Black Sheep Raging Here...

I remember when I started playing this game I made a frost mage because it sounded cool to have a mage that can freeze things in place.  I also made a marksman hunter because I thought that would probably be the best spec to play.  I did read up on a lot of things about the game and the classes I was interested in.  What I've learned then, and what I still believe now, is that I am happy to play whatever class or talent spec I like.  Now I say this because there are many people who have tried out many different talent specs in the end-game and figured out what the most optimal raiding spec is for their class.  Now that's great and all, and I do not disagree with the logic there.  what I do disagree with are the general following of people who follow into that thinking and change their spec to match the highest dps spec and then pass down this information to whoever else asks them the same question.

What is the best spec for mages? 

What is the best spec for warlocks?

What is the best spec for warriors?
What is the best spec for rogues?

The above classes have two or three different dps specs, each with their own strengths and weakness.  but what I find the most annoying is that people tend to rank these specs based on raw dps output only.  dps is the standard of which spec is the best, I guess. 

I disagree completely.  I have a frost mage and I love playing her.  I have an affliction warlock and a demonology warlock and I love playing them.  I have a prot warrior that quests and levels.  prot warrior, leveling? yes.  and I have a rogue who is mixed up and cant decide between assassination and combat, because I think both specs are pretty fun (and different). 

As a priest, I am a disc priest.  and some fools mentioned to me that disc is for pvp.  no, disc is great at pvp. but it is not necessearily FOR pvp.  I heal groups wonderfully as disc.  sure, the holy priests are having a blast as well, healing and such, but I find my style of healing easy and powerful enough to not care what the healing meters say about my overall healing.

As a warlock, my affliction spells rock, especially with seed of corruption on trash.  My demonology lock will never see those big numbers on trash. but he'll kick my afflock's ass on boss fights any day.  destro locks theoretically do better, but are boring.  4 spells.  repeat. repeat.  who wants that?  oh the meter humpers.  that’s right!

Back in the days when I was a marks hunter, people would continue to say how great BM was then.  now the times have changed and marksman is awesome.  so is survival.  but some folks I know played survival back then and did well.  it was fun for them and no BM hunter would change their minds.  i liked that.

Now you cannot really do this comparision with paladins or druids or even shamans because, at least for druids and paladins, each spec is different.  now the druids do have two dps specs but they are completely different it doesn’t really fall into the "best dps" argument (ranged caster vs. melee dps).  The shamans have two dps specs as well and just like the druid, one is melee dps and the other is ranged dps.  the comparision is a little different, but since we all know enhancement spec sucks compared to elemental spec, everyone would rather go for elemental dps, correct?  for the most part, yes.  but there are a few melee dps shamans out there rocking the dps meters.

So with all of this said, if I ever go into a raid, I will see the dps like so:

Warriors - Fury

Mages - Arcane

Warlocks - Destro

Rogues - Combat

Death Knights - Unholy

Shamans - Elemental

Hunters - Marksmanship

These are all said to be the best dps spec for raiding.  Sure. 

But here is the proplem I do see with this list.  This list focuses on raw output but does not consider that there may be other benefits other classes/specs bring to the raid.  Not only that, most of these raids, if pugged, usually only go so far.  Without the utility of certain other specs, there may not be any easy way to run through content.  what I do see is that these cookie cutter talent specs do not account for skill, awareness, and overall knowledge of a person's class.  sure you get a mage to spec arcane. but does that mean the person is really good at playing that spec?  what if he's super awesome as fire or frostfire? or even frost?  what if the DK hates the boring unholy rotation? I've played with other blood and unholy dk's before, and with a lower gear level, I beat their dps as frost spec.  So no, there are many different factors in playing these different specs.  just because someone who is deeply in-tuned with their player/spec/style can produce awesome dps, it doesn’t mean that your local tradechat pug will be able to do the same thing. 

Here are my lists of characters.

Warrior - Prot.  because he's fun to play as prot.  I hear arms is just as fun. honestly, I leveled as fury and didn’t like one minute of it.  I changed to prot and love it.

Mage - Frost.  I find the utility and the ability to control my fights better invaluable.  less dps? sure. but im giving up a little dps for some control and I like control. 

Death Knight - Frost dps.  for those who don’t have a clue,since the introduction of DKs, and up until patch 4.0, all dk talent specs can tank and all dk talent specs can dps.  there are minor selections within each tree that is dedicated for tanking and or dps.  you decide.  now this is why I like frost dps:  1. I kick ass.   and 2.  procs.   its so much more fun than spamming several buttons over and over again.

Warlock - Demonology and Affliction.  because its fun.  and I rock the damage meters anyway. and there is some raid utility.

So what exactly am I trying to get at?

I am just ranting.  I am ranting at all the people who say, this is better than that. last night I was in guild chat and somoene was asking about what talents to choose in the demonology tree.  I asked her what spec she was (secretly hoping she picked demonology or affliction) and she replied with destruction.  So I would assume she uses her Imp a lot?  her reply was yes.  so why not improve imp?  good job!  I could have also told her to skip those and just sacrifice her succubus (cos who wouldn’t want a 15% increased damage for 30 whole minutes?).  but I don’t know if that's how she wanted to play. and I didn’t really care.  I got the gist of her style of play just by asking which pet she prefers and then, gave my input.  Same goes for when other people ask me questions in the game about talent choices.  I don’t want to tell them what will produce the best numbers because, honestly, it isnt necessarily the funnest spec to play.  usually, it isnt. sometimes people do like to see big numbers and that's all that matters to them.  for those guys, sure, if you get a thrill out of seeing big numbers, then its your game, who am I do dictate?  but when the focus isnt just on big numbers, then who are you to tell them to focus on damage only?

Not only do I find the problem in the answers given to these seekers, but I find the problem is in the seekers themselves.  more specifically, they don’t know what they're asking for!  How often does this come up… "Hey guys, whats the best spec for warlocks?"

do you see the issue?  what do you mean by "best"? what are you looking for? what style of play do you prefer? best is subjective.  best dps is not.  and if your only concern is the amount of damage you do, then you really need to rethink this game.  this is my strong opinion that best dps does not make for a successful raid.  sure, you might want this if youre pushing server firsts, but if your guild is 15th on the server and you're just about ready to take on Sindragosa, normal, in 10man, at this point in time, then I don’t think your problem, or your raid's problem is the dps spec.  I think there's much more to think about (rotations, compositions, execution, buffs, synergy, etc).  If the raid you're going to has the "best" dps spec and you're still having problems today, with the 30% nerf since ICC came out, then something is indeed, wrong.   Of course, with more dps, you can down the boss faster, meaning there may less chance someone will die from "standing in bad" and thereby wiping the raid (heck, with enough dps, you can do a zerg sartharidon THREE drakes run, yes you can) but how about stopping the bad dps from "standing in the bad" in the first place?  IMO, avoiding bad stuff takes precidence over raw dps any day.  as the saying goes, dead dps does zero dps.

the other saying also applies, or the mantra, actually:  its my $15, I'll play what I want.

BUT… if you do decide to go against the grain and be the black sheep, BE GOOD AT IT.  this will not only make me proud, it will shut the tools up who keep saying "x spec is best".