Maybe Rogues are the exception again. My PVE spec is piled high with every super duper burst damage talent I could squeeze in to one-shot Kvaldir for the tourney dailies, while my raiding spec is into increasing longer-term damage and poisons for raid buffs. But both are still uniquely roguish. So I for one am happy with the dual-spec mechanic.
Why is there the expectation that you should be able to 'min-max' for both burst and sustained damage? Why is that not a choice that you make, akin to the choice one makes regarding one's class and race selections?
Sure, some specs perform poorly in certain environments (i.e. PvP, soloing, etc.) but I would've preferred to have seen the performance of those specs in those areas addressed, rather than having it be made easier to spec something else.
A common argument I encounter against this is 'if I'm not 100% specced for raid DPS then my guild won't take me', but this fails to account for the fact that every player in the game would be facing the same choices. For the vast majority of the playerbase, folks would settle amongst those similarly-minded. Sure, you're probably not going to be getting world first kills with a mixed spec, but most folks aren't in that position anyway; and for those who are: again, why is it not acceptable to have an effective cost attached to pushing the very bleeding edge? In real life, someone who wants to set records usually has to give up a lot outside their chosen field to do so.
When I roll a Warlock, I do so knowing that I will never heal, that I will never tank (outside the Blueberry of course
) and that I will never have Blink or Cleanse or whatever. Why not the same with talents? Why not choices and consequences, strengths and weaknesses, of devotion to a set of ideals helping to shape your character's identity?
Because I'd like to do BGs and my affliction PvP spec is useless for raiding. I do both every day, so I have a PvP spec and my most frequently used PvE spec. One of the two gets changed every once in a while as well, if I'm the only lock in a ten man I usually respec destruction instead of affliction to get the mana return, burst dmg and crowd control. If I'm the only lock and there are lots of casters, I'll even respec Demo for DP. Affliction is the max dps build but only if there is full raid support behind you, but it is my favourite build.
The flexibility and enjoyment of being able to use my character when and how I want far outweighs any kind of roll playing consideration, and most people share my opinion. The game is simply more FUN this way. Remember fun? And your solution would be to constantly increase the price of respeccing until it's too expensive to ever do it again? Do you actually
play this game? Your ideas are quaint, but the reason things are the way they are now is because the game wasn't as flexible in Vanilla and BC and people complained about it long enough that Blizzard said "Fine, we'll allow you to chose two specs because we know so many of you are FORCED to change specs on a regular basis in order to raid or PvP". And I really do mean forced, Rii, because the WoW I play has a pretty hard core player base who doesn't want the "wrong" spec messing up their raid setup. I can't not respec on a frequent basis any more than I can ignore Gear Score. Even if I hate it, other people use it, and if I don't know my GS I can't get into pugs. I can sit around dalaran with my one utility PvP/PvE hybrid spec all day long getting passed up for the pure DPS specs of people who only raid with their characters, why should I do that?
You know what I used to do? I used to have to plan my weekends around PvP, because I'd have to spend money to respec for BGs and arena and while I was doing that I knew I couldn't raid. Now I can do some BGs, hop into a raid, go do some dailies while waiting for BGs, etc., and I never have to respec. That's a bad thing because being locked into one spec is good RP? Maybe they could get rid of dual specs on RP servers or something then.
I know your reasoning is based on the initial premise that the entire game should somehow revert back to the way it was four years ago, but I think the added flexibility in this area is nothing but a good thing for the game. Blizzard wants people to be active, have fun, and enjoy the activities they want without artificially set barriers like a 50g charge + 10g/glyph every time you want to change specs. It's hard enough for
some people to afford repairs, enchants and consumables as it is.
Luckily for you, it seems Blizzard has a few of the same ideas, and I do think it will make the game a bit more interesting. Being able to do the same damage in a raid as the guy beside you while having all kinds of different utility talent points in the build will make things even MORE flexible, but dual talents are never going away at this point. I'm looking forward to having maybe a destruction and an affliction build, both possibly suitable for PvP and PvE, that would be nice.
My warlock is undead, master of fire, shadow and terror,
that is his personality and character, not "master of 55/0/16 or 56/15/0 or 0/13/58".
I will eat your children using any spec.
