Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

Peyana — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:12 GMT

Great info but the grammar needs work! It seems nobody proofread this article before it was published.

I like the idea of not having to carry around 2 sets of gear--one for solo questing and one for healing. I also have a major healing set in the bank that I have to pull out and switch with my currently equipped gear when I go to dungeons and where I need to do some heavy-duty healing. It will be interesting to see if it truly takes the place of different gear, or if you will still need special pieces for specialized healing/spell damage.

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

Sproggs — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:11 GMT

Well, won't really have an effect on me, since I'm a hunter. But if all is as it seems I'm sure the healers will highly appreciate this ^_^ Though, if they're concerned about players consuming content to fast, aren't they actually depleting the total number of estimated hours of gameplay? Players won't have to work for multiple sets, so there won't be as much to do. Hmm...well, we shall see. Hopefully it's as good as it seems =)

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

Zyuu — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:10 GMT

Hey Peyana,

Thanks for the feedback, I'm working on improving the grammar, I'm Swedish myself so there's a few grammar mistakes I tend to repeat, no matter how fluent I am. It's annoying and something I want out of the way asap.

Usually I have someone helping out to proof my articles or I go through them carefully myself. I really like getting feedback like this, if there's anything else, don't hesitate to PM me or post here!

Edit: and I can't edit the article due to a cache bug or I would already have taken care of the grammar mistakes. When the new Curse site is out, you'll see articles corrected right away. Again, thanks for the feedback.

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

christinme7890 — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:09 GMT

at least you guys can have different sets and solo or instance. Wars have to respec if they want a fighting chance as one or the other. respecing takes a lot of G and I wish it were as easy as being able to carry around two sets of gear. I would much rather have to find gear than have to spend a ton of gold just to switch between fury and tank.

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

gunnerfirestorm — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:08 GMT

zyuu

hey thats cool if you are swedish born, it helps to understand that not every one that contributes to curse is american born and fluent with the language. thank you for the article, grammer mistakes or not

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

Shadowhunter56 — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:07 GMT

Wow, i think i might actually start to level a priest! thanks for the new info!

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

jasdub — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:06 GMT

I agree with christin. I have 3 toons and none of them can compare to my Warrior with gold spent on respeccing. I'd like to tank permanently but it's almost a crime skipping on weekly arena points, which for me requires Arms(ms). I take both seriously so I'd like to spec accordingly to each type of game play.

The worst part is when you have to respec more than twice in one week. Since things aren't always planned out, this tends to happen more often than you may think.

Then I'm on my hunter in lfg for the daily heroic and there's about 20 people there and not one tank. Why am I not suprised.

there should be some kind of daily respec quest for wars. Something that involves a wooden dummy like the one Brandon Lee practiced on in Enter the Dragon.

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

Meilung — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:05 GMT

So what are you going to do about the differences needed by druids? I know you can't make a feral and healing set, but I have to carry three sets around with me, one for dps, one for tanking, and one for healing. Nevermind PvP, luckily I don't do that very often.. or I'd have another set in my bank taking up space along with my resistance gear. I've looked at the set pieces for feral which seem to try and encompass both feral dps and feral tanking... but honestly... they fall waaaaay short as a set. I've actually decided not to get them because it would be a waste of my time. If I get it, cool, but I'm not going to try for it.

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

Yutaka — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:04 GMT

I cannot say this enough times: I hate respeccing!!! My frost mage main has done it once, to erase the mistakes I made when leveling my first ever WoW toon. I did it when I was 70, and my spec was very thoroughly thought out for raiding.

My druid is 64, and his spec is designed to let him tank, or heal. Mainly tank, but I've put on a different set of gear and played heals for instances that I would otherwise tank, and done just fine that way. I like that flexibility.

As has been pointed out here, we can currently at least change gear and be able to at least reasonably dps in resto spec, or heal as a dps spec. I don't have any toons right now that would immediately be harmed by this change, but when I do, I don't want to have to start respeccing every time I want to at least contribute to a role that isn't my primary spec. They'd be taking the change a little while ago to have some +dmg on resto gear, and going right back to the way they were before they gave resto specs any dps ability.

Also, if they make spell dmg / healing a talent issue, will it default to damage? And I'll have to spend more points in resto to convert it to +heals?

What I'd like to see is some kind of independant tab or screen that just has a slider. You can only adjust it out of combat. On one end, it has 1:1. 50 +dmg, 50 +heals from an item with +50 spell power (or whatever they call the new bonus). On the other end of the slider, is 1:3, or 25 +dmg, 75 +heals (or whatever the ratio normally is) from the same item with +50. Maybe the slider's retarded, and it should just be a toggle on the character tab (spell tab in talent pane?) that says Damage ratio or Healing ratio.

Anyways, something we don't have to pay gold to respec to adjust for our situation is what I feel is the most important here.

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

hamor — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:03 GMT

I'm not sure what to think of the spell damage change... Yes, it will be awesome to carry around fewer item sets, but consider the cost:

1) You will no longer be able to switch your task in a group simply be switching your gear, as is possible paladins and Druids switching between DPS and healing.

2) If you want to change from healing an instance to soloing moderately effectively, you will now need to respec.

3) Any time you want to switch between healing and DPS, regardless of reason, you will need to spend the time and money to get to a respec vendor.

4) There is little (or at least no un-corectable) risk in switching gear, especially with something like ItemRack. You can easily, however, misspend a talent point and thus have to pay for yet another respec.

In the face of these issues, is this really a good idea? Will we get some sort of a respec quota or a lowering of respec max cost? Will classes that need to respec often (primarily tanks that wish to PvP) have some form of easier respeccing?

Until these questions are answered, I warily withhold judgement.

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

2rbear — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:02 GMT

I have a druid as well, and know exactly what you're talking about <.<
But,

*20-slot bags FTW!* ^^ But still, it's not fun having gear fill half of my bag slots >.<

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

Kody — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:01 GMT

hamor:

From all accounts I've heard, the only difference is +Healing will be the same values as +Damage. Consider it a "Spellpower" effect rather than two different bonuses based on the type of spell. You'll still be able to DPS as a healer when needed. :)

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

twistdillusions — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:40:00 GMT

And of course, Zyuu, I guarantee that your English is a hell of a lot better than any of our Swedish.

Keep up the good work.

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

InkySquid — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:39:59 GMT

ok, now I'm really confused... Like Hamor and some others my first impression was that you'd have to respec from healing based holy pally to spelldamage based holy pally (or bite the bullet and get totally new gear and gop ret) if this change goes ahead.

but, from what you wrote Kody, does it simply mean that +healing is going to be nerfed down to the level of +spelldamage. for example, in raid gear I have about 2200+healing and 700+damage (roughly) and in questing/messing about gear I have 1200+damage and healing approx, at least it's much closer split.

So does it mean All healers get nerfed to the spelldamage bonus, or you spend talents to get an increased healing amount based on your spell damage (like 3 talents max for 2:1, 3:1 4:1) so that damage and healing aren't nerfed and you can still do dps and healing when you want to?

dunno if I've explained myself well here but it's really got me confused.

EDIT: As an afterthought, getting new gear for this change if it is necessary isn't really going to be much of an issue since Blizz are likely to have us replace all our shiny epics with lvl 71 green stuff.

Say goodbye to Spell-damage only gear in WotLK

Carnacki — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:39:58 GMT

Really depends on how they choose to implement this. If they use a spellpower rating there isn't necessarily a need to respec.

Look at it this way, cast a healing spell it take the spellpower rating and multiplies it by 3 to give +heal. Cast a DPS spell it multiplies the spellpower by one to give +dmg. That would give no difference to performance from what we see now. It just makes things easier to manage. Obviously respeccing would give you a boost to healing/DPS but that's no different to how it works now. The way I see it this will eliminate the "ah crap why didn't a healing piece drop" complaints we see in raids. The introduction of three class Tier pieces helped, this flattens it out even further. Makes it easier for casual players to get decent gear (so I expect more bitching from hardcore raiders).

Of course there would be a need to convert all the old gear to that system, which makes me wonder what happens to the old T4/5/6 sets if you have multiples already.