What determines a main spec?

[shaeman]

My son had a pretty nasty situation crop up yesterday (solo play) and wanted to just see how others saw it.

My son is into pvp and left our guild recently to go to a pvp guild.

He's respecced a lot , and is dual specced. Now the dual spec says primary is holy and ret is secondary,
However, he plays ret as a primary spec and only took healing recently to try out a bit in arena for when I can faction transfer my shaman. He plays most of his arena games as ret.

What would you say determines what is considered the primary spec?

Here's why.

My son went on a VOA guild run yesterday, and was one of only two pallys in there.

He got whispered by a guy asking him to go holy for this run , my son responded that he was pl;aying as his main spec ret and staying ret. Nothing more from this guy.

So they down the first boss in VOA and the pally relentless item drops, my son is pleased at the prospect of rolling on it.

No roll takes place, no asking. The guy who whispered my son took them (turns out he was the raid leader).

So my son asks why there wasn't a roll for the pally item and this chump says it's because my sons main spec is holy.

I took over typing for my son at this point and said that his main spec was ret and he knew that, and had asked me to go holy for the raid and i'd refused. I figure if this guy wasn't a deliberate ninja he would have said Sorry my mistake, roll for it. Instead he says that I'm a liar.

I then called him a ninja. I would have expected some support - i mean it's a guild run, I can't believe ninja-ing something would be tolerated. Instead there's no sympathy and some pretty nasty name calling ensues.

My son's character gets kicked from the guild.

Now it probably was very childish - but given the reaction I pull the next boss.
I was going to leave it at that and go, but weirdly I get ressed, and this shaman starts to heal me, resulting in boss aggro and a wipe. I get booted from the raid before I can get back in.

So I was thinking about it last night and wondering if I'm in the wrong. Does the fact my son was saving money reglyphing and ending up with retribution as his secondary spec in the dual spec screen (although it is very much his main spec) mean that he couldn't roll on the loot?

If that is the case - then if my son had known that he would have sorted his duel specs out accordingly.

Mind you - I've never seen anything like it in the guilds I've been in.

[Otlecs]

What would you say determines what is considered the primary spec?
In a guild - my raiding guild at least - it's a declared spec and remains your primary spec (with enhanced rolling rights) no matter what role you happen to be playing for a particular encounter.

In a PuG, it's whatever role you're playing (i.e. retribution in this example), unless otherwise stated at the start.

So you and your son are clearly in the right, and the guy in question is a complete ass.

[shaeman]

It was a mainly guild run and my son hadn't been asked to declare a spec as primary.

I guess it doesn't make a difference though - as my son was never asked to declare a spec, and this guy was only
saying my son was holy to justify his ninjaing.

I could only see us being in the wrong if the ordering of your duel spec determined this - and so wanted to check I hadn't been in the wrong.

Thanks for your response.

[Khatovar]

Your son declared his main spec as Ret and the raid leader accepted that as his main spec when he let your son into the raid as ret instead of the much more desired/needed spec of holy or prot {as evidenced by his asking your son to play holy}.

What if your son had a feral druid with more /played time on it? Then his "primary spec" is feral druid. would that mean your ret pally son could only roll on feral druid drops in the raid? I'm sure that and feral druids in the raid would be totally understanding of losing an item they want to a ret paladin who can't even use it because "feral druid" is his main spec since it has more days /played. Who cares if he abandoned it a year ago. He spent more time on it, so it must be his main still.

If this was a scheduled guild run that your son signed up for and normally goes to as holy while the raid leader goes as ret, then sure, the raid leader should get dibs on a ret drop. But that's not the way it sounds to me. It sounds to me like a guild PUG which is no different to me than a regular PUG except there should be less fear of ninjas in a guild PUG.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

The boss pull after that was, as you noted, a bit peevish but from the way the guild handled things, I'm sure your son will be better off in a guild that doesn't have a lying, backstabbing retard as GM. ;) Just proves the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19/).

[voodoogriff]

Yeah the whole "Primary/Secondary" thing in Armory is annoying. Should just be Spec 1/Spec 2

[Aragent]

Now I will not Justify this Raid leaders actions but having been a Guild Leader and raid leader since Vanilla, I know I have some mods that check what items are best suited to what class and spec's, and we had guild rules for Priority order.

Due to health reasons I haven't really raided since dual spec got fixed. SO I don't know how that plays with the mods.

But the Raid leader having invited and asked your son to play Holy should have known and either payed more attention passing loot or IMHO "he took it because he was perturbed that your son wouldn't switch to holy for the run and thus was determined to try and keep your son from getting gear"

[Moorea]

Pulling the boss can get your reported and will surely give you a shitty reputation - too bad because if you didn't you could probably file a ticket against them for the missing chance to roll on the item.. and they would have rightfully looked like the assholes

[Eloxy]

Mainspec = the intentional and most played/geared spec imo

[alcattle]

Whoa............it's a GAME :)

Get used to GL who do whatever they feel like, "it's thier guild" attitude prevails in WoW

[shaeman]

Pulling the boss can get your reported and will surely give you a shitty reputation - too bad because if you didn't you could probably file a ticket against them for the missing chance to roll on the item.. and they would have rightfully looked like the assholes

I doubt blizzard would deal with a missed loot roll, or for a deliberate boss pull. They don't have time to get bogged down at that level.

One action shouldn't tarnish a reputation significantly, and if it has I'll pay for char renaming and transfers off and back if necessary. (It's not his fault after all).

[Otlecs]

Pulling the boss can get your reported [...]
too bad because if you didn't you could probably file a ticket against them for the missing chance to roll
Sorry, but I seriously doubt either of these statements have any truth in them at all.

[Altsoba]

The main spec is the spec the player decides to play, if he decides to play and when he decides to play and if he wants to change while he plays he should/can do so. He plays but he pays so he has 100% right to do whatever he wants to...

Another thing is respect agreements, which is totally personal and everyone does as he finds suitable, after all this is a game everyone can do whatever he wants as long as he abides to Blizz rules. To be honest, I don't care what people do, this game is made in a way (and others of course) that brings to the surface the worst in people.

One of the reasons although not the main reason why I multibox is because this is a MMO... weird isn't it? ^^

I've been GL, RL, whatever you can think of in all these years of wow. Seen it all or at least most of it and to be totally honest with you I disapprove with the same conviction both what they did and what you did but again who cares about what I think when I'm not paying their fees ^^

As far as bans and reports, forget it none of those offenses can even issue a warning.

[shaeman]

Seen it all or at least most of it and to be totally honest with you I disapprove with the same conviction both what they did and what you did but again who cares about what I think when I'm not paying their fees ^^


I've been thinking about it a lot and I don't particularly approve of what I did in retrospect. I would say it is mostly out of character for me, and if i had my time again I wouldn't do it the same way. It's not exactly a shining example to set for my son.

I will sit down with him tonight to explain what I think would have been a better response.

I am normally very rational and calm about everything, but anything directed towards my kids tends to bypass all that.

[welwyn]

Its reasons like this that we all multibox. rather than worry about ninjas and asshole GM's I would rather spend a little longer gearing up my 5 chars and run what I want.

[Otlecs]

In all honesty, Shaeman, I think you're giving this more emotional energy than it deserves.

The fact is that the guy acted like a prick and deserved a response. The game doesn't give you many avenues through which to make that response and I really don't see that you have anything to feel bad about.

If you'd gone on to the next boss and then ninja-looted everything then I also wouldn't have had much of a problem with it to be honest, although that might have been harder to come back from.

But then I'm a very black and white sort of person!

I would perhaps have felt bad for the rest of the raid being caught in the cross-fire of what should have been a private disagreement, but from what you said they were all pretty much from the same mould anyway.

By all means have a chat to your son to explain why you acted the way you did, but don't let him think that it's ok to be treated like a doormat, even in a computer game. There are enough hand-wringing, liberal (with a small "L" - no politics here!) apologists in the world.

Either way, you're both better off without that particular guild.

[shaeman]

In all honesty, Shaeman, I think you're giving this more emotional energy than it deserves.


You are definitely right there. I can guarantee the ninja looting turd isn't giving it a second thought :)

I regret the boss pull, only for those that didn't say a thing. The rest I could care less.
My main concern this morning was that I was in the wrong with my understanding of main spec and that's been cleared up.

So I'll draw a line under it, chalk it up to experience and move on.

Of course - I'm no longer going to transfer my shammies to the alliance and keep an eye out for this turd in the battlegrounds. (shame i'm not on a pvp server :)

[Stealthy]

I've seen this type of thing happen many times before...and can only offer this advice:

If it's not a 100% guild run, always clarify the loot rules before you start the raid. Be specific - tell them what spec you are playing and if you can role on that particular spec's loot if it drops.

This way if they ninja the gear you can report them, as blizzard now considers these types of actions scamming.

Source:
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=19110030544&pageNo=9&sid=1#165

Hope this helps...

Cheers,
S.

[Otlecs]

Crikey.

Nice find Stealthy. I would have fought tooth and nail to say that GMs just wouldn't get involved in such minutiae, but would have obviously been wrong.

I guess Shaeman's son has a good case for petitioning now, regardless of the fact that Shaeman himself... accidentally... pulled the boss afterwards ;)

FWIW, I think it's ridiculous that we have to rely on GMs to fix SO MUCH of what goes wrong in WoW, but there you go.

I found this especially enlightening:

Please understand that part of our goal, as Customer Service, is to ensure that players are held accountable to their actions, and that we do everything in our power to enforce our Policies in a nonbiased fashion.





That being said your actions here do clearly fall under the Scamming another Player section of our Scam Policy: (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=20459 (http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=20459)) which clearly states:

that this category includes:




• Acquiring items or any other "possessions" from another player through misinformation, confusion, or fraud (Scamming)


Because it really does seem to fly in the face of this:

Q: I grouped with a "ninja-looter," can I get the item that I am entitled to returned?

A: Players that loot an item out of turn or against the group's wishes do not fit in the criteria of a scammer, and will not be investigated by the GM Staff.

Found on http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=20459

All hail the ambiguous nature of Blizzard's polciies and arbitrary GM decisions....

In fact, the more I look at that thread, the more it feels like an anomlous action on the part of the GM.

[Unreal316]

Seems like to me the issue is the guy told your son to go a certain spec, when your son refused(it not being his main) i guess he couldnt do anything about...at that moment. And when an item dropped for your son, out of spite he cheated him. That simple, its the nature of most wow players, its a game you cant "hurt" people so every oppertunity that comes around that can replace or facilitate that need wow players jump on it.

Out of curiousity was the guy who ninjaed the item a paladin too? If so then theres your reason. He prolly wanted your son to go a different spec so he could monopolize the item.

but from what i read, i can pretty much tell you that guilds like that dont last. Guild ldrs are just the person who owns the guild, not the people. And most of the time the ldr is the most uninvolved person in the guild. Or from my guild experiences they have been. Unless they are too much of a bunch of wusses who cant get into other guilds, he'll burn people one to many times and the guild will fall apart.

[zanthor]

Whoa............it's a GAME :)

Get used to GL who do whatever they feel like, "it's thier guild" attitude prevails in WoW

It is a game.

It is however a game, based on social interaction.

If it was a guild run, then the guild sucks, move on.
If it was a pug and the leader just happened to be in the same guild and did that, then the leader is a REAL dickwad and the guild sucks, move on.

Either way pulling the boss was a real dickwad move, and negates any complaints you may have. The leader was a dickwad to you, the other 23 people weren't involved in the dickwaddery until you punished them for the dickwad raid leader.

[shaeman]

Zanthor,

Actually a number of them were swearing away at my son, just because he had the audacity to question the loot distribution.

So there were a large number of (your favourite word here) dickwads in there. I've already stated that i regret what i did for those that took no part in it and wouldn't do it again given the same situation.

[shaeman]

Seems like to me the issue is the guy told your son to go a certain spec, when your son refused(it not being his main) i guess he couldnt do anything about...at that moment. And when an item dropped for your son, out of spite he cheated him. That simple, its the nature of most wow players, its a game you cant "hurt" people so every oppertunity that comes around that can replace or facilitate that need wow players jump on it.

Out of curiousity was the guy who ninjaed the item a paladin too? If so then theres your reason. He prolly wanted your son to go a different spec so he could monopolize the item.
.

This guy was a paladin. He was after that item and tried to push my son into the role of healer so that he could then say he was holy spec. He did this in whisper. Wasn't asking for healers in the raid. So i am absolutely certain he intended this from the start.

[d0z3rr]

LOL, I would have totally pulled the boss too. And then got on vent and annoyed the shit out of them during a boss.

Why would you feel bad about pulling the boss? Who cares about the other people in the raid, they're dumb enough to continue raiding with an asshat leading them.

[Unreal316]

Zanthor,

Actually a number of them were swearing away at my son, just because he had the audacity to question the loot distribution.

So there were a large number of (your favourite word here) dickwads in there. I've already stated that i regret what i did for those that took no part in it and wouldn't do it again given the same situation.

Personally i absolutely support what you did with the boss pull 100%. A guy like that doesnt need to be a guild ldr, and i bet you anything his guild knows that. I think people who dont stand up to dickwad moves are worst then the dickwad himself.

[Multibocks]

Someone has to stand up to the asshats of WoW. Thank you for being one of them, it's too bad all you could do was wipe the raid.

[HPB]

If your son pugs a lot, it might be worth it for him to pay for a respec on each of his dualspecs. He could put his main spec first and his experiemental holy spec second. It's not your son's fault that the put raid leader was a ninja loot jerk, but it might be worth the 50 gold to give ninjas one less excuse in the future.

[shaeman]

That's great advice. I'll suggest it to him.

it'll cost some glyphs as well but nothing too major.