Gear Dependent Classes

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

Hello all,

I have two questions for you guys:

  1. How would you rank the classes by gear dependency? Feel free to break it down by class or role.

  2. My buddy plans to play, however knowing him, he’ll probably never raid or rank up much in pvp. He’s looking at playing warrior (probably the most gear dependent class), rogue, mage or warlock. Which class would do the best with 5 man gear (pve/pvp)?

Thanks for your input!

2

Warrior Tank is extremely gear dependent, some of us have 3+ sets in the first phase alone.

I’m thinking something like this - Rank wise (PvE + PvP):

Tank Warrior>Feral Druid>SP/Ret Paladin>DPS Warrior>Shadow Priest>Rogue>Everyone else (Hunter may have a slight bit more)

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3

Of the four listed, I imagine it is:

  1. Warrior
    .
    .
  2. Rogue
  3. Mage
  4. Warlock

Hunter and druid are not gear dependent at all (at least, not that I remember).

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4

1- Most gear dependent classes are Warriors and Warlocks, by far.

Mages are gear dependent for Fire spec. In frost, they have so much CC and slow that farming, PvE and PvP are not much of an issue. They are the strongest DPS in PvE except may be in MC.
Rogues are not that gear dependent. They benefit heavily from good weapons, as does any class, but Eviscerate for exemple does relatively the same damage no matter your gear (see World of Roguecraft).

  1. If he doesn’t plan on ranking up and raiding, I advise against the warrior. He should play either Mage, or rogue if he wants a melee physical class

Edit: I see you already have contradictory answers …

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5

If you’re a straight feral dps they’re second. If you’re like me and want to tank, heal, and dps were equal to prot warriors. That’s 3 sets of gear for just three roles. That doesn’t include resist gear. So much tryhard for middle of the road dps. :rofl: But I love it.

For leveling I’d put warriors clearly at the top and druids closer to the bottom though.

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6

True, true - and on top of that, you guys farm MCP. I can’t think of any item that warriors need to farm repeatedly save for the Engineering Shield mats but that’s typically for AoE tanking only - and we can get by with 2 in our inventories.

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7

Interesting that you say warlock. I remember my warlock didn’t need much gear at all, and the gear I did get didn’t affect me much.

Now, I didn’t raid, so I am sure that matters, and I am talking mostly from a leveling perspective.

8

When the gear dependent Warrior gets BiS gear though… Good God get out of his way.

9

I remember the same thing - it was more of issue in that Warlocks have no good gear until ZG comes out. I think that their T1 and T2 (aside from nemesis belt, gloves, and chest) armors are pretty lackluster too.

10

Thanks for the responses so far.

I saw earlier that ret is gear dependent. At what gear level are they considered pretty good in pvp.

Also, looks like mage or rogue would be better in preraid bis

11

I also want to know the answer to this about Ret since they can’t /sit Reckbomb anymore.

As for Mage or Rogue in preraid BiS - yeah both are very strong right out of the gate with minimal effort. When DireMaul comes out, they’ll get even stronger. Also, both Fury and 2H warrior are very strong and easy to preBiS, just be clear with your guild that you want to DPS and not tank. Casual guilds may scoff at that but raiding guilds will most likely be stacking warriors and take you.

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12

Guess we just need to summon some paladins…

DEUS VULT!

13

I think if he just wants to have fun without having to be super geared his best bet would be rogue or mage. Rogue because he can pick and choose his fights so if someone looks well equipped he can just keep on moving. And mage because you can kite the crap out of players if your good even in garbage gear.

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14

And that right there is why I’m making a Mage main and a Rogue alt. Well of course there are other reasons but those rank high.

15

all classes are gear dependent.

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16

So what will he be doing if no raids or enough PvP to rank up… any char can play a chat bot

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17

I think you misunderstood the question. Being gear dependent is not about how many sets you need for each role. It’s about how each piece of gear effects your ability to do that role. Dps warriors need a strong 2h weapon. Without a strong weapon, warriors don’t do good damage. That is gear dependency.

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18

All classes are gear dependent, or none are. It depends on what your definition of gear dependence is.

Protection Warriors are always the most gear dependent class, because no matter what everyone else’s gear is, no raid is going anywhere if the tank doesn’t have good gear.

Hybrids will generally feel more “loot dependent” because they need to maintain at least two sets of gear, they are often less able to use their class specific armor (Vanilla devs overcompensated to make sure that every class that could be a heal could effectively heal. Blame the Theocracy of EQ for that one), and they will always need better gear than a pure dps class to justify their inclusion in a group/raid.

If you’re talking about gear dependence in leveling, or just casual solo play, the least gear dependent class is Hunter, because a Beast Mastery hunter’s damage comes largely from his pet, and the pet doesn’t scale with gear. (Though they are quite gear dependent in raiding, because they need to stay hit capped, BM wont’ be viable, and because late vanilla they will be trying desperately to justify their raid slot since their damage doesn’t scale and they don’t get an upgrade to their ranged weapon between phase 3 and the very, very last boss of phase 6)

19

True but some classes require better gear than others in order to be on par or better than them. Rogues and warriors do more damage based off their weapon/s. Crap weapon and your dps shows it. Great weapon and your dps shows it.

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20

Some people enjoy playing the game casually and don’t want the commitment that raiding or ranking in pvp require.

Some like solo questing, 5 mans, occasional bgs, professions, etc.

for gear dependency:

I think a dungeon geared mage, healer or hunter would probably be more useful than dungeon geared warrior or feral.

A lot of things factor in, how abilities and skills scale
-some rogue attacks have high base damage
-hunter pets dont scale form gear
-the increase of dps per raid of each class (believe hunters have one of the the lowest increases from mc to nax)
-mage ability to control helps run or slowly tear an opponent down