Priests and alternative specs

OK, the dust has now settled around alternative specs. The speculation can now cease as we’ve gotten to see how things work in practice. I’ve been thinking about putting together a post on priests and their alternative specs for a while now and the time has come to actually put pen to paper.

Q. Should I have an alternative spec?

I know of a number of priests who flat out refuse to use their alternative specs. They’re so happy (and generally good at) being shadow or holy or whatever, they don’t want to use it. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s their game and they should play it how they want.

Then you’ve got people like me. I can play both holy and shadow decently now, but I wasn’t laying out 50g for every respec. One of the first things I did when 3.1 hit was go get my dual spec. As I’m officially caster dps within the guild, I took shadow as my primary spec and holy as my alternative spec - but those are simply details.

Think about if you even want an alternative spec, though. Some guilds will decide what alternative spec you need for the guild. The one I’m in appreciates that I’ve got a holy spec and puts it to good use - but it’s not a requirement. If I decided not to use it, they’d respect that. But do you want this hybrid character?

It’s your choice, just remember that it has consequences.

Q. What other spec should I choose?

And this is where it gets fun.

Seri wrote an excellent post last week entitled Seri sez: Gearing for Disc vs Holy (or: Why My Secondary Spec is Shadow). Don’t forget to go read it and give her cupcakes!

The entire post is good, but note this section particularly:

Discipline and Holy are two very different beasts with their own set of priorities for gear. One of the biggest mistakes that I see Priests making right now is thinking they can respec and do either one just as well without swapping any gear around.

This is very true! As Seri goes on to explain in more detail than I will do here, shadow and discipline have more to do with each other qua gear than holy does. Theoretically, you can keep the same gear for all three trees - but your performance will obviously suffer. Holy has very different gear requirements than discipline does.

If you’re already shadow or discipline and want to make an eas(ier) switch, then you can choose to go for discipline or shadow. Note that you will eventually end up with close to two sets of gear - you won’t be wearing hit gear as discipline, for example. My holy and shadow sets, now that they’re pretty much complete, no longer share any gear at all. You can do some overlap while you’re moving over, but in the end, you’ll end up with different sets.

Note also that holy and discipline have completely different play styles. One of the reasons that Av has holy/shadow specs is because I personally prefer to play holy above discipline. The fact that I have a full set of holy gear at T7.5 level helps, too, but I honestly prefer holy to play. This is something you might want to keep in mind, as you’ll want to play what you enjoy.

Furthermore, you might want to check with the healing lead within your guild if you’re planning on speccing to heal. They may be interested in having you as a backup healer for whatever reason and may prefer that you choose a certain spec. It can’t hurt to ask.

Q. Is healing/dpsing hard?

Yes, if you don’t know what you’re doing.

Don’t assume you can simply switch specs and suddenly be an imba healer or dps’er simply because you’re a priest. Admittedly - priests are imba healers and dps’ers but you need to learn to play your class (spec). It probably took you months to get good at whatever your main role is now, expect the same for another role.

As most of you know, I switched from holy to shadow around patch 3.0.8. Admittedly, I was in a world of hurt - I’d gone from healing which I’m pretty good at to shadow. And I thought it would be easy. It wasn’t. There were so many things I didn’t know about, from spell rotation, different addons, tab targeting, learning to actually remember which target to take, hit, gear balance… argh. Oh. And I was trying to compare myself to dps who’d marched through SSC, TK and Black Temple and who knew their stuff. What a way to take myself down a few pegs.

I personally think a lot of the actual gaming comes down to habit and muscle memory. You need to know exactly which spells to use when and only practice is going to get you there. Research - there are tons of good resources available. Practice. Do heroics. Beat on target dummies. Go play in battlegrounds. Watch yourself on Recount to get an idea of how you’re improving. But keep practicing.

Remember, you have the priestly reputation to uphold!

Q. Got any other tips for me?

Yeah, Talented is your friend. Unless you actually like speccing by hand, especially if Blizzard is planning another talent reset.

Get Outfitter as well, or something similar. I have it set to switch my gear when I switch my talents, which makes my life so much easier. If you don’t want Outfitter for whatever reason, WowInsider has a post about gear changers for dual spec.

Decide if you want an alternative spec, then decide which one you want. You can always change your mind later, but getting the gear sorted yet again is a pain. And don’t underestimate the challenge of getting good at a new spec.