Equipment manager and dual talents won't mix
by Mike Schramm 
May 21st 2009 at 2:00PM
Now, I was under the impression that Blizzard eventually wanted to combine the dual specs and equipment manager features -- they were taking their sweet time making sure it was exactly right, but eventually when you switched specs, you'd be able to switch into the gear you wanted at the same time. But apparently that's not the case: the lovely Nethaera over on the forums says that no, there are no plans to connect the two. They believe that many people will want to change specs and gear at different times, so you'll still have to press two buttons if you just have two gear sets for two specs.Fortunately, that functionality is filled in very well with addons, and Eliah did a nice writeup last month of how to do it with a few of the available addons out there. Which is probably why Blizzard isn't doing it -- we've heard at the BlizzCon UI panel that they're more than happy to let addon authors fill in the extra functionality that they believe only a few players are looking for. And as you can see in the thread, there are macros that will tie them together as well.
Better for Blizzard to get to work on something else than put together functionality that those who really need can already find. But yes, if you're waiting for an official solution to switching gear and specs at the same time, look elsewhere.
Filed under: Patches, Items, Analysis / Opinion, Blizzard, Add-Ons, Talents
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 4)
johnthediver May 21st 2009 2:08PM
While I think it would be nice to automagically switch gear when I switch specs, the gear manager that was added on tuesday is more than functional. Now I dont forget to switch totems when I switch specs. Cause lets face it, that extra SP on Lightning Bolts is pretty useless when speced healing.
Skraps
www.sham-wows.blogspot.com
Robert M May 21st 2009 2:13PM
I know that it COULD be nice if you switched specs at the same time you switched gear, but functionally, it could prove to be more of a nuisance.
Imagine a prot/ret paladin with a threat prot set, a boss avoidance set, a dps trash set, and a dps boss set changes gear but not specs and the manager is setup to tie specs into gear sets, it may “change” your spec every time you change gear even if you don’t actually need to change specs. That could mean a loss of mana every time you change gear sets, and a greater downtime on the raid as you change gear for each situation.
Since the gear manager is a click of a button and no cast, I am completely ok with the current setup.
http://fatchickstank.blogspot.com/
AyaJulia May 21st 2009 2:53PM
The idea is that your gear changes when your spec does, not the other way around.
Yeng May 21st 2009 2:54PM
I think they meant more one-way. When you click the change spec button, your gear would change with the spec, I don't think anyone intended for it to happen the other way around.
Robert M May 21st 2009 2:58PM
And if you ahve more than one set of gear tied to a spec? Is it really that big a deal that it doesn't change specs? It's an extra button and allows for more control over more situations.
AyaJulia May 21st 2009 3:03PM
Dude, chill. We were (or I was, anyway) just clarifying the idea, since you had it stuck in your head that people wanted their spec to auto-change when they switched out a gear set. That's a pretty odd way to look at it, and the general desire for something like this is to have the gear change automatically when you manually switch spec. No one said anything about whether it was good or bad or a big deal or no deal or anything. There are macros to cover it anyway. :)
Rocky May 21st 2009 4:19PM
Why does it have to be all or nothing? The way it is now, you can't tie a set of gear to a spec. So you'll ALWAYS have to hit 2 buttons. If they tied them together, when you switched spec's you could tie 1 set of gear to it and have several other sets that aren't tied to anything. I don't see a down side. It's not like you're locked into a specific set of gear just cause you're on spec X instead of Y. You're not gonna have the same set of gear for both specs, so without this feature, you're allways pressing 2 buttons. Add this feature and you don't always have to do that.
Bubsa May 21st 2009 2:16PM
It took them this long to get the Eq Manager out, so I think it's right they're focusing on other stuff now, rather than to correct this minor inconvenience.
Manatank May 21st 2009 2:39PM
2 specs does not equal 2 sets of gear unless you aren't min/maxing. I don't like the idea of a talent switch forcing a gear switch, because I want to pick my spec, and then pick which set of several I have set up for that spec. I would assume Blizzard understood that linking one gear set to a spec would be far too limited and so the current implementation of the gear manager provides far more flexibility than the "exactly right" implementation the original poster advocates.
What is "exactly right" to the person who posted this would have been "exactly wrong" for me.
Eisengel May 21st 2009 4:39PM
Well... if stat homogenization hadn't made so much of my gear the same... this might be better news. Right now 4 clicks separate my questing/raiding/healing gear.
Zerounit May 21st 2009 2:17PM
Two buttons!? What is this, the stone age?
ao.dom May 21st 2009 5:46PM
That's what I was thinking.. Personally I believe two clicks/buttons is WAY better than the 17 clicks before.. Be appreciative, go melt face, and don't muck with it.. It's working.. In the emortal words of Napoleon Dynamite, 'GOSH!'..
NynjaMonkii May 21st 2009 2:17PM
ClosetGnome now uses the equipment manager as its backend, but there is also a plug-in to auto-swap based on the last set you wore in a spec. I use it to switch between my pvp spec/gear and dps spec/gear. Only thing is now you cant switch in flight since the equipment manager wont, but it does remember which gear is in a set even when the gems or enchants change, which the old closetgnome didn't.
Randron May 21st 2009 2:17PM
no addon neccessary
/equipset
/usetalents 1
in a macro works perfect!
replace with exactly what you called your equipment set, and replace "1" with "2" when wanting your second spec
Ryan May 21st 2009 3:11PM
Yup, no addon needed. One button to swap specs and gear macros are simple.
#show [spec:1] DPS Spell, [spec:2] Healer Spell
/equipset [spec:1] DPS Gearset, [spec:2] Healer Gearset
/usetalents [spec:1] 2, [spec:2] 1
Krugeroff May 21st 2009 2:22PM
I have used outfitter for this functionality for about 3 years.
One of the other things that the blizz gear manager does not do that outfitter (and I assume others) does do is let you make partial sets.
For instance on my resto shammy, I have 6 pieces of gear I swap out for certain fights for a haste set. I also have an MP5 set.
one of our other healers (holy pally) was finally convinced to get outfitter last week after she healed a uld25 progression fight in her ret boots.
manxome May 21st 2009 3:13PM
I would like to add that the fine folks who make Outfitter incorporated spec changes in the latest build as well. Outfitter WILL change your gear when you change your spec.
Find your outfit options (drop down menu by the outfit), go under scripts to find the "primary spec" and "secondary spec" script. The outfit with the primary spec script attached to it will swap your gear automagically when you switch specs.
Mparkin May 21st 2009 2:20PM
Personally I'm glad they are not linked. Swapping a gear set is easy enough and depending on your spec and gear sets you may not want them linked. I run with 3 sets of gear for my priest for Disc alone, it would have no way of knowing which set I wanted to go with that spec at the time of a spec change anyways. Not important, not very useful.
Randron May 21st 2009 2:20PM
gah html coding :(
/equipset NAME
/usetalents 1
replace "NAME" case senstive with your equipset's name, and "1" with "2" for secon spec
onekilovolt May 21st 2009 4:27PM
For some reason, I knew that there would be a macro for this. Thanks!