gear against spec?Follow

Would it be worth attempting to gear up against my spec for more versatility? Or would that just be shooting myself in the foot?

What Im thinking of trying would be something along the lines of speccing mostly Feral and then picking up a bunch of +heal and intellect gear. Good? Bad? Ugly?

Definitely collect a set of healing gear as well. There have been a few times where I have off-healed in a 5 man or in Karazhan. Also, if you ever decide you want a change, you can respec whenever you like and you already have the gear waiting for you. I even keep a set of Balance gear in the bank. Mind you - I never roll against someone for my off-spec gear. It's purely if it isn't needed.

As a druid I think it's always useful to carry more than one gear set with you (or at least have it in the bank).

On my feral druid I have a tank set, kitty dps and healing set (10k mana, 1k +heal). I doubt I could main heal anywhere with that set and feral spec, but sometimes during an instance it's useful to be able to chuck some healing gear on and back-up heal.

Particularly in fight with a lot of aoe and a melee heavy group, one more melee to heal is a pain for your healer. (e.g. last slave pens boss on heroic, maiden of virtue).

Having the gear to switch roles gives you versatility and makes you more useful in some situations then a rogue or warrior off-tank would be.

I've collected my gear from stuff that no-one else needed and quest/rep rewards. It's not hard to pick up a healing set on the side and it does give you a nice base if you ever decide to go resto.

Aslo I'm not sure what level you are but I healed up to BRD level as feral spec in the casting gear I'd collected, in outland though I really wouldn't want to try that. But at 60+ I found I was quite wanted as a tank anyway.

I'd stick to wearing the gear for the role I wanted to do (so no dpsing with +500 heal kit), but find it useful to have the gear there if I need to heal for a bit.

Good to know. I have +1200 healing gear I carry with me everywhere. I haven't been game to accept a Main Heal role on an instance because I wasn't sure how well I could handle it. Might try and give it a go.

I am a 49 resto druid, i have a full +healing gearset, a +int/spir gearset and a mele gearset, i solo in the mele i've even tanked once in it. it's always good to have multiple gearsets. true as a feral you won't heal like a resto and a resto won't tank like a feral. but it is nice to have some wiggle room.

I use Outfitter, and it is a tremendous help. Bear in mind (no pun intended) though that you can't change clothes when you are in combat. So popping out of bear form to heal yourself mid-battle isn't going to work. I mean, it will work, but you'll still be wearing your tanking set. Even worse is to be in caster form when combat starts, and you go bear and end up tanking in your caster clothes.


Edited, Jul 26th 2007 10:49am by Zalophus

I'll have to try Wardrobe then. I agree that's a shortcoming of Outfitter; no easy way to disable it. It can be a real nuisance in an instance.

Urh? No comprendo. How is that any different from Outfitter? It's not like Outfitter obnoxiously picks your gear sets for you based on form and stats -- you pick exactly what you want to be wearing in each form, and also in common scenarios like "Around Town." Then you can set up custom sets. I have a set I call "Smartypants" which is my +int/+spirit gear, mostly for healing but casting dps when the mood strikes, and "Combatmedic" for when I want to be dealing decent damage but able to heal myself and partymates.

Like you I have a melee-capable set of gear set to my "Normal" form so that I'm OK if I get jumped. It's a mix of my +int and bear form gear so I have more mana and stam/armor than my dps form. My theory is that I can fight if I want or get away if I'm a-scared.




The inability to swap gear while you're in combat is not a shortcoming of Outfitter--it's a WoW thang. You can't ever even MANUALLY swap gear (other than your weapon) when you are "in combat." So neither Outfitter nor Wardrobe nor ItemRack can get around that. ("He says with 99% confidence...")

/bowdown rarebeast

Double post.

Edited, Jul 28th 2007 11:10am by LRCollier

i was thinking the opposite: im in the lvl 55-59 grind and im getting bored with the one dimensional purpose of the cat form: ganking. I was thinking keeping all the str and agility for bear form and speccing for the treants. so for 'spell interrupt likely' random pvp encounters, it would be summon treants-bear form -engage, stun, get reasonable crits-transform -heal-moonfire crits as a finisher. only prob obviously is mana, but it may liven things up and get me to the 60 threshold so i can completly regear up.

if i recall there is something in feral that gives 20% boost to intellect, so you could have an impressive mana pool. for ganking greys, you dont need alot of str agil gear unless yo get off on 1 hits :). your still looking at tranforms to heal so you would need to lean balance as your combat initiate for pve. pvp it doesnt sound that great to have that set, as battles end in 1 min or less you need to hit fast and hard quick; and exposed cat is so vulnerable it sucks. depends..

worth trying, if your rich and dont mind having to respec if it sucks. if your up to 50g respeccs then thats a 100g proposal.