Breakfast Topic: Is your raid lead requiring dual specs?
by Adam Holisky 
Apr 21st 2009 at 8:00AM
While I've retired from my raid leading responsibilities, back in the day I probably would have "asked nicely" a few people to pickup dual specs, even going as far to have the guild pay for it. Of course the people that I asked would have likely been doing it on their own anyways. For instance I had an awesome Paladin tank who did just as good as DPS.
Right now the primary situation where dual specs are useful revolve around 10-man groups. Some fights are quite healing intensive and less of a DPS race. Those would benefit from having a hybrid switch from DPS to healing. An elemental shaman switching over to resto to heal the raid can make a major difference.
So how about it, is your raid leader making you dual spec?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 7)
Hermione Apr 21st 2009 8:06AM
Yep. Our leader has infact, asked us to pick it up. I cant afford it at the moment, but Im wondering if I should take my Paladin heals/ret or heals/prot.
What are you fellow paladins picking up?
Calcine Apr 21st 2009 8:12AM
I'm currently Ret/Holy only because I happened to collect quite a few pieces of Naxx 25 Holy gear in the past. However, from my guild's experience raiding in Ulduar, quite a few of the early fights require at least two tanks (even 3 in the cases of Ignis and Razorscale) so I want to switch to Ret/Prot sometime in the near future since my guild is actually a bit healer-heavy.
Nick Apr 21st 2009 8:13AM
Whatever you feel is more fun. Personally I HATE retribution, and prefer healing. Protection is my primary spec, with healing being my 2nd spec, but the guild are very clear I am a tank who sometimes heals, not a paladin that does both equally.
Korenwolf Apr 21st 2009 8:22AM
My tankadin has gone all holy on me.
obscuremst3kref Apr 21st 2009 8:31AM
I went Ret/Prot, largely because it's what I have the gear for. My primary spec's been Ret forever now, and I love it. I cobbled a Prot set together about 2 months ago and have been switching back and forth between the two because I like both specs a lot. If I had a full healing set, I'd probably have made it my secondary.
To answer the question posed in the original post: No. Everyone that dual specced in my guild did so because they wanted to, not because they were asked to.
Michael Apr 21st 2009 9:43AM
My main will not be dual speccing. He is shadow 100%. My alts on the other hand will be ret/prot and ele/resto just for a change in tasks to keep me from getting too bored.
Angus Apr 21st 2009 10:10AM
Prot/Ret for max threat build and some off-tanking power.
Ret/Prot/Holy for solo and DPS work. I like aura mastery, it lets me get across a zone in no time at all. It also allows me to stop being a worthless tank in fights requiring only 1 tank. More DPS on boss = faster fights and happier healers.
Getting ret gear as a tankadin is VERY easy. You can get rep items that will be nice DPS upgrades in no time, just run the instances for badges. Tier 7 ret isn't amazing, but it will do. And you should have the Ebon Blade at exalted fast doing it.
Trilynne Apr 21st 2009 10:59AM
Prot for my main spec, and Ret offspec, though I don't expect to be going Ret much because our guild leader, who was a warrior tank, just decided to quit raiding. We have a tanking team, no 'main tank' but there will be less flexibility for us now, with one gone. Plus, most of the fights in Ulduar seem to require at least 2 tanks on 10man, haven't gotten a chance to try much 25man due to having to find a new guild leader and all that. I will NEVER go Holy, I don't have the right mind-set or play style to heal effectively, and I hate healing as a paladin, anyway. :P It's a running joke in my guild about how I refuse to spec Holy. xD "Hey Tril, you should go Holy!" "NOOOOOO!" "Yeah, you'd probably kill people with your heals..."
Kimberly Apr 21st 2009 11:31AM
My holy pally has taken prot as her second. Why? Because I've amassed a LOT of tank gear that our tanks already had.
So now I have a defense-capped tank who has tanked nothing other than two 75th level dungeons. I feel so "eBay".
Telaria Apr 21st 2009 1:51PM
It really depends on your guild make. I've been leveling prot with a small guild; in the group of core people I play with, I'm the main tank. We have someone (a DK) who can step in and off tank effectively, but no effective offhealer... so dual-speccing to pick up Holy made the most sense for me. I might not use it often, but we have oodles of spare DPS and no spare competent healer.
BooMsx Apr 21st 2009 8:05AM
no
Zul Apr 21st 2009 8:20AM
Yes, 100%
Noctune Apr 29th 2009 1:26PM
No we don't require it we don't demand it but many of our raids got 2 raiding specs
my druid got Feral tank & Feral dps
my Shaman got Restro & Elemental
but for other classes its more of a novelty thingie or a PvE / PvP spec thingie but many Warriors tanks & Protadins on our guild have gone DPS as offspec to be able to help out when only 1 tank is needed. same goes for the Healers many of them have gotten a second dps spec so they can help out with dps if maximum number of healers is not needed for a given scenario.
I whould say both guild and i have won on Dual spec due to the fact that they got an easier time filling the raids and i got 2/3 slot i can fill DPS/Healer or DPS/Tank compared to 1 before and it makes the old content more viable still (you still have to collect DPS gear if your a tank)
Memzer Apr 21st 2009 9:28AM
We're not required to have dual specialisations (even though most do). It's pretty obvious however from Ulduar that it is really advantageous for a Healer or Tank to be able to switch roles. So much so that if you look at the recruitment posts (ours included) on the forums you can already see posts like:
Recruiting for Ulduar:
Priest (Holy or Shadow, Geared for both).
Shaman (Elemental / Enhancement). Must be able to switch.
Etc.
Jacii Apr 21st 2009 10:28AM
No, our raid leaders don't make you dual spec, but when we're fighting Yogg-Saron in 25 and need an extra healer, it's either..
Switch to secondary healing (tank, dps, whatever's needed) or hearth, pay the respec and come back.
When you're actively competing for world or server firsts, it's perhaps an option, but you're going to piss off a lot of people in the process.
If you don't have 1000g, go do your dailies, scrub.
VSUReaper Apr 21st 2009 11:39AM
My guild required it, and to be 100% honest, I have not used it at all except for the H-VH just to see my avg dps in actual combat (only had test dummy numbers).
Kinda nice that as the MT (person most likely to tank) I am never asked to DPS, but at the same time, being told that if I wanted to raid Ulduar with this guild that it was required no matter the position (dps/tank/healer) kinda sucks.
Even the pure classes were told to get a second spec (the mages I know went with a "longevity off-spec" - using a spec that will allow them to stretch their mana out as long as possible before needing to evo on the really long fights)
Thundagard Apr 21st 2009 8:07AM
Nah, I'm not really needed to duel spec. My paladin is holy/ret, but seeing as my other level 80, a hunter, is pure DPS, I decided to just go with... well, admittedly I prefer MM, but I prefer my spirit beast to MM, so I'm BM.
There's a fair few duel-speccers in my guild, but it's definitely not required.
Orrin Apr 21st 2009 8:14AM
It's dual spec, not duel. The purpose of having 2 specs at once is utility, not the opportunity to duel with someone :)
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=16473969868&pageNo=1&sid=1#10
percinho Apr 21st 2009 9:09AM
Duel Spec is for PvP. ;-)
Nick Apr 21st 2009 8:08AM
Just no. As soon as someone "makes" you do anything they should be paying for the subscription and the hourly rate that you could expect to get with your qualifications.
Play the game as you want. Find a guild that actively promote playing the game for fun. If that means you dont do anything but DPS then so be it.
That said, I hate DPS, its boring. Tanking and Healing are where the fun of this game lies.