Hey guys, I’m a returning player looking to try Classic for the extra challenge and overall experience. I’m having trouble picking a Class though!
I’ll definitely be a casual player, only able to play once or twice a week for a few hours. I’m wanting this to just be a casual, fun downtime hobby. I’m not obsessed with leveling fast or anything. Don’t care too much about raiding, but wouldn’t mind doing dungeons when I have the time. I mostly just want to explore, quest, and immerse myself. I don’t mind grouping when need be, but obviously won’t be on consistently enough to have a “group” to level with. Again, just want to take it easy and explore the Classic WoW experience.
I thought about Hunter but I’m worried the pets are all going to be generic. Are there big variety of skins for the pet classes or do they mostly look the same? Mage sounded fun too but I heard there is an overpopulation so gearing will be hard later?
Overall just want to play something fun and I’m open to whatever! Not here to top the charts, just have a good time
If you enjoy questing any class is fine. Find one that matches your play style. If you want to run dungeons tank if you can have fun doing it. It’s late in the game and subs aren’t increasing like they did in vanilla so groups can be hard to find. Less so if you’re a tank. Start an alt on low to medium pop servers and join lfg chat. If it’s filled with people looking to buy or sell boosts you won’t find many level appropriate dungeon runs. The difficulties finding a group on a low pop server are less than the difficulties finding a group on a paid boost server.
People claim Bloodsail is dead horde side because of the low pop but I’m regularly finding groups for my alts from 20 to 60. I wouldn’t say it’s easy but it’s less difficult to find groups on low pop servers than on paid boost servers.
It’s true that there are a lot of mages, but people are mostly geared at this point in classic so you won’t have a ton of competition for most items. I’ve tried out every class in classic (I have 3 at 60, 2 in the 40s and the rest in the 20s) and while mage is my favorite class overall, priest is my favorite for leveling. The fact that they use wands for damage means little to no downtime for questing and it’s easier to find dungeon groups as a healer than a dps
Hunter is definitely a great class for casual players. We can easily solo to 60, and at endgame basically get access to “free” gear while mages are all fighting over the scraps that MC and BWL give them. And if you don’t have a large circle of friends that is fine, this is a great class for soloing, experienced hunters can solo the instance dire maul and sell the loot from there, giving you a consistent source of income.
Uh, hunter pets aren’t really diversified as they are in retail, you probably get several families to choose from with 5-6 skins for each of them. If there is any family I recommend it is either a boar or owl for leveling, the boar eats almost anything and their charge is excellent for rooting targets in place as you attack while the pet gains aggro. The owls’ special ability, Screech, is underrated for its threat generation and debuff, making the owl quite tanky (especially if you are beastmaster) and able to hold threat on multiple mobs at once.
At end game, hunter dps is solid but not amazing (i.e. you will be needed, but you won’t be stacked.) Learning to pull and kite mobs is a very fun aspect of this class.
Aesthetically classic pets aren’t as diversified as retail but they are more unique in function in classic. Most of the special abilities have been removed. Charge is gone in boars and all pets get dash instead. Gorillas no longer have thunderstomp. Wolves lose furious howl. Screech is no longer an aoe debuff. etc. And the special abilities only got more unique and interesting in BC and Wrath. Striders got a combat res
The homogenization of the classes in retail followed the same path with the homogenization of pet abilities.
Yeah I was talking in relation to aesthetics, but you are right. There are only a few good families of pets in Classic, generally a cat is BIS for dps and an owl/bat for utility for its screech, and some other pets have niche abilities but its not as fleshed out.
Hunter is good for just chill leveling. If you care about TBC at all you’re guaranteed a raid spot as one of the best DPS there, but if you just want to stay in vanilla, it’s a great chill leveling class.
I think hybrid classes are really well suited to the casual player, simply because you can do any role you want, and if you get bored, you can always respec. You’re gonna struggle finding a raid spot as a DPS Shaman, Druid or Pally, and almost impossible odds at finding a raid spot as say a protection Pally. But if you’re not planning to raid, those specs are all perfectly viable for group and solo content. Paladin is really nice because you can really spec into two different trees pretty effectively for grouping. A 30/21/0 Pally can heal great and still tank dungeons if you have a tanking set. Same with going Ret. You can do a 21/0/30 Ret build and be DPS, but have some of the most important holy talents for grouping. This is obviously not the way people are playing for raid content normally, but it’s totally doable in groups. Sort of the same with an Ele/Resto Shaman. Druids have a little less flexibility in their specs, but it’s not impossible.
I think if I were only going to play one class, and my time were super limited, I’d like a class that can sort of do it all, just to keep the boredom at bay. It really depends on what you want to do though. If your tastes are leaning more towards the Hunter or mage, then a Paladin might seem really dull to you. They’re arguably the most boring class to level. I find it fun simply because I enjoy being able to do it all while leveling.
I have a 60 Warrior, 60 Druid, 60 Rogue, 50 Shaman and 40 Paladin that I play. So far the Druid, Shaman and Pally have been the absolute most fun to level, simply because of their diversity.
Even though I haven’t played warrior, I leveled this shaman with friends I made who play warriors; top notch immersion!
Warlocks are a great choice also because they have utility that a hunter does not: health stones, soulstones, summons, good aoe in dungeons, etc. Great solo class and wonderful immersion in the class quests on both alliance and horde alike.
Druids post level 20 are quite something, especially in regards to immersion when questing for the Cenarion Circle in Felwood, Winterspring, etc.
Paladin class quests are amazing, but at least for me, I find that class very difficult to solo with because the time it takes to kill things is slower than a hunter not using a weapon. (Okay I’m exaggerating there.)
I hadn’t considered Shaman but that sounds fun! You mentioned dual melee, can the shaman duel wield in classic? I read somewhere that they can’t. If they can then that may be the route I go. Duel wield is aesthetically pleasing to me, love casting, and being able to heal later gives me the option to raid if I change my mind on that later!
No that cant dual wield that comes in TBC but what he was talking about is hybrid melee with magic. I am prepping for tbc so I am lvling a shaman on horde cause i already have a lvl 60 pally on allanice cause i plan on playing pally/shaman in TBC. but if your new to classic and plan on solo most of the time i would recommend hunter / warlock
Hunters have fast movement speed from level 20, a more widely usably hard CC, their pets can actually hold aggro, and they never have to die.
Mages are really good and fun for leveling, imo. Incredibly strong and self-sufficient, and ports are a big time-saver. Probably the best leveling class, but I find them kind of boring at level 60. And you are truly fragile in endgame content, a real glass cannon.
I’ll throw in rogues as a great class to play. Rogue leveling isn’t the easiest, but it’s fun to put your varied cooldowns to use to take on situations that look impossible at first. Stealth is not nearly as powerful as retail if you’re used to that, but it’s still really useful. Rogues also do high dps, and blade flurry can obliterate elite mobs in dungeons.
If you take improved drain soul and macro it so it deletes the last shard in your soul shard bag when it’s full you will have the least amount of down time of any class. That and the free mount more than makes up for not having a travel power. Travel power feels good but nothing makes leveling faster than killing non stop. And a warlock doesn’t need his pet to tank the warlock is the tank. Once you have 5/5 fel concentration you just use your Succubus as an extra dot.
Hunters aren’t bad they just take a lot more work to be excellent than a warlock does. To me the payoff isn’t worth it but I do get jealous of their CC sometimes in BGs I’ll admit.
I don’t disagree with anything else you said. As far as rogue goes it’s definitely the most strategic class while you are leveling and I do enjoy that. I prefer to level rogue as an alt so I can have my main support it and make sure it’s gear is level appropriate and enchanted. Makes a huge difference but it’s not a neccessity.
