Multiple-Ailis Disorder
We’ll call it MAD for short. After Patch 3.1 drops, I will officially have and be MAD. I will be so MAD, in fact, that you will never know which Ailis you’re talking to at any one given time.
Why?
Dual-specs, baby.
Dual-specs. That much anticipated feature that will allow anyone (if you’ve forked over 1000g), at any time (while not in combat), to swap specs. Classes everywhere rejoice!
Wait, you’re a what? Not a hybrid? Wait a moment. *consults her hunter husband*
Ohh, so some of you pew pew, boom boom, slashie slashie folks aren’t really jazzed about this. That’s cool, man. *examines her fingernails*
For the rest of us awesome hybrid bad-asses, this is a wonderful, beautiful thing.
No more “I brought my heal gear in case you need me to spot heal in this fight.” or “Do you need me to throw on my tank set for the chow?” or “I put on my one piece of hit gear for the MC on Raz.” It will instead be a lot of “Oh, you need me to heal on this fight?” *click* “You need me to tank on this fight?” *click* “You need me to be ranged on this fight?” *click*
Dual-specs, for those of you ardently avoiding patch notes and the myriad of blogs devoted to the subject (which means they wouln’t be here, Ailis. Hush you.), is a crazy new feature designed to give you two full talent trees, glyph panes, outfits and action bars to swap between at your disposal if you are not currently in combat. You can go Heal/Tank, Tank/DPS, DPS/Heal, PvE/PvP, Heal/Heal, and many many more options.
So, me? Yeah, I’ll be going the way of a lot of shamans and go Enhancment/Restoration. Ever since I heard rumors about the dual-specs, I’ve been ardently rolling on any offspec mp5 mail that drops…which is a lot and, funny, no one else wants it. So you never know, will I be Bash-faces-in-Ailis or Save-lives-Ailis?
For the hybrid classes (Shamans, Paladins, Druids to name a few), this is a huge boon to us as it makes us a lot more flexible in raids. In one full run of, say, Heroic Naxxramas, you will need anywhere from 4-6 healers depending on the boss. When this is implemented, you could, feasibly, bring 3-4 dedicated healers and 2-3 hybrids who can flip to their healing spec when the fight requires it and go back to tanking or dps’ing when they can. This opens up a lot more variety in who to bring on raids and a lot more flexibility – don’t have 5 healers online tonight? Bring a druid, paladin or shaman who has healing as their second spec. Same with tanks and even the difference between melee and ranged dps. Have too much melee for KT? Kitty, please to transform into mister owl-bear and go pew pew?
However, does it do a little bit of injustice to the pure classes? Are rogues, hunters, warlocks and mages going to get a little bit of snubbery because they can’t flip around to fill needed roles? I don’t think so, actually. Each of the pure classes provide skills and services that the hybrid classes, in most cases, cannot.
What it will do, is require you to be on your toes as you cannot switch specs in the middle of a fight. Decide who is going to be in what role before the fight starts and, for those of us stepping into Ulduar knowing very little (if anything) about the boss encounters, hoping you made the right decision to have me go dps instead of heals for this guy.
How about you? Are you going to dual-spec it up or stick with the solo spec you have going now?
