Warrior, Paladin, Rogue, Shaman, Mage, Priest, Druid, Warlock, Hunter
Rogue has to be number 1, cause it sure feels like we are.
I didn’t feel all that much different as a rogue in BiS blues vs a rogue in AQ40/Naxx gear. Some more damage but I was still super squishy and it didn’t change much.
Meanwhile my current classic warlock feels like it is made of paper and I can end up having 25% resists on raid bosses. Then you look at a late-stage vanilla warlock which is basically a raid boss itself and can kill people with a single shadowbolt or a few instant dots while running around with 12k health.
As the present representative of the Classic Warriors Society, I’d have to disagree with you on that. Warriors kick butts and chew bubblegum when well geared, and get trashcanned by 5 year old’s playing hunters 10 levels lower than them otherwise. And we get stomped by mages even if we are well geared, but that’s a separate topic.
Well there are some problems with your rankings.
First of all you didn’t clarify which specs you’re talking about. Second with these type of rankings it often doesn’t make much sense to put them in numerical order. You should have instead used clusters like below.
Requires lots gear min-maxing:
Requires some gear min-maxing:
Requires hardly any gear min-maxing:
This is mostly accurate early on. Depending on your role, hunter and Druid move up that list big time at end game. Hunter doesn’t scale well with gear after tier 2 (BWL) and Druid scales well (feral bear) but the AQ40 pieces are REALLY important to continue off tanking well.
warrior is, and always will be the most gear dependent class.
I raise you an oomkin for the most gear dependent class. ;D
OR maybe a feral with MCP but thats solo farmable so not a big deal outside of time consuming.
Rogue is i think the least gear dependent - a naked rogue can kill a fully geared warrior. Id say warriors first, then paladins next since they can survive a bit more with heals and all