Yes they are! I find that people conflate ‘viable’ and ‘optimal’ when talking about non meta classes and specs. Just make a good effort to gear your character and buy consumables etc and you will be good to go!
It’s a game guys, play how you want; after all you are the one PAYING FOR IT!
Wow. You took so much time to take my sentences out of context and comment on them. I must have really hit a nerve. LoL!
Not my intention at all. I was just hoping to push you towards a more cooperative aspect of play and/or show you there are alternatives, but it’s all good. I am quite impressed though with some of your implications. They are quite wrong, of course but good evidence of a healthy imagination.
Not really interested in pushing anyone’s buttons though and you seem to be quite determined to lecture everyone on how wrong they are, so I will just leave you to it.
For anyone else reading this comment, please feel free to play the spec you want. Will you be asked into the hard-core raiding guild with a “not-approved-by-the-pro-players” spec? Probably not. But having fun is more important in my opinion.
So, if you are aiming to join one of the hard core raiding guilds, then you might want to do some research from the spreadsheet jockeys to help smooth out your spec. If you are just in the game for the fun of it, play what you want!! 
Thanks.
The dungeons feel pretty much the same as they did back in the day. Knowing the pulls and having a level-appropriate group was always way more important than spec. CC helps. Letting the tank get threat helps (when running the traditional way, of course.)
Think about leveling in classic. What’s your gear look like? There’s a good chance that at level 35, you’re wearing at least a couple pieces of gear that you found at level 20 (my druid is currently level 42 at the time of this posting… he’s still using Smite’s Hammer and the Tunic of Westfall.) Content was always meant to be doable if you were at the right level, regardless of gear or spec.
Topic Summary: WoW classic is not a difficult game, be kind, help a disabled. They like to raid too! 
If by viable you mean “you can still clear MC while carrying multiple useless players” then sure, all specs are viable.
If it doesn’t matter, then why do you keep saying it?
What does the spec have to do with it? If the player is “useless” then the character isn’t relevant.
Because some specs are still useless even if that player plays them perfectly.
But my disc battle priest build needs a raid spot!!! my melee is only slightly under hunter melee…
There is no context for any of your statements that change their meaning. At this point you are just whinging about being quoted. I don’t know why you picked that particular hill to cry on, but it makes you look silly.
If you are just in the game for the fun of it, you should still do enough research to know what the classes are capable of so you know which one you will actually enjoy playing. That’s my point.
It isn’t going to matter to many raid groups. It may matter a great deal to the person working their hardest to get better only to find they will always be bottom of the barrel DPS. Just because you can find a raid that doesn’t mind carrying you doesn’t mean that you want to feel like you are being carried.
I know reading my actual comments explaining why this matters is really difficult, but you should try it. I want to be honest with people about how bad these classes are tuned so they can make an informed choice about what they want to play. If you don’t understand the value of that, I’m not sure what I can tell you.
This.
If you choose to play ret pally, you will always be useless to your raid. There won’t be any patch, any light at the end of the tunnel. You will autoattack your way to last in DPS and you will cast buffs. That is all.
Is that what you want to do for all of Classic?
If not, stop kidding yourself, and reroll.
LOL… You were saying?
Hey don’t listen to the trolls if you wanna play the spec you want join OFF SPEC on faerlina pvp alliance side
Sure come on in with your meme spec, your more than welcome, just don’t get upset when we funnel all caster gear to mages and locks before your oomkin gets literally anything.
I know this concept has proven difficult for you to wrap your mind around, but there is a difference between acknowledging the objective reality that these specs are neither bringing adequate DPS nor the kind of utility that would offset their spec’s deficiencies and saying that people shouldn’t bring them to a raid.
One of those is a statement of the objective reality. The other is a value judgment about what people ought to do. What they ought to do is not necessarily dependent on the spec’s performance.
People should do what they find fun. That doesn’t mean that what they find fun will always be terribly helpful to their group. By the same token, groups that find running with people who play these specs fun should continue to bring them. That doesn’t mean they have filled every raid slot with a viable spec.
The thing this thread needs to stop doing is turning “spec isn’t very good in a raid” to “STOP FORCING EVERYONE TO PLAY A CERTAIN WAY!!”
No one can force anyone to go anything. I can’t even force you to wear pants , not play a melee warlock or raid as a ret. What I can control is my own raid and what you can’t do is tell me whom I can take either
Call me a jerk but I’m the type that would help you gear up as holy or resto or whatever and be the team player I expect every raid member to be
To me, playing a group optimal spec is thinking about the team and to play a meme spec is thinking solo.
That said, not everyone is me and I am sure there are many homes for poor performing builds and those raids can do whatever they want to. Go nuts and have fun. That’s what a game is.
The warning here is that rerolling takes a long time so make sure the meme spec is what you want with your eyes fully open and not because some forum tells you “it’s viable”
This
And double this.
I don’t know why people think we have to lie about what these specs contribute in order to make space for them to play them anyway if that doesn’t bother them.
If it bothers you that your spec will never perform well in this game, then roll something else. If that doesn’t bother you, then play whatever you enjoy. Let’s just be freaking honest about it.
At no point in Classic will it matter if you have 1 Ret/Enhance/Ele or 20. If you can’t down the content, the problem is not with the raid composition, but rather the ability of those that comprise it.
Nobody can argue that Warriors and Rogues are the top dps, but to say that the “meme” specs do not contribute and are simply being carried is quite stupid.
You reversed the question and answered your own question.
So let me ask you again.
The player is useless as you originally stated. At that point, they might as well be a level 1 gnome spamming emotes whether they are an epically geared warrior tank or mage or a Ret Paladin.
If the player is useless, their character is useless. So why does the spec matter to you?