by John Zakour
I’m back from my vacation, plus I finally have my next novel The Sapphire Sirens in the can. I now have a bit more free time (just a little) and I can concentrate on my WoW again. Though I do plan to limit my playing to mostly on the nights my guild raids. WoW is fun but RL (real life) has to take precedence. (There I have my disclaimer out of the way.)
The big news in the WoW World is that Patch3.1 is in test realms; which means it can go live soon. Of course soon translates to any Tuesday within the next 3-6 weeks or months. If I were a betting man, which I am not, I would say we are looking at this major patch sometime in the next month or so. Give or take a month. This will be a big, game changing patch introducing many new features. To me, currently, the most exciting change is Dual Specs.
Okay being a Mage (ZapperZ on Rexaar), dual specs isn’t as wow-life changing as it would be for say a Druid or Paladin or Death Knight (boo DK’s – at least when they aren’t on my side). I don’t have the choice to tank, heal or dps. I have no off spec just one spec and that one spec is pure DPS. But I am still excited. I will no longer be limited to being either: Arcane, Frost, Fire or some hybrid FrostFire. The WoW world is my giant man eating oyster and I plan to roast that oyster for lunch. (Or freeze it for later or just blast it for fun.)
The point is up until now the problem was different specs work well for different objectives. I love the pure survivability of FROST when I am soloing for cash or farming rep. I love the speed, the quick burst damage and the silence of ARCANE when I am PvPing. As live humans react so differently than NPC mobs. Then when it comes to raiding, pure FIRE does the most pure damage for the mana spent. (Arcane does do some great burst damage but it eats mana like potato chips.)
Soon, none of us will be limited to either picking one or the other or paying 50 gp to respec. For a mere (more of less) 1000 gp we will be able to pick two specs that it looks like we will be able to swap in and out (complete with glyphs and hot bars) very easily. Now, if I am all myself I can be frost for the pure protection and the cool frost elemental to keep me company. If, it I want to bop over to Wintersgrasp and kill some horde players and can switch to my arcane spec. Or if it’s raid night I can switch to Fire or Frostfire and do some…
Oh, wait, no I can’t. We still only get two specs. I guess specs are like computer memory, no matter how much you have you always find a way to need more. So some thinking and planning will be needed. Right now I am leaning towards a pure frost spec and a pure Arcane spec. The frost can be good for solo quests and is acceptable to PvP. The arcane is good for PvP and can do some heavy damage in raids. (Though Blizzard did nerf arcane last patch. Come on Blizzard give us mages a little love.) I do figure these two specs give me the most versatility. Of course I could be wrong and it would be sure great to have a third choice!
Still, two is greater than one (you can tell I write PI stories because I am so observant) and even though I still long for three specs I will gladly accept two for now.
John Zakour is a humor / sf/ fantasy writer with an online Master’s degree in Human Behavior. He has written zillions (well, thousands) of gags for syndicated comics and comedians (including: Rugrats, Grimmy, Bound and Gagged, Dennis the Menace, The tonight show and, Joan River’s old TV show.) John also writes his own syndicated comic, Working Daze for United Media. John has been the weekly cartoonist for Geek.com and has sold cartoons or gags to hundreds of journals, magazines and web sites. John also has been a regular contributor to Nickelodeon magazine writing Fairly Odd Parents, Rugrats and Jimmy Neutron comic books. Recently John has started writing Simpsons comics for Bongo comics. John’s has written seven SF novels for Daw books the latest The Flaxen Femme Fatale hit bookstores on December 4th.
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illustrator/cartoonist. Currently coloring Black Cherry Bombshells for Zuda & SAM PI for iVerse. Also working on a serialized, online Zach Johnson original graphic novel with John Zakour. Plus freelance illustration work for Vegas casinos. 
