Dual talent specs in next WOW update?

By Oli Welsh Published 10 December, 2008

Blizzard hopes so, adds new details.

Blizzard has said that the ability for World of Warcraft players to switch between two concurrent character builds, or "talent specs", could arrive in the next major content update.

A Blizzard poster on the official forums said: "We hope to have this done for the next major content patch, but it's a big feature and takes some time."

In WOW, talents are a layer of character customisation that typically takes every character class down one of three paths. For instance, a Druid can be configured for healing, magical damage, or physical damage and tanking.

At present, you can only have one talent build at a time, and changing builds by reallocating all your talent points is time-consuming and expensive in in-game currency.

The new feature will allow players to create two builds to switch between. The post reveals that this will be possible away from cities as well as in them, but that this will be more difficult.

"It will be trivial to do in town. You will also be able to do it out of towns, but not as trivially," said the Blizzard poster.

It will also allow the player to switch between pre-set action bars and Glyphs (spell customisations) automatically when switching between specs.

It's a major change to WOW that will greatly increase the flexibility of all character classes, and make it much easier to compose balanced groups for taking on the game's dungeons.

Also coming in the next content patch will be a new raid dungeon for 10 or 25 players, called Ulduar. The post says it "will be more difficult" than the current raids, which have been criticised for not challenging the most dedicated raiding guilds.

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About Oli Welsh

Oli is Eurogamer's acting deputy editor and reviews editor and likes to take things one word at a time. He is among the best dressed people in South London.

Read more articles from Oli by visiting the Oli Welsh archive page.

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Comments (54) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • RM2KMaster #1 3 years ago

    Doesn't that kind of take the whole point of speccing away?

  • Eraysor #2 3 years ago

    That would be wonderful, it'll make changing from affliction in PvE to destruction in PvP a lot easier for warlocks.

  • DFawkes #3 3 years ago

    Certainly takes away one of my reasons for prefering Guild Wars, in which you can have as many specs as you want saved.

    If I could switch from "Super hunter with bow that is better than Legolas and Robin Hood put together" to "Ultra pet owner with a pet more powerful than Godzilla and King Kong combined", it'd be awesome. Plus restricting it to 2 gives some freedom, and as Eraysor says means it'd be easier to have PvE and PvE builds.

  • Apologie #4 3 years ago

    i dont thing these is a good measure, there is no skill anymore by working talents, everybody will start to the same 2 combinatios of talents.

  • Stupid_Fat_Hobbit #5 3 years ago

    It doesn't take away the whole point of speccing; choosing two talent builds out of the many possible isn't much less restrictive than choosing one.

    I think the main advantage of this will be to make more healers available. A lot of people who don't like to play a dedicated healing character would happily switch to their back-up healing spec on occasion if required.

  • merkdot #6 3 years ago

    The game doesn't need to get any easier than it already is.

  • DFawkes #7 3 years ago

    Thankfully it isn't, just more flexible.

  • Pirotic #8 3 years ago

    I like it, I'll probably have a boring 'all round spec' as my 2nd rather than maxing out another tree.

  • TheBoyChris #9 3 years ago

    More ways to go to X and kill more of Y! Hurrah!

  • merkdot #10 3 years ago

    of course it will make the game easier.

    if I can't complete something with a ridiculous dps spec I'll just flip to prot.

    as you say, it'll mean more tanks and healers around too, making dungeons less challenging.

  • Apologie #11 3 years ago

    farticusmaximus

    stop acting like a moron, merkdot is right... it will be much easier to adapt depending on the situation, therefor thousends of players will be able to do lots of diferent things making, just by that principle, the game easier, dungeons, PvP etc... you will have chars that can be powerfull healers and powerfull tankers at the same time, now wtf is that???
    Edited by 6 at 10/12/08 @ 14:07

  • hula hoops #12 3 years ago

    how on earth does, "more tanks and healers around" is "making dungeons less challenging."?

    It will make the game less frustating for me yes, but not easier.

    At the moment, it's hard getting tanks and healers. Everything that alleviates this is good in my book.

  • DFawkes #13 3 years ago

    Not at the same time, they've said it'd be possible, "but that this will be more difficult". So you're not going to be running around switching between tank and healer. It will not make the game easier, because all it is doing is allowing you to have 2 specs level up within the same character.

    The only real difference is you won't have to level up to characters, or spend all that cash to respec.

  • iokthemonkey #14 3 years ago

    Well, I'm sure the Hunters will be pleased to hear that soon they'll be able to have two ultra-nerfed specs.

    Yeah, Massively.com is reporting an incoming nerf for Hunters, as they're "too powerful" apparently.

  • Gurgeh #15 3 years ago

    I don't know if it will lead to more tanks and healers, since it's a playstyle choice and people who are primarily damage dealers aren't going to want to spec for tanking or healing, even if they could.

    I suspect it's aimed at getting more people involved with PvP, which would be a boon to Blizzard since they wouldn't have to put the effort into creating content. They're already "pushing" players into it by empahsising they expect people to PvE and PvP for gear, and now they have made PvP rewards require Arena points.

  • stevetuck #16 3 years ago

    So its either 1 button spamming in affliction... or one button spamming in destro hmmm hard choice

  • DoctorZoidberg #17 3 years ago

    Sound's okey to me.

    When I play (not that often) I'm a shaman (melee DPS) and I hate it when I have a quest in a dugneon and can't get a healer etc, So it would be handy to have that option that I could fill in if needed.


  • DFawkes #18 3 years ago

    @iokthemonkey

    What? Have you got a link for that, I'd seriously just give up on WoW if they nerf my character any furthur. I do agree, at one time, even at low levels I, as a hunter, was nigh-on unstoppable before they tweaked Concussive Shot and most of the other skills. But they already balanced that out, I really hope they don't go on a nerfing spree.

  • VicViper #19 3 years ago

    Apologie

    And how does that make things harder or easier, I play a warlock if someone needs to respec and they Hearth(or mage portal) respec then we summon them back, did that make thing easier, No all it did was make less annoying, Having a dual spec will allow you to change to match the situation your in (assuming that one of your too specs match it) but you can't change the talents in your spec on switch too that you have set up. The encounter still remains the same. Your reasoning about not having to find a player is not a measure of difficulty thats a measure of palyer patience.

  • iokthemonkey #20 3 years ago

    [link url=http://www.wowinsider.com/2008/12/09/the-great -hunter-nerf-of-2008
    ]http://ww w.wowinsider.com/2008/12/09/the...[/link]

    Didn't read it as I don't play WoW any more but it might shed some light on it.

  • DFawkes #21 3 years ago

    Cheers iokthemonkey. Thankfully it's mostly higher level skills or ones I don't use, so it's cool.

  • paulf #22 3 years ago

    this could be the single best change to wow, if it is implemented correctly - I'm on two popular servers and getting tanks and healers (especially under max level) is difficult - i think it will also make the utilty classes (shammy, pally, druid) very popular - still have to carry two lots of gear around with you though

  • actionfitz #23 3 years ago

    it'll mean many like me who generally avoid pvp will now start trying it out - rather than be penalised for stepping into the fray with the 'wrong' spec, or paying 50g a go for respecs - necessitating hours of gathering/dailies to support, which in turn means i may even stick around long ebough to build up some res. gear Oo

    What im not looking forward to is grouping in non-guild groups after this...

    "omg I needz for my pewpew spec"
    "omg i needz that too for my healer spec"
    "omg tank items! needzors!!"
    \
    all from the same pally / druid
    :)

  • merkdot #24 3 years ago

    oh dear

  • Benno #25 3 years ago

    maximus, why take the bait from the same idiots who post in all the wow comments threads? Just ignore them

    I cant wait for this change. I will be able to play resto or elemental, with no gear change at all (thank you spell power)

  • Benno #26 3 years ago

    I breifly played a shaman all the way back in vanilla wow, and its so refreshing now to have an instant cast heal, ultra quick healing waves among the other changes.

    I have been leveling as elemental, and i am still able to heal just fine in instances as 31/0/4X. In violet hold I was 3rd on damage as well as the only healer :D

    I guess that says more about my slacky DPS friends :/

  • Benno #27 3 years ago

    and next up for loving is definetely warlocks, especially in pvp

    they are the weakest class by quite a significant margin

  • Apologie #28 3 years ago

    Dual spec is the confirmation that Blizzard can’t balance their classes .. such a shame.

  • sneetch #29 3 years ago

    @Apologie
    "farticusmaximus

    stop acting like a moron, merkdot is right... it will be much easier to adapt depending on the situation, therefor thousends of players will be able to do lots of diferent things making, just by that principle, the game easier, dungeons, PvP etc... you will have chars that can be powerfull healers and powerfull tankers at the same time, now wtf is that???"

    Just to clarify, you will have two specs, you can pick one to use at any given time but only one so you can't be a powerful healer and tank at the same time. They can at the moment respec at any trainer and switch specs but that costs gold, which just dissuades people from doing it; "hi, we need a healer, want to do dungeon X", "can't, I'm feral :(".

    @merkdot
    "as you say, it'll mean more tanks and healers around too, making dungeons less challenging."

    Yes, because the "challenge" of finding a tank or healer for your group was always the best part of running instances in WoW. As was the "challenge" of respeccing your druid from tank to healer for a dungeon run, or the "challenge" of building up three or four different sets of kit: one for your druid for healing, one for tanking and one for DPS (or possibly two for DPS, one caster one feral).

    I'd rather the challenge was in doing the instance and not finding the group, tbh. Maybe I'm odd.

    Oh and when was "challenge" changed to mean "tedious busywork and the grinding required to finance it"?

  • sneetch #30 3 years ago

    @Apologie
    "Dual spec is the confirmation that Blizzard can’t balance their classes .. such a shame."

    This post is the confirmation that you are a troll.. such a shame.

  • DFawkes #31 3 years ago

    If dual spec means you can't balance your classes, Guild Wars must be the most unbalanced game in the universe ever, more so than the popular Racoon Vs Robocop.
    Edited by 1 at 10/12/08 @ 15:34

  • Canyarion #32 3 years ago

    The raids aren't just too easy for hardcore guilds. My brother's guild downed 10-man Naxxramas already. That was the instances our guild wiped on for 3 months, just to down 5 bosses!!! It's a shame they made it this easy already. It's almost an insult to the original Naxxramas.

    Edit: My brother now plays a warlock while I used to. I quit before TBC. He now reports that he does more (raid) damage with a destruction spec than with an affliction spec! How retarded is this? It's incredibly hard to play an affliction warlock right, it should do the most damage, like it's always done.
    Edited by 1 at 10/12/08 @ 15:51

  • merkdot #33 3 years ago

    sneetch, the challenge was running the dungeon with a fucking fury warrior and shadow priest.

  • merkdot #34 3 years ago

    actually, I take it back, it's not even hard with a badly organised group anyway.

  • Apologie #35 3 years ago

    Dude the whole point of an MMO is the cooperative play, the relation of complementarity between classes that have different specs and features is the most interesting and challenging thing at the same time, Dual talent specs cuts a big half of that because now you can do compleatly different things in a very competent way... in my opinionl that's not good. if you want that, level 2 different chars, dual talent specs is just cheap. accuse me of being a troll, i dont care, that's just the way i see it.
    Edited by 1 at 10/12/08 @ 15:53

  • Apologie #36 3 years ago

    farticusmaximus

    "as there will be some kind of as yet unspecified cooldown to talent changes"

    ...if there is a big cooldown "like 1h", then i agree and support.

  • sneetch #37 3 years ago

    @merkdot
    "actually, I take it back, it's not even hard with a badly organised group anyway."

    I was just going to say that. :)

    The challenge came from getting people to do their parts at the right time, the difficulty that I remember was more in filling the groups for raids rather than dungeons. A lot of that was that we had to have the cookie cutter group specified in whatever guide the raid leaders had read, we needed prot warriors, feral druids, resto druids and holy priests and the annoyance was in the hassle and cost of switching from one to the other for a raid and back. It's just tedious. It's the same in heroics, a prot warrior and specialised healer is required for a lot of them, especially when your gear isn't that great, and the gold cost of switching over and back between specs just meant that more and more of our priests and warriors just went PVP or PVE, they didn't switch over and back, they just dropped one half of the content. That is not good.

    Not to mention that there are few sights sadder than watching a holy priest or prot warrior trying to level. :)

    @apologie
    You can do two different things very competently anyway, you just have to go to a trainer, pay your gold and respec. A lot easier than levelling up (and equipping) a second character.

    Edit: Damn! I'm a slow typist. :)
    Edited by 1 at 10/12/08 @ 16:22

  • dudefella #38 3 years ago

    I want that feature sooner rather than later. I have a Paladin and I'd love to have a healing or tanking spec on the side, but no way am I levelling to 80 with either of those.

  • sneetch #39 3 years ago

    @Apologie
    ""as there will be some kind of as yet unspecified cooldown to talent changes"

    ...if there is a big cooldown "like 1h", then i agree and support."

    Yep, I like the sound of that, Blizzard said "it will be trivial to do in town. You will also be able to do it out of towns, but not as trivially," I imagine that will mean that you can go to the trainer in town and switch over and back at will but outside of town there will be a hefty cooldown.

    Allowing frequent changes wouldn't work, an obvious problem would be with druids: a mod that switches talent builds when you switch between feral form and caster, *bing* bear - full 71 pt feral, *bing* caster - 71 pt healer/nuker. Now that would be broken.

  • bigbadbeasty #40 3 years ago

    Will it change armour too?

    Could be a another clever time/money sink, but I can see it being a need or greed nightmare.

  • Apologie #41 3 years ago

    bigbadbeasty

    "I can see it being a need or greed nightmare"....

    yeah, Blizzard have to be very carefull concerning that too... as i said, it can be done with cooldown and some tweaks regarding thigs such as the one you mentioned.. but they have to be really clever not mess the experience.

  • Benno #42 3 years ago

    "
    Edit: My brother now plays a warlock while I used to. I quit before TBC. He now reports that he does more (raid) damage with a destruction spec than with an affliction spec! How retarded is this? It's incredibly hard to play an affliction warlock right, it should do the most damage, like it's always done."

    Since TBC, 1 button destruction spamming has always out dpsed affliction

  • Apologie #43 3 years ago

    I have a Paladin... but given the fact that they will apply this changes in the next patch, i better pick my Druid again, they will be sick.

  • Benno #44 3 years ago

    They'll be no different?

  • Benno #45 3 years ago

    Spell power change was bigger for hybrids.

  • Emth #46 3 years ago

    I'm sure anyone who plays a hybrid class will all join me in saying:

    This change can't come soon enough.

  • Canyarion #47 3 years ago

    @Benno "Since TBC, 1 button destruction spamming has always out dpsed affliction "

    :-( That's just retarded.

    In the pre-TBC days I used to be in my guild's damage top 5 (sometimes top 3), the lone warlock among mages and rogues. It took a lot of effort and micro-management, but it was fun. My brother plays his warlock as a mage... such a shame.

    Of course the coolest thing I've done was tank at the Twin Emperors.

  • Wyrm #48 3 years ago

    "if I can't complete something with a ridiculous dps spec I'll just flip to prot."

    You can do that anyway, this just makes it easier to do so.

  • Surferrosa #49 3 years ago

    Halle-freakin-llujah!
    As a dr00d this is the change I have been awaiting for such a long, long time.

  • TsunamiRR #50 3 years ago

    I dont agree with this dual-specc thing.

  • mikeck #51 3 years ago

    @sneetch

    "Not to mention that there are few sights sadder than watching a holy priest or prot warrior trying to level. :)"

    I know this was said in jest, but I seriously had no problems levelling as a prot warrior at all. I got to 57 without changing spec (although I did respec finally in the end just to try playing a warrior differently, but I just missed not being able to sit and soak up vast amounts of damage).

    I think this idea of dual-speccing could work well for getting into a group quickly to tackle instances/raids, and it also doesn't punish people for respeccing when they only want that build for a few hours at a time.

  • gremly #52 3 years ago

    farticusmaximus - Rouges run rampant on ours, Two for a penny XD

  • levitate #53 3 years ago

    Best idea Blizz has had since sliced bread. And they didn't even invent that one!

  • Drasolo #54 3 years ago

    If i dont completly misunderstand the info around "dual-spec" there will be some difficulty regarding where and how to respec.. U cant respec inside a doungeon or a raid, if u go in a raid as a prot pally u have to be that althrough the raid,, but ofc i can be wrong,, and yes you would need to carry aroud 2 sets of gear,, no point in trying to heal in tanking gear
    Edited by 1 at 02/01/09 @ 17:32