The most forgiving melee DPS class in wrath

WoW Classic Cataclysm Classic Discussion
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So I have almost no experience in wrath. I played original WoW from launch until the second week of wrath and then I quit until Cataclysm was announced. I also never dabbled in the private server crowd at all, so as a whole, the expansion will be brand new to me.

I’ve tried watching lots of videos about classes in Wrath, how good they are, their changes etc. but what I’m not seeing much of, is their ease of play. I like melee DPS classes and pretty much always have. During classic I raided up through Naxx with good parses etc as a Rogue. In TBCC, I’ve leveled five 70’s at the moment and I kindof just dabble with most of them, raiding Kara, ZA and the occasional pug in SSC/TK and BT. I’ve never raided content when it was current and I suspect it will be much the same in Wrath. I expect to be super busy with school and such right as it launches, so I’ll likely play fairly casually, but do plan to raid, just maybe a phase behind current raids.

I make no claims of being a particularly good player. I’m not bad, but certain classes, which I believe are much more difficult to play well, I struggle and maybe parse blue, while others I’ll hit purple parses pretty regularly.

Right now I have a Feral, Ret Pally, Fury Warrior and Rogue at 70, and the Warrior is by far the easiest for me. Making sure to get your seal twisting right every single swing is just something I don’t particularly excel at, and while I have somewhat mixed results when DPSing as a cat (my guild sometimes needs me to tank and others don’t so I just DPS), in general I find powershifting at the exact right moment etc is something I’m not great at. Usually if I parse decently it’s by sheer luck.

What I’m wondering is which melee classes in wrath have a similar sort of play style to say a fury warrior in classic. I like the idea of playing my Paladin as Ret, because from what I understand, the gameplay is much more linear and not as gimmicky as it is now with seal twisting. I also like the idea of a DK, but from what I understand rune management can be fairly difficult to do right, much like I’ve heard feral and their skill uptime’s make them extremely unforgiving.

I’m kindof just looking for some expert opinions on what is a good melee DPS option that will perform at least decently in slightly outdated gear, while also not being too incredibly hard to master.

Sorry if this was a lot to read but despite my efforts I’m not coming up with a solid answer. Right now I’m leaning toward Ret but just interested in hearing opinions

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Best advice I can give is try to find some data that show the dps spread by class/spec. The smaller the range between 1 and 99 percentile parse, the lower the skill cap. Classes that have a huge range tend to have a higher skill cap.

This data is readily available for TBC, but not sure about Wrath. Gotta be something somewhere though.

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Combat rogue or ret paladin are going to be the most forgiving. Combat maintains its super simple rotation, and because of that, its a bit dull. Ret is fun, its a priority based rotation, but unless you really mess up, you won’t notice that much of a DPS loss.

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This was kindof what I expected based on research. The two classes I was leaning toward most was these two but mostly the Ret Paladin. I feel like while I really enjoy my warrior in tbc it’s a class that is super gear dependent and I’ll probably never reach that high ArP rating needed to be very great.

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Assassination rogue is super easy and will likely be top dps in naxx… They’ll fall off after that however. Combat will start out low, but by ICCwill be among the strongest in the game.

All 3 specs are DK are fairly straight forward… Blood being by far the easiest, but also by far the worst, they’re ok single target (but still mid tier at best), but their aoe ability sucks. Their big benefit is that they have absurd self healing as part of their rotation, and as such are kind of like playing a melee dps with training wheels.

Frost is incredibly easy to play as well and is the top dps option in most tiers among dks (and near the top for melee before ICC where they fall to upper mid pack)

Unholy is the “hardest” to play among DK specs (“hard” being a qualifier as DK in general is a really easy class imo), mostly because it also has a pet to look after, but it’s more “fire and forget” than hunter or warlock pets. They’re upper mid single target, but arguably the single best sustained AoE spec in the game.

TLDR try out DK in beta or prepatch.

EDIT: Oh… There isn’t seal twisting in wrath. So your ret is another option, though ret DPS is kind of down there with blood DK. I’d add DK is WAY more “selfish” than Ret is for wrath (that can be a good or bad thing, depending on what you enjoy)… you don’t have to sit around casting buffs on people or dispells, everything you do is for you, and some of it also helps others… where ret often does things specifically to/for others in order to help itself.

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Ret is very basic without significant ways to ruin your DPS. It’s not the best DPS, but it’s solid overall and is great to solo with. It’s very, “comfortable” in that it’s got strengths in every area.

The existence of pre-WoD combo points makes Rogues a bit more difficult, in that they’re not good at swapping targets (especially true for adds) and they do have things that can cause them to lose DPS if you do it wrong. But overall, yeah Combat is forgiving too. I also like stealth and how nice it feels to have a lot of control and escapes. Also Drosul made a good point, Assassination will be strong early and decently competitive throughout (especially since few people will want daggers, so easy to pick up weapons), but I find it boring due to it being fairly slow.

DKs are a good choice. Blood isn’t a DPS in 3.3.5 (final Wrath patch, what we’ll be launching Wrath with), and Frost, while simple, has a fixed rotation that can cause problems if you mess it up. Unholy is almost entirely about snapshotting their Gargoyle, and after that keeping up diseases.

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Rogue 100% the easiest + you have more utility in the “Oh s*&t” moments that will save you.

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Ret is a 969 rotation that literally put me to sleep in wrath… With gear it pumps, but god is it boring.

I think the only non boring Dps rotationd are Feral and Sub, all the rest are just meh… (for the average play style)

Many can be spiced up to garner another 3 to 5%, but for the average zug, is it worth it if they can spam a couple buttons and put down a good pass?

Look at retail, we literally used not always the peak DPS, but what ever was easy, was effective and idiot proof because EZ mode > interesting rotation for the grand majority of the players

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Never played sub outside of PvP. Didn’t know it really had a PvE rotation outside of hemo spamming TBH. Enhancement shaman can be a little complicated too. I’m also hearing that there’s a ‘spellhance’ build that might get some play in WOTLK as well.

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That’s Prot. Ret has shorter and longer CDs, and is literally FCFS - First Come, First Serve. Hit the shiny button that’s up, it’s not really a DPS loss to hit the, “wrong” one.

You should look at Enhancement. Even Unholy is pretty interesting. For Enhancement, the only way to compete is to do it properly.

The OP was asking for forgiving, not interesting.

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Vanish is real nice for legit kill one “boss” quests. If you can drop them quick even if it has adds you pop the vanish and its over. no pesky now kill the adds/escorts it may have had.

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that would be ret imo.

Only have a low level one but i can only mess up the seal reapply after a judgement applies that first crusader seal. I and I can “fix” that player issue if I ever get my forgetting butt to macro it.

still…even a no 2nd seal judgement hurts the target. and no, say, righteousness will drop targets. Jsut slower…the usual sign I see that says I failed at pressing 1 of 3 buttons again.

which is odd…I play DH in retail. I should be pro at 3 buttons by now lol.

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Ret in TBC requires seal twisting to be competitive. In Wrath, that goes away.

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One of the rogue specs replenishes slice and dice as you go through your normal rotation. I think it’s combat? Ez mode. Or Ret. Ret has a very simple rotation in wrath.

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Ah yes, I had them backward. I tried out both in old wrath, and I had never been so board outside of spamming frostbolt in molten core.

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not feral druid nor unholy dk due to hard play and keeping optimal rune use. Ret/fury/enhance should be more about pressing buttons by priority. So it will be about feel I am going tank in wrath but for forgiving fury should not have to worry about mana as much.

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Pretty sure frost dk is going to be the most forgiving rotation and gear wise.

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Enhancement isn’t exactly what you’d call forgiving but I want to throw it out there because of just how much fun and rewarding it can be once you perfect it. Their abilities work on a priority system rather than a strict rotation so you have to constantly assess the situation and use your abilities appropriately. Small missteps can cost you on the meters but once you’ve perfected it enhancement is an absolute blast to play and on a good proc night making other DPS classes/specs sweat if not outright beating them like a drum is definitely possible.

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There are no high skill classes in wrath. Games easy.

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If you’ve played retail in the past five years, you’d find it laughable that people say wrath enhance is complex or hard to play. It’s not at all. WA’s can basically play it for you and tell you what to press next.