So I've been running all my alts through the Broken Shore scenario since I got the troll hunter to 100 (that's five now). Doing this is letting me get their bars set up, figure out a bit how they work, and all that. It's also let me see how I like where the specs I usually play are at now.
Marksman: I think I wrote about this at length in the post-macro... post, but I'm liking the Hunter's Mark/Marked Shot interplay. I'm using Patient Sniper but not Sidewinders. I'm also mostly using Murder of Crows because it's harder to switch back and forth between that and Barrage on the fly. I'm having a bit of trouble judging "safe" distances for Barrage with the mastery range increase - which I like, but I'm just not used to it yet. I miss a nice reliable crowd control like Freezing Trap that doesn't necessarily put you in combat, and I miss Spirit Bond for its survivability and less downtime while soloing. I'm thrilled to still have my pet, and I've been doing invasions with Puppy (KitTabik), Cuddles, PangurBan, Jack, and Kitty. Oh, and Inle, because I wandered out of the Kharanos Inn on my level 3 gnome hunter... who's now level 11.
Discipline: Disc wasn't bad for invasions, but I'm finding group healing without the cooldown you get from the artifact to be... missing something. It's going to have to be reworked after Legion to account for this, which seems like an oversight to me. There's no good sustainable area healing or damage. I'm using Halo for both right now, since you either have to spread out some Atonement and then do damage or put up Purge the Wicked and then have the target live long enough for you to be able to Penance it - and if Penance is on cooldown you have to wait to start AOE damage. Applying Atonement is awkward with the area-based Power Word: Radiance, and too expensive to just blanket with Plea after six applications. There's also no good way to heal up that one person who died during combat that you've resurrected and want to get back up quickly - I used to spam some Flash Heals on them, but I've got nothing without a cooldown strong enough to really do that now. Easiest fixes? Give us back Mind Sear, and make Power Word: Radiance target like Prayer of Healing did and adjust the mana/cast time/healing done for five targets to let us apply Atonement in a more predictable way than just where someone is standing. It would make LFR less infuriating to try to heal. Doesn't fix the out of combat healing, but there's food for that.
Restoration (Shaman): Haha, I have no idea what I'm doing on my shaman. This isn't entirely true, but I'm not even sure why I have her spec'd Resto because I didn't like healing on her that much before. She seems to have a decent toolkit for both AOE and single target heals, a couple of good big-heal cooldowns, and that added totem-based battle rez. I need to switch her back to Elemental, though, because I want to play her as a lightning-zappy shaman rather than as Resto.
Destruction: I was a little worried when I was setting up my warlock's bars until I realized I'd talented Incinerate to hit everything. Destruction seems fine from a casual point of view, and hella fun. Keep Immolate up to generate some shards, hit Conflagrate when you can, Incinerate all the things, and Chaos Bolt for mana regen. Life Tap and Drain Life's return was very welcome, and my infernal has a name now and I apparently talented to keep him this is amazing. Super pleased with my little burny goblin.
Subtlety: I feel like I'm not completely incompetent on my rogue again. I can just Backstab now and don't have to rely on Hemorrhage for soloing since they changed the positioning stuff on Backstab. I also discovered that I have crap for leather transmog.
Protection (Warrior): Invasions probably weren't the best place to judge my tanks, since the healing is so sporadic. I miss Charge, but other than that and not always being sure how to get rid of all the excess rage, it's seemed okay. She's got some new melee animations, which seem neat.
Protection (Paladin): I actually felt more survivable on my pally, but that might be because I was doing the invasion a week later and there may have been healing going on. I actually feel like I have buttons to push on her now, which is a change; with the removal of holy power (just for prot? I don't know), I did have to move buttons around so I wouldn't hit things that I need to save the cooldown for rather than just smashing them because they were available. I'll still run through the holy spec artifact quest at some point because I really want to see it, but I think she's going to stick with prot as her main spec.
Restoration (Druid): The druid has always been my second favorite to heal on, and for the most part she feels like she still has a complete healing toolkit. HoTs, AOE, single target, some defensive cooldowns, and Tranquility still seems pretty great. I really hope Disc feels okay with the artifact or I may have to switch over for dungeon healing this expansion.
Blood: This is the only spec I've really played on a death knight in... a very long time. It's changed a bit, but I still muddle around in it okay. I think I spent more time making a new mog for her than actually doing the scenario and invasion. I didn't feel as comfortable as on my warrior or like I had as much wiggle room for muddling around as I did on my paladin, but I didn't feel so lost that I won't play her in this spec (like my shaman).
Fire: I switched off of frost for two reasons: I had always preferred playing fire but kept dying while leveling, and I made an awesome fire mog for my mage. Other than being frustrated by Flamestrike's super slow non-Hot Streak cast and wondering if I should talent differently so I feel like I have useful AOE, the crit-crit-Pyroblast rhythm of fire is fun. I don't play the mage enough to know if I'm doing badly at it.
Mistweaver: I've been lost on my monk since 6.0 when I boosted her to 90; that hasn't really changed, but I've somehow managed to complete the healing proving grounds on her, so I guess it's not a lost cause. After running the Broken Shore scenario, I went through and renamed all her healing macros - her spells are now hot, +hot, chan[nel], 3heal, and bubbl. I've played my other healers long enough to mostly know what their spells do by name, but I don't know my monk well enough to keep them straight. I think she's got a decent healing toolkit if I ever play her enough to get used to it.
So overall - there are some specs I feel kind of lost but not helpless on. Since discipline is one of the ones I play the most, I have some frustrations with it, but I think I'll get by. Marksmanship has lost a few things I miss (Freezing Trap, Spirit Bond), but overall it feels okay. My warlock may move up in the alt leveling rotation because destruction feels so fun. Most of my toons are 660+ post-invasions, and my primary toon in each role (Duskhawk, priest, and warrior) are all 690+. So I feel pretty set for Tuesday when my collector's edition box shows up.
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