Spell power and "hybridness*"

*Hybridness - (adjective) - source: Alex Ziebart, apparently this a measure of the quality of being a hybrid.

The post I linked to discusses the use of spell power as a gear stat in the Lich King beta. Basically the Spellpower stat combines and replaces the separate Spell Damage and Healing statistics that we currently have. This is of great interest to me since the two classes I play the most are Druid and Shaman, 2 0f the 3 hybrid classes in the game. It appears that the coefficients of the spells have been changed so that the damage or healing output stays approximately the same as they were with the 2 sets of stats, and possibly even a little higher although the increase may be based on changes to talents and not on the coefficients. Unfortunately, I do not have a beta key so I just have to rely on the information of others.

What this all really means is that a number of players and classes can increase their "hybridness*" without having multiple sets of gear to do so. I currently have a spell damage set and a healing set for my toons and the need for those may go away. I say may because I'm not sure it really will as far as raiding gear goes, but it will certainly make questing and grinding easier without changing gear. My concern is other stats on the gear and enchants that you apply to the pieces. The enchants may be changed to reflect this as well, but I'm thinking of Golden and Runic Spellthread as I write this. You might even find yourself with two of the same piece of equipment and just enchant them differently based on the intended use.

This will probably increase the competition for drops in raids between the specs, but it also might decrease the amount of gear that gets sharded in a run. My other hope is that it increases the amount of gear that is available for my toons - Leather and Mail with Spellpower. The bad part is that we all might start looking like carbon copies of each other, unless there is so much gear with similar stats that it allows us to customize our looks.