Tigole confirmed last night that dual specs are currently being worked on. They are figuring out all the details internally still (which is a good thing). When a poster asked "I imagine by this stage we wouldn't see it until a patch after release?" Tigole replied "Most likely in a patch but it's not too far off."
Now you can interpret that different ways. Perhaps he means in a beta patch or a patch immediately following Wrath's release. Either way the fact that these dual specs will eventually be here will make many people quite happy.
Last night I was talking to some guild mates about it and the word that was thrown around was "game changing" for Protection Warriors and other low DPS specs. Since the Protection Warrior would just be able to flip into a DPS spec for farming, he would no longer need a farming alt - significantly changing the way the game is played.
Additionally WoW insider also reports on Blizzards newly found IQ - Blizzard is seemingly changing their view on hybrid tanks (Paladins and Druids) - now they (finally) want all tanks to be equally adept at tanking - to keep the game moving forward.
It took them 5 years to come to their senses, guess its better late than never, right?
Daniel Whitcomb also from WoW Insider reports:
This all seems to be in line with the tanking philosophy Blizzard has been pushing for Wrath, one which Ghostcrawler recently reiterated: Blizzard wants to make sure that all tanks are as equal as possible. There should be no reason to take one class of tank over another, all things being equal, and no reason to sideline your tank because he or she is not the right class. Certainly, if this is to be realized completely, you do have to give every tank a good amount of AE capability, and this latest round of announced tank changes seems to be tailor made to do just that.
As the former player of a Druid tank and the future (current beta) player of a Death Knight tank, I'm very pleased to see these changes. I know that there was nothing more fun that running through a dungeon like Shattered Halls as a DPS with a Paladin Tank leading the way, and the idea that every tank class might be able to do that to some extent in Wrath makes me incredibly excited. It also allows groups to be more flexible in what DPS they take, including DPSers that traditionally have had a hard time getting groups due to having poor CC abilities, such as Cat Druids and Retribution Paladins.
If this change is handled right, it will go a long way toward solving the tank shortage for PuG groups, and, in fact, make the 5-man dungeon run fun again in general.
Or is this once again yet another bait and switch game played by Blizzard upon their unsuspecting customers?
If you remember, upon release of BC every class got what it wanted most (so everyone bought the BC expansion), after only a few months Blizzard reversed all the changes and once again "broke" the game. Mostly for hybrid classes - and above all - for Druid tanks.
Is it another "bait and switch or is WoW finally becoming a CUSTOMER centered game, instead of "Kalgans bruised ego" centered game? We shall wait and see - and play EVE Online in the meantime.