Some figures on talents pulled from the Armory

[Paelos]

It's a delicate balance with the hybrid classes as a raid leader. The majority of them need to be in raid spec, with a few that can be offspec. One feral druid in a raid doesn't matter, but it's tempting for most druids to want to go that way because now they can raid and solo. Now, where you could have taken one or two, you can't take them all because they've just become collectively fucking useless. Same goes for DPS warriors, Shadow priests, Ret pallies, Elemental shammys. One or two won't kill you, but deciding who gets to be "special" enough to do it sometimes really sucks, and if it sucks enough with a bunch of whining assholes, you just make a blanket "fuck you" policy and nobody gets to try and be special.

That would be my thinking. I've personally never had to deal with it much, but I at one point I was getting weary of only feral druids signing up. That shifted though when it became apparent that our healing situation was less than stellar.

[Modern Angel]

You're wrong about ret pallies. Those objectively suck.

[Paelos]

You're wrong about ret pallies. Those objectively suck.

Meh, I tossed them in there for kicks. I've never had one.

[Modern Angel]

We had one guy who just swore being a ret pally was going to be the shit and, well, he barely (BARELY) outdamaged our tank. It was pretty awful. I don't think he's raided since.

That was Karazhan. I can see more of a role for them in 25s with the whole judgement refreshing thing.

[Merusk]

Yeah ret pallies have their uses but despite the propaganda, Damage isn't one of them.   Judgement refreshes and improved sanctity aura are about it for their tricks. 

Pallies are just lulled into thinking they can do damage, because ret DOES do more damage than other specs.. it's just that compared to DPS classes they're not worth it.  Anyone who's played both a ret pally and a dps class can tell that right off.

[Dren]

Anyone who's played both a ret pally and a dps class can tell that right off.

I'm a witness.

[Nonentity]

Tell your raid leader:

a) to think outside of the box since he's a hidebound retard
b) to go peruse Death and Taxes, Nihilum, Fires of Heaven Armory profiles to see precisely how many EVIL shaman specs they bring
c) that you quit

Elementals are a little iffy but still bring such amazingly good gear overlap that I could totally fit one in a raid. One Enhancement is such a must have that I'm floored people are still thinking thumbs down on them.

Are you horde? I've heard that horde guilds are way less flexible about shaman specs than their alliance counterparts; most of the forums posts you see about restorestoresto are horde by a large margin.

I'm Horde.

We've also had some bad stigma in our guild associated with Elemental Shaman. Out of our previous people who wanted to be elemental - one is on the 2nd Place Arena Team (the HUKs), one stopped playing, and one got gkicked. So, there you go.

As far as 'off-specs' are concerned, our raid leader has a hardon for Shadow priests, so we have 2 or 3 in every raid now. I don't mind, personally. The passive healing and mana regen is a-ok in my book. We also have 2 feral druids, for offtanking and dps/emergency tanks.

None of our Paladins are dumb enough to actually go ret, methinks. They know better then that.

[Nebu]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm reading in this thread is that if I don't spec my toon the way that raiders want, I'm unlikely to ever raid with a competent group.  Seems like me, as the customer, should be able to spec my toon in a way that I find fun/entertaining without having to incur the wrath of the min/maxers.  I guess I can better understand why some people don't like the Armory.  Skilled players are more likely to discriminate based on spec and gear meaning that those choosing to play differently will be relegated to more casual groups. 

[Lightstalker]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm reading in this thread is that if I don't spec my toon the way that raiders want, I'm unlikely to ever raid with a competent group.  Seems like me, as the customer, should be able to spec my toon in a way that I find fun/entertaining without having to incur the wrath of the min/maxers.  I guess I can better understand why some people don't like the Armory.  Skilled players are more likely to discriminate based on spec and gear meaning that those choosing to play differently will be relegated to more casual groups. 

With the wrong spec you'll stand out and get booted from the competent group for underperformance, Armory or not.  This game provide a Best Way to harvest epic drops from end game instances, if one isn't willing to abide by those rules one risks being ignored by the hardcore.  Armory just lets the non-hardcore discriminate as if they were hardcore, and or makes it blindingly obvious to those left out why they've been left out.  Most folks enjoy a touch of ambiguity or anonymity in their WoW playing.

Healing effectiveness is a possibly reason why Shadow Priests are desired by raid leaders.  As primary healers they never have mana when they are needed, you can only count them as half a healer.  As dps they also count as half a healer, but they also deal serious damage.  Stick two shadow priests together and they get a synergy bonus to boot (as they still run out of mana too quickly by themselves).  The group healing from Shadow lets the primary healer concentrate on the guy taking damage now and lets the passive healing keep the raid topped off.  Shadow priests have a great deal of additional utility to a raid, over say a rogue, and their damage is easier to dish out (less work and risk for the button masher). 

[ajax34i]

You're not "unlikely to ever raid", you're just unlikely to raid cutting-edge.

Raid encounters are balanced assuming that your stats are at a certain level (in terms of HP, mana, endurance, regeneration, etc.), and this level is higher than what you'd get with just greens at L70.  So, you must either boost your stats with equipment, or by picking certain talents.

If you raid a lot, you'll see that what happens is that as you get more and more geared, your talents matter less and less, and eventually the encounter becomes a breeze and you're ready for the next tier.

Unfortunately, a lot of guilds are forced to get through content at a certain pace.  Finish up with Karazhan within 2 months of starting.  Why?  Because their members will get bored and want different things, and leave the guild if they don't get it. 

So, if you want to stay within this group that breaks each place in, you have to have the talents because you don't have the gear yet.  Once you get the gear, you could respec, but unfortunately everyone's bored and wants the next thing, so they move on and you need your talents again, despite your gear.

It's a forced march, more or less, if you want to keep the guild together.

[Paelos]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I'm reading in this thread is that if I don't spec my toon the way that raiders want, I'm unlikely to ever raid with a competent group.  Seems like me, as the customer, should be able to spec my toon in a way that I find fun/entertaining without having to incur the wrath of the min/maxers.  I guess I can better understand why some people don't like the Armory.  Skilled players are more likely to discriminate based on spec and gear meaning that those choosing to play differently will be relegated to more casual groups. 

Sort of, but not really. I've always been against Blizzard's inclusion of three spec trees, but only one spec option, since it just breeds contempt amongst people in a grouping environment. The problem lies in the fact that Blizzard only lets people spec one way instead of being able to swap them based on locale. I don't think Blizzard would lose any customers by letting people have two specializations (One World/PvP spec, One instance spec). No raider really enjoys having to wander the world in a Protection or Healing spec, and no PvPer/Soloer loves the fact that they can't find a group to save their lives.

It'll never happen though. Blizzard would never let gear be your spec. That would make too much sense.

[Jayce]

Seems like me, as the customer, should be able to spec my toon in a way that I find fun/entertaining without having to incur the wrath of the min/maxers.

No matter how many viable specs there are, there will always be one "best" spec from a min/maxer point of view.  It's endemic.  There's a "best" weapon in every FPS, a "best" strategy in RTS, and a "best" spec (WoW) or combination of skills (UO) or build (AC).

If you go with an offspec, either you will discover a new best and everyone will emulate you (0.5%) or you will not do as well as the cookie cutters (99.5%).  Raid leaders know which side of that equation they want to be on, especially since given their choice, 90% of players will try to be the unique snowflake, making almost everyone sub-par.

One other aspect is that some specs are best for PvP, some are best for raiding, some for soloing, some for 5-manning, etc.  So it's not as bad as some other games where an offspec means you can't do squat.  You have to really TRY to come up with a downright retarded spec, if you know anything at all about your class.


BTW, to Paelos' point:  this is the second time I've seen that idea floated around.  Personally I'd hate it.  It makes a gamey game even less immersive.  Your spec should be your spec IMO.  Love it, hate it or spend the gold to change it.

[Paelos]

Kinda funny that you'd hate it Jayce, since everything you just said would be a great argument why specs should never exist at all in the first place, let alone two types.

EDIT: To go further, I hate specs. I despise them to my very core. Why? Because it's a game where only one really matters, and by giving people all these "choices" you're not really giving them anything at all. You are just locking down their overall gaming choices in the long run. Specs are just fine in single player games where you are the hero, but in games where you have to group up with others to succeed, they are the Devil's nuts.

[Modern Angel]

I'd say that Blizz did a pretty damned good job of making all the specs pve viable, though, with the expansion. Besides Retadins, Boomkins, Survival hunters and deep subtlety rogues I can't think of anything that flat out sucks; even Balance druids have a place sometimes.

And shadow priests are the bee's knees. Current thinking is make your healers paladins, bring one holy priest for fort/spirit and pack in another two or three shadow priests for the mana regen. That's the min-max angle.

[Nebu]

With the wrong spec you'll stand out and get booted from the competent group for underperformance, Armory or not. 

So what's more important, player skill or spec?  That's the root of my question. Just like driving a car, most people think they are good players (which obviously can't be the case).  I'd think that a raiding group would be more interested in attracting good players than they would in attracting players with the right spec.  The Armory seems counterproductive to this end.  If your spec prevents you from ever playing with other skilled players, then how the hell are you ever going to demonstrate your ability?  While I realize that a good player with a subpar spec is less effective than a good player with an optimized spec, there is still the issue of good players vs. mediocre (or bad).  Seems to me that the safest way to avoid the whole issue is to just migrate from game to game with a set crew... but isn't that counterproductive to the whole make-friends-online-to-aid-in-retention racket that the MMO developers yearn for?

So that people don't think this is a personal question here, I don't play WoW anymore and I have no interest in a PvE endgame.  I'm just looking at the whole thing from an academic perspective as someone that once enjoyed EQ and is intrigued by the direction things seem to be evolving. 

[Jayce]

My angle is that even if you have a PvE or PvP spec it doesn't keep you from doing the other stuff, you just won't do it at your most efficient.  The reason that I don't like multispecs is that the specs as they stand are an interesting choice, because the more spec'd you are at one thing, the less of a generalist you are, and vice versa. You get to pick how much you give up in one area to get where you want to be in another. Also you can adjust your playstyle and abilities based on your current focus.  It also (with some classes, notably mages and warlocks) packs essentially two or more subclasses into one class, providing a lot of variety.

To Nebu's question, from my experience a good player (and that involves a lot of different stuff outside pure clicky, for example a good trait in a raider is ability to follow instructions) with a subpar spec is WORLDS better to have than a bad player with the best spec in creation. 

Especially given that you can respec at the drop of a hat, a good guild leader is looking for someone with a good spec only to demonstrate game knowledge. If they are teachable and have good personality traits that counts for MUCH more than current spec to a smart guild.  In fact my guild is currently considering someone with a spec some people have cringed at, but he seems to be a good mature and helpful individual, so he has a good chance at getting in.

[Rasix]

I'd say that Blizz did a pretty damned good job of making all the specs pve viable, though, with the expansion. Besides Retadins, Boomkins, Survival hunters and deep subtlety rogues I can't think of anything that flat out sucks; even Balance druids have a place sometimes.

And shadow priests are the bee's knees. Current thinking is make your healers paladins, bring one holy priest for fort/spirit and pack in another two or three shadow priests for the mana regen. That's the min-max angle.

Pure balance druids really only have a place right now (in raiding)  if you want nothing other than DPS (which they do massive amounts of) with a smidge of utility.  Their DPS can be crazy.  I don't see how they wouldn't be considered "viable" though.  Not optimal, but at least they're not going to be tickling a mob like some of the other specs mentioned.

Out of boredom I respecced from feral to boomkin and with mediocre gear I can lay down a lot of pain.  It's a really fun PVP build.  Their lack of aggro management is already evident, but outside of a heroic or raid they can take the hits.  I'm not too big on having to get Subtlety as a form of aggro management, and I won't likely get it. I mainly took this as a PVP/"I'm bored" build fully knowing I would be making myself a grouping pariah. Not about to take 5 points off a great tree in order spam wrath and starfire in an instance and I'm never likely to raid.

A balance druid can likely heal any non-heroic, just most closed minded individuals would rather not have them try. One of the most popular raid druid healing builds has more balance than resto (like 34/27).  They retain some ability to do some damage outside of healing and are probably the best single target healing build for a druid.

I sympathize a bit with Nebu.  But I've taken a stand on how I'm going to play these games after my last bout with raiding. I'm going to spec how I want to, I'm going to log on when I want to, and I'm not going to be playing for 4 hours at a time.  I've gotten a lot of "hey, you should join our guild" and when I tell them my stance, the inquiry ends.  So be it, I'll be fine in my podunk casual guild filled with folks that just play how they want to.  I like doing instances and I liked raid instances when I raided, but my first priority is having fun that doesn't fuck with my other priorities. 

I'd think that a raiding group would be more interested in attracting good players than they would in attracting players with the right spec.

Ohh they are.  Just when they find out you're a good player, they bust out the "play this spec" mandate.  Right now you're just railing at the nature of the beast and until Blizzard can insert more raid friendly options to all specs (and people pull their heads out of their asses), off specs suffer. 

[Nebu]

I sympathize a bit with Nebu.  But I've taken a stand on how I'm going to play these games after my last bout with raiding. I'm going to spec how I want to, I'm going to log on when I want to, and I'm not going to be playing for 4 hours at a time.  I've gotten a lot of "hey, you should join our guild" and when I tell them my stance, the inquiry ends.  So be it, I'll be fine in my podunk casual guild filled with folks that just play how they want to.  I like doing instances and I liked raid instances when I raided, but my first priority is having fun that doesn't fuck with my other priorities. 

Here's what I find amusing.  I'm a pretty well-educated and analytical guy. Yet every time I play an MMO, all I run into are self-proclaimed experts.  If they can convince me WHY they feel that a particular spec is more effective, I'm always willing to listen for the sake of better understanding mechanics.  What gets my goat are the kidlettes that insist that people play a particular spec in a particular way without ever giving any thought to why they think that way.  It's like WoW has created some dogma that just begs to be accepted without challenge.  The psychology of it fascinates me almost as much as it irritates me.

[Jayce]

Here's what I find amusing.  I'm a pretty well-educated and analytical guy. Yet every time I play an MMO, all I run into are self-proclaimed experts.  If they can convince me WHY they feel that a particular spec is more effective, I'm always willing to listen for the sake of better understanding mechanics.  What gets my goat are the kidlettes that insist that people play a particular spec in a particular way without ever giving any thought to why they think that way.  It's like WoW has created some dogma that just begs to be accepted without challenge.  The psychology of it fascinates me almost as much as it irritates me.

I don't know what's worse: those, or the people that can and will go on for hours about the niceties and subtleties of various aspects of every corner of the game.  I am obsessed about theorycrafting as any fanboi (ok, maybe not ANY fanboi) but there is a point where I realize it's a game, and it's fun, not life.

[Rasix]

I sympathize a bit with Nebu.  But I've taken a stand on how I'm going to play these games after my last bout with raiding. I'm going to spec how I want to, I'm going to log on when I want to, and I'm not going to be playing for 4 hours at a time.  I've gotten a lot of "hey, you should join our guild" and when I tell them my stance, the inquiry ends.  So be it, I'll be fine in my podunk casual guild filled with folks that just play how they want to.  I like doing instances and I liked raid instances when I raided, but my first priority is having fun that doesn't fuck with my other priorities. 

Here's what I find amusing.  I'm a pretty well-educated and analytical guy. Yet every time I play an MMO, all I run into are self-proclaimed experts.  If they can convince me WHY they feel that a particular spec is more effective, I'm always willing to listen for the sake of better understanding mechanics.  What gets my goat are the kidlettes that insist that people play a particular spec in a particular way without ever giving any thought to why they think that way.  It's like WoW has created some dogma that just begs to be accepted without challenge.  The psychology of it fascinates me almost as much as it irritates me.

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=7143.msg192929#msg192929

Most are unwilling or unable to discuss how different specs actually help the raid.  A lot of this has to do with a decent number of guilds conquering by emulation rather than innovation and skill.  The spec you're required to have and the method for fighting that boss?  Yah, your guild leader read about it somewhere and watched a video on YouTube.

[caladein]

Are you horde? I've heard that horde guilds are way less flexible about shaman specs than their alliance counterparts; most of the forums posts you see about restorestoresto are horde by a large margin.

Simply because Horde raid leaders have always seen Shamans as one talent and one talent only: Mana Tide. The only thing a lot of people saw them as was healer/caster support. They may have leveled up as Enhancement or Elemental, but at 70 it was once again, where's my Mana Tide and Earth Shield, bitch? (Usually from the other Resto snobs.)

Alliance's only experience with Shamans was when they were leveling all the way to 70, and they got to see how they were pretty good DPS and how much of a help Unleashed Rage and Totem of Wrath were. They didn't have the officer core that had preconceptions about what Shamans could bring to the table, and to help out Enh/Ele even more... their only real memorable experience with a Shaman was getting decked by Windfury crits in a BG, so they knew first hand their damage potential.

The story is sort of true on the Horde with Paladins, although it's mostly go deep Holy or go Home, but really the Prot tree is a victim of the fact that no tank can really hold aggro well in 5-mans, just not enough incomming damage, so people threw out the idea of a Pally tanks pretty early for the most part.

[Modern Angel]

Interesting. How horde paladins were being treated was my next question but it's tough to overlook just how good Holy is at what it does.

[Driakos]

The story is sort of true on the Horde with Paladins, although it's mostly go deep Holy or go Home, but really the Prot tree is a victim of the fact that no tank can really hold aggro well in 5-mans, just not enough incomming damage, so people threw out the idea of a Pally tanks pretty early for the most part.

They speak crazy talk.  There's a guy in my horde guild, catassed up a BE Paladin to 70 pretty quick.  Protection specced, he makes an awesome 5-man tank.  He can just run into packs of mobs, and I flamestrike away.  He's holy at the moment, but spec-swaps so often we can still do 5-mans.  With him, 2 mages, a shadow priest and any other class, we destroy instances.

With the 60% increased threat from holy damage/spells, plus consecration, reckoning, and all of the porcupine damage protection spec gives, paladins can hold aggro well.  If you are still thieving threat, throw in Blessing of Salvation.

I hate doing 5-mans with a warrior now because we have to go so slow.  Even a feral druid is better.  For me as a mage at least.

[Merusk]

Those of you having trouble wrapping your mind around the "Most effective spec" idea need to think of it more like a deck of Magic cards.  There are, what, 4 viable top-end decks at any point.  If you're in a tournament you're playing one of those decks, right?  The same is true of high-end raiding.

 It may not be that you developed that deck, but you know it works and you learn how to use it, until something else trumps it.  Wow specs are the same way, but new cardsets are item drops or talent tweaks (or much more rarely, revamps).  It can be fun figuring things out and experimenting after the newness is introduced, but eventually it comes down to a handfull of the most potent.

Those discussions you crave DO happen, Nebu.  They happen at places like Elitist Jerks, FoH and other uberguild sites.  To a much lesser extent you can see echoes of them on the official forums, but you have to wade through a lot of drek to find them.  The high-end typically aren't the ones discussing them there, however, because they hate those boards as much as we do.  What you're seeing is usually someone parroting the information from another site.

On top of all this metagaming, however, wow has an added problematic layer. Raids are designed with very specific methods in mind, because of cockblockiness.  (And that's really all it is.)  Devs and designers want content consumed at a certain pace, and they tune for the 'most effective' specs and group loadouts, so you have to be overgeared to do them as anything less than that narrow-definition.   If they were to drop that elitist stance, things would be a lot better all-around, but it's not happening any time soon. 

Were they to do that, the high-end would chew-through and discard the content even faster than they do now.  We've seen what Blizzard would rather do with the upcoming Alchemy nerf.  Rather than say "Fuck it, potion quaffers will just blow-through while less-insane people can do things at the level we intended" they're kicking down the sandcastle in a tantrum.  The same holds true of tuning content for 70-80% of the playerbase rather than 10%.   It's a legacy of EQ that hasn't been overturned by anyone yet.

[Modern Angel]

Now I will say in Blizzard's defense that a good raid (with my normal caveat of ignore the RAIDS SUK LOL since it's not germane to the argument) is designed with tight math involved. X dps in y amount of time with z amount of healing, perfect. And when it works it works really well (see BWL after initial fuckups). When it doesn't work it's a disaster (see original Gruul and, fuck, everything post Karazhan in BC).

It's why I have no confidence in LOTRO having decent raids since they can't even get their crafting right and why I hold out some hope that Blizz can get it tuned properly. Some. Small.

[Ironwood]

I hate doing 5-mans with a warrior now because we have to go so slow.  Even a feral druid is better.  For me as a mage at least.

Your Warrior Sucks.

If I was being beaten at tanking (even multiple mobs) by a Pally, I'd kill myself.

Seriously.

[caladein]

I hate doing 5-mans with a warrior now because we have to go so slow.  Even a feral druid is better.  For me as a mage at least.

Your Warrior Sucks.

If I was being beaten at tanking (even multiple mobs) by a Pally, I'd kill myself.

Seriously.

A Paladin can just generate so much threat on multiple targets as Prot, passively I might add, that they blow a Warrior or Druid's multi-target tanking ability out of the water. When one of our Paladins was 30 Holy/31 Prot, he used to tank the dancer pulls by Moroes with absolutely no problem. As long as the mobs start off on him, they'll stay on him for the duration.

[rk47]

There are just too many healers spec classes that I wonder why some guild leaders went over board with 'Shaman must be resto'. I've never been horde but I got my draenei to 60 with enchance, switched over to elemental and never looked back.

The amount of dps they bring by themselves may seem to be 10-20% less, but when you consider +101 spell dmg & heal to all casters in grp, as well as +3% spell crit and 25 MP5 Mana spring totem. As well as burst dps added to the party with 30% cast & atk speed buff every 10 mins, that's quite a lot of reasons to have an elem spec shaman to a raid. On the spot chain heals & Light heal wave also helps to cover tough spots. I've never been in a situation where my guild told me, 'I'm sorry we don't need your spec in this raid' since I can do off heal & dps quite fine without any mana problems.

[Ironwood]

I hate doing 5-mans with a warrior now because we have to go so slow.  Even a feral druid is better.  For me as a mage at least.

Your Warrior Sucks.

If I was being beaten at tanking (even multiple mobs) by a Pally, I'd kill myself.

Seriously.

A Paladin can just generate so much threat on multiple targets as Prot, passively I might add, that they blow a Warrior or Druid's multi-target tanking ability out of the water. When one of our Paladins was 30 Holy/31 Prot, he used to tank the dancer pulls by Moroes with absolutely no problem. As long as the mobs start off on him, they'll stay on him for the duration.

I've yet to meet him.  Could be because I've always been horde and our pallies aren't there yet.

:)

What multithreat passive options are you alluding to ?

[rk47]

There are just too many healers spec classes that I wonder why some guild leaders went over board with 'Shaman must be resto'. I've never been horde but I got my draenei to 60 with enchance, switched over to elemental and never looked back.

The amount of dps they bring by themselves may seem to be 10-20% less, but when you consider +101 spell dmg & heal to all casters in grp, as well as +3% spell crit and 25 MP5 Mana spring totem. As well as burst dps added to the party with 30% cast & atk speed buff every 10 mins, that's quite a lot of reasons to have an elem spec shaman to a raid. On the spot chain heals & Light heal wave also helps to cover tough spots. I've never been in a situation where my guild told me, 'I'm sorry we don't need your spec in this raid' since I can do off heal & dps quite fine without any mana problems.

And the argument people usually bring up when I tell them this is : 'It's clutch, most raids can be done without these buffs'
I don't feel like explaining all over again why Blizzard cannot balance a raid over one class ability to buff, but whatever. I've done all my Kz runs with no resto shaman and I'm fine. so be it.

[Merusk]

I hate doing 5-mans with a warrior now because we have to go so slow.  Even a feral druid is better.  For me as a mage at least.

Your Warrior Sucks.

If I was being beaten at tanking (even multiple mobs) by a Pally, I'd kill myself.

Seriously.

A Paladin can just generate so much threat on multiple targets as Prot, passively I might add, that they blow a Warrior or Druid's multi-target tanking ability out of the water. When one of our Paladins was 30 Holy/31 Prot, he used to tank the dancer pulls by Moroes with absolutely no problem. As long as the mobs start off on him, they'll stay on him for the duration.

I've yet to meet him.  Could be because I've always been horde and our pallies aren't there yet.

:)

What multithreat passive options are you alluding to ?

Protec Warriors are hard to find these days, so I've been forced to use pallies quite a bit.  None of them have been good enough to hold aggro. I'm not sure if this is a problem with the players I'm finding, but my priest gets pwned by adds as soon as I toss the first heal.  They split off the pally and beat me to death, not fun.

The multithreat options he's talking about would be some combo of Improved Consecration (purifying power) Holy Shield and Improved Righteous Fury, I suppose.

  RF increases holy threat by 60%, and IRF adding another 50% onto that, which really buffs Consecration's aggro.  Holy Shield is a 4-charge version of Shield Block that does 155 damage per block @ 70 and adds 35% threat (before RF).  Not exactly passive, but they're not as active as "Taunt" either.

[Phred]

I'd think that a raiding group would be more interested in attracting good players than they would in attracting players with the right spec.

Ohh they are.  Just when they find out you're a good player, they bust out the "play this spec" mandate.  Right now you're just railing at the nature of the beast and until Blizzard can insert more raid friendly options to all specs (and people pull their heads out of their asses), off specs suffer. 

The other problem is that good raiding guilds have no shortage of applicants who want to get in, usually there's enough skillful ones who are the spec the raid leader prefers so off spec's wont get a lot of chance anyway. Besides, if you were a leader, who would you let play an off spec? Someone who'd been with the guild already a few years playing the needed spec when the guild needed them too, or someone who considered it an imposition to even suggest they spec that way?

[ajax34i]

If you were a leader, who would you let play an off spec? Someone who'd been with the guild already a few years playing the needed spec when the guild needed them too, or someone who considered it an imposition to even suggest they spec that way?

It depends on the guild.  Everybody likes to pretend that doing your dues for the guild will benefit you in the end, but the truth is that for a lot of guilds it's uncertain whether the guild will still exist a week later.  As an example of what people really feel, nobody likes to gear up a main tank and then see that main tank leave the guild, even though he tanked for them every raid for like a year, as they "geared him up" and so he put in his dues.  The guild will always "need" the reliable player to play whatever spec is needed, and will never let him/her go off-spec.

But anyway, all this stuff above is a tangent, only mentioned to illustrate that the whole "spec" thing is a complex social decision, much like everything else.

[Rasix]

So be it, I'll be fine in my podunk casual guild filled with folks that just play how they want to. 

Funny enough, there's one guy in my guild that pretty much just does instances all day (a holy priest) and does pickup Karazhan with another guild and he disapproves of the moonkin (his direct quote was "sad :(" and hasn't grouped with me since) Everyone else in the guild's main comment was "awesome, dance!". 

Heh, just like the feral, the moonkin takes down 2 and sometimes 3 person elites with ease (even took down a mob I couldn't handle as feral), but he does it with pure DPS rather than bear form with a bash/heal.  Itching to see what I can do in instances.. but I get crickets after the person asking me fails twice to guess my spec.

As for offspecs and raiding, wouldn't it be somewhat beneficial to a guild to have people playing specs they like?  Would the morale boosts offset the dissatisfaction of not always getting in the raid?  Would there simply not be enough prot warriors and heal specced healers?  Would new effective raid makeups pop up that would have otherwise been squashed?  Do not apply the above line of questioning to "server/faction/world" first guilds.  I expect them to lead with the flexibility of a read-only spreadsheet.

Edit: this is brought to you by the knowledge that to get my faction epics, I'm going to probably have to respec back to feral (or resto.. bleh). 

[caladein]

What multithreat passive options are you alluding to ?

By passively, I meant that he doesn't actually have to attack the mobs to gain threat on them, they kill themselves:

Consecration (standard holy PBAoE)
Blessing of Sanctuary (Reduces damage incoming and causes Holy damage whenever you block an attack)
Holy Shield (Increases block chance and causes Holy damage whenever you block an attack)
Spiritual Attunement (Turns healing received into mana and is threat credited to you: just like when a Warrior gains Rage)

Add in all the things that make Paladins good single-target tanks and yeah... Warriors simply can't compete as their only options are Tab+Sunder while Paladins have that whole list AND being able to switch between targets.

In 2.1.0, they'll be changing Avenger's Shield to be basically a high-threat, 3-target Cleave and just a general increase in Holy damage done which will help out even more.