What Will Dynamic Armor Mean to You? Part 2

Part 2 - Every positive has a negitive

While over all most people seem excited about the coming changes to armor types there are a few that are complaining about it.  Mostly the people I see complaining the most are the ones that are losing the most because of this change.  Holy paladins.  The only class / spec in the game that had an entire set of armor all to itself.

Usually if you had a holy paladin in your raid, and it was the only one, it was most likely the best geared character on the raid team.  It always seemed that holy paladin gear drops at the same clip as all other gear in the grand scheme of things even if only one spec could use it, but being that only one class / spec can use it, it often seems like "is this the only thing that ever drops, intellect plate gear". 

Who out there has never said that?  If you have never said that you either 1) raid with a lot of holy paladins or 2) you have an extremely small amount of raid experience.

In my main 10 man the last time we had a regular holy paladin was firelands. In the 3 10 mans and 1 25 man we have running now we have 1 holy paladin and at that he is only a part time player usually only maiking 75% of the raids.  This mean a massive amount of intellect plate gear gets disenchanted.  Nice for making the current BoE items for our raiders, bad for getting actual gear upfront for them.

So the change is great for many, but hell for the holy paladin.  From their standpoint this is a huge negative.  They had the run of the roost.  Anything that was plate and had intellect was theirs, no ifs, ands or buts about it.  No one else could use it.  Now they need to roll against prot paladins, ret paladins, arms warriors, prot warriors, fury warriors, blood DKs, unholy DKs and forst DKs.  So going from all the gear belonging to them to having to compete with 8 other specs for it, this is a freaking nightmare for our plate dress wearing friends.

Sorry if I do not feel their pain.  Seeing our first two thunderforged pieces ever to drop in ToT being disenchanted because we had no holy paladins and seeing countless other pieces being disenchanted when so many others could have used something, I do not feel their pain.  Not at all.

But I regress, there are negatives for all classes when it comes to competition.  Every single class will have more of it.  Now my hunter loot needs to be shared with elemental shaman and restoration shaman.  I would say we always shared with enhancement shaman but outside of myself I have only ever seen 2 other people in my entire history of playing the game that played enhancement shaman.  So they where never competition anyway.

In the end, we all have extra competition for gear now thanks to all gear being used by everyone.  So the positive is no more wasted gear, at least until everyone is geared up, but the negative is more competition for said gear.

Do you really consider this a negative?

I personally don't mind really.  But then again, I am not a holy paladin used to getting all the intellect plate for myself.

That is not the only negative that comes with the new dynamically changing gear.  There is another one I have only seen touched on slightly by a few posters on the forums and a few bloggers, but only in passing.  I would like to spend a little extra time looking into it.

That negative is off spec.

Lets take my warrior and another two warriors from my guild for examples.

My warrior - Protection spec, almost no DPS gear and even less DPS experience.
Warrior 1 - DPS warrior since vanilla but tanked in cata, quite well I might add, and is now just DPS again.
Warrior 2 - Only ever DPSed.  Never even attempted tanking.

With all gear changing with your spec, assuming you had the weapons (and shield) for it, should all warriors be capable of tanking now?  Or in my case, be capable of DPSing.

My warrior first.  I am a sub-average arms warrior.  I do so in my tanking gear so my stats are never really right to do so but even with the correct stats I would never be above middle of the pack because I do not put enough effort into being an arms warrior.  If I did out some effort into it I am sure I could do well, I just have not.  I am a tank and that is what I do.

With the changes to gear I have little to no excuse for not being proficient as an arms warrior.  Outside of the weapons, neck, trinkets and rings, all my gear will be DPS gear as soon as I switch specs.  So no more dodge and parry on my tank stuff in either tank spec or DPSing with it.  Even if my rings and trinkets and neck are more tank oriented, I should be versed in dealing damage and do considerably better with it than I currently do.

As it stands now it would be fine for me to say I do not have an off spec.  This is an alt so I do not make the effort to gear him for both specs.  I am a tank and that is what I do.  In the future I have no excuse.  I should be able to deal damage with the best of them just as I can tank with the best of them.

Now warrior number 2.  He used to tank, when we really needed him, but he always preferred being a damage dealer.  He is glad to return to what he once was, a damage dealer, now that the guild has tanks, too many actually.  But what happens when the day comes when we need a tank.  Where he could say "I don't have any tank gear" now because he has not been worrying about gearing for it as we have so many, he can not say that next expansion.  As long as he has a sword and board he is good to go.  Change specs, pop into defensive, and you are a tank again.  Even if his off set gear is not tank oriented he knows how to tank and that is half the battle. As long as you are not pressing heroic (mythic) content a DPS tank in the new world should be just fine.

He would have no excuse, he knows how to tank, he has the skills for it, he has most of the gear for it, and as long as there is a shied somewhere in his bag, he should be able to do it.  Do you feel it is right to ask someone to do something he would rather not do just because the dynamic gear says he should be capable of doing it?

Warrior number 3 up now.  How about this guy, he has never tanked in his life, but now with the way gear is he really has no reason not to learn.  Just grab a sword and board and tank in your otherwise DPS gear.  Some dungeons here and there, for the instant queue or the help out your guild, shouldn't he do it?

Would you call mr 3 selfish if he still will not tank super easy content like a dungeon now?  I see a lot of that happening now.  "Just switch specs, your gear will be just fine.".  "No?  You selfish bastard."

I see a lot of people possibly feeling forced into playing roles they do not want to because of this change.  The guy who used to say, I don't heal because I don't have healing gear can no longer get way with that.  The person who was a shadow priest their entire life but never healed has little to no excuse why he won't now.  He has the gear for it.  Just has to switch specs.

It is now a case of just needing to learn and having to gear up for something you have never done is no longer an excuse for why you can not do it.

I can see, at least at the mid range hard core zone of players, that priest being forced into having an offspec of healing because he already has most of the gear for it.  He would either have to do it or they will replace him with someone that will.

It is as if this gear means that hybirds will have to be hybrid.  No more saying, but I do not have healing gear or I do not have tanking gear.  You have most of it, now get the rest and learn.  We need a tank or need a healer.

Do you believe that this dynamic gear change will make people feel like they have to fill a role they do not want to?

It is something I am sure we can delve into a lot deeper once we know the actual stats on gear and how they work, but looking at it from the outside in, at the moment, it seems like there will be no excuses for not having a viable off spec any longer.  No more will our priest need to switch to his warlock if we need him as DPS.  No longer will be be forced to sit a restoration shaman in favor of a damage dealer because they do not have enough gear for elemental or enhancement.  Yes, I believe, at least people that care about raiding, people will feel forced to have an off spec they can play as well as their main spec.

How about crafting?  It will surely change, a lot.  But is this a negative or a positive?  I am still not decided personally.  I can see a lot of positives in it, as a buyer, that is for sure.  We do not know how it will work of course, but we can guess.

Lets take a leather worker making a new set of bracers that came out now. They will have leather agility, leather intellect, leather spirit, mail agility, mail intellect and mail spirit ones.  That is 6 different types, 7 if they happen to have a version of the leather agility with dodge on it, which is not really out of the question.

With the new dynamic armor, as I am calling it, they would make two sets of bracers.  Leather and mail.  That is it.  Plain, simple, straight forward.  This is actually a good thing for the crafter in some cases, a very good thing. 

No longer will they make something that will not sell.  Crap, you made the leather intellect ones and your server is a little light on boomkins and being it has hit the mistweavers and restos want nothing to do with it.  So you list and list and list and eventually you sell it for a fraction of the price you originally wanted and after countless listing costs.  Now that piece is just a leather bracer, nothing more, and it will become whatever the class that buys it needs it for.  So all leather wearers are now your target audience, not just boomkins, which expands your market.

So if all that sounds good, where do I see the negative here?  Gold making.  With less risk in making crafted items thinking they might not sell, more people will make them which means prices go down.  To the buyer that is a good thing, to the crafter, that is not.  This is the money maker.

Also, if you ever looked at the bracers, again for example, some will go for more than others, but now they will all go together and that would be the lowest common denominator.  Decreased prices might be good for the community, unless you are the crafter making them.

I do not see much of a big deal with this.  I believe the economy of the new gear system will settle into its own around the community and what they are willing to charge and pay.  However, I can already see the grumblings from the gold goblins around the world as they are complaining about it as it is a negative.

What do you think, will this positively or negatively effect the crafted gear market?  As I said, I am still undecided on this one.

What other possible negatives can you see coming from this otherwise positive change to gear?