95% Skill Ceiling

[Zondorf]

I read a post a while back about which classes are easy to jump on and raid with and Ele Shamans came out on top. Someone later mentioned that different classes have different skill ceilings and then the thread died. This got me wondering what you guys would rate the classes according to 60% - 95% ceilings, for example;

In the 60% bracket Ele shamans would be the easiest to play but quite much harder to learn than say a hunter at the 95% ceiling, if that makes sense.

I'm not a raider and I only play PvP but I'm quite curious to know what you guys think

If this post makes no sense then please forgive me as I'm very sleep deprived

[Sierra85]

Most classes are easy to play, hard to master.

[Tripping]

Most classes are easy to play, hard to master.

I've been playing a lock in MoP after being melee every xpack before, and I have noticed that most of the skill comes from dot snapshotting. With that leaving the game in WoD, i feel like it will take out the "hard to master" part of some ranged classes

[Zondorf]

Most classes are easy to play, hard to master.

Atleast you understood most of my question, what I basically want to know is which classes are easy to master?

EDIT: I mean which are easiest > hardest to master.

[Hyve]

Atleast you understood most of my question, what I basically want to know is which classes are easy to master?

That's a rather pointless question to be honest, because truly mastering any class still takes a lot of time and dedication. Many might claim that Elemental Shaman is insanely easy, but I see a big difference between good and great Shamans.

Honestly, there is no "easy class to Master" because simply to master the class you need to put in the hours. I've played Monk since the launch of the expansion, and I'm still learning how to refine myself every raid I go to.

[sociald1077]

Might get bashed for it, but I find Fury warrior to be one of those easy to play, hard to master classes.

I love playing it, but I can not figure out for the life of me how to maximize the Colossus Smash window. I know the buttons to press, but I cant make it give me those godlike numbers I see that I'mm supposed to be getting

Oh well, at least I'm having fun, and I havent been kicked yet for poor DPS.

[Revi]

Atleast you understood most of my question, what I basically want to know is which classes are easy to master?

EDIT: I mean which are easiest > hardest to master.

Don't think any of them is easy to master, thats kind of what "master" implies. It's about knowing the toolkit inside and out, and being able to make good snap decisions and applying your toolkit in unconventional ways.

Someone who has mastered elem shaman isn't just doing good dps imo. He's contributing to healing if needed, he's fully utilizing his totems totems for utility and control, he's optimizing his dps on the correct target rather than padding, he'll use his toolkit to survive shit hitting the fan etc. etc.

[Temp name]

Personally? None.

I've spent HUNDREDS of hours and I'm still learning how to play my main, learning small things that make me better as a player.

[Tradu]

That's a rather pointless question to be honest, because truly mastering any class still takes a lot of time and dedication. Many might claim that Elemental Shaman is insanely easy, but I see a big difference between good and great Shamans.

Honestly, there is no "easy class to Master" because simply to master the class you need to put in the hours. I've played Monk since the launch of the expansion, and I'm still learning how to refine myself every raid I go to.

Very much this. I'm pretty good at picking up new specs and being decent with them rather quickly, but even after about 1.5 years of maining a Windwalker monk, I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near mastering it. Can I play it at 90%+ of the maximum? I'd like to think so, but that's still nowhere near mastering it. Truly mastering a class/spec is something that takes a very, very long time of constantly trying to improve your gameplay, no matter how "easy" the class/spec seems at first.
Lots of people mention Arcane(especially during Firelands/Dragon Soul) as a very easy spec, but even a spec with as simple an idea/style as Arcane(Burn -> Conserve -> Burn -> Conserve) was very hard to master, especially maximizing movement with probably THE least mobile spec in the game at the time.

And I'll be honest, I don't think a single spec in the game has been truly mastered(as in is played to 100% of its potential, with no mistakes ever, using all the tools available to work around mechanics perfectly)

[Deleted]

Very much this. I'm pretty good at picking up new specs and being decent with them rather quickly, but even after about 1.5 years of maining a Windwalker monk, I wouldn't say I'm anywhere near mastering it. Can I play it at 90%+ of the maximum? I'd like to think so, but that's still nowhere near mastering it. Truly mastering a class/spec is something that takes a very, very long time of constantly trying to improve your gameplay, no matter how "easy" the class/spec seems at first.
Lots of people mention Arcane(especially during Firelands/Dragon Soul) as a very easy spec, but even a spec with as simple an idea/style as Arcane(Burn -> Conserve -> Burn -> Conserve) was very hard to master, especially maximizing movement with probably THE least mobile spec in the game at the time.

And I'll be honest, I don't think a single spec in the game has been truly mastered(as in is played to 100% of its potential, with no mistakes ever, using all the tools available to work around mechanics perfectly)

I recall there being a thread here on MMOC some time ago where they analyzed some of the top parses from different raidbosses, the #1 ranking people of any class were playing somewhere in the 90-95% range as far as doing the correct stuff at the correct times. So like you say, not a single spec has been truly mastered yet.

[kamuimac]

Most classes are easy to play, hard to master.

+ 1

some are easier to push decent numebrs though (im looking at u hunters and destro locks :P)

[Deleted]

Might get bashed for it, but I find Fury warrior to be one of those easy to play, hard to master classes.

I love playing it, but I can not figure out for the life of me how to maximize the Colossus Smash window. I know the buttons to press, but I cant make it give me those godlike numbers I see that I'mm supposed to be getting

Oh well, at least I'm having fun, and I havent been kicked yet for poor DPS.

Me maining a fury warrior I'd say you're probably correct. Playing fury at a passable level is quite easy, though I'd argue frostmage, frost/uh dk and shadowpriest are all similarly easy to play well but not great. I'd argue that for all of these specs it takes quite a bit of practice to play better than good though. As far as the hardest I would say that it's druid across the board. Moonkin is very hard to play even passably, resto is by far the most difficult healer to play due to the nature of pre-hotting and feral, which I haven't tried, is often spoken of as one of the hardest specs in the game to play.

[Zondorf]

Thanks for the input guys, you have put my (tired) mind at ease.

I was actually just curious to know if certain classes were easier than others to master.

[aziras]

I recall there being a thread here on MMOC some time ago where they analyzed some of the top parses from different raidbosses, the #1 ranking people of any class were playing somewhere in the 90-95% range as far as doing the correct stuff at the correct times. So like you say, not a single spec has been truly mastered yet.

I think it is fair to say that anything above 80% of the theoretical max is pretty damn good. In most cases, playing at 50%+ would be considered good. And for non-dps roles (tanking and healing) it is extremely hard to put theoretical max numbers, because there are no set rotations and a lot more RNG involved.

I would also say that the old cliche of "bring the player, not the class" holds some truth here. A player who knows the encounters and knows the game mechanics (how to cast, how ticks work, buff stacking, etc.) will in many cases do better than a player who just know the class. Obviously you need both to be good, but I have seen plenty of alts from great players performing way better than people who only ever played that class. Despite them maybe only playing the alt an hour or two every other week.

Assuming that a player knows how to equip his character (right stats, right gems, etc.) then each class will have two primary rotations
1) What to do for single-target
and
2) What to do for AoE

Some classes either have the same rotation for both(or very close), like dw-frost DKs. Or they have one of them being significantly easier than the average, like ele shaman AoE rotation (chain lightning, chain lightning, etc.). You might only get 80% of the theoretical performance with these simplified rotations, but if you get it at 10% of the skill requirement, then it will appear that anyone can do it.
Others classes have a high starting point for the rotations to work, but once you get them they are not that hard to push the last bit. Fury warriors come to mind as once you get it, it is all about timing to the encounter, rather than adding complexity to the rotation.

I do not have all the dps classes as I mostly tank/heal. But of the ones I do play, I would list them as follows from easiest to hardest:

DW-frost DK
Ele shammy
Destro lock
Fury war
Feral (don't play this much as my druid is guardian/resto spec'ed most of the time, but my experience is that it is not easy)

The rest of my characters have no been played enough to have an opinion on dps rotations past "faceroll questing" or "farming mats".

DW-frost DK is more or less just 2 buttons (one macro'ed to use blood tap together with frost strike). And a 3rd button for "push this on cooldown or when boss takes more damage for more deepeeesss". The rune system works in a way that you reset at "full" between pulls, meaning that you can often just spam to unload the pain without thinking much. Add the fact that it is a melee class with it's primary attack both being ranged AND AoE and it is extreme hard not to pull some decent numbers as long as you press buttons quickly enough.

Ele shammy has a pretty brainless AoE rotation. But even the single target rotation is easy in the simple form. Keep up flame shock. Hit lava whenever it comes off cooldown (better yet if it has instant proc), otherwise just hit lightning bolt. Even ignoring the earth shock in the rotation you can easily get to 60%+ without putting in any effort.

Destro lock is also pretty easy. It has some very basic rules for when to do what. And the AoE rotation is doing ridiculous damage on a large tightly packed group. A little step up in number of abilities that come into play though, but still very easy to learn the basics of.

Fury war... dat CS timing... I played warrior almost exclusively in vanilla. Most of the time as fury tank, but also a fair bit as 2h fury dps. Rage mechanics were a lot different back then. Now it is a pretty complex rotation of being able to see what happened in the past 10 seconds together with what happens in the next 10. Once it is in muscle memory it is fairly easy, but until then, it is a nightmare.
Certainly one of the classes where it helps to already know the encounters from a different character, so you do not need to worry with both learning curves at the same time. Or go arms until the encounter learning curve is over and then learn fury.

Feral. Oh the DoT horrors. I never liked energy as resource. Which is probably why my druid didn't play much as feral. It is just nasty. You can do alright easy up to, say 50%, but every small step from there is a steep curve. Add the fact that it is one of the few specs you have to play completely different when soloing and you have a very steep curve. You can pretty much only learn to play it by either raiding or ripping at the dummy. So it requires a good amount of time invested before you get good at it.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the input guys, you have put my (tired) mind at ease.

I was actually just curious to know if certain classes were easier than others to master.

I feel kind of bad for you. Pretty much nobody understood the question.

[Otimus]

From what I've played over time (Fury Warrior, Prot Pally, Ret Pally, lots and lots of ret pallies, whatever the hell a DPS monk is called, Unholy DK, Frost DK, Arcane Mageand Shadow Priest), I'd say the skill ceiling is fairly low on them all, because that's just how MMOs are. Most everything is inherently tied with your bindings and reaction times, and if you're used to playing certain other classes, it'll be REALLY hard for some to adapt to another (Plus, Blizzard likes to change shit up way too damned much.)

Anyways, that might rile a few people up, but I think most MMOs in general are made with a fairly low skill ceiling (Especially WoW) by nature of the design (i.e. the gameplay isn't as involved as, say... Devil May Cry, Starcraft, or Street Fighter, or something.) and is more based around knowledge, and your lack of lag.

[melodramocracy]

Folks answering this would need to have mastered more than 1 class themselves I suspect. I can tell you which I think are easier to play below that level, but I don't think I've actually mastered any of them.

[Deleted]

there is no hard class to master

people saying they still learning after 1 year (lol) are just.. not very good player (to be polite)

any decent player can go to almost perfect play on any dps spec in less than a day of training. After that, u just need to learn how to do damage on each boss, because its always different.

[aziras]

The "95%" idea - at least to me, it's not the first time I've heard of the idea - has always represented that most any player can achieve 95% of a class' potential in a fairly short time playing it. It's that last 5% that really separates experienced/skilled players from the rest.

Compare that to something like Street Fighter where it'll often take hundreds of hours for someone to even get to 50% of a characters potential, and very, very few will ever get near 100%.

That is because WoW PvE has very, very, little random elements to it compared to something that involves another player. I have often claimed that I could script any raid if the game engine would allow me. Because it is just THAT simple. You have your 3.5 rotations for DPS (singletarget, AoE, and 1½ additional one of each for cooldowns and burn), follow those and combine with encounter tactics and you got pretty straight forward dps.
Move into something involving another player and you get the "hard to master" part. Because not only does a player have a lot more options to use, they will also be a lot more random in what they choose to do. That means you need to have a longer list of "if X happens do Y" in decision memory and muscle memory.

There are some of the same elements to DPS'ing in raids. However, most of it is not class specific. Positioning is pretty much the same regardless of what melee class you play, and the same with ranged. Ranged has a little more variation in how movement is done though.
Often the "master" part comes from being able to use your class utility in harmony with what everyone else is doing, without it impacting your dps. As well as knowing when and how to use cooldowns and situational skills.

But as a direct answer to the question of which classes has a higher skill ceiling, I would say all the hybrids are above the pure dps classes. Not only because they require you to learn multiple roles along with different ability sets. But also because the combination of having some of those off-spec skills available while doing a specific role adds a lot of complexity.
Sure, the dps classes have 3 dps specs, but they are typically not that different. For some reason, Blizzard didn't make a ranged/melee dps hybrid. The only available one is the druid, but they have all the roles.

[Dasani]

I've played a number of classes over the years and have extremely high skill levels at all of them including hunter, dk, monk, warlock, etc.

I find them all to be pretty easy to play.

I'm also a damn good feral druid, but whenever I try to pickup playing a rogue it just feels... Very unnatural and wonky, almost like it is unbalanced. Not in the overpowered sense but just that things feel kind of lopsided, it's hard to explain. I don't mesh well with playing a rogue. They're extremely easy to play in PVP but to do truly awesome dps in PVE is difficult for me to pull off.