PSA: What Class to Pick Classic Fresh

You have more than a year to play before TBC. These specs are good and accepted in stereotypical sweaty raids (most raids). 1. Warrior: Tank and DPS 2. Rogue: Combat (Assassination is viable with great gear 3. Mage (jumps between frost and fire) 4. Priest (heals) 5. Paladin (heals) 6. Shaman (heals) 7. Druid (heals) bear -possible 8. Warlock (two builds, both spam Shadow bolt) 9. Hunter (the higher the phase the less hunters)

Of the above, going into TBC the following stay strong: 1. Warrior (can also now play deep Prot instead of fury Prot) falls off a bit 2. Rogue (gets a PVP boost it didn’t need) falls off a bit 3. Mage- Falls off a bit, arcane becomes viable, frost now just PVP 4. Shadow Priest comes online 5. Paladin (all specs come online in huge way) 6. Enhancement and Elemental now playable and very desired in raids 7. Cat is playable, but not great DPS. Boomkin is playable and has great utility, but not great DPS. Bear is King. Resto is good. 8. Destro is now king. One of the few times (I will be maining this). Demo and affliction are good. 9. BM hunters are incredible levelers, in PVE and PVP.

Vanilla is hard. It takes 10 days played on average (240 hours) to get to 60. On PVP server that’s going to be longer. Some specs are great at leveling, and fall off at endgame.

  1. Warrior -worst leveler in game (a friend healer turns you into a killing machine) also worst 1v1 PVP class while leveling
  2. Rogue - good leveler, as combat
  3. Mage - great leveler
  4. Priest - bit slow but still good
  5. Paladin - slow leveler
  6. Shaman- Great until endgame, broken in raids except as heals
  7. Druid- Feral is one of best levelers, very useful until endgame then becomes healer.
  8. Warlock - One of the best levelers
  9. Hunter - best leveler.

I am no expert, I don’t have all these classes maxed in Era, I’m going what I’ve read in many cases feel free to correct or double check. There are other factors here such as fun (highly subjective). Hopefully this helps someone. See you in the long grasses trying to tag my quest mob!

Edited: 1. It seems I’m in the minority with my estimation of 240 hours to 60. I’m an altaholic, tend to play on PVP (not this time), and get easily distracted. In Skyrim I chase butterflies and sneak attack wolves! So let’s lower it to 150. 2. I didn’t look into mage very far except to see that arcane becomes playable. Apparently it’s beast. 3. Several people have said there is a prejudice against rogues early on. Not the best DPS and not much utility = people would rather have other classes. Noted, unfortunate, and a playerbase issue I hope we don’t see as much of this time around! 4. Lots of people have said that they think more highly of their class or that it’s easier than I said. Kinda goes back to that expression “If you love what you do you’ll never work a day in your life”. I’m into enhancement shaman, Prot Warrior, warlock, rogue, hunter, feral Druid, a bit of priest, not Paladin, not mage. If I like a playstyle I will walk uphill through the snow to make it work, but if someone who doesn’t like it plays it they will scream and run away. I don’t want to be elitist, play what you love. 5. When I said “falls off a bit” people took that as fell into a burning dumpster, not what I meant. What I mean is that all classes have viable specs in TBC that they don’t have in Vanilla - some classes fell from gods to great some came from dumpster to good. 6. I didn’t look at HPAL at all when I said all Paladin specs improve greatly, this may be the exception. Prot and Ret certainly do. 7. I’ve always loved shadow priest. For the rotation, the gameplay itself. I’ve never played it when it topped meters (does it ever, due to the hybrid tax?) but I am going to have a great time when my dwarf turns purple and does that mind blast crit and the flay….the fun factor for me is more important that the DPS. So “comes online” maybe should be drastically improved, mid to lower pack DPS, huge utility, fun playstyle. 7. I didn’t talk about PVP much or professions at all. What little I’ve looked up says Engineering is a must for tanks (more for the stam trinkets than the explosives but those are cool too) that Blacksmithing is a must for melee except for rogues (Idk why) to give yourself pre-raid BIS starter weapons and that Leatherworking is awesome for all melee leather wearers and required for someone in the raid for drums. Feel free to expand on this would love to see some profession talk!