Anyone else feel Locked inFollow

to their Spec at 70?

I am deep frost and a Tailor so I have been making the Shadoweave set.

The thought hit me last night that it might be fun to try Fire or Arcane/Fire.
After further consideration, I realized how deeply I'm in to this spec for $$ and how much it would cost to switch.

Doesn't it seem like once we hit 70 our choices are, Stay with your spec or prepare for the Wallet raping to switch?


Seems like a little versatility would be nice.
Any thoughts?

You can kind of feel that way, if your guild is requiring you to spec a certain way and you do not like it, then maybe it isn't the right guild for you. My guild doesn't 100% require us to be the most damaging, but it is highly suggested.

Ideally you'd get your spellfire for PVE, and PVP gear for PVP. One day I'll level tailoring and thats the route I'll take. A quick 50g respec from frost to fire for raids, but I won't bother with the FSW set even though I'm frost.

Personally, I kinda like the idea of being "locked into a spec" without having to make a huge investment to change it over. "Spec" means "specialization", and that has "special" in there. That's one of the reasons why I dislike cookie-cutter specs and constant respeccing per week for both PvE and PvP. Your character is supposed to be weak in certain aspects and strong in certain aspects. That's one of the reasons that I love utility talents as well- it makes people sacrifice the highest DPS possible (which is usually a cookie-cutter spec) for abilities that people find more handy.

I don't really like the concept of speccing for the optimal PvP spec and then respeccing for the optimal PvE spec every week. I prefer to spec something which is optimal in neither aspect but does fairly well in both, if I plan to do both PvP and PvE. That brings me to actually say that 50G is no longer too expensive for constant respeccing. Respeccing, to me, should be done only when you feel it's time to change your favorite kind of gameplay (or, of course, to fix outleveled or outdated talents) from outdoor PvE to 5-mans to 25-mans to BG Clusterfooks to 2v2 Arena with a certain class partner to something inbetween.

I'm not going to berate anyone for respeccing on a constant basis to play optimal specs for both PvE and PvP, but it's my personal feeling that this is not what the developers intended with the talent system.

All that being said, yeah, I do feel kinda locked into my spec because I don't do enough dailies to have gold easily come in. I don't have my epic mount for Netherwing dailies yet, and only recently got my Ogri'la ones.

I agree Raglu in many ways, my respeccing is more of a learning all about the class to find what works best for me and what I enjoy, after all, that's what matters the most, enjoying the game. I like to try and learn and feel what the class can be to its max. Whether its utilizing the PTR's for free testing of specs or spending the gold to respec in the game. I also resist the temptation to immediately switch until I have at least a few levels with that spec under my belt, as was the extreme urge when I switched from EDIT : FIRE TO FROST at 50 (now 60). Glad I did. Had a chance to try the arcane specs that have a little frost or fire (to me they aren't fire or frost specs but arcane, such as 40/21/0 or 40/0/21 - sorry tangent). I tried the three minute mage spec and some variations on the PTR as well as realized any variation of arcane for me is not going to cut it. With better gear, at 70, perhaps I will try it again, same with fire. But I am still relegated to sticking with frost and creating a fire alt if I desire to do so. In the meantime I can still tailor and wear some other gear, battlecast and others I believe if I did switch. If I chose to stay fire at 70 with shadoweave specialization and tried out the other gear and found it was the most enjoyable, then I may switch the specialization. Highly improbable, but stranger things have happened. AS to me its just a game, so no biggy. :)

Your comments on specialization are spot on and I feel that is how Blizz intended it.

Edited, Jan 9th 2008 6:37pm by spicyoctopusroll

Well, that's the way this game works. My raiding spec is 14/0/47, and my PvP spec is 20/0/41. My rogue partner shifts from 16/45 mace/swords to (I think) 16/45 maces. Those little spec changes make all the difference, though.