There's still the secondary design goal of making "elemental" its own spec with Frostfire as its primary nuke.

There could also be fights where you have to DPS different type of mobs with different type of resists where having Frostfire Bolt might become handy. Think Illidan where you have Fire Elementals and Mother Shahraz who can change her resistances (atleast I think so, never done this fight as a DPS caster).

That, and also what ildon said. I am quite interested in how Elemental Mages will look like in Wrath.

Anyone who complains about hybrids having an advantage over pure classes should think about the fact that with the dual spec option those pure classes will have the ability to do things such as go from a PvE to PvP spec instantly without spending a dime while a hybrid may be expected to have a DPS spec and a healing spec for raiding, for example.

So Kotaku is now saying that the split Starcraft II packages will feature "multi-player upgrades" between them... I can't imagine that they'll be full expansion packs, however, since that tends to entail years between releases... it really wouldn't be that impressive if you had 75-100 hours of single-player gameplay across three product when the original Starcraft + BW package almost surely had as much without any goofy bundling gimmicks. We'll see how this is clarified, though.

How is that different from the status quot?

Because the hybrid is expected to use his alternate spec for pure PvE by using one spec for a needed offspec, while the rogue/mage/lock/hunter is free to have a pve and pvp spec, effectively saving them money and giving them the ability to pvp at will, before raids, whenever. Some guilds will expect the hybrid to spend their own money on pvp speccing, reducing the hybrid's ability to play what they want, when they want. This is even before considering that some people may want to spec for multiple pve/pvp roles, such as pvp holy/pve holy, pvp ret/pve ret.

This is kind of fair trade off for hybrids. They will have easy versatility and usefulness that a pure class simply won't have... On the fly even. Having to pay for PvP respecs is a small price to pay.

Right, I knew what he meant, I was saying that in effect for a shaman or paladin it will really be no change at all.

I didn't bring it up before, but there is also the issue of min/maxing in specs and non-stacking buffs, which could be tough for hybrids and buffing classes even with on-the-fly respecs. For example, you might need to go pay to drop unleashed rage in your PvE spec just to squeeze out that little extra DPS if your tanking DK swapped from frost to blood to DPS on a specific encounter.

At one point Blizzard said that talents granting raid buffs/debuffs will have other reasons to take them. Earth and Moon would be an example of this.

Presumably that will be added in during the final DPS pass... if it ever gets done. :/

As mentioned, it's not a huge issue, but it is a real one. If I'm dropping 100g a week to be able to PvP while the rogues are coasting along, it'll be a bit annoying. I won't mind, but I could imagine some people getting upset about it. Of course if it's a real issue for them, they could just stay with how it works now: have a PvE and PvP spec, and have the guild pay for necessary manual respecs for progression.

The slightly bigger issue in my mind is the freedom that allows people as far as randomg pvp/arena. If I want to get in 5 games of arena before the raid, I spend 110g but my rogue partner spends 10(glyph costs randomly manufactured). He can jump into BGs or arenas any time he wants and be free to be optimal at it, while hybrids either cost their guilds money and time by not having a secondary PvE offspec or are decidedly weaker/restricted from random PvP.

edit: As for it not being a change, it's a change in that people around you are gaining a personal benefit while you are not. Falling behind by staying in place is a real change, whether your position changes or not.

Disappointed there was no question that addressed why elemental shaman have no scaling talents.

Well, there are ways around hybrids and PvP.

For example, the talent UI could have three talent loadouts. One could be designated PvP, and is automatically enabled in Arenas and Battlegrounds (and maybe Lake Wintergrasp), and cannot be enabled in PvE instances. So everyone gets 2 PvE builds and 1 PvP build.

That would provide nice flexibility for hybrids or even pure dps for PvE fights, but everyone would get a PvP spec to enjoy that aspect of the game.

They don't answer questions like that anyway. There are two answers to all questions, "No", and "We're looking into that" (which means no.)

Except you probably aren't using double PvE specs for no reason whatsoever?

The ability to potentially compete for 22-23 raid slots as opposed to a "pure class" 15 slots is hardly something to sneeze at. If you have a sufficient interest in PvP to want to use your other spec for that; Go ahead. The point is that if switching on the fly, in the middle of a raid, is part of the goal, hybrid players will have the choice to dual spec for PvE in a manner that lets them compete for more raid slots. Pure classes will not get the same result for dual speccing PvE. How is increased choice-based flexibility leading to more potential raid slots disadvantageous for a hybrid class?

In PvE, it's not. I never claimed it was. I said that it creates a side-issue that hybrids could become expected to use their offspec for an alternate raid spec, which could be distasteful to them for the various reasons I stated.

If this is once again leaning into pure vs hybrid and the "omg I'll never raid cause hybrids took my dps spot" whine, I'll drop it and go elsewhere. That's a ludicrous claim and nobody will form their raids based on that. I'm a raid leader of a reasonably successful guild, and I have no plans whatsoever to remove all my mages locks rogues and hunters to make room for elemental shaman boomkin druids, enhancement shamans and ret paladins. There are a billion logistical reasons not to, as well as the fact that it makes recruitment retardedly harder. Yes, hybrids can respec. They also have to have the gear to make it worthwhile, which involves a lot more farming of instances and was only really viable in TBC due to the extended BT/Hyjal farming we were forced to do. If we're moving along at a decent clip with patches and new raids, no hybrid is going to be rocking full offspec gear, it will be mediocre disenchant pieces and badge gear; good enough for here and there, but not something you necessarily want to be doing your progression with. I'll stop now before I reach rant level, but this whole "pure vs hybrid" non-issue has ground on me since beta began.

50g is an utter joke now. When you spend it once a week in your mandated "PvP time" from the end of your last raid day to the beginning of your first. When you spend it twice a day as you go PvP, instance, PvP, raid it adds up. I understand and appreciate the intent of the system. I'm simply countering the whine that pure dps classes will now suddenly be obsolete due to this change with some real, though not overwhelming downsides for the hybrids, from my own point of view.

I'm really not thrilled by the dual-spec "on the fly".
Completely remove the significance of spec, and take away a lot of their personnality. I understand the gameplay utility (even though it's another can of worms in the "pures vs hybrids" debate), but there is a real RPG-wise loss with that.

I'm quite baffled at the "buy three games for a campaign" SC2 announcement, too. Obviously, if you say to fans "do you prefer we butcher the game but sell it in one package, or make a great one but sell it in three", they will favour the first. Doesn't mean that the adequate way isn't to simply make a great game and sell it in one package.
After all, Blizzard is famous for its "when it's done" system, isn't it ?

The only reason they'd be expected to do so more than a pure class - which is the only kind of expectation that would allow the rogue to "coast" when compared to, say, a druid - would be that they're more useful to the raid than a pure class doing the same.

And if Daniel the druid doesn't want to double PvE spec, he can always not do it. Point is, he gets to choose whether he wants to coast like Ronald the rogue, or be more useful to the raid. Maybe I'm being weird here, but that choice - the ability to make that choice - strikes me as a Good Thing, not a Bad Thing. The fact that a guild would then expect it's members to arrive as useful to the raid as they can be, well, that's hardly an issue.

You know, it occurs to me that they could have said "this would be fun, damn the consequences", which they would be right about. Free respecs on beta are/were amazing - fighting Malygos? Pick up stationary dps talents and resists. Fighting Thaddius? Go for mobility. Etc.

The Dual Spec feature saves an equal amount of gold for everyone. If it didn't exist, the difference between a hybrid speccing for 2 PVE specs and PVP and a primary dps speccing pve/pvp would still be the same.

It may be that they plan to only allow it within raid instances. I think he only mentioned respeccing in raids, not outside of them. Just don't know enough yet to judge.