I have a theory that the price of Large Dream Shards and Abyss Crystals is going to go up. Here is why.
When dual speccing gets to be at it's height, people will be rolling on weapons and armor they can and will use, thus a lot of people I know that were hesitant on "Rolling for Offspec" are just going to roll. The only case this might not happen is if someone makes one spec PVP and the Other PVE, since the gear for both typically comes from different sources. So, since gear is going to be more in demand, they will also need their new second set decked out in all the best enchants. That effectively doubles the enchant market. Granted there are already many people that have multiple sets of armor and do this now, but for the casual raider that doesn't have full sets of situational armor, this will become a reality.
Source of shards down + doubled Enchant market + new shard vendor = expensive shards.
I know as an enchanter and a druid, I will have my work cut out for me, and I think everyone is going to feel the market struggle on this one.
Most hybrids I know already rolls on off spec gear, and the ones who don't roll on it just doesn't care about their off spec, and even if they do get items for it I very much doubt they'll bother to enchant/gem it.
The people who are responsible for high market prices are usually the hardcore players and not the casual, I can't see demand for mats going up significantly once the dual-spec system is introduce.
It's tough to predict how the market will be affected. On the one hand, you have gear normalization meaning less will go to waste, dual specs increasing gear demand, and (if Blizzard has their way) more raiding guilds consuming materials. On the other hand, gear normalization also means everyone will get the gear they want quicker (meaning a faster progression to the sharding stage), Naxxramas is easy enough that within a few months any raiding guild needing shards will be able to pick up an ample supply, and more raiding guilds actually reduces the proportion of the populace that doesn't have direct access to shards.
However, it does seem likely that shards will become a more valuable commodity. This is bad news for anyone who was intending on using the AH to get the shards for buying patterns, and good news for anyone simply selling materials.
And, as always, things are always cheaper if you collect them yourself.
What I lack in intelligence I make up for in verbosity.
Most hybrids I know already rolls on off spec gear, and the ones who don't roll on it just doesn't care about their off spec, and even if they do get items for it I very much doubt they'll bother to enchant/gem it.
The people who are responsible for high market prices are usually the hardcore players and not the casual, I can't see demand for mats going up significantly once the dual-spec system is introduce.
I actually see the price of mats going up.
I already roll for all off spec gear with my eye on the dual spec feature. However, content is easy enough right now that I don't raid on my off spec. (You can easily fit extra tanks and healers in the current raid content). As a result, I only gem my off spec gear with uncommon gems and partially enchanted it. If dual spec becomes less vapourware, I believe a lot of people in a similar situation as me will polish up the off spec gear they collected to raiding standard.
I have a theory that the price of Large Dream Shards and Abyss Crystals is going to go up. Here is why.
Etc.
I fail to follow your logic.
For dream shards - Their very low price is due to then not being useable for more than a few enchants.
For Abyss Crystals the price is allready high since they are in high demand - Why would people to cheap to spend 50g on a respec be willing to enchant offspec gear for loads of gold after this change?
I would be floored beyond comprehension if they don't implement a magic recipe that turns the gigantic pile of useless dream shards into Abyss Crystals. There was a gigantic pile of useless Void Crystals in TBC and magically a recipe came along to turn it into a pile of rare, but useful, Large Prismatic Shards. The current situation is, clearly, the reverse. And it's only going to get worse. Even with 10-man Naxx soon producing a large pile of Abyss Shards, they are currently so high in price (200-250g on our server, something similar on yours I'd guess?) that the mismatch is a bit ludicrous. Look for a recipe using 3-4 dream shards to make a single Abyss Crystal by 3.1.
Abyss Crystals will plummet and stabilize just like Void Crystals did in TBC, just give it a little time. If anything, the supply of Abyss Crystals is going to be higher than the initial supply of Void Crystals was, since Naxx 2.0 and Sartharion are both easier to access and provide more drops than the introductory raids of TBC. We're just reaching the point where more than a handful of people are completing their epic kits. Once we see a bit more of that happen I think you will find that the Abyss Crystal market becomes somewhat more open than the Void Crystal market was at this stage of the last expansion.
The only mitigating factor in this is a considerably higher utility for Abyss Crystals than there was for Void Crystals. Don't expect prices to fall AS low as they did in TBC, but at the same time they're not going to stay at their current prices for much longer, if at all.
I'm kinda surprised abyss shards are as expensive as they are. We're already running half a dozen heroics a day without anybody needing the final boss drops and our healers will be running out of off-specc loot to pick up from nax 10 in the next couple of resets with only a rare few items remaining desired, and we're not exactly a cutting edge raiding guild (haven't downed saph/kel in 25 man nax).
I expect prices will rapidly drop to the ludicrously low in the next month at most over here.
"Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
- Clark's Law
Well, of course they aren't going to stay at their current high prices for much longer. But saying, "the only mitigating factor in this is a considerably higher utility for Abyss Crystals than there was for Void Crystals" is kinda like saying the only difference between rainy days and sunny ones is that the former is wet. Void crystals were available from practically day 1 of TBC due to the originally low iLvl of Kara loot and were used for next to no enchants in TBC. It was basically Mongoose and Soulfrost (used only by min-maxers due to it's limited marginal value over +40 spell damage) and that's really it for a long while. Eventually, Surefooted, the ring enchants and Executioner sucked up some, but just not all that many.
While I will grant the Abyss Crystal enchants include a few questionable ones and it still includes some that only appeal to min-maxers and perhaps a Battlemaster or two on the list (i.e. ones that will disappear fast), it's a much higher demand for Abyss Crystals than you'd ever have seen for voids. The weapon enchants for melee are absolute must haves and use a lot of them, especially massacre.
And, yes, there'll be more supply to be sure. I mean Naxx drops a lot of loot and is insanely easy. But people will be moving on to Ulduar this time when it opens. They were running Karazhan at the end of TBC because it gave out the same badges as Back Temple and Sunwell. Anyway, moving along.
I don't see dual spec increasing prices significantly (or even notisably compared to other factors).
Personally I attribute the price of enchanting mats to people enchanting each gear slot 2-3 times for their main spec and gear normalization preventing from most of gear going to waste. I know I discarded at least 1 epic for most slots on my druid and for quite a few slots also a blue item. Now we are starting to increasingly disenchant loot, however. People will be getting less updates each week while scrapping more items. Dual spec might affect this minutely but I'd be really surprised if it had a significant impact on more than a tiny fraction of population.
We allow everyone to grab offspec loot by paying an epic shard to the bank.
We've used this all the way from starting raiding in mid TBC, and well the loot is different now but I doubt it'll be much change. Quite a few people had "complete" offspec sets, and well. That's better than the item being wasted, the bank still gets the same income. I doubt dual spec change will affects this at all for us, as we already used almost all items that can be used.
Actually, all three of those statements have been flatly contradicted. You will, yes, be able to toggle your specs at any time while out of combat, with no cooldown, regardless of location, with no gold cost.
It's been stated that in-town, you will be able to swap specs at no cost at any time.
However, there will be a small cost (such as using a new reagent) outside cities.
Doubling of the demand is iffy at best, and that's not even taking into account that some classes could respec with little/no gear changing [I'm thinking Mages, Hunters, Rogues, and Death Knights being the 'minimum or no modification', with plenty of classes not needing to change all of their gear at once], even accounting for the sudden accessibility. Similarly, even guilds moving up the raid content will likely run the current raids on farm or near-farm status specifically for the badges for members and shards for guild use or sale. Certainly, I would expect the demand to rise significantly and keep the price of the shards high [even just in realitive terms] and Dream Shards to move to hovering near 1/x the cost after Enchanting catches up [x being how many it takes to create an Abyss in the future...I can't say with a straight face that recipe isn't in the pipe]. I know that my guild has started making guild heroic-dungeon runs with the express purpose of gearing up members for raid-status and propping enchanting materials and Frozen Orbs into the g-bank. This behavior across a server combined with pending farm status of current raids should at least help smooth the supply curve to avoid drastic cycling of prices, with spikes coming as demand changes and particular patrons or guilds make a drive to min-max their raiding gear.
I don't think dual spec won't affect enchanting mats in any form or shape. The cost of maintaining a multirole is not the cost of respecs. The hassle and cost is in gathering and collecting gear and keeping it up to date with whatever tier your guild is currently raiding and that cost will be the same as it is now.
I doubt more people are suddenly going to enchant and gem a second set only because they removed the respec costs. It's more a convenience than a cost saver, especially with the gold numbers flying around in WotLK.
If anything, abyss crystal prices are going crash, because on every server there will be 6+ guilds farming Naxx and disenchanting 70% of the loot. For the next 8+ weeks.
6+? I'd say 20? My server is *FAR* from the most progressed ( though it is one of the most overcrowded), but there are probably 50+ guilds running naxx 10, and a score or more clearing naxx 25. Heck, the PUG I run with has full cleared naxx 25 for about a month straight now, although I'll admit that there are guilds that have less turnover than this particular pug.
6+? I'd say 20? My server is *FAR* from the most progressed ( though it is one of the most overcrowded), but there are probably 50+ guilds running naxx 10, and a score or more clearing naxx 25. Heck, the PUG I run with has full cleared naxx 25 for about a month straight now, although I'll admit that there are guilds that have less turnover than this particular pug.
And how many of those disenchant 70% of the loot they get?...
And how many of those disenchant 70% of the loot they get?...
Exactly. A lot of more (I hate to use the word) casual guilds will never get to the "disenchant 70% of the loot" stage since people who are pretty much fully geared up will start bringing alts to loot sponge, rather than running on their main hoping for that one elusive drop to round out their best in slot set.
The problem is, do casual guilds really need +63 spellpower enchants when there's +50 for negligable cost, Berserking when there's +85 AP, +10 stats to chest when +8 stats exist, etc.
There's so many ~20% downgrades to existing enchants that cost a fraction of the price that I think that the hardcore guild which do care about such differences will farm shards and the rest will just mostly settle for the cheap enchants. There will be the usual population of people who got their [War Mace of Unrequited Love] and just have to have +63 spellpower, but I think they're the minority.
There are still enough people skilling enchanting that you get conversations like this:
"Oh, it's not that good a cloak. I'll just go with +15 haste"
"Take the +23 haste"
"But it's more expensive for not much benefit"
"I get a skill point. It's orange"
"Oh. Well ok then."
And when people are mostly done skilling tailoring and enchanting, the mats will start accumulating without a lot of use beyond enchanting upgrades. So it won't seem THAT expensive to have the "best" enchant.
Talent Dual Spec Q&A with Ghostcrawler
With the next content patch, we will be introducing a number of additions and changes to the game. One new feature in the works is the ability to set up two separate sets of talents, or "dual spec". While the complete feature may not be immediately available in the Public Test Realms (PTR) and specifics are still liable to change, we wanted to go over some questions with Senior Game Designer Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street to find out more.
Nethaera: What is dual speccing?
Ghostcrawler: Dual speccing is the ability to save two separate talent specs, glyphs, and action bars.
Nethaera: Why are we allowing players to dual spec after all this time?
Ghostcrawler: We really felt like this was a great way to increase the flexibility available to players and encourage them to take part in more aspects of the game. To use just one example, some players like to participate in both raids and Arenas, which is awesome behavior that we want to promote. But, there are some talents which are more useful in one part of the game than another. Currently, players have to pay respec costs and go through the process of setting up the desired talent spec and action bars whenever they switch.
The new system makes this a much more logical process, saving on time and cost and allowing players to easily move from one aspect of the game to another.
Nethaera: Who will be able to use it?
Ghostcrawler: Players who have reached the maximum level will be able to set up dual specs.
Nethaera: Why do players need to be max level in order to do this?
Ghostcrawler: We didn’t want to burden lower-level players with extra complexity as they’re working to level up and learn their class. But if the feature proves popular we might consider expanding it.
Nethaera: How will you be able to set up a dual spec?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to visit their trainer and pay a one-time fee to be able to use it.
Nethaera: How do you switch between specs?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to switch between their talent specs by visiting any Lexicon of Power provided they’ve paid for the ability to have a secondary spec. Lexicons of Power will be available in major cities, and inscribers will also be able to create a new item that summons one. Anyone can purchase this item, but it requires a ritual of several players to summon it for use by the party. It’s similar to a repair bot in that it will exist in the world for a short duration. It’s important to keep in mind that you will not be able to switch specs while in combat or Arenas. While you won’t be able to switch your spec without the Lexicon, you will still be able to look at your secondary spec whenever you want to.
Nethaera: Will solo players have the ability to switch their specs outside of the cities or will they still need to visit a Lexicon of Power?
Ghostcrawler: Solo players will still need to go into the city to visit the Lexicon of Power to switch their talent spec or will need to get together with other players to summon one in.
Nethaera: Is the item that allows you to summon a Lexicon of Power reusable, or is it used up?
Ghostcrawler: We haven’t made a final decision on that yet, and will be evaluating how it works on the PTR.
Nethaera: Can I respec only one of my talent sets, or will I need to respec them both if I reset one?
Ghostcrawler: When you reset your talents, it will look at the spec you currently have in use as the talent set you want to change.
Nethaera: Will you be able to switch gear easily to match your spec?
Ghostcrawler: At the same time we implement dual specs, we will also be setting up a gear system. The feature is called “Gear Manager.” It can also be used to just swap weapons or trinkets or put on that tuxedo to strut around town. It will not automatically switch your gear when you change your talent spec, but it will allow for an easy gear change between them. The feature may not be fully functional immediately in the PTR, but we’ll have more information to share about it before too much longer.
Nethaera: What about hunters? Often their pet talents are set up to match the talents of the hunter. Will they be able to switch their pet specs as well?
Ghostcrawler: We will wipe the pet talents. However we are going to remove the respec cost for pet talents so that players won’t feel like they need to jump through an additional hoop to respec their pet. In addition, we are going to provide hunters a new core ability to let them remotely access their stable on a long cooldown. This way if their exotic pet heads off to the stable, they will be able to get a different pet. We hope to be able to discuss this new spell in more detail when we get a little further along.
Nethaera: Will you be able to change your Glyphs as well?
Ghostcrawler: Glyphs will be tied to each talent spec so that if you switch between them, so too will the Glyphs. You’ll notice the UI will have changed a little bit so that the Glyph panes show up alongside the Talent panes now that they are associated.
Nethaera: What about hotbars? Will players be able to save them for the talent spec they’re running?
Ghostcrawler: Yes, you will be able to save hotbars and use them with your talent specs. It just saves your bars at the same time as it saves the glyphs and talents. If you want to switch to your other action bar, you will need to change specs.
Nethaera: Is there a way for players to choose their talents without them being saved? Currently, once you spend your talent point, it’s spent unless you pay the respec cost again.
Ghostcrawler: With the dual spec feature, we are going to allow players who respec to configure all their talents before they get saved. They will be able to allocate the points, then choose if they want to use that as their spec, rather than needing to carefully diagram out their talents ahead of time. This will allow players a little more freedom when deciding on the talents they want to pick and avoid costly mistakes.
Nethaera: Will players be confined to only setting up two specs?
Ghostcrawler: We will be launching the feature with just two specs, but depending on how we feel it works out, we might consider additional specs in the future.
Nethaera: When can players expect to try out dual specs?
Ghostcrawler: Players will be able to try out the dual spec system on the Public Test Realms when they are made available. This has been a pretty big project with a lot of people working toward making it a reality in the game. We’ll definitely be watching the feedback and looking for ways of making sure the system works the way we all envisioned it to.
I'm hoping that it is expanded, having hybrids able to spec quickly back to heal would mean a lot more vanilla and tbc instances can be run while levelling.
I'd agree but no one needs to spec for a specific role while doing leveling instances. They are easy enough with the right classes -- as anecdotal evidence I've healed enough instances 50-60 on a Shadow Priest. Also, thanks for quoting an entire post to highlight one question.
I'm hoping that it is expanded, having hybrids able to spec quickly back to heal would mean a lot more vanilla and tbc instances can be run while levelling.
This is something I hope they work on too. While 5mans can be perfectly doable with offspec healing with offspec gear. However, the combination of pug + non-prot tanks + shoddy gear might be enough to dissuade people from bringing non specced healers to them. Another reason to allow it at earlier levels is so that new players who are put off by the cost of respeccing can try out healing etc while levelling. Healing as a holy paladin is fairly different to a ret healing.
If a new player is put off by the cost of respeccing, chances are they'll be put off by the cost of accessing the second spec. While we don't know what the cost will be, it's infinitely improbably that it will be less than that of a respec.
What I lack in intelligence I make up for in verbosity.
I think one of the reasons dual spec is not made available for levels below cap, is that it's not as easy to implement it when a player is getting new talent points fairly quick.
The WLK instances at the least were explicitly stated to have been designed doable with non-speced healers and tanks. Obviously, min-maxing will always give you a benefit and always make it easier, but you have to take into account that your optimal spec may not be enough to save that shitty PUG anyways. Next expansion, much more difficult question.
12/05/08, 12:12 PM
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