Dual-specs, questions for the devs

#0 - Dec. 22, 2008, 5:35 p.m.

I've searched high and low for information about dual specs. Some questions I found answers too but others I didn't. I still have a few questions and I'm sure others do too. I'm posting this in all the class role forums.

Will the current respec costs be reset or will they stay at the current 50g max?

How about the cost of our second spec? If the respec fee starts out at 10c or 1s (I forgot what it starts as) shouldn't our "main" respec fee be reset?

I'm pretty sure this has been answered before but I'll ask anyways. In regards to hunters and exotic pets. If I spec into the 51 point talent and I go to switch to survival how will I change pets? You said you wanted it to be somewhat easy to switch between specs but nothing trivial. Will we have a second pet that is automatically summoned when we switch specs? What about the extra four points our pet's talent trees have? How will those be taken away or replaced when changing specs?

Are there any plans to make switching gear sets easier? Healers, tanks and dps roles usually carry more than one set of gear. It can take up a lot of bag space and can be rather annoying at times. Is there a way to have your gear automatically switch when you change specs?

How do you think dual specs will affect addons that modify the action bars? It seems like it will be a hit and miss. The addons will either become broken or no harm, no foul and the addons work as intended.

That's all the questions I had right now. Feel free to add your own but please keep this civil. I don't want this thread turned into page after page of complaints about how dual specs will ruin the game or what needs to be done. This is for questions only.

EDIT: Added a question I just thought of.

Ghostcrawler

#2 - Dec. 22, 2008, 7:36 p.m.

Q u o t e:
Will the current respec costs be reset or will they stay at the current 50g max?

If you mean will respec costs be changed permanently, no. If you mean will the costs be reset or will you get a free respec when this goes live, possibly.

Q u o t e:
How about the cost of our second spec? If the respec fee starts out at 10c or 1s (I forgot what it starts as) shouldn't our "main" respec fee be reset?

A respec should be a respec.

Q u o t e:
I'm pretty sure this has been answered before but I'll ask anyways. In regards to hunters and exotic pets. If I spec into the 51 point talent and I go to switch to survival how will I change pets? You said you wanted it to be somewhat easy to switch between specs but nothing trivial. Will we have a second pet that is automatically summoned when we switch specs? What about the extra four points our pet's talent trees have? How will those be taken away or replaced when changing specs?

We have a solution for pets, but we're not ready to announce it yet. You'll like it.

Q u o t e:
Are there any plans to make switching gear sets easier? Healers, tanks and dps roles usually carry more than one set of gear. It can take up a lot of bag space and can be rather annoying at times. Is there a way to have your gear automatically switch when you change specs?

Not automatically, but we're aware of the issue and dual spec would be a really opportune time to examine it.

Q u o t e:
How do you think dual specs will affect addons that modify the action bars? It seems like it will be a hit and miss. The addons will either become broken or no harm, no foul and the addons work as intended.

I'm sure the addon authors will figure out how to make them work with the new system. Things can sometimes be a little rocky just following a patch if you use a lot of addons.

Ghostcrawler

#49 - Dec. 22, 2008, 11:55 p.m.

We haven't finalized the design, because ideally we want to be able to get it on a PTR and have players try it out.

Our thought at the moment is that swapping specs (going from A to B) will truly be free in towns and possibly during the prep phase of PvP. In an instance it may cost a nominal fee (think reagent level). We want you to be able to do it when you want to do it, but we also don't want to slow things down if everyone is constantly flipping spec from fight to fight. But if it's free in town, then obviously it can't be more of a burden out of town than just hearthing and being summoned back is or nobody will use the remote option.

Someone helpfully quoted our response on why we are likely to launch the feature with "only" 2 specs.