All specs are viable

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
562

No you are missing the point. There is no reason to complete raids faster or to kill bosses faster. There are no in game incentives to do so and you arent rewarded for doing the best dps or fastest boss kills. There are no dps race bosses that require meta levels of dps.

The whole point of hybrid classes is to allow guilds flexibility. If your having trouble keeping the tanks alive, have that shaman or feral druid switch to healing. If you get to the point where their heals are no longer needed let them switch back to dps. Hybrids help guilds facilitate to their own needs as a whole. I cant do that as a rogue. I have to be dps. Additionally, it wouldnt be fair if shamans could do as much dps as me, because then they provide too much utility over a rogue so then why bring a rogue?

The better question to be asked is should hybrid classes be forced to meta spec to maximize their dps when they can be more useful with a hybrid spec enh/resto with resto gear in bag just in case. Should enh dps shaman expected to spec as much damage as possible? Doing so limits their utility while still leaving them a subpar dpser.

Hybrids will never fit a meta. Thats not their point. Their point is flexibility

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563

The design of vanilla wow did not differentiate between specs and relied on classes, for things like targeting of abilities.

564

No. I’m really really not. I know that is the position you want to argue with, but that is not the position I have taken at any point in this thread. I have never once said that someone who understands the poor tuning of Ret shouldn’t be allowed to play it or that a group shouldn’t take them. In fact, I have repeatedly and explicitly said the opposite.

I have not said that people should race to complete raids or kill bosses faster. I never said it was necessary or even advisable. Just like Fulgrim, you keep arguing with a straw man because you would rather argue with your imaginary version of what you want me to be saying rather than what I am actually, repeatedly, explicitly saying.

Let me help you fellas out since you apparently haven’t bothered to read this thread.

Is that clear enough? Do I have to keep repeating it dozens and dozens of times or can you argue with what I am actually saying instead of with a position I have repeatedly made clear that I do not support?

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565

First off, that is EXACTLY what you’ve said… You have said that they can, but have gone out of your way to say that they shouldn’t.

However, that’s not really what we’re arguing about. You’re trying to cower behind some irrelevant, irrational and mythical notion that people want and demand ret/eng/ele to do more damage. That’s not true.

I have even asked you for anyone making those claims and your reply was some fence riding nonsense about how you say it’s fine, even though you’ve spent most of your time explaining why it’s not fine.

566

I have an agility geared priest. That wand is deadly

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567

I dont understand how people can say with a straight face that

  1. Classic is easy/nerfed version due to being on patch 1.12
  2. You must bring the top performing specs because numbers

If your group wants to see how fast they can kill Rag, cool, bring all the top dps specs.

If your group wants to just clear content and enjoy classic, who cares what specs you bring. This is 15 year old content, that we get to enjoy again. It is NOT needed to min max to the point you cant bring a ret pally or any other ‘meme’ spec.

We get it that mathematically a Ret is not going to do as much dps but IT DOESN’T MATTER, at least right now in MC. Later on in AQ or NAXX it might make more of a difference but for hecks sake stop it with this nonsense.

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568

A decent chunk of people who play classic have already played on multiple fan made vanilla servers and experienced the leveling process and endgame.

It’s not hard to believe at all that some play offmeta classes and specs. Especially since the content is 15 years old.

569

I see that the Spelladin build has only been mentioned once therefore I feel obligated to bring up this viable palli dps build that’s only downside is requireing a lot of farming.

570

These aren’t related matters/motivations or even related posters. Most people whining about 1. are ill-informed and ho-hum about the speed and power of top 100 parses when placed next to their very odd memories of how Vanilla ought to be. The people talking about 2. are the usual min/max crowd who correctly advocate for bringing ideal gear, specs, classes, buffs/debuffs, boss kill strategies, etc.

The game is easy, not because of 1.12, but because Vanilla was simply easy. The most complex raid encounters in AQ40 and Naxx just don’t hold a candle to some of the 5man mechanics of later expansions in terms of individual skill and responsibility. Couple that with very simple rotations and the game is just not hard and never was. However, there is enough freedom for every player to make their otherwise top-tier DPS class into a pile of steaming crap that an AFK-autoattacking Resto Druid in Cat Form would beat on the meters. That’s why the Vanilla content is so forgiving, it compensates for the absolutely abysmal, barely above 0 DPS, levels of silliness that can be accomplished by the player base. It just so happens we can all easily put our raids in the upper 20% without much effort now and we have the tools, experience, and models to support it.

But knowing that the game has a lot of slush baked into it all means that if you have a raid full of weirdly spec’d and geared DPS, you will take forever to kill things, you will fail at otherwise easy mechanics, you will run OOM, you will have Tanks die, etc. I’ve seen Druids running around in absolute tip-top DPS gear doing exceptionally well in raids, giving Rogues and Hunters a run for their money on some fights. I’ve also seen Druids that insist on playing like a pure-hybrid with a mix of all talents and all stats and try to do DPS only to get beat by the Tanks, and by a large margin. Vanilla oddly taught people to maximize all of their tool kit or they were bad for Reasons™, so you got Mages weaving in Arcane Missiles between Frostbolts and attempting to maintain various Wards, just in case, you had Druids tossing out anemic heals before jumping back into Cat to put up bleeds, and you have World First Rag kills where the Rogue isn’t even using Slice and Dice but boy-howdy is he spamming Feint off CD.

There are lots of opportunities to play this game very very badly just from the talent and gearing foundation, all the way up to all the silliness of bad rotations and odd/pointless spell usage.

You can still wipe to Lucifron if you have a raid full of morons playing however they want to play, you just don’t have to, which is the point of teaching min/max.

571

First off, that’s not what I’ve said. Stop lying about what I have said. I just posted over a dozen times in this thread where I have said that so long as people are aware of the shortcomings of these specs, they should feel free to play them and have fun.

Let me be as clear as possible. This is a game. The purpose of playing this game should be to have fun. If playing a Ret Pally or Enhance shaman is the best way for you to have fun, then you absolutely should play those specs, period.

Now, none of that changes the reality that those specs cannot output viable DPS. They will struggle to do the kind of damage that other DPS specs are capable of and they do not bring much in the way of utility to offset those deficiencies. Of course, as we have covered, that isn’t going to matter to a lot of raid groups because of the low difficulty of the content.

I am doing no such thing. The notion underpinning my position is that many people who play DPS classes want to be able to compete with others of similar skill playing different classes in terms of damage output. They want to feel like their performance is the deciding factor in how competitive their DPS will be rather than the poor tuning of their class. I subscribe to that notion because I’ve read class forums for years and this is a consistent theme over years from many classes. People don’t want their DPS spec to be tuned to do less than half the DPS of others.

I have not spent any time saying that it’s not fine. Again, you are ignoring over a dozen times in this thread where I have made it clear that it is fine. I want people to have fun. I think they will be more likely to have fun if they are aware of their specs realistic limitations prior to investing thousands of hours into that class. So long as they know what they are in for, they should absolutely feel free to play whatever they enjoy.

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572

I will take anything with me but I expect you to buff classes, remove whatever, cc if you got it, off heal when needed, and other stuff.

I would not expect you to out dps pure class but I don’t expect you to sit around. You should have some healing, some dps and maybe tank a little if tank goes down.

Play your spec don’t be bad.

573

The Elitist Jerks were more about raiding than Arenas. They were raiding since before Arenas were even a thing. That’s why Ion is a Scarab Lord (yes, he became Scarab Lord before he was hired to work on the game before anyone goes there).

I’d say Ion’s expertise at raiding IS a problem though. He mostly worked on raid design after he was hired and I think he is genuinely extremely talented with raids but sometimes doesn’t know what to do with the game outside the raids.

Also…and I know I will get laughed at and called a shill or something for this… I think Ion takes a lot of grief for bad design decisions that were already snowballing by the time he took over the game. Some of those decisions cannot be easily amputated either, they need to be chipped away at or the player base will get whiplash.

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574

First of… LOL. You even repeated what I accused you of.

Second off, if you’re actually concerned about fun, why are you in this thread at all?

575

No, I didn’t. You are either incredibly bad at reading or you are deliberately misrepresenting what I am saying. You appear to be conflating my claim that they cannot do viable DPS and they don’t offer enough utility to offset that deficiency with the notion that those specs shouldn’t be played or shouldn’t be brought to raids.

Those are not the same. I can recognize that choosing to bring a Ret Pally over a Rogue will not increase the group’s chance of success while also recognizing that it doesn’t matter and allowing that Ret Pally to join in is still the right decision. Similarly, a Ret Pally can understand the limitations of what they bring to a raid and still find it fun to play the class.

Again, you apparently haven’t bothered to read this thread so I will state it again.

Having played DPS specs for years, I am aware that a lot of people who play DPS don’t find it fun when they discover that their spec is tuned so poorly that they cannot compete in DPS with even average players of other specs. Many people want their DPS to be a reflection of their skill and not the tuning of their spec. Working hard, knowing they are playing their class well, and still finding themselves at the bottom of the meter can be demoralizing. It isn’t fun.

Discovering that is the reality of your class’s only DPS spec after you have invested thousands of hours into a character is beyond disappointing.

Having played an Enhance Shaman in Vanilla without the foreknowledge of its limitations at max level, I have firsthand experience with the consequences of people lying to you about how viable your spec is. It doesn’t feel good. It isn’t fun.

I want people to be aware of what they are getting into so they actually end up having fun when they do get to raids and end game content. I don’t want people to regret their class choice.

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576

I think part of the problem in communication going on in this thread is this statement.

You’re speaking for “a lot of people who play DPS.” You are not an elected representative nor do you access to enough DPS players to have a consensus on their feelings.

Now if this is a communication crusade you’re on, I think we all get it that Ret does less DPS than Warrior, Mage, and Rogue. Consider your crusade a success. We all know and anyone who puts a little effort in before rolling will also know.

On the off chance that someone does not put any effort into understanding a class, and then spends 1000s of hours (for reference, 1000 hours played is nearly 42 days), and is disappointed in their class’ ability to compete in DPS meters, then that’s on them.

If this is also a long winded way of you wanting class balance changes made by Blizz, #nochanges

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577

Here is a hint: Stop paying attention to your e-peen meters and start paying attention to the actual game. You may enjoy the experience more. :slight_smile:

The game is meant to be a cooperative one. Using damage meters to compete against one another is one of the many “bad” add-ons in my opinion. Makes damage dealers pull threat, keeps them from moving out of bad situations, etc. And all so they can make sure their e-peen is larger than anyone else’s. For that mindset, may I suggest you head back to the Retail version of the game? I know they are ALL about “Me! Me! ME!!!” in that version and I think you would enjoy yourself and your e-peen a bit more in that game. :slight_smile:

Just a suggestion.

Thanks.

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578

The problems begin when not only do you carry them, but they feel entitled to the pitiful amount of loot (often BIS for other classes) - so their meme spec can perform at the bottom of the DPS list

579

the problem lies in the “less dps” vagueness.

people that didn’t research maybe know the “less dps” part, “ok, i don’t wanna top meters” but then they crash with the wall when less dps means: 50% less damage.

maybe they thought “well, if i play well i can close the gap” and then realize that the mage on top is smashing frostbolt and 90% of the classes in vanilla are doing some similar iteration.

so yeah, communication is part of the problem.

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580

I never said it was most, all, or a consensus who believe this way.

I said “a lot of people who play DPS.” If you don’t believe that statement is fair, then you haven’t read a class forum or even the general forums the day after a class balance pass at any time in the last 15 years. I’m not going to claim what portion of the community that represents, but it’s certainly more then a few.

Do they understand how wide that gap is? I think some reading this “everything is viable” nonsense would be misled into believing that the gap is much narrower than it actually is.

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581

I mean, most guildies are going to be like “If you wanted to do that role, why role that character…?”