Theory of Dual Speccing

Most Europeans probably agree that, although it brought us many great things, the euro was very predictable. Of course it was the talk of the day for a long time, but as the day of voting approached, seemed the only ones laboring under the pretense that prices would not change and life would go on as it had before, were the politicians. Any layman with half a brain knew that would not be the case, and it wasn't. A simple example if I may; back during the days when we used marks, an average bus ticket would cost round about two marks plus some pennies. Now, the same trip costs two euros. Quite an upgrade, considering one euro is the equivalent of six old Finnish marks.

When I first read about dual spec, I felt excited, along with everyone else. After all, in my old guild especially, people were not respeccing to the roles that our raids would have demanded, simply because of the cost; 100g per change and they might have to change back and forth nearly every day. However, now you wouldn’t have that problem.

However, now looking back, it all seemed to be a really big hype. To justify that claim, lets examine who actually benefits from this, rather expensive skill. You can buy it as early as 40th level but it really only come handy when you reach max level. First is the sheer cost, most level 40s will not want to pay 1000 gold pieces for a skill like that, since they have many other expenses, like upgrading professions, purchasing mounts, and updating gear pieces they cannot get from dungeons.

And even at level 80 you have to question the necessity of it. Not only is it generally a big shock to completely change your role that you have grown so accustomed to, it takes a lot of effort to gear up again to the level at which you can start raiding with it. Harder in fact, since when you were leveling your character, you had the benefit of picking up nice instant blues from quests and good drops non-heroic dungeons. Next you have to learn the nuances of that role; something that is not as easy as one would think. I have seen paladins go into stupor when they moved from tanking to healing and death knights screw up big time when they moved to tanking.

Learning the classes, setting and getting comfortable with your new action buttons, the delicate details of what’s stupid and smart, all play into the difficulty curve of dual speccing and I have personally started to dislike that I spent 1000 gold on, somewhat useless talent. Some classes are actually incapable of getting much benefit at all from dual speccing. Just consider rogues and mages. They are both single role classes. Yes, they can dual spec to pvp but I personally know a lot of players who don’t care for pvp.

Of course, now that I’ve completely destroyed dual spec, let me close by saying that it is not completely without merit. There are situations when it is extremely useful, just that they are a lot fewer than we were originally led to believe. For a guild like ours, relatively small, I believe, benefits more from people who specialize into one role. Dual spec becomes an option once you have exhausted that role, when you believe you can do no more with it and next loot upgrade is far ahead in raids that the guild is not currently equipped to take on.

Heavier guilds, geared for the tougher challenges and many more raiding members, they are the true winners when it comes to dual talent specialization. The rest of us, I believe are better off waiting and spending our coins to more beneficial expenses.