WoW 3.1.0 looks like . . .

. . . awesome sauce.

The coming patch is still on the public test realms, but I'm really looking forward to it.

The big change is the long-awaited "dual spec" option. Right now, far too many incipient dungeon groups and raids die due to a lack of healers. Given that there are a lot of Death Knights running around right now (as the raid commander of my guild told me recently: "The Death Knight is the new Hunter"). Healers are absolutely necessary in these groups, but far too few players choose healer classes. Healers have a very hard time doing daily (or most any other quest) solo because they don't do much damage (DPS).

Since my favorite classes (shammy and druid) both have healer specs, the ability to rapidly switch from a DPS specialization to a healer specialization and back easily is a real boon to me.

I also like the various enhancement shammy options here, like combining poison and disease cleansing totems like they did Grace of Air and Strength of Earth in 3.0.

For shammys the dual-spec mode has some interesting implications. If I were to start a new Shammy toon under 3.1 with an eye toward healbotting in raids at level 80, I'd spec the toon for Elemental Combat and collect Spellpower gear. Spellpower is used for both damage and for healing spells, so the same gear will work (or should work) for both EC and Restoration (healing). My current toon's gear is uncompromisingly optimised for melee combat; less Spellpower and more Agility and Haste for melee DPS. I've collected a few bits of healbot gear to date against the time when this patch goes into effect.

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