I’m leaning the most toward Hunter, Rogue, or Warrior. I like the role-playing fantasy of not being reliant upon or tied down to any particular cosmic force (light, void, death, etc).
I don’t want to choose based on current or projected numerical performance, because those are always subject to change. So most of what I’m currently looking at is utility and mechanics.
Here are some of my commentary on each. I’d love to hear yours as well.
Hunter
General
Feign death, pet tank, and traps make it possible and convenient to do nearly any solo content. Not a ton of self-sustain mechanics designed into the class, but that isn’t as necessary due to the pet tanking for you.
I also enjoy having options to passively increase my movement speed. Movement speed makes a huge difference for me on the general feel of playing the game.
Survival
My favorite part of the spec is harpoon with resets. The reset triggers even if you didn’t get the killing blow, just if you made a hostile action against a target that eventually dies. I really wish Warriors had a similar talent option for charge.
Throwing bombs is a fun way to AoE (and is even useful in single target), but feels sluggish in prolonged fights when it’s off cooldown. Using Butchery instead of Carve might make chasing bomb resets more interesting.
Marksman
I love and hate Aimed Shot. My issues with it could be fixed if it were changed to an “Empowerment” ability like many of the Evoker’s breath attacks. Aimed Shot’s existence makes it relatively as difficult to deal with as any other caster, needing to “stutter move” to avoid mechanics while getting “casts off”.
The AoE rotation is interesting, but it’s frustrating that you can’t keep it up for very long before needing to spend some cycles replenishing focus (there’s currently no way to AoE and build focus at the same time, that I’m aware of).
Being able to dismiss the pet in group content is a nice bonus too.
Beastmaster
Perhaps the most mechanically superior spec in the game (only one that has total freedom of movement while DPSing from range). However, I find its rotations to be incredibly boring with occasional forced moments of “hurry up and wait” while your focus regenerates and you’re unable to do much of anything.
Rogue
General
Rogue stealth play has a huge draw for me. Sure, Feral Druids can “stealth” too, but it has none of the intricacies available to Rogues. Pick Pocket, Sap, Distract… all great stuff. The survivability options available to rogues in Dragonflight are also getting a significant upgrades and all of their talent trees look really promising and fun to theory-craft with.
My biggest gripe is that Slice and Dice shouldn’t be a maintenance finisher. It’s not fun to upkeep something like this that is so integral to the Rogue’s performance.
Lots of mobility options available too, which is a huge plus.
Subtlety
I want to like this spec more, but the cooldown complexities make it feel like its more effort than it’s worth, though the new talent trees should allow me to simplify the overall complexity of the play-style if desired. The AoE rotation would likely be pretty smooth though.
Assassination
The double poisons talent option is really intriguing, and debuffing enemies sounds like a lot of fun (and less of a hassle than doing it on a warlock). I’m usually not a fan of tab-target damage-over-time rotations in melee (one of the reasons Feral Druid feels so miserable to me), but there are options to steamline AoE a bit more (fan of knives would be fun to work with too).
Outlaw
Of all the rogue specs, I enjoy this one the most. The game-play approach feels much more straight-forward than the other two rogue specs, and Grappling Hook is a blast for getting around when flying isn’t available.
While the forced RNG nature of “Roll the Bones” isn’t my favorite, it’s workable and does introduce unexpected variety into the damage rotation. However, I don’t enjoy that Roll the Bones is another maintenance ability on top of Slice and Dice.
Warrior
I have the least experience with Warrior of the three, but I really enjoy the heavily “grounded” feel of the class (aside from the Legion class order hall stuff, that was a bit odd for me). The game-play loops are generally satisfying for the damage-oriented specs, and the transmog options feel great (currently sporting something like this for a Kul-Tiran Warrior: https://www.wowhead.com/beta/outfit=395664/inquisitor-winters).
I’m eagerly waiting to see how their initial Dragonflight talent trees are going to look.
Biggest downside for me is the lack of mobility compared to Hunters and Rogues. Not having a meaningful base speed increase option available is a pretty big letdown for me.
Protection
The only non-DPS option between Rogues, Hunters, and Warriors. The play-style is currently very limited (rotation can be shorted down to roughly 3 buttons outside of cooldowns), but having the option to do something other than DPS on occasion could be nice.
We’ll see if it gets more intriguing with the release of the Dragonflight talent trees.
Arms
I love the heavy-hitting nature of the spec. Pooling rage and spamming execute (either on a low-health boss or tab-target sniping low health mobs) is a blast. I wish the AoE options were much better outside of Bladestorm cooldowns though. I’d love for it’s Whirlwind to work similar to Fury’s and all of its associated mechanics.
Fury
What fun. The spec is designed to let you effectively forget about your resource and just play. There’s always a button to press and the playstyle just feels super active and engaging.
