Over populated classes/specs in TBC

I’ve been in a bit of a rut. I have been raving about TBC ever since TBC… Lol and I am super excited to roll a Prot pally just like old times and maybe an ele shaman. Both horde. I know people say play what you love and I do, but I try to avoid playing an overused role because they simply will flood the market and will be impossible to gear up in a reasonable time.

So… I’ve read many polls and prot pally is actually one of the highest if not the highest class/role that’s going to be rolled in TBC. So are we now going to be in some backwards world where there are too many tanks and we are going to struggle to find guilds to raid in and even doing heroic dungeons? I will probably still roll one but don’t want to run into a “too many tanks” situation. Thanks! This also applies to a ele shaman but I think that’s not going to be a problem because of blood lust

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I don’t think that will ever be a thing.

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Hopefully not, but since they Are going to rolled by everyone I’m having doubts

just because people roll tanking classes doesn’t mean they wanna tank or tank for pugs

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Yeah, you’re going to see a lot of prot pals clog farming spots and probably not as many run 5 mans or raids. But likely a decent amount of geared prot pals charging groups for 5 mans and keeping the nether. It’s going to be a gold-farming spec for a lot of players.

step 1: set unrealistic expectations
step 2: get mad that said expectations seem unrealistic
step 3: publicize results

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lolNo

People forget how freakishly boring it is to level a pally and most will quickly lose interest partway. Protadins are probably the worst about it of the three specs; sure they can AoE grind mobs for easy EXP, but it’s really slow, you’ll be chugging water and blue potions every other pull, and its not very interactive. I doubt most will make it past Lv40 before they give up.

Same deal with shaman. The FotM rollers will get to like Lv20, and then be mercilessly culled by the Water Totem questline. And like pally, shaman leveling is freakishly boring for most of the way.

Only the truly insane dedicated players will actually level either all the way to level 70.

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Kind of related…

You shouldn’t be allowed to be a druid in TBC unless you mained a druid in classic. There is an exception: if you’ve mained a warlock or hunter you’re allowed to be a moonkin.

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I’m in the same boat somewhat. I was set in stone on warlock and then realized that oh, everyone and their mom is going to be playing warlock in BC. Second choice was shaman or paladin, which everyone and their mother will be playing as well. Not sure what faction balance is going to look like or if fresh servers will actually be a thing, so I don’t really want to commit weeks of my life to a character only to find out that I’m going to want to re-roll.

So for the most part I’m just waiting for blizzconline to see what’s announced and what isn’t before I make any decisions.

lots o’ folks leveling their druids rn.

Just play what you want to play.

You can still be better than others.

There might be a huge influx of Paladins, but fact is most players don’t want to tank. Add to that the difference between a good tank and a bad one, if you know what you’re doing, you will have a spot.

It really depends on what you mean.

There are going to be a lot of fury warriors coming from guilds that had 8-12 of them in their guilds that will suddenly realize their guild only needs 1-3 total warriors, and there is a strong chance none of those 3 will be fury. So they are going to have to cope with that, they will ether get lucky and be that 1 fury warrior in the raid, 2 go protection and be a MT/OT, or 3 be the arms guy. The rest are probably going to have to consider rerolling.

When it comes to niche specs, there will only be a real demand for 1 moonkin, 1 ele shaman, 1 (sometimes 2 for progression) shadow priest(s) 1 ret paladin, 1 rogue ECT.
There will be guilds that will absolutely run more than one of each of those, but they are looking to bring players and not be optimal, the numbers presented are rough outlines. Can guilds get away with 2 melee groups filled with fury warriors and ret paladins? Sure, but it is more of a thing to work around to fit people in, than have in a typical raid.

A typical TBC raid composition and I do mean typical. Looks something like this:

1 warlock group with an ele shaman and moonkin
1 Hunter group with an enhance shaman
1 healer group
1 melee group with an enhance shaman and an arms warrior
1 tank group with the tanks a resto shaman for windfury and overflow.

there will be some guilds that run different set ups than that, but that is one of the more consistent ones what they plug into every slot is going to depend on what they have in their guild, but the raid comp I posted is very typical.

What your guild brings is going to rely on what tanks they have as a foundation to the raid, if they bring 1 prot paladin, and 1 feral druid as their 2 main tanks, what they fill the raid out with is probably going to be different than having 2 prot warriors as main tanks. Running a rogue with expose armor becomes more more appealing to raid leaders if there is not a prot warrior as an example. They will probably run an extra warrior forgoing expose armor and have sunders stacked faster, as well as have a fury warrior that can be that flex tank/DPS on specific fights.

Your question is multifaceted and will revolve around what raids do, the standard raid comps that people build for TBC classic, will trickle down to what happens later on in 5 mans and 10 mans.

But I am sure there are guys that are like “my guild ran with whoever was online and we had 25 druid raids and we just battle rezed our way though illidan and it was not hard” and will tell you that it doesn’t matter what you play and just play what you want and you can do the content with whatever. Leaving out the fact that the guild is more than what their guild does and things will be more difficult for some classes to find 5 man heroic or 10 man spots, as an example.

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While I agree that those are some of the more slow and boring classes to level, I think your description is a bit hyperbolic. TBC made leveling significantly easier and I believe they also changed up when certain abilities come online. Also, some people find that style of leveling (prot pala specifically) because you round up a bunch of mobs and then watch YouTube/Netflix while you rit them down.

I can tell you right now. Finding a guild as a tank. Even in shadowlands is tough. They expect you to be around their progression but to do this you need to be actively pugging.
Once your “IN” your all set but tank shortages aren’t as big of a deal as it once was

Probably going to start my own guild in this case. If they don’t introduce fresh level 1 BC servers this will be a tougher decision because I don’t own a pally or shaman right now, leveling a new char when people are already in outlands would be a horrible idea. So I am hoping we get new BC level1 servers. I don’t care of other servers are progressing from classic to BC with their naxx gear, I’m not going for any world firsts.

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The reality is that in a “balanced” raid comp, most specs are niche, in that you only bring one. The general exceptions are hunter, warlock, and shaman and maybe priest.

Still, some specs will be more common than others. Even if you only bring one moonkin, I wouldn’t be surprised if guilds have a tough time actually finding one.

To the OPs point, I suspect prot pally is one of those “1 per raid specs” that will be in abundance and may have a tougher time finding a raid spot.

I think there will be a lot of prot paladins, but not to the point where you won’t have a raid spot. Hunters and warlocks are going to be overpopulated. If you want to play pally, go ret or holy. If you want to play shaman, go enhance or resto (enhance will probably be super rare anyway, AND enhance can PUMP in WOTLK).

I disagree, TBC only reduced the EXP needed to level up to 60 (so that 1~70 is roughly the same as 1~60) and added a few new equips in the early levels.

They didn’t adjust the stats of the mobs, and most classes still got most of their skills around the same level as they did in vanilla, so the leveling experience will be roughly the same as it. It wasn’t until Cata when classes started being adjusted to learn their important skills early on.

I remember trying to level a protadin in TBC and there’s not much you’ll be doing out in the world until 50 when you finally get Avenger Shield (which was fun as hell to use). I was never in any real danger even with several mobs whaling on me, but it was slow.

So I just found an article from Engadget from 2007 showing the following changes: required xp reduced 15%, quest xp increased, world elite quests soloable/award more & better gear, more quests added, dungeon quests award more xp. Consider me an optimist, but that sure sounds like an easier and faster 0-60 experience to me. I’d also point out that you can train your first mount at level 30 in TBC.

I wasn’t trying to say that you got avengers shield before 50, but I don’t think that’s really the idea behind leveling protadin either. Also, TBC didn’t really add too much for paladins.