It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning.
-Kujako-
Until the way a date is presented becomes universal it read March 1, 2006. I do not look at who posted what I look at teh posts themselves. I just noticed you are in Europe and that it reads, January 3, 2006. A simple mistake. Also Moonkin form, from the patch notes were added just over 3 months before TBC not really proof that they existed in Vanilla as to the argument which made it seem like they were around from the start.
Just getting to add a +1 to the right option, the only class that did two things and did it good was warriors, tanking and dps. Everything else was people messing for fun. Rich people, seeing the cost it had to respec in and out for raids. People now call Arms not viable because it does ~10% less than Fury. Going by that patron, hybrid classes not healing were "what the fuck are you doing" level in vanilla.
I'll just say this.
On Stormrage EU there were ZERO, count em, ZERO Boomkin druids that raided. You'd occasionaly see one while pvping, but raiding...no. There was the odd Enh shaman and even the occasional ret paladin that was ALLOWED to dps (most pallies I knew specced into holy only as far as consecration and then went all ret). Coming to the end of Vanilla when Blizzard actually did some work to the prot tree I saw a few prot pallies.
Bit even in TBC Boomkins were rare, even after I switched over to Darkspear US. Until I found my niche guild most I got into had either one, or none, and they certainly didn't want two.
STRESS
The confusion caused when one's mind
overrides the body's basic
desire to choke the living shit out of
some jerk who desperately needs it
Only one Ret Paladin was every brought to a raids: to provide Kings. Every single hybrid was there to heal people. Every. Single. One. I'm not even sure where the cognitive dissonance on this matter came from.
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning.
-Kujako-
Frost was pretty good. As well as POM pyro mages (But only when POM bugged and didn't get dispelled when you cast your pyro). Almost all of the specs sucked balls back then. Bad/empty rotations, enough bugs to kill a country, agility on plate gear etc.
Also, Moonkin Form was added in 1.8 as others have said. It was available very late in Vanilla.
Yeah you could play as whatever spec you wanted. You still can today. Doesn't mean you would be taken to a raid though. GC's comment was correct. Yeah there were some guilds who took hybrids as something else, but that was for farmable content or they just didn't care about progression.
And he's utterly right.
If you was a raider as a druid then you was a healer and buff bitch.
If you was a paladin you gave buffs. And did off off healing.
If you was a priest you decursed and healed. Shadow spec didn't exist as a viable spec.
If you was a Shaman you was a healer or a bloodlust bitch and maybe off DPS.
If you was a warrior you was a tank.
Thats not just me saying that thats the gear drops from Vanilla, look at the teir gear, it forced you into a role, getting gear for outside your role was a bugger unless you was still raiding in full teir 0 as a warrior, but that wouldn't happen in the molten core as you don't have 300+ fire resistance in that so you would be useless.
Seals only lasted 30s, and were consumed when you judged. Since the Judgement wasn't on the GCD, it was common to have a judge/reseal macro back then. Seals going to TWO WHOLE MINUTES in BC was FUCKING MIND BLOWING!!!
But yeah, Blessings were 5min per target. The Greater Blessings were added in later Vanilla, and cost a reagent, and only applied that particular blessing to EVERYone in that class. So yeah, you put BoSalv on all of the druids, and one was a tank, he'd have to click off the buff, and you'd have to manually give him whatever 5min buff he wanted instead. PallyPower was a godsend mod back then for this very reason.
They were called buff/cleansbots back then for a very good reason.
He was talking about roles, Mages were DPS no matter what, and still are of course. They were Frost in MC and BWL, and for highest damage output they'd spec Fire once you hit AQ40 and Naxx.
Get enough hit gear and you could be a Fury Warrior. The highest known dps in Vanilla was something like 1500 on a Patchwerk fight by a Fury Warrior. Basically, they'd just get Lionheart Helm and some other crap, and they'd be good to go. There was a lot of good non-tier gear for Warrior.
Last edited by wariofan1; 2013-01-02 at 06:11 PM.
Only at the end of vanilla, with all the best gear possible warriors were used as DPS. The only time a hybrid played an unviable spec is #1 they had a high position in their guild and forced them to carry them or #2 they raided months behind in nerfed content.
I had a friend who played an enhance back in Vanilla. He was *the only one* in the raid and was still typically given more healer gear. Essentially, the raids I recall had typically 'that one' for whatever buff or something they brought. A bear tank was ideal for the High Priest in ZG due to being immune to Poly. I knew a couple of shadow priests back in those days, but that was it(and trust me, they were often not well liked by the healy priests.)
I remember at one point, waay early on Retri had BoK as the 31 point talent. It was in the beta and then I think it survived a couple of live patches. So technically, someone probably played a Ret paladin in Vanilla. They just blessed BoK all night.
(╯°□°)╯︵ ┻━┻
I was in a top end guild during Vanilla and GC is right. Druids/Paladins/Priests healed. Hybrids were NOT taken seriously in top guilds. I remember seeing ONE shadow priest in a top guild around the AQ40 days and he was the GM of the guild.
I think ret pallys and druids should not be doing as much damage as a pure dps class. Hybrids should have to sacrifice something in order to be able to fill all three roles.
And yet, I tanked progression content. Everything other then Nax40, including the old ten man versions of Scholomance etc. Yes I am an exception and yes it was a TON of work trying to get every last but of defense etc, but it COULD be done and was.
I even went to the extreme of mastering enchantment just to get the trinket you could make in molten core that had armor and resistance on it. I dropped the trade after that and used the trinket to tank everything through AQ.
I frankly enjoyed having to seek out gear rather then having a set handed to me as I progressed. I had to spend time picking and choosing items from different instances to build a single set. I remember the joy when I finally got the Heavy Dark Iron Ring from Molten Core (again, anything and everything with any armor on it so that the Druid bonus could be applied).
It is by caffeine alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the beans of Java that thoughts acquire speed, the hands acquire shakes, the shakes become a warning.
-Kujako-
Your SS of a boomkin is a hunter as others have said.
I remember doing MC with a shadowpriest to cut down on actual healers. Ret paladins to judge seals for utility. They were only there for support, not their dps which was well below that of locks/mages/rogues and hunters. Warriors were viable dps for the most part.
I also remember paladin tanking, druid tanking in 5mans and early raids. Paladin tanking during classic was horrible tho due to mana issues, which was also rets problem as to maintain dps over 30 seconds or something was impossible for ret. I used to come to my guilds raids as a deep prot spec but still as a healer for Blessing of Sanct.
TBC patch made all tanks viable at the end of classic tho and most of the hybrid dps became atleast viable with support, but the game was designed for hybrids back then to be well below the pure dps.
No, Synthaxx. I am answering to you but also to others who made the same claim.
Warriors (fury) were EXCELLENT as DPS in Vanilla, excellent. I distinctly remember my Officers and GM going nervous at the mere mention that our Fury warriors might be away on 1-2 raid days.
Other people said Warriors could only tank. That is VERY wrong, Fury was melting faces in raids during Vanilla. In fact, they were even allowed to roll on Rogue gear.
Veteran vanilla player - I was 31 back in 2005 when I started playing WoW - Nostalrius raider with a top raid guild.