It's been a little over a week since they increased level cap to 30, so I'd like to share some feedback based on my experience with beta. This time I won't be doing "tierlist", but simply try to provide as much information about every class as possible. But before I do, some "in before" is required.
All characters were more or less SSF geared, no targeted BiS farm, all dungeons done once. If item dropped and I won roll, then i had it, if not, they move along. No BiS consumables. No stacking quests at lvl20. Grouped up when i had to.
No, You shouldn't care about level 30 in normal circumstances, but this is the best info we will get for now unless Blizz leaks something themselves.
I'll go through classes in alphabetical order, so no funny ideas that X class is stronger than Z because it was first.
Yes, You can level with every single spec, but some specs are terrible, and some amazing. Play what You want to play.
All done on PVE - i have 0 interest in PVP as will be switching to HC realm as soon as it becomes avaiable.
THIS IS MY PVE OPINION:
Druid
Wrath changes DID NOT improved Bala situation, still mana hungry, still low dmg and clunky, I DO NOT recommend going bala early. feels bad
Rage changes improved bear situation, now it feels nice, even early. Cat on 20 feels like cat always felt in classic - good. Feral is the way to go for leveling still.
Resto feels amazing even without gear to heal in dungeons, but leveling with it after mobs start to scale harder feels bad. Don't go resto early, if You want to heal, gather healing gear and just change it for dungeons, at 40 buy dual spec.
COPIUM : weapon scalling makes me think feral bear and cat will be very competetive at 60 - much more than druid was before. Resto druid looks amazing as well.
Hunter
hunter BM is basically leveling cheatcode - Your pet (if You have 1.2AS one or lower) does between 60-70% of Your damage and I think it will start falling off at 60 due to pet not being able to scale harder past that, Gear help with that a little, but not enough - great for leveling, strongly recommend.
MM hunter - Your go to spec for 60, earlier its just better to go BM
Survi hunter - starts getting online around level 30 and does competetive dmg even to BM, HOWEVER you're taking dmg - something that just simply isn't happening with BM. You can level with it if You really want, but BM is objectively better option.
COPIUM : pet scalling + new items might help hunter scale and stay competetive after 60 - something that was not the case in classic
Mage
pretty much all specs are viable now, saw arcane mages, fire mages and frost all doing competetive dmg in dungeons. In my opinion frost is still the best leveling spec due to ability to slow or freeze targets and prevent dmg. Fingers of frost are doing big work and shatter helps with aoe greatly.
NO COPIUM for mage, You just simply cannot go wrong choosing this class, even if You end up doing less dmg than others, all the utility that mage brings to the table will be still highly valued at 60
Paladin
Holy paladins felt worst for me - big mana problems, not that big heals, very rarely had paladin healing dungeons, and pretty much no-one levels with this spec. MIght be better late, but early is not good, avoid going holy early.
Prot - tanking in prot before 20 is basically hoping You won't get kicked from PT for not holding aggron HOWEVER after 20 i deem prot pally as one of the best leveling specs in forever. You can grab multiple yellow or orange mobs at once and kill them without losing much. Move from pack to pack with almost 0 downtime. Felt amazing and my go to if I level paladin. Strongly Recommend.
Retri - some people say retri is S tier, but I disagree, it is strong, but not as strong as prot. You can kill pretty much everything, but You will have some downtime. Still - very good choice if You don't want to tank.
COPIUM -
Hpall will get more tools for mana sustain + healing utility that WILL make paladin competetive healer.
Prot struggles a little bit with single target, but at 40 You get utility that helps with that, so I think You'll be competetive.
If retri doesn't fall off it will be a competetive dps class at 60.
Priest -
Sadly, no matter what Your choice is wanding is still the best method to level, spec doesn't really matter.
Still a strong healer.
COPIUM
Dealing damage as shadow I was performing at 70% of what I could do as mage, but Priest as we know gets a lot of DMG in later talents. Shadowform and other utility makes me think that Spriest WILL be able to dish out competetive dmg at 60. Not sure about mana regen
Rogue
Same old, Same old. Combat is that way to go during leveling. However You still play rogue - feels really bad early, but scales pretty well and performs at competetive level during dungeons. Exactly what You can expect from rogue.
COPIUM:
Blizz said rogues will be no.1 single target dmg. You can ask HOW if rogue didn't change much, but You need to remeember that for rogue it is possible to have ENCHANT + WF totem + Sharpening Stone + poison all at the same time on weapons which makes me think this will be very interesting late game, especially with 5% for extra swing from combat talents.
Shaman
Elemental - unfotunately, even with all the changes going ele realy is a mistake, low dmg, very mana hungry, feels bad, don't do it.
Enh shaman - feels good, it's basically better version of enh shaman from classic in every way, this is the way to level
Resto - bad for leveling, fantastic for healing.
COPIUM
All added and new mana sustain MIGHT make ele/enh competetive DPS classes for level 60 + You got new buttons that You can click. Shaman DPS no longer troll pick for raids.
Resto doesn't need copium it WILL feel much better than before, very strong.
Warlock-
Affli is still the way to level. Fantastic Dmg, control sustain makes this spec simply the best for leveling.
Demo second best, still very strong alternative to affli, cannot go wrong with that.
Destro unfortunately not good early, however later with all skills and utility WILL feel amazing, can't want to try it on lvl 60
NO COPIUM
Warlock is very, very strong. Cannot go wrong.
Warrior
Arms - pretty much dead spec for leveling
Fury - viable, however very painful early, You'll feel that classic "warrior leveling special" until You get Your utilities.
Prot - in my opinion it's the best warrior leveling spec. Feels fantastic and with block You pretty much don't get damaged and can sustain solely on victory rush without downtime. Prot also best single target threath right now in the game.
COPIUM
last time I wrote warr needs help with rage gen, blizzard listened, warrior feel much, much better. Level 60 warr tank might be the best, fury while nerfed stil very very competetive.
NO COPIUM for arms, because it's deadge
TL:DR
Don't level with healing spec - it's bait
Always level with prot spec over dmg spec, it feels good
Don't level with caster if You have other alternatives
Play whatever class You like, there is a big chance everything will be at least viable
P.S.
this time all characters are parked in TB for Your OCD
I just want to say leveling as sub rogue has felt way better than the other specs because between ghost blade, double points from garrote/ambush and getting combo points from dodging makes you feel more like a whole class rather than a 4 second sinister strike pressing, only ever reaching three combo point in a fight, snoozefest.
Sub rotation does look more interesting, however by endgame they have the same issue with there not being any way to alter or speed up energy regeneration, and whilst being sub you have no cleave or aoe at all, right?
I am currently combat as I am level 15 now, but I could see myself try out sub for leveling to see how it feels.
Sub doesn't have energy generation per se, but the capstone talent (Thousand Cuts) reduces the cost of your next Hemo or Backstab by 3 energy each time Rupture ticks. Also, Cutthroat gives you Ambush procs when using Backstab, so you get free combo points (and big damage) from that. Unfortunately these things aren't very useful for solo questing, they're more endgame PvE and PvP oriented.
What level are you? I want to level a rogue but currently at level 12 and with the early talents it feels like i need to do combat spec until level 18 before i should make the switch to subtlety
I seriously thought you were mistaken, but you were right. I've played Rogue since 2005, and I've never considered Setup as an option. Cool to hear that it's something actually worth picking now, and not just a dead talent with no use whatsoever.
They buffed it but then nerfed it in a different way much to my chagrin. Now Setup found in the Subtlety tree gives a combo points 100% of the time instead of 45% of the time with 3/3 setup but the down side is it only counts if it is an attack from the person you are targeting that you dodge. I used to pop a Blade Flurry and immediately after an Evasion and run up and grab 4-6 mobs in a dungeon and your combo bar would instantly keep going to 5/5 and every second you could eviscerate 2 targets, you could do that 5 times pop a thistle tea and cram like 12 eviscerates into that short window and then vanish if you actually still needed to or use Prep to run another Blade Flurry and Evasion. You would do utterly insane damage with a cooldown. Also the cooldown on Evasion in combat can be reduced from 5 min to 2 min instead of only 3.5 min.
It unfortunately is more balanced now and Ghostly Strike helps proc it and if you do that build you want the +5% dodge from the Combat Tree. Remember you have to face the enemy to dodge them.
Maybe I’m undiagnosed, but I got so distracted, perhaps fascinated, by you seemingly deliberately capitalizing pronouns and adjectives like You and They and Your.
Anyway, besides that, amazing write-up for my analysis paralysis decision-making. Thanks!
He's also a "Retri" guy. I can't explain why this grinds my gears. But it always has. Just type Ret. It's two fewer letters to something you're already abbreviating.
perhaps entirely random and I have no idea if OP is finnish but as an example, in the finnish community we call retribution retri because it just fits better in our mouths with the vowel ending. the other abbreviations with a vowel ending sound very finnish too (bala/bal, survi/surv, affli/aff). might be true for other non-english languages too but would not be surprised to learn that OP is finnish.
That's a German thing. We usually call it "Retri" instead of "Ret". I think it's supposed to be diminutive.
It may or may not also be why they capitalize pronouns, but I'm not entirely sure. You don't capitalize ALL pronouns in German. In general, the only time you do this is when addressing a person directly, in which case you're supposed to capitalize your addressee's personal pronouns (Du/Sie). Nowadays this is rarely done with the casual/familiar "du" anymore, but it's still used for the polite "Sie". Other pronouns can be capitalized as a form of honorific, but this is reserved for royalty and deities (and making fun of people who are full of themselves).
I have a feeling the man has even worse ADHD than me and was getting distracted mid word. I do this all the time with sentence structure when I write two sentences in my mind and somehow mash them together while typing because I rewrote what I was thinking in my head faster than I was typing. But the kind of person that would hyper-fixate on the game this hard to max level every single class in beta might have it so bad they don't finish typing words sometimes.
No but seriously, thanks for sharing! I'm having trouble knowing what to play so this was a good read. My first character many years ago was a rogue but I'm not sure I want to go full circle (yet).
I went half circle and played my Rogue from WotLK until MoP in Classic. If you want to enjoy being useless - go for it. I don't see this changing here. I'm also still thinking about contributing something to the raid or playing the auto attack simulator setting up an alarm clock every 20 seconds to refresh SnD.
Yeah I'm thinking I need to bring some utility to raids or maybe even go as a warrior since I've never played tank before. Rogue is fun and all but especially at lvl 60 they don't bring much else other than dps.
You did us all a great service in testing out all the classes & specs in paving the way for a better game for us all. Its time for a break big dog before the launch & do it all over again! HELL YEAH!
at level 27 with SSF gear I was able to solo "Tear of the Moons" quest, where by mistake I pulled 6 mobs + lvl 30 general. Killed them all at the same time without any outside help. That's not something warrior could do before WW axe in classic.
That was a good read. Tanks strong for questing and dungeons, rogues feels flat (probably due to less changes) and ele/boomie/SP feel lack luster despite changes.
What do you think about the devs reusing talents from prior expansions, ice lance, lava burst etc - but at the same time they said they want to take forever into new territory? I felt like they explored a lot of fresh ideas in SoD but only remnants of that has transferred over, which is a shame.
I think my biggest gripe with rogues is that once the rotation is going, you are probably the class that's pressing fewest buttons simply because there's not a single ingame mechanic to either speed up energy regeneration, combo points or cooldowns. That means you get a sinister strike every 4 seconds, and after doing that for 16 seconds you use a finisher and thats all you do.
They sorely need the tbc talent that gives a chance for energy on hit, so they get some actual variation into their rotation.
Ice lance on low level mages with legacy talents - You tell me. My mage was the most geared character as You get so much from tailoring. Shatters were omegastrong.
DIdn't test lava burst on shammy - no thoughts so far.
Yep. It's absolutely lame. We're on a WoW subreddit that's dedicated to a version of the game that's literally us doing more or less the same shit we've done for 20+ years, but this guy plays a little more than the average no-life here and gets spammed with insults when he actually provided really good and helpful feedback
They changed damage for revenge and thunderclap, but also they have the most rage generation out of all the warrior specs. You get rage on dodge/parry/block, which means you can press your buttons on cd.
Thunderclap claps, revenge does high damage and with 5 points in shields you gain 5 rage for every block. Beg a druid for thorns and you're a monster, even after thorn nerf.
When I tanked Dalaran a few days ago my shield spikes were only responsible for around 1% of my dps. But this was as a Pala Tank without increased block chance, so it should be a bit better for Warriors. But even then, it was a free % of dps I guess.
If I remember correctly Thornes did like 10% of my damage pre nerf. And Ret aura was somewhere in-between. Sadly I don't remember the exact values.
That’s because the back half of Dalaran, you can’t block ANY of the mobs, they’re all elementals. Dispute them meleeing you; you can’t block that attack.
People are raging on you for spending so much time in this beta, but I just have to say I appreciate that. You clearly did not use AI for this. It’s really refreshing reading real human written text.
I love Holy Paladin. Still thinking I might level as that spec and just pick up some of the dps talents in it, but I do know dungeons seem to be a one and done situation these days and it sorta hurts my heart a little.
I was a little bit dissapointed too, as blizzard was trying to change leveling situation for healers, but unfortunately they failed in that mission. It's slow, it's painful. And You WILL fall behind Your friends if they won't level with You as They will level faster than You. I think the strat is still to go dps/tank spec until 40 - buy dual spec, then play a healer with group and switch to DPS if solo.
I think healers will always lose in that regard, which irritates me as a long term healer. I don't want to DPS as a paladin, I have other classes for that.
If they hadn't nerfed dungeon levelling into the ground I would have happily been a healer in dungeons until the cows came home.
Unironically the most powerful build for leveling (which i will stick with at 60) is shockadin. Early game spend points in ret to pursuit of justice getting 2 points in reduce consc, and 2 points into imp judgment (eventually will go down the tree to about 28 points)
Then spend holy to shock + 10% consc damage (23 points i believe), then finish ret.
Prioritize SP > int > stam > str/agi
You MELT things.
Crushes prot in up time, have more mana, burn more mobs. Can parse in dungeons and aoe farm as long as you want for any questions.
Took priest 21 hours to hit 20, took paladin 14.5, crazy fast early, I assume its the same later.
1 h wep/ shield, and a STRONG 2h depending on the quest or dungeon. Most of the time 1h shield is better. Block value does help noticeably. Even without prot talents. But the 2h is just so damn strong when it's a good one, that for single mobs it can be better.
A very fast 1h weapon with spell power would be the most ideal by far. But thats harder to get. If you can get a decent 1h with SP or a super fast weapon, both do great to proc SoR
You can still run them and benefit from XP and gear and items..and the friends you made along the way. Even in classic you could still run something 2 to 3 times and get jack shxt.. is anyone really trying to run maraudon or ST again if they dont have to.
What's your thoughts on the Resto druid tree? Personally I hate that our choices are Nature's Focus or Furor, because Furor is worthless to a pure PVE resto spec and Nature's Focus is a "worthless" PVP talent. Feels like we're shoehorned into "wasting" 5 points just to progress. It feels like we don't have a PVE resto talent to pick up and it's frustrating compared to other healing specs :\
As someone who doesn't have a ton of time to try all the classes (or at least can't justify it in the beta lol) I want to I really appreciate your write-up!
I've delivered pizzas to him every day and 3 liters of coke. I'm never quite sure if he's alive or dead as his house has one light on in the attic which is where I think he lives.
Good write up, It's got a lot of shit people needed to hear.
But also for the love of god my man, go take a bit of a break and don't burn yourself out before launch. The population needs all the level-headed people it can get based off the average post here lmao.
Great write up, i played holy pal, ele sham, and balance druid on the beta up to 20 which was dead on like you described. Didn't bother going to 30 add the levels were taking to long at that point
I'm so torn between prot paladin, aff warlock or rogue. I feel like paladin or any hybrid class is best for first 60 but im just not sure yet. Got enough time to decide.
So, my take on this and past trends... don't let that stop you. A lot of people are just testing the new paladin hype train. Doesn't mean it will stick. I do suspect competition a bit with ret maybe? But I know prot/holy will be great leveling and beyond. Always need tanks and heals.
Ret paladins as far as the eye can see. I would bet money that only like 1 or 2 out of every 10 paladins will be willing to play something besides ret in group content.
joined a group yesterday as a warrior. Could have dps or tanked. Group invited took forever so the group got no "real heal". But a pala, druid and a priest. I got told "sorry needed heal". I said "well 3 people in here could heal it". - "but noone wants to". Then got kicked.
edit: it was for HoT and everyone was level 13-17.
Thank you for this - been looking around / reading / testing different characters to figure out what I want to main and this is an excellent concise and comprehensive review just like I've been looking for.
I mained a mage (one on each faction) for a long time and have plenty of alts on retail and classic but was really just thinking about maining something completely different this time around.
Got 4 characters up in the lvl 15 range now but I just don't have the time like I used to back in the day.
Was thinking about healing as a shaman since I have a friend who will be coming out of retirement and is going prot pally. Figured it would be easy to level and just switch to resto when we get closer to endgame. Which is what you pretty much helped me confirm.
But then again I can always roll yet another mage.
You need to remeember that for rogue it is possible to have ENCHANT + WF totem + Sharpening Stone + poison all at the same time on weapons which makes me think this will be very interesting late game
Did I hear right? I can poison my mainhand and still benefit from WF?
And here i am, working 100%, father and family man, thinking if i plan things right i will have time to play and not be left behind and getting ganked…. What a nice dream it was….
I went balance at 30 and despite having better gear for it than feral, went down 10 dps, and had to drink every single fight even with enchants and elixir. it needs some fucking help lol
Quite a few toxic casuals losing their minds over this post.
This dude spending every waking moment leveling each class has zero effect on any you enjoying the game, but some of y'all would kick, scream, and moan to convince everyone that it does and that this type of player needs limited in some way lmao.
thanks a lot for your sacrifice, would you recommended priest or druid for someone who never played any healing class but would like to try it in forever ?
Druid projected to be bis healer, classic Druid with wild growth is kinda insane tbh. Aoe healing was their only weakness in classic and the spell shores it up.
I tried Druid, shaman and paladin(all melee specs) . You just need at least some healing gear and spell downranking and you’re golden so go ahead try it.
Thanks for the overview. I have really been struggling on which healer I want to play (priest vs shaman). I feel like nobody is going to be a priest because it sucks to level. My only hangup with shaman is my friends are playing alliance, and I don't really want to be a dwarf.
I’m deliberating between focusing on Warlock, Shaman, or Rogue. I haven’t played the beta, but these are my three favorite classic classes.
I’m kind of writing off rogue. As much as I like rogue they don’t seem to be getting as many changes which just makes it less compelling, even if I do love me some assassination rogue.
Warlock was my choice going into classic plus and what I played on turtle+ascension but I was a bit underwhelmed by Blizzards direction for Demonology. It might be what I play anyways, anticipating future changes, but I was really hoping for something like Hand of Guldan or Felguard or basically anything that gives demo more distinct personality. Demo is one of my favorite wow specs of all time, but it is kind of bare bones in classic and even forever from the looks of it. Affliction and Destro are always fun tho, and being a core dps class there is always a relevant dps spec.
2-Handed Enhancement shaman being good is probably the thing I want most from forever. Will it happen? I don’t know. Blizzard often tries to take Enh into a dual wield direction. I’ve always loved the “Shaman with a giant weapon” kind of fantasy archetype and the only place we have seen it in wow is classic and SOD. also ascension wow did it awesomely lol.
I did notice that they removed 2 Handed Weapons from the enhancement talent tree, but also don’t have a duel wield talent. How does that work? Are 2 Handed axes and maces simply baseline for shaman now? Is it default or is it learned at level 20 like dual wield on warriors and hunters? Are shaman able to dual wield at all in forever?
Anyways, sorry for my long writeup, you just have lots of experience now. Thought i’d belt out my deliberation about wow forever release 😝 which i look forward to a lot!!!
Yeah I do wish demo got something cooler. The overall playstyle is just more boring destro, and then with 1 pet sacced and 1 other pet alive. No felguard, or meta. I honestly lowk wish they just turned demo into a tank spec rather than this.
Like aff got a whole new drain playstyle and instant shadowbolts weaved into their dots with nightfall. It might be the most complex spec in all of WoW forever
Demo has a legit execution phase now with talents. You can start with the +shadow damage sacrifice, then once you hit execution phase you swap to the plus fire damage sac and start hucking free soul fires on cd. It actually seems interesting, and it's unique to demo. We'll see how it plays out since we didn't get those talents in beta
Tbh I feel like demo out of all 3 had the biggest glow up. I really like adding in the soulfire executes, even though that would make more sense for destro. I feel like aff is good, but the talents are really really bland. Its all just passive dmg bloat, and wrack is kind of ass rn. Destro same thing, they added incinerate but thats kind of it. And incinerate dmg doesnt seem that spectacular for being the final capstone. Im trying not to go back to my ex (lock) but its kind of a "safe" choice. Will always be needed for at least summons/stones/curses. But the holy light is calling me...
When playing “prot” paladin, you went full into the prot tree? I was thinking the mana reduction for consecration and the movespeed in the ret tree would be worth getting before going into prot.
Is the mana prot talents enough to sustain consecration pack to pack?
I played arms up to 25 and with the amount of blue 2h weapons you can get it felt pretty solid. Given that Arms basically need Sweeping and Mortal Strike to perform, it felt fine at 20ish. Why do you think it's a dead spec?
Seeing the prot warrior state right now makes me think that they're going to... nerf it. 🙂 Blizzard don't like when tank outperforms DPS specs in doing something. And instead of fixing two other specs they're most likely will cut the damage of a prot from Revenge or smth.
I think Ret feels great in dungeons and questing. The mana efficiency really comes online with 50% reduced cost on Consecrate and the mana return on Judgement.
If there’s a bunch of good hit pieces at 60 it might be worth to get the holy mana regen talent if raid bosses are long fights instead of 3% hit in prot.
Expertise is going to be a main stat at 60 like in TBC. There’s a 2% one from reals, which will probably be bis for a while.
I like how it plays at 30. Feels really good. The murloc eye trinket can crit and provides vengeance procs, it’s a damage rider on all your abilities including the first tick of consecrate.
I will just say what we are both thinking. We wish we had more free time and we are jealous of the amount of free time you have. Imagine all the fun things we could do with that free time... that would be so nice.
Regarding levelling as holy paladin:
While it may not be the fastest, building spellpower shockadin is very competitive damage. I've topped meters in dungeons as shockadin, and you can easily flex to healer with minimal to no gear change. (right now twilight hammer is amazing for shockadin)
I'll say, it's best into undeads (exorcism), and really comes online at level 30, where you get access to holy shock. It's even possible to choose between sword/board aoe shockadin and 2h singletarget shockadin.
Overal, definately not a spec to sleep on.
Druid: until you get Boomkin, you’re a healer in groups. Wrath spam, big thorns for tank, heal when needed. You won’t go OOM (in my experience) and you’ll be putting up numbers. And you’ll be loved by your tank. Out in the world you thorns, rejuv, bear>swipe and pull the world. Or you just do a single target rotation and take things easy (but slower). Whatever floats your boat.
I’ll likely end up stacking nature dmg until 40 then I switch to Starfire after getting the talents to make it worthwhile (SoD I found this to be the most efficient route)
But yeah, even in balance, you’ll end up going bear and realizing most of your damage is in big pulls=more rage/thorns damage=more swipe. But you’ll still be basically full health after killing like 8 mobs at once. The downtime for mana makes this much more efficient in large packs and less efficient for single target.
I guess I'm a glutton for punishment. I've only leveled two characters to the mid 20s in beta. I figure I'll have time to do more later.
First character was a Human Priest. This will be my main when this goes live. I also plan on goin RP server. As a result I am leveling as a healing spec. Slower kills but helps with survivability. Wanding still isn't bad. I've had a worse time leveling as a Holy Paladin on a PVP server and leveling as a Prot Warrior on normal. I might look for some kind of holy order type RP guild or something.
Second character was a Dwarf Combat Rogue. It was a lot of fun as I don't really have much experience with rogues. Also I have yet to see another one of my kind anywhere. I was sort of playing a guy with a screw loose. Went Engineering for bombs.
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u/DoubleSoupVerified 9d ago
I just want to say leveling as sub rogue has felt way better than the other specs because between ghost blade, double points from garrote/ambush and getting combo points from dodging makes you feel more like a whole class rather than a 4 second sinister strike pressing, only ever reaching three combo point in a fight, snoozefest.