliminate certain classes to going instances. At that point, why point to restrict points per class, why not just give everyone a unlimited limit for specing their class, since that's basically what this is going to end up doing.
What was that? You want to make the game even easier? Yah, triple spec's will help you there.
:(