wow The Dragonflight Specless: A Harder Road to Level 70

[Starym 3,800]

 

Those without spec are back in Dragonflight! A couple of years ago we noticed a number of players take advantage of the fact that a spec is no longer forced on them at a certain point, and who proceeded to get to max level without ever choosing a spec - much the same way as Doubleagent never choose a faction (although he had it quite harder leveling). It all started in the Shadowlands pre-patch, as they got to 50, then continued in the expansion itself, and now we see them in Dragonflight as well - where things are quite a bit harder for them.

There were two players reporting getting to 70 in the past few days, and the first, circesalami, took a more extreme approach to the whole "specless" angle, and only used the abilities that show up in the spellbook by themselves, without picking ANY talents, even in the general tree. Pure class indeed!

Here are some comments on the matter from  circesalami on how they did it:

Starting in SL Prepatch, if you create a toon, it will be specless until you choose a spec or queue for healer/tank. I just....never did either. ... Since a lot of the baseline abilities are now part of the general talent tree, I was gimped heavily. Death Strike (big self-heal), Raise Dead, Control Undead, Mind Freeze (interrupt), Chains of Ice (a slow), and both AMZ/AMS are now inaccessible. All the abilities on the spellbook shown are what I had to work with, outside of Stoneform. This expac is far more friendlier to alts fortunately, so getting around for world quests and pet battles was easier. I tried to avoid combat for obvious reasons. ... EXP from mining and engineering builds was incredibly helpful! I did a bit of archaeology in older zones too for exp (i think at 69 w/ rested exp I was getting 3k per dig, so 36k per dig site?): great when you exhaust your world quests and want a change of scenery. ... I get a kick out of testing and breaking video games, along with setting arbitrary limits for myself. While there are times I find it frustrating (nearly dying to a mob I'd have no problem killing on any other toon), I find it amusing enough to keep going. ... In Shadowlands, I couldn't choose a soulbind because I didn't have a spec. Because I didn't have a soulbind because of no spec, I couldn't proceed with any of the covenant campaigns. or unlock legendary crafting, or officially unlock Korthia (skip wasn't accessible to me - i could run there) or the maw changes (running mor'geth was interesting cos I would get feared repeatedly by beastwarrens debuff), or finish the ZM questline (required you to visit the runecarver, who wasn't unlocked for me). Also Death's Due was broken for me, so it just made my Death and Decay blue lol.

Then there's the Rogue, geckoshuffle230, who didn't have the same talent-limitations, but still didn't choose a spec - but they have greater ambitions, as they hope to actually clear a raid without a spec. And they already have some like-minded players doing the same and might do some specless dungeons!

 

After 1 Day 18 Hours I finally dinged 70 on my specless Rogue. Although I had no goal when I started, I quickly realized I wanted to max this toon. Now that I am max my goal has slightly shifted and I would love to eventually clear a raid this way(despite obvious dps issues). Trouble is finding a group to attempt it with. I play at odd hours and whatnot. As for now though the saga for this toon is just beginning. Thought it was worthwhile to share! - geckoshuffle230 ... Nice! I saw a specless 70 DK the other day, and I'm leveling a specless paladin rn. Once there's 5 of us we should totally try a dungeon - JordanTH ... Hey I’m a night person myself so your timing works for me and my wife. It would be neat if you could get an entire raid of classes with no spec to see if it can be cleared that way. - HarryBotter1138

Hopefully we get to see all these purely classy characters unite and take on a dungeon and perhaps even some raid bosses!

[Yridaa 490]

The raid boss of course only counts with a full team of players with the same restrictions, without buying power from outside sources for gear etc.

 

So that practically invalidates world boss drops as well. I'm not sure you can kill a normal raid boss when you play the rules that way. Perhaps there are some raid bosses that don't require a tank spec. Then you may have a fighting chance.