Warlock, Mage Or Spriest?

WoW Classic WoW Classic General Discussion
1

I’ve always wanted to play caster classes - ever since my first steps in WoW.

However, I’ve always had a “stick to what you know” mentality about switching classes in WoW.
So Paladins, Feral/Tank Druid, Warriors - Have always been my go-to.

Any suggestions for New Caster players for Vanilla?
My primary focus is PvP - However, I do like doing dungeons and raiding.

3 Likes
2

i mean, of those 3 i’d say warlock or mage.
however mages are going to be a dime a dozen. so ultimately i’d say go warlock.

3

All three are good-great choices in PvP…

Maybe check some videos out to get an idea of which playstyle you might prefer for that…

In so far as PvE:

Mage will have to respec for many guilds between PvE and PvP…

Lock will be a solid dps, but probably not the top dps unless your mages/rogues/warriors are bad. Doesn’t need to respec for PvE as SM/Ruin… but in super extreme progression guild may want you to ditch your pet for slightly higher dps build, at least in theory. In practice, I find that people tend not to complain about a free imp buff for a party, even if it’s a touch less overall output (and that can be made up if there’s an open debuff slot for Corruption/Nightfall)

Priest will probably have to heal in raids. The guild will probably want you to be a healer spec to do so, but desperate enough for a healer who shows up that you might be able to get away with not. If you do get lucky enough to be sole Shadow for the raid, then you will be debuff limited and probably need to be good about farming mana consumables.

1 Like
4

The only class in your list that has any variation in your criteria is a shadow priest because they’re far less common in dungeons and raids. Aside from that, I think you need to get more granular on your criteria list.

Race preference? Fight style preference? You need to do more research and feel yourself out here.

5

Lock.

:cocktail:

6

From my experience as a warlock I think this is the best caster class for PvP. So much utility and survival. I geared up all the way to 5/8 t2 so far and the rest are other good epics for PvP (like sash of whispered secrets and gloves of hypnotic flame). I go with SL/Shadowburn and oh boy…do I put on the hurt. I can literally tank so much damage I can sometimes 1v2 if I play hard enough with all my CDs. But IMO soul link for PvP sucks until your in all epics with a lot of stam and spell dmg. Now your good to go for PvP. you don’t even need to be an undead to dispell CCS either. Just have the felhunter out and you can dispel all caster + engineering ccs

Put that together with consumes + world buffs and I or any lock can be 1v1 god. Although I find paladins to be extremely annoying to deal with because of bubbles + fear immune trinket + lay on hands

3 Likes
7

As much as I like healing, I’m kind of thinking Warlock myself.

Good damage, good utility, and you wont be nearly as common as Mages.

4 Likes
8

WoW.

I’m really considering Warlock right now!
Ill start practicing one on Retail and get the feel for it - and keybind priority.

What race do you think was best for PvP?
I feel Orcs would deter a rogue from opening on you.

9

Retail is so vastly different that you wont really get a feel for how anything in Vanilla plays.

7 Likes
10

I feel orcs would be your best option if you wanna min max racials in PvP. But I play as a human and I personally have never lost to a rogue ever since I went SL all because of how much DMG I can take. But for rogues I always bring the voidwalker out incase if sh!t goes down fast. SL is 30% reduced DMG but split with demon, master demonologist decreases physical DMG taken by 10% if you have voidwalker out. That’s 40% against melee. But with felhunter you have 60 all magic resist buff so that’s basically 10% reduced magic DMG taken.

One day I managed to snipe a t2 geared 60 rogue after he opened on me, and used a shadow reflector on me. All I had to do was know when to blow a CD. Its tricky at first but once you get used to the class mechanics you should be able to faceroll so many people

3 Likes
11

You will melt faces as a shadow priest in PvP.

9 Likes
12

Warlock duh

13

2 words…Drain Mana

14

3 classes, 3 specs per class, roll a D10 and on a 1 re-roll.

2 Likes
15

I’ll be playing holy priest till I get Bene/Ana, then it’s all shadow baby.

16

It would be funny if everyone rolling druid and priest suddenly created a glut of healers on classic servers and tanks and DPS were the rarity.

17

Trust me there wont be nearly as many healers as you think.

18

Never happen.

“Hey, need a rogue?!”

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1t0A1cqGcw at 1:28)

Awww they removed the music. :frowning:

19

I’ll shill mage.

Arcane:

  • Largely utilitarian.
  • Generally taken up to Arcane Power for raiding with points in Clearcasting, Arcane Meditation, and such.
  • Talents for silencing the target, flat +crit, and more efficient mana shields.
  • Interesting spell uses. Arcane Missiles continues to fire even if your target goes behind a rock or something. Arcane Explosion at rank one can fish rogues out of stealth. Counterspell can be used to keep a rogue or warrior in combat which means not being charged or having to find the rogue again.
  • Polymorph might be the best CC in the game.
  • Portals and teleports. Easy money, grateful comrades, and convenient travel. You get to have your hearthstone in a place that isn’t Orgrimmar.
  • Evocation and mana gems are still available even if you don’t talent into arcane.
  • Free food and water. I have had people tip me to give them stacks of the stuff. It’s a win-win situation for both players.
  • Blink is probably the second best movement ability in the game after druid shapeshifting.
  • Mage Armor for even more mana regeneration. Also gives free resist.
  • Detect Magic is annoying.

Fire:

  • Out of all the fire spells, only one is defensive. (fire ward)
  • Spells tend to be expensive or slow, but do great damage. The exception to this is scorch which is an awesome spell for PvP.
  • Has some amazing PvP talents (don’t go deep fire). With proper talenting, you get a 10% chance to stun on every fire spell. Use fireball when you have a significant opening.
  • Pyroblast is one of the most fun spells to cast in World of Warcraft.
  • Scorch and Fire Blast after talents have a 10% chance to crit, and that’s without using Combustion or counting your stats.
  • Every crit from a fire mage gets 40% extra damage for free
  • Master of Elements talent gives you mana every time you crit.

Frost:

  • Mana efficient, reasonable cast times, snares or roots built into everything. Awesome defensive spells.
  • Properly talented, every frost spell gets 100% extra crit damage (Ice Shards) and 50% extra chance to crit a frozen target (Shatter).
  • Properly talented, every frost spell with a slowing effect gets a chance to freeze the target (Frostbite, 15%).
  • Frost Channeling increases your efficiency.
  • Frost mages get a “Preparation”-like cooldown. (Cold Snap)
  • Ice Block, Frost Nova, Ice Armor, Ice Barrier
  • Round up 25 enemies and kill them at the same time.
  • Cone of Cold hits like a truck and has a nasty slow on it. It also benefits from Shatter.
  • Rank 1 Frostbolt to catch fleeing enemies or keep somebody in combat.
  • Rank 1 Blizzard can fish for rogues. Also, since Blizzard is centered on the middle of the AoE circle and your casting range is based on the center of the circle, you can technically cast Blizzard a little bit outside of your maximum range. It’s a good way to keep warriors from charging you.

You get a bazillion ways to recover from a bad situation while simultaneously dealing good damage with good mana efficiency. You get to teleport to any major city of your faction. All three of your talent trees are good and the only limiting factor is which raid tier you’re doing. You get multiple viable PvP specs which include a gimmick spec (3MM) that actually works just fine.

Cons: You have like two armor and three hp and all the melee classes get a free pass to put you into their PvP video when they catch your sorry butt.

Raiding consists of casting Arcane Power and then casting a lot of fireball or frostbolt. One unlucky dude has to take Winter’s Chill or Improved Scorch and keep those debuffs up for the other mages.

Don’t bother buying the higher ranks of Frost Nova.

7 Likes
20

Gnome Warlock or Mage, Dwarf Priest for Alliance

or UD for all 3 if Horde.

Warlocks are rather beast however. Being able to handle mass pulls with Voidwalker as you level until you hit 60. At that point you’ll want to use Succubus for Charm/WPvP when in the open and just start nuking targets down with impunity. You will need to be careful though because Rogues and Warriors will be absolutely nasty when they close the gap (and they almost always will) but you should be able to destroy every other class with little issue if played well, though UD will be difficult to Charm/Soulfire nuke. But that is just one build, there are plenty of options for a warlock to ruin someones day.

Also if Blizzard doesn’t include Meeting Stones (which they shouldn’t) then as a warlock you will be wanted to get groups rolling for dungeons. But on a PvP server you will be wanted anyways because the Meeting Stone at Blackrock would be a warzone when not camped by rogues.

Soulstone is an invaluable tool for wipe recovery (or even wipe prevention during boss attempts) and is incredibly useful along with healthstone healing for important raid/party members.

Also when it comes to PvE, unlike PvP, a warlock is pretty straightforward. Just go Sac/Ruin, CoS/E and hit ShadowBolt till the boss falls down. Yeah SM/Ruin is a thing but I’m lazy and I don’t like my Imp.

2 Likes