If you assume 100% of everyone that plays TBC classic will be playing the meta, and you didn’t want to be the same as everyone else but still wanted invited to things (as DPS), what class would you play?
No warriors, rogues, or mages, as so many will be bringing them from vanilla. No hunters or warlocks as they seem top tier in TBC.
Going by questionable DPS rankings
~https://www.warcrafttavern.com/tbc/dps-rankings/
So then Shaman? Are they invited as DPS everywhere? Will that be an underplayed class? I wish Ret paladin looked better.
The real choice is Demonology warlock. Everyone wants you for top tier warlock dps, spamming shadowbolt in the DS/ruin spec, but then you show up with a bigass Felguard and do completely average damage.
Shaman is meta for TBC and will probably be very popular, but they will still be highly desired regardless.
Priest could also be a good choice. They werent as popular as Rogues/Mages/Warriors in Classic, they arent as “meta” as Warlocks/Shamans/Hunters in TBC, but they will still be desired and powerful. Spriest has a niche role which could land you some groups/invites, and it’s not that popular. You also have the option of going Holy for PvE and Disc for PvP, both of which are great.
You have to understand the scales. The difference output between a meta class/spec and a non-meta class/spec is 3-5%. So if you play a non-meta class/spec right, you are still ahead tons of people that play the meta, but play it wrong…
Are they, though? I played a ret paladin in TBC and mostly got kited around and mana burned and killed repeatedly. The times I got to be in melee range of my target were okay, if things proc’d, if my Seals weren’t purged… if the target was AFK… >_>
That’s the struggle of every melee class though. Casters were given big advantages over melee in TBC. Other than feral druids, I’d say paladins have it easier than any melee class, due to freedom and self dispels and bubble if necessary.
Not every melee class… rogue and warrior have slows, hard CC, and healing debuffs. They also benefit greatly from not using mana, because if you didn’t burst down your target, then it became a war of attrition. It is very easy to outlast a ret paladin’s mana bar, especially if you have burns or drains.
I played feral in arena a lot more extensively than my paladin (paladin did more BGs than anything else), and I liked it somewhat better, though it was still a slog.
Ultimately I wouldn’t wish feral or ret pvp upon anyone, but at least feral could be an unkillable tank monster if the situation called for it. And interrupt spells (Feral Charge). Maim was kinda crap, but it was an option.
I’ve always been feral, and dabbled in ret a little during TBC. Feral has always been extremely fun but actually killing your target is the issue. Energy is a huge problem, not having sustained DPS to apply pressure. Going bear and /lol at rogues was always a benefit though. Maim was good, ONLY if you find yourself in cat, low on health, with a few combo points. You could maim > cyclone > heal and turn the fight in your favor. It did seem that maim almost ALWAYS was missed/dodged/parried though.
When I played ret, I didn’t usually run into the long drawn out fights as it seems others have. I wouldn’t purposely chase after priests because regardless of spec, that was a hard fight. I’d OOM myself or they’d drain me. Going vs ANY melee class was always fun though.
I still have a screenshot somewhere of a 2v2 match that went on for multiple hours as I tried repeatedly to kill a holy paladin on my feral. Both our teammates had died. It was… it was agony.
I agree with this! Since my paladin was mostly BG-oriented, and I often queued with a holy paladin friend, I had no fear running into brawls vs other melee. But trying to go after anything ranged was futile.
…except shadow priests. Shadow kinda sucks too, on the topic of hybrid reject classes in TBC.
It’s unfortunately often alot more than this when looking at averages. Not because the classes are all that much worse but it’s a compounding issue. The best classes get the most love from the theorycrafters and the most competitive players will want to play them.
So the average will be considerably higher even if the difference is small
Yes… literally every spec of shaman will be in demand, ele for the warlock group, enhance for the tank/melee groups, resto for the heals/party buffs.
Horde side I would guess paladins will be in short supply since it relies on levelling one from level 1 (cant boost them) and depending on how long the prepatch is many might run out of time and just take a level 60 through tbc instead of continuing to main a pally while everyone else is in outland.
I don’t think the ranking websites you posted are even near accurate, unless they’re not counting something. I remember hunters and locks doing 3.5k+ dps, and ferals were pulling 2.5k. Don’t remember rets, but I remember enhance and cat druids doing some decent numbers end game.
