I hope everyone is well and the fires aren’t too smokey here as of late.
EDIT: I decided DK, but feel free to read and give me your input if you want
I could really use some help deciding my new alt (er well, horde main)
I have not really messed with retail in awhile and when I came back I was quick to get bored of Shadow. I am just not happy with the spec over all right now. I love the animations, the theme, it’s just become so stale for me because I have mained shadow since the end of OG vanilla. I have felt haunted by this class choice for years because I have always loved shadow but honestly never liked holy or disc. I loved the idea of disc during the rework of cata but always sucked at it. Holy is a bloated mess now (and somehow to everyone else is the most straightforward healer?..)
What I’m stuck trying to decide between:
Shaman: Enhancement and Elemental have been getting a lot of work lately according to patch notes and I know a couple of friends who are very happy with the changes. I do not know many details but I do enjoy the animations of this class a lot. I also like healing from time to time and resto always seems to be in a good place. I feel this class is a good choice, Healer Melee, and Ranged DPS
Demon Hunter: I am a bit concerned with this choice. I do not know much about this class. I hear that it is the easiest class in the game to play by a lot of people (mostly people not playing one) I have also heard discussion that one of their specs is one of the hardest to play in the game? I want to say it was something to do with momentum but unsure. I also am not really happy with only having one spec. I do not like to tank anymore in this game for reasons. It will probably be nice to have a tanking spec for solo stuff I do sometimes, and I like the DH wings and mobility. I’ve played Ranged awhile. I do hope this class gets a ranged spec tho one day with bows/guns.
Death Knight: Thematically I have loved this class since W3. All 3 specs are attractive to me, even blood mostly because of fun in BG’s (this is still the case right) and it’s soloing capability. Unholy and Frost are also both very fun for me to play even though last time I played unholy it was a bit more of a complicated rot spec to play compared to Shadow, seems this class has been getting a lot of attention similar to Shaman. I like that.
Rogue: The very first character I ever made was a nelf rogue. I have always loved this class fantasy. Got to level 10 and I was so sick of the sound of sinister strike I rerolled to priest and that day my main was born. Today, I have no idea what is going on with this class. It seems like a complicated mess. I gave up trying to stay on top of whatever reworks is going on or not going on with this class. Seems development has no clue what to do here. Am I completely wrong here has something changed recently any rumored huge changes for 11.1?
Would truly appreciate the advice from the general community here tonight to see what to play. Consider it a present to me, a complete stranger that never comes here anymore
Some classes are hard to enjoy until it can stand on its own. I’d suggest you pick a class with abilities you enjoy based on how you play.
A druid, for example, can do pretty much anything. Do you like being invisible? Do you like healing? Tanking, melee, ranged? Do you like having a knockback? A strong root? Slows? Do you like collecting class specific appearances? Do you like having a backup spec?
I listed the classes that I was interested in and reasons why besides beings more unsure with Rogue right now. I appreciate your advice but I’ll pass on druid.
Enhancement is VERY keybind heavy right now. Best take a look at its rotational requirement before getting too interested. Elemental and resto are totally fine though.
DH & rogue are in pretty bad spots right now.
DK isn’t amazing but it’s pretty consistently always decent.
Good to know, thanks! I am actually not a huge fan of a massive amount of binds but don’t like not having any either.
This is what I was thinking and the general feeling I get from the people I know that play them.
I think the one thing that holds me back the most from this class is mobility. But they are beef cakes compared to Shaman so it kind of balances out for me. I also prefer the class fantasy of DK over Shaman but not by that much honestly.
I guess I am kind of between Shaman and Death Knight now!
Oh for sure! I 100% understand that druids fix so many peoples problems when it comes to not being able to decide but I just am not a fan of any of their playstyles and I always come back to try. I hate their healing playstyle in PvE it’s fun in PVP. Feral DPS is okay but doesn’t really do it for me and I do not like the sound effects at all. I have never liked balance’s rotation or class fantasy - I would much rather prefer bugs and more green nature stuff over solar and moon energy. I also don’t like the comedic approach they took with Moonkins in general. I love Owls IRL and I just cannot take that seriously. (No offense to Moonkin enjoyers)
I main a DK, Blood most of the time, Frost when I’m feeling lazy. My main alts beyond that are a demonology lock, MM hunter and enhancement shammy. I’m not sure where they rank in the grand scheme of things as far as performance and all, but I find those three fun to play.
Just be aware that Elemental after the rework is VERY much a 3-minute CD spec. Not inherently bad, but can be harder to work around sometimes. Back to back bosses feel bad. You’re probably not getting PI because your cooldown doesn’t line up with it.
Enhancement I know basically nothing about but they’re getting another set of BIG changes going into 11.1 so if you’re looking into more than just animations / aesthetic you might wait and see how that turns out.
Not really a huge thing for me. I don’t do M+ or even really tried.
Main concerns are fun in PVP (Mostly BGs solo) Great Soloers (Which I think is pretty much every class now) - Though DK does have blood which I know can still do some really wild things in raid content the expansion before.
I do recall Shaman being squishy leveling but I haven’t played one in awhile.
Doing good on meters in raids would be a nice plus tho. Ha! I thought Delves would be my go to for end game content but I found most of them kind of boring but hopefully they get better as the expansion goes on. So maybe good Delve performance is important also.
Great to know TY!!! I did not see that. I do love SP because this is not an issue for my spec.
Idk if the class tree changes based on spec, but I know Ele has a few defensive options in the class tree now. The usual Astral Shift % damage reduction (with talents to make it stronger or make the CD shorter). A talent that reduces your spell school damage by 15% for awhile after interrupting a spell. Bonus health from reincarnation not being on CD. Bonus health from an elemental being out. Reduced damage taken from an elemental being out. A 2nd defensive CD that’s just like a straight 3 million health absorb with smaller absorbs popping every few seconds for a bit after that. (scales with stats)
Between all of that and the ability to self-heal whenever it’s fine. I do always take the talent that increases healing surge healing on myself by like 30% or something though. It’s just convenient when stuff gets bad.
There’s a couple other magic damage reduction talents in there too. One is basically always taken as a stepping stone so I forget the specifics. One is tied to healing stream totem.
Oh and it has a cheat death on top of the ability to self brez.
Ancestral Guidance is going away next patch so I didn’t list it. It’s not amazing for a single target self healing situation anyway, it was super crazy when paired with burst CDs in AoE situations for party healing, but from a solo or single target perspective? Nah, pretty negligible.
You list all the Shaman benefits and utility… I add that with the way better mobility than DK and I am definitely leaning Shaman now and was leaning DK.
For these benefits in general I think getting over the fact that enhancement is bloated right now and more confusing to play is probably something I just need to get over. I mean unholy is too right?
Melee, and Ranged DPS 
