Respecification

Respecification (to respec or to respecify) in many MMORPG titles such as "Star Wars Galaxies", "World of Warcraft", "City of Heroes", and "City of Villains" allows a player to change the attributes of his/her character.

A player's character gains differing abilities, characteristics, buffs, armor, powers, weapons and combat actions as the player/character advances through the levels of the game. Sometimes a player may realize that a certain power is no longer useful to their character, may want to get a power that is more fun to use/play, or even find that a certain choice earlier in the game has now restricted the player from powers or choices that they would like to explore. By respecing, players can save valuable game time by revamping their character to gain certain powers that may be otherwise unobtainable, or to revive a character that may have been considered unplayable.

Respecification in City of Heroes/Villains

In "City of Heroes" and "City of Villains", character respecs are acquired in three ways, completing special trials at certain points in their leveling, for having an active account for certain amounts of time, or after a significant change to the game's mechanics.

In "City of Heroes", to earn a respec, players must complete the Terra Volta Trials. In "City of Villains", players must complete the Thorn Tree Trials. In both of these cases, upon completion of the trial, players have the option of choosing between a traditional experience point and enhancement reward, or the respecification (which grants no experience or single-origin enhancement). These are considered "Earned respecs".

"Veteran Reward" respecs are given to players for meeting certain paid and elapsed account time markers. For instance, after nine months of having an active, paid account, a player is rewarded a respec on each of his or her characters.

Respecs are also occasionally granted with the release of new issues, as new costume parts, areas of play, and power sets are introduced. Sometimes the developer team will see fit to weaken certain power sets that are deemed too strong or strengthen others. At this point some players may want to reset the powers that their character had previously chosen. Players may simply want to experiment with the power sets that are available. For example, the introduction of new sorts of enhancements in the "Issue 9" update will likely lead to the distribution of a respec, so players who never had the choice of these new enhancements will be allowed to alter their characters accordingly.

Characters in "City of Heroes" begin with basic armors, attack powers, or control powers that are vital at the beginning of the game. Later in a character's advancement, several new options for attacks, armors, and other powers become available. The introductory powers while still useful, may no longer fit the character. The player may even consider them obsolete. Using a "respec" allows the player to make use of experience with the powers, judging which to drop and which new powers to try. These powers are gained and lost at a one-to-one ratio.

During a respec players can also re-assign their Enhancements and Enhancement Slots (Both are otherwise permanent during the course of "City of Heroes.") This allows the players to decide which of their powers will have the most emphasis without the necessity of buying all new Enhancements for their character. Furthermore, as Enhancement "slots" are a finite resource and unchangeable one earned during normal play during level up, then a "respec" allows for better resource management by allowing one to use hindsight to change the slot allocation chosen during the discrete leveling up process. For example, one power with six enhancement slots (Power A) and one power with only one (default) enhancement slot (Power B) into the various combinations of two powers: A has 5, B has 2; A has 4, B has 3; A has 3, B has 4; A has 2, B has 5; or A has 1, B has 6.

As characters near the end of their playing arc and reach the final levels they may find it necessary to respec again, sometimes to prepare for a specific challenge or to take advantage of some of the most powerful attack/defenses/buffs and powers that are available. Other players, now finished with "regular" game-play and leveling, may be interested in [player vs. player] play. Since other player character act and fight differently than NPC opponents the player may want to alter the powers, enhancements, and enhancement slot allocations that they have available to them.

Respecification in World of Warcraft

In "World of Warcraft", talent point respecs are acquired at class trainers.

Talent points are gained as a character advances past level 10 at a rate of one point per level. The player assigns points to one of three separate areas of specialization (talent trees) with the three talent trees varying from class to class. Points are limited so that a player can obtain the best talents in only one talent tree. This leads to many different talent point builds (also called specs) that an individual character could have.

Players can respecify their character when they choose, at a cost in gold: 1 gold for the first time, 5 gold for the second time, and for every time thereafter the cost increases by 5 gold (to a maximum of 50 gold). This decreases by 5 gold per month that a player does not respec (to a minimum of 10 gold). When a player respecs, all talent points are taken out of the talent trees they were in and given back to the player so that a completely new talent point build can be chosen.

Many newer players are gaining Talent points for the very first time, but do not know how they will affect the character. Often these players will hold onto several points, (for 3,5 or even 10 levels,) and apply them all at once to see a greater effect.

Talent point builds reflect the differing ways that the character is used. For example, combat in PvE (player versus environment, i.e. player against monsters controlled by the computer) is very different from PvP (player versus player). Those new to PvP play often find it difficult at first as they use tried and tested tactics from their PvE experience, but find those tactics to be unusable because of the way human players attack.

A mage character may be used to casting the pyroblast spell to do heavy damage against monsters, but will find during PvP combat that the spell is unusable as opposing players prioritize their attacks against those casting high damage spells. The mage may respec with PvP in mind, perhaps choosing talents that decrease casting time and increase damage for a single cast. Experienced players looking to level their character to the cap as quickly as possible, for Raids and Instances, look for talents that offer the greatest damage, and survivability. A priest might specifically choose "Shadow" talent tree to level. But upon reaching 70, choose to respec as "Holy" or "Discipline" to offer more help to raid groups.

Many players like to experiment with the different talents, especially joining two or all three of the trees to find subtle effects that they can take advantage of. (One possibility might be instant Pyroblast for mages.) Another such build might be a "Crit" build for rogues, the player picking out those talents that increase critical hit chance and critical hit damage. Other rogues like the "Hemo" build, which increases the damage and durations of "bleed" effects. This damages enemy players continual over a period of time, but without having to score direct damage. Many times, the enemy may still take enough damage to die, even after defeating the "Hemo" rogue

Respecification in Star Wars Galaxies

'Respecs', in Star Wars Galaxies are obtained from the profession counselors throughout the galaxy. The respec can either be for your expertise points OR your entire profession (including an "expertise respec" to accommodate for the new expertise options).