It depends on what you consider viability. A guild that doesn’t really care about your performance will bring meme specs and will still be able to do progression, you won’t be pulling your weight, but you’ll be progressing.
Now if we’re talking about contributing to a guild that wants to progress fast, oomkins, well, go oom fast. Shadow priests do good damage and have a pretty nasty dot that locks can take advantage of but they also run out of gas super fast. Enhancement shamans, idk, and retribution? you might as well roll a rogue and autoattack with a grey weapon.
Those are probably the three worst specs for raids. Balance can bring their crit aura so I guess at a very high end with gear, they might contribute ok.
Ret and Enh do no damage compared to real dps specs, and are a waste of a spot for serious raiders. If you want a melee dps experience, rogues and warriors are way more fun and actually do the job well.
Specs being completely unviable came down to 2 things, either major mana issues or issues with limited debuff slots. Balance Druid had terrible mana issues and I would stay away from it.
Ret or Enh have a chance to get a slot, probably a better shot for Enhancement. Improved WF Totem is a great buff to bring and there is an axe called Nightfall that adds a debuff increasing magic damage taken by 15%. You are not going to be an all star by any means, but you should be allowed to attend.
Ret can also fill the Nightfall niche but any other buffs would be brought by other paladins as they are really high up in the talent trees. The benefit would be if your raid only had 2 healing paladins and you had classes that want kings, might/wisdom and salv. In some cases salv can be a substantial dps increase if people are having to throttle.
TLDR: Boomkin goes oom and brings nothing, Enh/Ret do poor dps BUT bring very good buffs to the table.
I’ve heard multiple people state, even in this thread, that they have to throttle their DPS either by switching to a weaker weapon or by laying off the DPS during a fight. If that’s the case, then what’s the issue with hybrids doing less DPS. There’s a contradiction going on here that you need to mix/max DPS slots with having to throttle DPS. Sounds like min/maxing DPS slots is overkill and you’re not getting the full potential from you DPS to begin with. Why not take a hybrid that offers more utility than pure DPS if you’re going to throttle them anyways.
I forgot about threat and debuffs.
As Enhancement you can get by with auto attacks and windfury procs but you wont be allowed to stormstrike, or flame shock as those eat a debuff slot that could be used more efficiently.
And if you spam earthshock you will pull aggro.
So Enhancement is s tough sell for raid dps.
I absolutely loved mine for pvp and even for running dungeons.
I’d never played Classic when it was current, and had only heard things here and there, so I honestly didn’t know how good of an idea it’d be to try and main one of those. I figured people on this forum know what they’re talking about, so I decided it was the best place to ask about those three specs.
Ret paladin as a spec is probably the most viable overall, but there are a lot of paladins this time round. I think it could be a problem.
Balance druids are the least viable spec of the three. They really are hopeless at everything. I just wouldn’t do it to yourself.
Which leaves you with elemental shaman. It isn’t great but you can get a raid spot with an upgraded windfury totem and the ability to swing nightfall. And you are not horrible at PvP. So this would be my choice of the 3.
Druid has some weird spec issues. But I will main one anyway. I liked feral for PvP. I could make it work in PvE too, but I had to bust my butt to do it.
If a raid brings them, it is for utility. Buffing, blessings, cleansing, off heals, totems, and as warm bodies.
None of them would be brought for their DPS.
Realize though, that in Vanilla raids, if you need those things mentioned above, you NEED them. So they are only useless if you bring them to do a job and they don’t do it.
Also realize that there was no separation of utility for classes like you have today. Unless you need a talent to get it, every paladin has the same exact list of spells and abilities.
Want to go as ret? Answer 1 question: What do you bring that bringing an extra holy paladin doesn’t?
All three specs will require you to be patient and go the extra. Moonkin is probably the better choice out of the three. Druids are in very short supply and have the most options. That alone usually gives you a spot. So long as you have your intervate and battle rez ready… you’re fine. Wait for the ZG patch though because of the bloodvine set.
there’s a very good series showing some of the meme specs
One thing I believe a lot of people miss when talking about weather or not you are going to be able to raid as a “meme” spec, as people call them, is that 40 people is a lot of people.
The hardcore guilds will most likely not take you into there raids. But those guilds have a number of people waiting to get a raid spot so they can pick and choose what to take.
Most guilds are not going to be walking into MC there first few times with the luxury of picking what classes/specs they bring. They are just going to need people to fill spots.
While a Ret Pally or Boomkin are never going to top the dps meters, you know what they do out dps? An empty raid spot.
If you want to raid as a “meme spec” and don’t care about being in a super hardcore guild. You can do it without many problems. And then once you prove that you are a good player that isn’t going to cause unnecessary wipes, and does what is asked of you, they will keep on inviting you.
I think there is a viable all feral spec, selling yourself as a feral druid and 3rd tank in a raid. With leader of the pack helping the current melee heavy meta, I think you will easily find a raid spot, particularly in second tier guilds who may be struggling to find enough dps warriors and rogues to fill their roster.
In this regard, you’re assuming you don’t have another resto Druid who can provide the buffs; and that the raid allows you to DPS rather than just be an innervate bot and toss heals.
Even if you go in as “boomkin“, they may just tell you to focus heals.