10-man Raid - Considering Alternative Specs
In my ever continuing quest to optimize my set up, I'm considering the merits of fiddling with some of the spec on my characters. The idea is to switch to DPS specs on most of my characters to promote synergy, despite the fact that their main duties fall out of the tree. For example, specing my Prot Paladin to Ret to gain 3% haste, Replenishment, etc. He'll still be wearing tanking gear, and trying to tank, he'll just be doing it from the Ret tree instead of the prot tree. Now there are obviously drawbacks to this (off the top of my head, I'm losing a fair chunk of Stamina), but I figured I'd bounce the idea off you nice folks, since I have a tendency to forget key assumptions and aspects that make a large difference in whether an idea is good or not. Anyway, without further ado, the plan!:
Switching my Prot Paladin to Ret: He still wears a shield, still uses Defense gear, the major difference being he's now using Divine Storm and Crusader Strike instead of Holy Shield and Hammer of the Righteous. I figure I pick up 3% haste from Ret aura as well as replenishment, among other things.
Switching my Tree Druid to Balance: He doesn't go in to Boomkin form (I'm going to get those buffs from Ret Pally and Elemental Shaman). The intent is that he keeps Moonfire and Insect Swarm up, keeps all his HoTs up on the tank, and spams Starfire when he has the GCDs for it. The big losses I see from this are the loss of Wild Growth and Swiftmend.
Switching my Resto Shaman to Elemental: The intent is to keep Flame Shock up, Lava burst when its off cool down, and spam heals. Obviously I lose Riptide and Mana Tide, but I gain Elemental Oath.
Switching my Shadow Priest to Holy: The intent here is to get access to some really good AOE heals, which will be enhanced even further with 3.1. I can still keep his DoTs rotating, add in a Holy Fire DoT, as well as keeping Renew and PW: S up on the tank. Not that I couldn't toss a PW: S in shadow form, it just kind of messes up his Telos. I lose his replenishment, but I have it again from the Ret specced Tanking Pally. This is my biggest change arguably, since it requires a potentially large amount of regearing.
A few other specs in their change as well, but they are largely a matter of BM hunter moving to Marks, and DPS classes slightly altering their spec but not their playstyle or function.
So in summation, I switch specs on my Pally to get some more synergy going, and switch my healers from uber-healing spec to able to drop a bit of damage but still spam heals, with one DPS class moving to that same position, so what I end up with is 3 Quasi-healers whose main function is healing while maintaining DoTs and Buffs.
RE: 10-man Raid - Considering Alternative Specs
Quote:
Originally Posted by 'Bigfish',index.php?page=Thread&postID=183802#post 183802
In my ever continuing quest to optimize my set up, I'm considering the merits of fiddling with some of the spec on my characters. The idea is to switch to DPS specs on most of my characters to promote synergy, despite the fact that their main duties fall out of the tree. For example, specing my Prot Paladin to Ret to gain 3% haste, Replenishment, etc. He'll still be wearing tanking gear, and trying to tank, he'll just be doing it from the Ret tree instead of the prot tree. Now there are obviously drawbacks to this (off the top of my head, I'm losing a fair chunk of Stamina), but I figured I'd bounce the idea off you nice folks, since I have a tendency to forget key assumptions and aspects that make a large difference in whether an idea is good or not. Anyway, without further ado, the plan!:
Switching my Prot Paladin to Ret: He still wears a shield, still uses Defense gear, the major difference being he's now using Divine Storm and Crusader Strike instead of Holy Shield and Hammer of the Righteous. I figure I pick up 3% haste from Ret aura as well as replenishment, among other things.
Very bad idea imho, ret specced you might be able to hold aggro fine, but you'll take a huge load more damage without holy shield. A typical prot paladin won't ever get any unblocked hits with holy shield up, and that's a huge difference (>>1.5k) per hit!
Quote:
Originally Posted by 'Bigfish',index.php?page=Thread&postID=183802#post 183802
Switching my Tree Druid to Balance: He doesn't go in to Boomkin form (I'm going to get those buffs from Ret Pally and Elemental Shaman). The intent is that he keeps Moonfire and Insect Swarm up, keeps all his HoTs up on the tank, and spams Starfire when he has the GCDs for it. The big losses I see from this are the loss of Wild Growth and Swiftmend.
Switching my Resto Shaman to Elemental: The intent is to keep Flame Shock up, Lava burst when its off cool down, and spam heals. Obviously I lose Riptide and Mana Tide, but I gain Elemental Oath.
Switching my Shadow Priest to Holy: The intent here is to get access to some really good AOE heals, which will be enhanced even further with 3.1. I can still keep his DoTs rotating, add in a Holy Fire DoT, as well as keeping Renew and PW: S up on the tank. Not that I couldn't toss a PW: S in shadow form, it just kind of messes up his Telos. I lose his replenishment, but I have it again from the Ret specced Tanking Pally. This is my biggest change arguably, since it requires a potentially large amount of regearing.
I can not really see an elemental and a boomkin being able to heal for 3-4 minutes or longer. You loose so much efficiency in healing when not specced into it. Imo you'll run dry _very_ quickly, and heal for less in the process.
Now having a holy priest might help you here, but imo it would be a lot better to spec the toons for the job they're doing.
Also, you'll loose earth shield, which really is a nice buffer for your tank.
Just my 2 (euro) cents.
kind regards
