This meta is absolutely everywhere, and I’m gettin a bit tired of it. I know there’s not much I can do about it other than reroll, I know that EVENTUALLY I’d find a dungeon, however you know as well as I do that this is what you see most often when people are advertising for dungeons.
Something else I know however, is that most likely back in vanilla, people just couldn’t have cared that much to make this THE strategy. I wouldn’t complain, but good god it really is everywhere.
Make a grp
I would take ret. I actually have a preference for melee cleave, and oh those Windfury Totems 
Just start your own group.
It’s not quite about me, the topic of this thread, more that I’m making aware of the issue that every other class that’s not a mage or warlock is rarely accepted unless they’re a tank or healer.
Actually, right after you posted this I did. A healer joined looking for ZF, then he asked what the group was for. I said ZF and he left. I whispered that it was literally what he was asking for, then he said ZF Aoe farm.
Even though he could have travelled there and maybe done some trash while waiting for his preferred group, he decided instead to waste time deliberately because it’s not part of the meta.
I guess be specific when you make your group that you’re doing a normal run and not an aoe run, idk
Yes, let’s specifically state that I’m doing something the way you’re supposed to by default.
That should definitely be expected of me.
This would have been the strat in vanilla if:
Internets were fast enough
Server lag wasn’t horribe
People weren’t playing on crap computers.
I remember doing a SM run with 2 pallys - 1 ret 1 heals - and 2 warriors, both dps but one tanked.
Was a great run, fast and clean.
You’re the one complaining about the aoe meta, so technically if you’re going to make your own group you should definitely state that it isn’t an aoe group or just don’t take mage.
Or you can cry on the forums like it’s going to change anything at all 
I mean, it took a form of communication for this meta to be established, there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to complain against it.
I have a group now, but that’s not the issue, it’s about the actual state of the game. But whatever.
Fair enough.
Though, warrior dps is the best for melee cleaves, and I actually prefer melee cleaves.
I will say, I ran a ST run at 52, as a dps warrior with a rogue, and hunter, a druid tank, and a spriest healing, and we were all level 52, except the priest, who was 50, and it was really fun fun, with the dps each doing about ~180+ dps/average. Though, that hasn’t been typical of my experience with hunters, nor rogues (oddly enough).
Anyway, yeah spell cleave instance spam groups do seem to be more popular than any other group, and if you’re particularly a rogue or hunter (the only two classes that would have absolutely no place in a spell cleave, then it’s probably a good idea to make friends with people while you’re leveling, so you can ask them to tank/heal/dps in groups that you create for instances.
You do know there is more than one way to eat an apple right?
You can cut it into delicate pieces…or just go ham and smash it in your face with your bare hands.
How do you like to eat your apples?
I’m not gonna argue that’s the best way. I will argue how it’s so much effort that it’s not worth the energy though.
What’s the other way?
Aren’t Paladins the best AoE instance tanks?
The longer you wait, the more normal players will hit higher levels, that haven’t hear of spellcleave.
Clearly the rushers hitting high levels first live and breath it.
I waited a bit to start my healer and am doing fine seeing like no aoe groups so far. People can do their own thing, it’s just not something I want to heal.
There is a huge misunderstanding of the meta / prevalence of AoE specs in the dungeons.
Imagine that dungeon XP was heavily nerfed. Many people would still do some dungeons once or twice for the quests and or some sick drops. Including mages and locks.
Dungeon XP is significant howerver. So the levelling meta is to AoE dungeons. Instead of doing Scarlet Monastery Cathedral once or twice, for the cloth helm and quests, a mage will do it 20 times, or even more. So due to the meta, mages and locks do 10 times more dungeons than usual.
That means that when you are considering how difficult it is for non-meta specs to get into the dungeons, you need to ignore 9/10 of the AoE groups. Had the mages not been the meta, they would not make the group you are rejected into to start with.
I have done SM AoE grinding from 30-44 as a priest healer. I have grouped up almost exclusively with mages/locks. If a ret would join, I’d almost definitely leave after 1 run. Because a ret in a spelcleave completely destroys the purpose of it: pure XP/hour. I’ve also grinded ZF GY for a few levels. Mages exclusively, lock only once. But I’ve also done 2 ZF full runs, advertised as such. In those runs, I did not have a mage. The groups had rogues, hunters, prot pallies. In one of those runs, I actually DPSed as shadow. There were no questions asked about shadow being a memy spec. There was a post, LFM DPS ZF full run, I said, I can DPS as shadow, instant invite.
I did 2 maraudon full runs, no mages again. But there were hunters, rogues, a DPS warrior, a lock. The groups were filled up relatively quickly, i joined one and started the other.
Getting into quest run dungeons as a non-mage is as difficult as getting into them as a mage.
Dungeon AoE runs are a completely different beast, they are not dungeon runs in the standard sense and should be ignored by people who only aspire to do the dungeon a few times.
That said, your problem is not that you are not the meta spec, you are the WORST spec in the game. Everyone knows you are a bad spec, including you. Of course people will reject you as a DPS. I’ve seen rogues, hunters, warrior DPS, but I’ve seen 1 ret in total in my dungeon runs, and 0 oomkins. And that’s fair. You knew you were not a reasonable spec when you rolled, and expecting people to carry you even though you can either heal or tank decently, is your problem, and not one of the community.
Melee cleave is just as if not better than spell cleave. You playing an inferior spec is your problem and if you want to be part of the group, you’re going to have to try a little harder than everyone else.