Specing the Alts

I took care of my main, the Hunter, my secondary character, the Priest and my utility character that I use mostly to help others with, my Druid, all the day 4.0.1 came out.  Being these are my three most played characters I read the most on them so I was ready to go basically.  I knew what I was doing.  All the other classes I read on but not as much and as it seems (I will explain) there is one class I totally over looked when reading about things.

Last night I raided for the first time since the change and I speced out my Rogue, Mage, Warlock, Paladin and Shaman.  The following is just personal observations from my journey through that.  Only two more classes for me to finish up tonight, my Warrior and my Death Knight and then my return to ICC to see how things work.

New Raid Frames:
Wow, that is all I can say.  I love it.  The pull out markers, ready check, role check.  The size adjustments, the ability to move the frame, the display of the frame.  I can use this for healing if I wanted to.  I mean in truth I only use my instants on healbot, everything else is a mouse over.  I am just more comfortable with mouse overs.  I use healbot for the instants so it is easier to cast while moving.  I might try using the raid frames to heal from and learn how to make a right click, left click and middle click mouse over for my instants.  It is the best part of this update so far in my opinion.

Raid DPS:
We went to do a few bosses in Naxx instead of just the weekly boss.  It was a good way for us to test out how our new set ups work.  I did 8300 DPS on Patchwork.  Not as much as I usually do but doing it surely helped me work on my rotation some.  Hard to get things like that working right with heroics.  Nothing lasts long enough to do a rotation on.  Over all I was happy with 8300 DPS on Patch.  Not awesome but not horrible either by any measure. 

Raiding with my Cat:
I also loved that I could bring my cat back out.  Poor little kitty cat has been sitting in the stables since I hit 80.  He was my first pet ever and I leveled with him from the moment I got him to 80.  I never used any other pets until I hit 80.  I can not speak for any other Hunters out there but from my own perspective I got attached to my cat.  He was more then just my pet, he was my buddy while leveling and it was really fun to run with him again and you can tell he was happy to be back out, it looked like he had a bounce in his step.  He still had growl on from way back when.  I even forgot to turn it off.  Oops.  We all have huntard moments.

Rogues:
Okay, I'll admit it.  While I read on every spec at least some so I had a basic knowledge of what was happening I paid the least attention to the Rogue.  Mostly because I hate Rogues.  How I got to level 72 is beyond me. As long as I get to 75 I can probably forget about him until the next expansion.  75 is all you need to get your professions up to 525 so that is all that matters to me at the moment. 

Well, when respecing him I noticed something that I had not before, because I didn't pay much attention to the changes it seems, they now have a heal.  Rogues have a heal?  How the hell did I miss that one.  The best part of it is that even if your target dies with combo points on it your combo points are not wasted, you can still get the heal off it.  That is insane and I love it.  Will make leveling a lot easier.

Oh well, I knew hunger for blood and some other abilities were leaving and while I will miss it because I had gotten used to it I knew it was coming so it was nothing to be upset with.  The replacement does the same thing basically but I do not need to have a bleed on a target and it has a 2 minute cooldown.  I'll adjust to that easily enough, if anything, with the exception of the 2 minute cooldown, I consider this a nice upgrade.  Nothing worse then working your way up to a target in stealth and an AoE knocks me out so I never get the chance to apply my opening shot and hunger off the bat.

Another two things happened that I did not notice.  Poisons are no longer different levels.  You buy a base poison and it levels with you.  So the levels on poison now are the levels in which you are allowed to use them and no longer will you need to get a new poison all the time.  If you want to use deadly poisons just stock up on them, they will level with you.  You will not have to worry about buying the next level up and selling off all the excess ones.  I like that change.  Small, but nice.

Now for the surprise change that really surprised me.  I've been at 320 lockpicking for a while and been looking for some boxes to get it to 325.  I had a few 325 boxes waiting to be opened, a few 350s and a few 375s.  When looking through my bags I noticed I had 3 boxes that were yellow, so I opened them, I mean, that is what I do.  Then it occurred to me that those where 325 boxes.  I was thinking maybe I remembered wrong and it was 350 I was close to and not 325.  I also did not get any skill ups on the three yellows which bugged me. 

I went to my bank to get 2 more 325s I had sitting in there out to open being I can open them now and noticed that I could open the 350s now as well.  What was this?  I popped them out, opened the 6 of them and did not get even one skill point again.  So I hovered over my lockpick skill and noticed it said 360 which just happens to be 72 x 5.  Holy crap.  Our lockpick skill now levels with our level.  No more busting my ass trying to level it.  Cool, that makes life so much easier.  Sucks I spent so many hours farming boxes now however, but worse for those that did it before me.  Sorry about that guys, but I love this change for Rogues for sure.

Warlock:
Three of my four demons seem to have left me and been replaced by impostors with different names.  I do like my new name for my Fel Hunter but the other two are a bit lackluster.  I am only level 37 so there where not a ton of new things for me to worry about changing.  I like that there is no longer demon skin and demon armor.  Never made sense to me to have two of the same exact thing with one so inferior, it is now just one thing.  The freeing up of soul stone spaces in my bag is a nice thing as well.  I always kept about 8-10 on me so that means 8-10 free bag spots now.  Same as on my Hunter who always carried 9 stacks of arrow.  More bag space is always a good update.  Not much for my level has really changed.  I have a feeling my rotation will not change much either with the exception of one thing maybe at this level.  So adjusting to this will be easy.

Paladin:
Okay, I am retribution so what is with all these freaking healing spells I am learning.  I lost might and wisdom but kings is a nice adjustment.  I'll get might later on which is combined with wisdom now.  Only 47 now.  Lost a lot of other goodies, but nothing that really upsets me even in the slightest. 

I am a bit confused with the new seals, will have to visit a few pally sites and get some more reading done.  While the fact remains that I read some awesome, and I do mean awesome, articles over at Paladin Schmaladin a few times each I still seem a bit at a loss so I will read them again today. 

I like playing my pally because it is stupid easy while leveling.  I was always above 90% health and 90% mana.  From what some of my guildies are saying it will not be like that any more but I have no issues with that.  Always thought it was too easy to begin with.  I did notice while resetting my bars there are actually three new things I can use in my standard attack rotation even at my low level.  I love that.  So much nicer then just auto attacking waiting for judgement or my hammer to light up at 20%.  While it was easy leveling it sometimes got boring as sin.

Shaman:
Okay, I need to do some reading here because I have to be missing something.  I notice basically nothing big.  Where are the changes?  If there were huge changes then they where something I overlooked.  I see no real change to my rotation as Enhancement with the exception of a totem change.  Nothing much to see here.  Maybe I missed something but even after reading a few guides, outside of the totem thing and fire nova, everything else seem the same.

Mage:
Okay, someone at Blizzard on the head design team must play a Mage.  The Mage is so over powered it is unfair to everyone, even the Mage itself.  What fun is there really when everything dies in 1 shot sometimes, 2 mostly and 3 at the worst.  I am level 63 and doing 4K and 6K crits nearly every 6th or 7th hit.  6K crits!!!  At level 63!!!  Why the hell? 

I decided to join the query for a dungeon and see what was up with this.  Single target, let me repeat, single target and not AoE spam, I was pulling 2300 DPS at level 63.  I averaged around 1400 DPS over all but on boss fights over 2K at 63 was stupid easy.  There is usually at least one DPS, sometimes two, in my level 80 random heroics that can not even do 2300 and here is a Mage at level 63, not 80, being played by someone that is not a Mage expert by any means doing more then level 80s with a 5K gear score. 

Where is the fun in this?  I am going to be doing some PvP just for the sake of easy HKs before they fix this because you know they are going to have to.  Oh BTW, I always also always at 100% mana, so mana is not an issue any more for Mages which is a good thing because the changes to food suck majorly.  The drop down ports are awesome however.  So much toolbar space has been saved now.

As far as skills, I miss having my Mage Armor, it is later in the tree now at level 68 and I am not there yet, even if I do not need the mana.  It was still something I had gotten used to using.  Habits are hard to break.  Not much that I noticed over all otherwise.  Some things changed slightly but nothing hugely.  Even if there were something to complain about being able to do more then most 80s can do in heroics while only at level 63 takes away all my rights to complain about anything.

Dual Spec:
There is no reason any one has to not have dual spec any more.  As a raid leader I was always willing to except people saying thing like "I really only like this spec so the extra money is not worth it.".  While 1000 gold is not a lot for many for some it is so I can accept that.  Now that it is 100 gold there is no reason for anyone to not have dual spec on their characters.  Even if it is for a spec they will never use or rarely use, why not have it.  I still need to Dual Spec a few of my characters but I am deciding on them now.

Hunter: I've been BM/MM forever, still am now.
Priest: I was only Disc but now that Disc and Holy use the same gear I am now Disc/Holy but might go to Disc/Disc PvP.
Druid: Started Bear/Cat, did not like Cat and Chicken never interested me so I've been and still am Bear/Tree forever now.
Death Knight: Leveled Blood, Dual Speced Blood Tank/DPS at 80.  Of course will still be Blood Tank but not sure on what I am going to do for a DPS spec yet.  Still undecided.
Rogue: Started Combat and switched to Assassination.  Speced Assassination last night, will Dual Spec Combat later when I read up more on it.
Warrior: Prot Prot Baby.  It's like Ice Ice Baby, only cool.  There were never any other options for me and I doubt there ever will be even if Prot is pretty much screwed.  Not sure what I will Dual Spec, I'll decide later.
Warlock: I am only level 37 so can't do it yet but I am Aff now and will add Demo when the time comes.
Shaman: Enhancement is the way for me.  I hate melee but love Shammy melee for some reason.  Will Dual Spec Resto most likely being healers are always needed but want to try Elemental for earthquake fun first then I will go back.
Mage: Frost is for Questing, Arcane is for Dungeons. Rather simple even if everyone is loving on Fire lately.
Paladin: Ret without a doubt.  I made this character to be my gatherer and that is a good gathering spec.  Secondary is still undecided.  Do I want to Holy heal?  I already have 2 healers, possibly 3 with my Shaman.  Do I want to tank?  I already have 3, do I need all 4?  I might just level to 80 at Ret and then flip a coin.

Either way, even if I was just starting now and made all 10 classes then Dual Speced at 100 gold each it would only equal the price of what 1 Dual Spec had cost before.  There is no reason anyone should not be Dual Speced ever again.