Is it true there are only 4 classes that get to DPS?

[Spraggle-scarlet-crusade]

Hunters are actually kinda middle of the road DPS. So swap that spot out in your list for Warlock, considering this is post class reworks (1.12) and warlocks are actually good and not hot garbage like at release.

[Ghyslain-tichondrius]

Vanilla WoW was simple… If the class can heal, that’s what they’re expected to do.

They will not match up in any other role. I.E an Enhancement Shaman with GAME-WIDE BEST IN SLOT gear has comparable personal DPS to a PRE RAID Best In Slot Fury Warrior.

If you are allowed into a raid as

A) A non warrior tank

or

B) A non healing spec on a class where a healing spec is an option.

You are being carried. You do not provide as a class what is needed to properly fill those roles you were, incorrectly, led to believe were options for that class.

True Hybrids are broken. They are healers who were tricked into thinking they’d be able to fill other roles. Do not play one if you plan to focus on PvE.

Many classes are in a terrible place balance and role wise in vanilla. It is a nightmare to deal with.

[Trijk-illidan]

so if i go resto druid, i’ll be good to go?

I’ll accept that fate.

[Ghyslain-tichondrius]

You’ll be invited to raids… Mostly because you have Innervate… You won’t be topping the healing meters, but you’ll be able to justify your spot even outside Innervate.

[Seraca-stormrage (Seraca)]

Ret paladin, more like BoK paladin.

Ret pally is top dps in Naxx.

[Haemish-kilrogg (Haemish)]

Sounds like he was either a very poor hunter who got cut from the team or a very poor other class that lost a spot to a hunter. Hunters are extremely good at raiding and pvp until, like you said, AQ40 and even then they bring utility and decent damage.

[Lahgtah-moon-guard (Lahgtah)]

You are being carried. You do not provide as a class what is needed to properly fill those roles you were, incorrectly, led to believe were options for that class.

So long as the boss dies and the player’s actively using their kit/following mechanics, I wouldn’t say they’re getting carried. Hybrids tend to bring a lot of utility as their biggest value, and not every paladin’s going to be or wanting to be holy. Not every raid group will be able to get that perfect comp, and will just end up taking whatever players they can get in order to obtain those necessary utilities. 40 people on an active raid roster is a lot to ask for in itself, let alone in the most optimal composition of class and spec. The ‘average’ guild will, by necessity, likely have plenty of people playing less-than-optimal specs.

Keep in mind this is 1.12, not the early patches when classes and items were generally much weaker and poorly optimized for the content in place, lending to very little choice in methods of play. I suspect that MC and BWL will be a whole lot more forgiving than actual vanilla because of that. The latter half of AQ40 and Naxx? Perhaps not so much.

Shoot, just looking through the changelogs of the vanilla WoW patches and you can see heaps of buffs to items, abilities, and entire class overhauls. It’s understandable that ret pally was a dumb meme as it took all the way until 1.9 for the retribution tree to actually make sense. You can actually see the difference between the first patch and last patch of vanilla talents here http://www.classicwowtalents.appspot.com/index.html?talent=1124125_2

Pretty interesting stuff.

[Trijk-illidan]

heh so never shining and just dropping innervate for others.

truly a forgettable spot lol

[Ironpelt-greymane]

Yeah, pretty much. I never considered hunter a pure dps anyways. I always called myself dps/utility back then. One reason I loved hunter was because you did so many roles. Puller, kiter, cc’er, dps, healer defender, etc… Hunter is the only class that can go full r-tard in damage then completely erase all their threat. Feign Death - Threat reset, pull reset, drink during long fights, use jumper cables to Rez healers. The utility of hunters is situational, but without equal due to the huge toolkit.

[Narya-kirin-tor (Narya)]

I keep seeing that Mage, Rogue, Warrior, and Hunter are the only classes that will be allowed to DPS in raids and dungeons. And hunter will be restricted to only 2-3 players. How true is that?

Not true at all.

Some, maybe even most, raiding guilds will not be willing to take paladins/shaman/priests/druids as damage-dealers. Some will. And only a few twits will try to tell you “you can’t do damage, you’re an X” in dungeons.

[Thermophile-darkspear]

Warrior - fury only
Rogue - swords/daggers

From what I’ve seen.

[Theloras-llane (Theloras)]

@Lahgtah-moon-guard

I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw guides for ret pally, feral druid, and the like in the future.

The Spelladin - new Retribution meta for Classic

Courtesy of DexterBravo: Gear competetion - That T2 gear that every pally wants for PVP or RP, isn’t good for holy. But it is BIS (likely forever) for Spelladins. That’s 8 pieces of items that is Spelladin prio, which won’t be replaced in ZG, AQ, NAXX. That’s a lot of gear for happy warriors, casters, etc., that otherwise was wanted by the AP ret. Actually viable DPS most likely (none of us know how Classic will be tuned in the end). Much better than AP ret – more dps, more mana uptime…

[Theloras-llane (Theloras)]

People want to draw a line between “Viable” and “Optimal”, but that’s completely pointless when you have to work twice as hard for less than half of the result as one of the true hyrbids.

if we wanted things to be easy, we wouldn’t have cancelled our subs during cataclysm and would still be playing retail BFA lol

[Ghyslain-tichondrius]

That makes no sense.

The game being hard is great, but having to put in many times more work to still be comically inferior to another class in the same role does not feel good nor are there any positives to things being that way.

[Treuburch-korgath]

What youre seeing is people who never lead raids and only had specific rolls they filled replying with that “I never saw the warlock dpsing” or w.e, Whats the actual truth is what i just said; You wont see a warlock DPSing in MC but you will see them banishing and soulstoning and handing out healthstones and other things like that. Each class and spec has a specific roll in each raid and they cap at a certain number of that class that part is true; you only need 1 or 2 locks in MC NO MORE or youre cutting another caster DPS thats needed for AOE or Interrupts

[Orcguy-altar-of-storms]

While it’s true that hybrid classes deal less damage than dps, they do bring group utility to buff the other dps.

• Shadow Priest: Shadow Weaving. Buffs all shadow damage on bosses. Your warlocks will love you.
• Balance Druid: Moonkin Aura will buff your casters and healers.
• Feral Druid: Leader of the Pack will buff your melee and hunters.
• Enh Shaman: Your melee will love your windfury totem.

Ele shams and ret pallys are really the only 2 specs which don’t seem to bring any utility to make up for the damage, at least from what I recall. The only raid utility specific to ret is Sanctity Aura, buffing all holy damage by 10%, which is as useful as you think it would be.

[Theloras-llane (Theloras)]

That makes no sense.

The game being hard is great, but having to put in many times more work to still be comically inferior to another class in the same role does not feel good nor are there any positives to things being that way.

then you have obviously not been paying attention this entire time my friend

what you just wrote is literally why we love it - for the pure hard mode challenge of it all to try and get as much DPS as possible out of what was/is considered to be a lolmemespec and end up beating “pure” dps classes…

[Ghyslain-tichondrius]

Enh Shaman: Your melee will love your windfury totem.

Enhancement Windfury totem is only very marginally superior to the stock version. If the Enhancement Shaman doesnt have Nightfall, they are, mathematically, a waste of space.

[Theloras-llane (Theloras)]

@Orcguy-altar-of-storms

Ele shams and ret pallys are really the only 2 specs which don’t seem to bring any utility to make up for the damage, at least from what I recall. The only raid utility specific to ret is Sanctity Aura, buffing all holy damage by 10%, which is as useful as you think it would be.

you might want to read the threads below as the meta will be changing forever when it comes to Retribution once Classic launches

The Spelladin - new Retribution meta for Classic

Courtesy of DexterBravo: Gear competetion - That T2 gear that every pally wants for PVP or RP, isn’t good for holy. But it is BIS (likely forever) for Spelladins. That’s 8 pieces of items that is Spelladin prio, which won’t be replaced in ZG, AQ, NAXX. That’s a lot of gear for happy warriors, casters, etc., that otherwise was wanted by the AP ret. Actually viable DPS most likely (none of us know how Classic will be tuned in the end). Much better than AP ret – more dps, more mana uptime…

Nightfall - Melee Hunter vs Ret Paladin

Special thanks to Taladril - https://us.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/20762086160 and Keftenk for testing things out for me here where we had an interesting discussion on taladril's discord regarding: Nightfall Binds when equipped Two-hand Axe 187 - 282 Damage Speed 3.50 (67.0 damage per second) Durability 120 / 120 Requires Level 60 Chance on hit: Spell damage taken by target increased by 15% for 5 sec. http://classicdb.ch/?item=19169 Troll Hunter Nightfall: +6% Haste Enchantments Hand of Ju…

TLDR - Enhancement + Nightfall has the lowest uptime by far of any class/spec for the +15% spell dmg debuff.

[Ghyslain-tichondrius]

for the pure hard mode challenge of it all to try and get as much DPS as possible out of what was/is considered to be a lolmemespec and end up beating “pure” dps classes…

That never happened unless you were in competition with literal potatoes. Literal. ACTUAL potatoes, perched carefully atop the keyboard.

That is the only way your “lolmemespec” beat anyone. Even if you out geared them by an entire tier… That never happened… And will never happen if your competition has any idea what they doing.

There is no honor there. There is no vague connection or similarity to the “Riddle of Steel” You’re putting in twice the effort to be half the man.

Twice or more the work to remain inferior when paired against even somewhat mediocre players, simply because their class was better as DPS than yours.

A fury Warrior in pre-raid gear but played efficiently will only fall 70DPS shy of an Enhancement shaman in full, game wide BIS, also played efficiently.

Even the things that Rets/Enh could do to attempt to justify themselves (Nightfall, for example) were done better by a hunter.

You never beat anyone who had even a vague idea of how to play their class. If you’re okay with that, that’s on you, but I’m not.