Just curious: on the character selection screen, when you first went “I want to play …” did you already choose your spec? Or did you want to play the whole class, and potentially play whatever spec might be most beneficial at a given moment?
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Class lmao. It’s just a granted that I only play one spec of this class.
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Class. Not that it matters anymore.
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I pick one of each class, and create two toons of my two favorite specs.
Like, I have a Prot Pally, and a Holy Pally. But they’re two different people since I’m not too keen on dual spec, at this time.
The only reason why I don’t like dual spec is that there are far too many collectibles and mats when it comes to legendary armor–so don’t want to clog up my inventory with items for two different builds. 
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I find this rather interesting. I only ever intentionally did this with my my druid, where I had a Balance/Resto druid and a Feral/Guardian druid. I broke that concept this expansion, where I actually tanked on my original Balance/Resto druid for the first time in 9.1.
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I guess it also simplifies things for me, as I can focus more easily on gearing out that character, specifically, since I only need to focus on one set of statistics at a time.
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Class. Paladin for life.
I chose the class and Blizzard has been punishing me ever since,
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Class for sure 
I chose a spec… I’ll be brutally honest here… I absolutely HATE the “You have to spec swap to play the game properly” mentality… and I have put people on block for telling me that I’m playing wrong because I don’t spec swap.
I do play every spec, but I do so across different characters. I have 3 Paladins, a Human Holy Paladin, a Tauren Retribution Paladin, and a Draenei Protection Paladin… for each class I’ve done similar… I like pairing class and spec with the race that feels most right with it lore wise…
My roster:
Paladin - Human Holy, Draenei Protection, Tauren Retribution
Shaman - Vulpera Restoration, Goblin Enhancement, Highmountain Elemental
Druid - Night Elf Reatoration, Kul Tiran Guardian, Zandalari Feral
Rogue - Mechagnome Outlaw, Worgen Subtlety
Monk - Pandaren Brewmaster, Troll Mistweaver
Mage - Blood Elf Fire, Nightborne Arcane
Priest - Void Elf Shadow, Lightforged Discipline
Hunter - Gnome Beast Master, Dwarf Marksman, Mag’har Survival
Warlock - Orc Demonology, Dark Iron Destruction
Death Knight - Undead Unholy, Zandalari Blood, Kul Tiran Frost
Demon Hunter - Blood Elf Havoc, Night Elf Vengeance
Warrior - Undead Protection
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To me the spells & gameplay make a big part of the decision. For me I don’t just choose mage… I choose fire mage. I didn’t just pick lock, I chose Destro. When I was a dk I chose frost.
So yeah, for me spec is equally important.
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I chose priest for shadow, but have ended up playing a LOT of disc.
I think I may have found my forever class.
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Druid: class
Mage: class
Warlock: class
Demon hunter: class
Death knight: spec (frost)
Shaman: spec (resto)
Rogue: spec (combat Swords XD)
Paladin: spec (ret)
Warrior: class
Priest: spec (shadow)
Hunter: class
Monk: class
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I choose Marksmanship Hunters because it’s the only ranged sniper option in the game, which is what is the most fun for me. I don’t care for pets at all, or honestly even traps.
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class
all those old meandro videos convinced me back in the day
Most of my characters I created long ago and chose them for the class before settling on a spec after some experimentation. The only recent new character was a Warrior which I made protection from the start because I hate doing melee DPS and would only ever use her as a tank.
For my very first character? I knew I wanted to be a zombie, because that sounded cool, and I wanted to smash things, so I chose warrior. Keep in mind, I knew pretty much nothing about mmos at the time, only what my college roommate had told me. xD So I didn’t know what “specs” were or anything. As I leveled with my roommates, I settled on wanting to “tank” (though I’m not sure I knew the word for it)… but it wasn’t until after we hit Outlands that someone told me if I wanted to actually tank, I would need to put points in Protection and use a sword/shield. Hahaha!
Ah, I miss being that kind of a noob sometimes.
[edit] In more modern times, I typically make characters to “specialize” into a particular spec. Some of them (those on hybrid classes) end up using both the support (tank or healer) and a dps spec depending on situations. But I still generally think of each character as their specialization - whatever suits the character concept I had in mind at the time.
I literally had a toon for every “spec” since WoD. Only time I’d actually swap specs was for raid content and even then that was rare. No matter if the spec sucks to solo with or isn’t fun to play, I keep them as their spec.
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i chose a spec.
Warlock demonology back in MoP.
The edgy teen flew towards the idea of becoming a demon, having demonic energy poluting my visage giving horns and glowing pulsating super sayan energy.
Then they ruined it…
I chose class when I first started playing hunter in cata . Then I selected rsurv after trying the specs out . Played it until patch 6.2 then went to mm because I wasn’t a fan of how they broke surv so they could get it ready for melee and stayed mm when it changed in Legion .
I stopped choosing my spec when my options were limited to (a) having a pet do a big part of my damage, (b) doing melee or (c) playing a spec where I use a range weapon and the damage comes from my character.
C was the only option that I found enjoyable and I can only do that with mm and was able to with surv before Legion .
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