Which class/spec is mechanically the hardest to play ?

[Bitethe]

I'm surprised no one said balance druids, I'd rate them more mechanically complex than ferals at least ( I'm guessing most people who said feral haven't played balance), having to track the position of a constantly moving dot on a spectrum that dictates which spells / spell categories you should be using as well as managing dots and other stuff (pre-requisite buffing of spells you will be using while entering or before entering next cycle and stuff like that ).

I'd rate balance up there with demonology tbh.

As for melee: sub, feral and unholy ( I would say rogue is more mechanically complex between those 3 tbh ).

and Healer wise based on personal experience I'd say monk, try finding a good stance-dancing mist/fist-weaver and you'll understand why.

Ya i agree, balance is worse than feral. I main a rogue and my experience with feral is similar to assassination rogue with a little different utility. Relatively easy and forgiving though. Balance druid you have to deal with the casttime mechanic which this season is absolutely shite.

[Nofo]

i play balance alot and feral and everything druid related mained one for 5-8 years now so i dont list them beacuse its pretty quick learning curve between WOD

[barrsftw]

How has nobody mentioned Shamans? Very comparable to rogues in terms of CDs to manage + short CD ranged interrupt. They are also one of the most trained classes AND have minimal escapes, so their positioning is probably the most important of any class. Not to mention the overall power level of the DPS specs is fairly low.

[Deleted]

(apparently being constantly forced to make small decisions over time makes your brain more efficient at processing information).

a class that has a lot of instant CC/interrupts on a low cooldown is forced to constantly make small decisions in WoW PvP.

ANY range class has a 25-40 yard RANGE on their CC/interrupts making it very easy for them to land their CC/interrupts and they can do so whenever they want to.
ANY melee class on the other hand has so called gap-closers to take into account before they can CC/interrupt anything.

In WoW arenas it's not only about keeping your target under control. It's about keeping arena1, arena2 and arena 3 under control! So the more tools a melee class has to connect to/stop/cc/interrupt arena1, arena2 and arena3 the MORE decisions that class has to make constantly.

(This inherently makes casters easier to play in WoW arenas.)

Now lets break down the melee specs:

Shaman:
tools: wind shear, grounding totem

=> 2 tools to stop arena123 in a 25/40 yard range = total of 2

Death Knight:
tools: mind freeze, strangulate/asphyxiate, death grip, dark simulacrum

=> 4 tools to stop arena123 in a melee-40 yard range = total of 4

Monk:
tools: spear hand strike, paralysis, fists of fury, leg sweep
gap-closers: roll, flying serpent kick, transcendence: transfer

=> 4 tools to stop arena123 in melee/15 yard range + 4 tools to stop arena123 after rolling + 4 tools to stop arena123 after flying serpent kicking + 4 tools to atop arena123 after using transcendence: transfer = total of 16

Warrior:
tools: pummel, shock wave/storm bolt
gap-closers: charge, heroic leap

=> 2 tools to stop arena123 in melee range + 2 tools to stop arena123 after charging + 2 tools to stop arena123 after using heroic leap = total of 6

Paladin:
tools: rebuke, fist of justice

=> 2 tools to stop arena123 in melee/20 yard range = total of 2

Druid:
tools: skull bash, maim, cyclone, entangling roots, typhoon, mighty bash/disorienting roar
gap-closers: wild charge

=> 6 tools to stop arena123 in melee/25 yard range + 6 tools to stop arena123 after using wild charge = total of 12

Rogue:
tools: kick, gouge, garrote, cheap, kidney
gap-closers: shadowstep

=> 5 tools to stop arena123 in melee range + 5 tools to stop arena123 after shadowstepping = total of 10




Explanation/Example:

You are a subtlety rogue and the enemy mage casts a critical sheep on your healer in 3v3 arenas. You know that you could shadowstep + kick/gouge/ garrote/cheap/kidney to reliably stop the sheep or you can try and run to the mage + kick/gouge/ garrote/cheap/kidney to stop the sheep. But will you make it? How far is the enemy restoration druid away and will he cast a cyclone if the mage fails to sheep? Should you run to stop the sheep and then shadowstep to the druid? Do you stop the sheep with a kick, gouge, garrote, cheap or kidney? Will you need kick for the following clone? etc.

The average cast time on sheep is like 1.4 seconds. It takes you 0.2 seconds to realize the sheep and it will take you like 0.5 seconds to act. So you have like a 0.7 seconds window to decide which option out of 10 (!!!) is the best to make!




melee skill-cap ranking in 3v3 arenas:

16 WW Monk
12 Feral Druid
10 Rogue
6 Warrior
4 Death Knight
2 Retribution Paladin
2 Enhancement Shaman




Complaints:

"WAIT! you didn't list the purge abilities of death knight and shaman!" - well, the thing is if you see an NS up on the enemy restoration druid, you aren't forced to make a decision...you just purge it...that's all.

"DUDE WTF! you didn't say anything about support abilities! I'm a retribution paladin and I have a TON of them!" - well, I play a retribution paladin as well...and whenever my healer needs a support ability (sac/melee bubble etc.), he will tell me...so not much decision making on my part here either.

hope this helped you a bit, Romeo83x!

[barrsftw]

melee skill-cap ranking in 3v3 arenas:

16 WW Monk
12 Feral Druid
10 Rogue
6 Warrior
4 Death Knight
2 Retribution Paladin
1 Enhancement Shaman

I disagree with your theory 100%. Ranged are inherently harder to play because of LoS and having to fake cast. You also are forgetting about numerous factors that I think should play in to your logic: Cap totem, WW totem, Grounding totem, BoP, Sac, Off heals party123 in general, Blind... just off the top of my head. Gap closers also shouldn't be included in your math IMO because if anything they make the CCs EASIER to land.

Edit: I play a DK main and they are in NO WAY harder to play than Ret or Enhancement. Not even close. I personallyhave Warrior and DK being by far the two easiest melee classes to play in arena.

[Deleted]

I disagree with your theory 100%. Ranged are inherently harder to play because of LoS and having to fake cast. You also are forgetting about numerous factors that I think should play in to your logic: Cap totem, WW totem, Grounding totem, BoP, Sac, Off heals party123 in general, Blind... just off the top of my head. Gap closers also shouldn't be included in your math IMO because if anything they make the CCs EASIER to land.

theory? what theory? these are facts.

LoS? as long as the melee is out of sight he can't damage you either, you know?

fake casting is like the 101 of casters in arena!

forgot about numerous factors? see 'Complaints' in my op.

Gap-closers are what enables you to land MORE cc/interrupts as a melee, hence you have a bigger pool of options (just like I explained in the 'Explanation' section). So gap-closers are like the most important part in "my math"(=obvious game design).

[micgre8162]

Arms. Arms is definitely the toughest mechanically.

Lol! I said that with a straight face.

[Bushtuckrman]

TBH any class is mechanically in depth when you factor in the mechanics of certain pvp environments like high rated arena etc. I'm talking about having to use the worlds supply of focus macros, setting up correct cc's and countering cooldowns.

You can say a hunter is easy to play for example. Then add the million macros for focus, mouse overs and pet macros to manage. Then properly getting your freeze trap off on somebody and managing cooldowns and countering cooldowns and its not so easy. Especially when you realise that like retadins hunters need to also help their team mates with masters call (hand of freedom) and roar of sacrifice (which you can still use if you are cc'd, as long as your pet isn't), if your healer is getting pounded on with no peels/cc available.

Actually with what you described being a hunter is excellent. There is a million opportunity's to make quick moment decisions and react quick to a changing pvp environment. Just enter a bg and do it with the focus of getting highest kb's and dmg with no deaths. You learn to keep 1 eye on the mini map to look at enemies and you are always second guessing what the enemy players are going to do, as you jump around the map disengaging all over the place while focusing down their healer. Cc'ing targets on your teams heals and kiting the inevitable couple of melee that try to stick on you. It's great fun.

[dak1]

Sub Rogues.

[Thelxi]

Subtlety is the clear winner imo. Very important to not fuck up a single thing, or else your dps plummets. Also shadoweaving for spriests is similar in that you can't fuck it up, but not nearly as complicated as sub rogue juggling.

[Awbee]

What about Mistweaver Monks?

Maybe I'm, er, "special", but that's the only spec in 5 years of playing WoW that I just gave up on. No other spec frustrates me as much, makes me feel as powerless and ill-equipped and just not up for the task. I just don't get it. You have Chi combopoints, you have Mana, you have to drink weird stuff to fill up your Mana, you have to channel stuff. Most frustrating for me: I felt like I barely had any ways to heal the target I actually wanted to heal, or do group heal when I wanted to. I could do some strange HoT on the targets I was channeling or had another HoT on, but what if I want to heal someone else?

Ugh. My info may not be up to date since I haven't tried MW in a year or so, but back then it was just one big "Nope" for me.



edit:
Oh, and Balance Druid is a bit of a weird one, as well. Haven't tried out the WoD iteration yet, but from the sounds of it, it's again ... weird.


Never played a Rogue above level 40, so I can't comment on them. Sub rogue does sound tricky though.

[SLSAMG]

Demonology warlock: In my opinion the hardest to play caster, so many possibilities depeneding on your fury generation/decay and proccs, dot management based on enemy hp, on demand burst with good proccs vs sustained dmg, passive cleave due to number of enemies -> HoG timing vs Chaoswave spam, meta uptime due to encounter design, demonbolt(single) vs cataclysm(aoe), pet management, can only really shine if you engage enemies with full resources, super clunky gameplay if not enough haste.

Demo was tough during cata with pet twisting etc. It's pretty mundane nowadays. My vote goes to feral druids.

[Nihilan]

How to PvP as a Boomkin:

Facing one opponent: Dot, Starsurge, run. Collect CP.
Facing multiple opponents: Dot, Dot, Starfall, run. Collect CP.

Advanced techniques involve such complexities as occasionally casting Entangling Roots and Rejuvenation, but this is for experienced players only and is beyond the purview of this tutorial.

[Deleted]

Sub Rogue, no other specc/class doesn't even come close

[Deleted]

Missing things include, among other things: Frog, Warri Fear, Blind.

only CC/interrupts which are on a short cooldown are relevant. any 1.4 player will blind the healer before using any burst. blind is always used in conjunction with damage cooldowns. long cd abilities can't or should never be wasted. a rogue will much rather step kick in order to stop a sheep than blind...don't you agree?

And you listed barely any gap-closers, if you want to count them in, count them all, silly. ^^
What about: Heroic Leap, Sprint, Dash, Enh. Dash thingy and many more?
Do abilities that don't speed you up, but stop your opponent from getting away count, roots and such?
If so, why did you let them out, if not, why?

heroic leap was mentioned. sprint, dash and enh. sprint aren't gap-closers in the sense of charge/roll/shadowstep etc.. you will be able to stop much more with charge/roll/shadowstep, hence more decisions to make

I mentioned entangling roots of feral because they are ranged and can stop a blazin mage for example who is going in for a sheep. warrior charge roots and shaman melee totem roots are neglectable and do not force you to make a decision quickly

Another issue: How do support abilities not count just because in your specific scenario someone else is making the decision for you?
That does neither mean there is no decision to be made, nor that everyone can just shove his responsibilities on his team mates.

you will never ever want to put melee bubble on the restoration shaman when he links at the same time. the healer has to make every decision concerning support abilities. not you as a ret. just watch high rated arena on twitch, you will see what we are talking about here.

Your mates could just as well tell you when and how to cc what, suddenly you no longer have to decide when to use anything besides your dps abilities.

you should coordinate CC/interrupts with your dps partner but which option (out of 1-16) you choose to stop the opponent is on you

So, that argument is bogus, sorry.

Glad I could clear things up.

About your ranged vs melee argument, there are situations where melees have it easier and some where it'll be harder for them.
In your "explanatation/example" you have constructed a situation in which the sub rogue has all his cds up, but apparently does not want to use the dance for burst, else he wouldn't consider popping it as an interrupt.
Btw, he also could step, smokebomb into dance and burst the mage.
On the other hand, the mage might have decided to cast the sheep to either draw the rogue's cooldowns out or the kick and then have his mates cc while the rogue's kick is on cd and he can't have his damage spells interrupted (unless he's arcane).
And it's not like the mage then has no decisions to make.
He might think that if the rogue steps now, they can easily kite him soon and he's fine with the kick not getting through.
But he could also fake cast it to get the step on cd and possibly another cd.
Or the rogue runs because he's close enough and fears the clone, does the mage stop him? If so, how? Nova, pet freez, blazing speed, get the druid to clone or root the rogue, blink (which might be foolish considering the rogue has KS up).

range classes have to make decisions too, yes. there just aren't as many options.

And gap closers are of course a resource a melee has to handle well, but so are abilities to create distance and how and when to get a melee off of you.

there you have it...even MORE decisions to make as a melee

About LoS, yes a melee can't do too much while you're behind the pillar, but neither can you.
And if a rogues steps to a mate and goes behind the pillar and resets, well, your fear isn't worth much anymore.
Or if the warri just pretends to follow you, then charges to your mate and smacks him about, when you try and cc him.
When playing against ranged classes it is more important for the melee to break LoS to avoid damage and cc then it is for ranged to kite your around the pillar.
A druid can kite you on an open field as well, not quite as good, but still. A caster can't cc you if you manage to influence the fight so that he's not in sight.
And then he has to try and not get kited around while still being useful, which can be a lot harder.

my op was dedicated to quick decision making during an arena game - not general tactics.

tl;dr: Don't compare apples and pears while discarding plums.
WoW arena in a 3v3 scenario is way too complex to oversimplify like that. And if you want to compare things, start with not leaving half the important things out next time. ^^

Glad I could clear things up!

[dak1]

Lol @ Rinnegan. He has an opinion and he's going to stick to it, the facts be damned.

I play both WW Monk and Rogue (Sub and Combat). WW Monk is similar to a Sub in some respects, but Sub is just far less forgiving mechanically.

The double trinket for Monk alone allows you to play a bit more mongo (both specs are most vulnerable in stuns, but Monk has 2 outs compared to just trinket for Rogues), and abilities like Transcendence are fairly straightforward in utility (kite behind a pillar, or put it next to the lock portal and follow them). Vanish is a much more difficult CD to use well and Vanish is probably used more as a way to close gaps (usually in tandem with step or sprint).

You also put Fist of Fury down for the Monk but left off Shadow Dance for Sub Rogues, which again, Shadow Dance is significantly more complex.

Smoke Bomb is another one of those Rogue abilities that really has no equivalent and is extremely difficult to use well. I've seen bad Smoke Bombs quite often from 2300+ players. Rogue abilities often tend to require you to be a Jedi Mindreader and preemptively use important cooldowns (like trying to Cloak a Fist of Justice), instead of something like Nimble Brew that allows you to get out of any stun or fear AFTER the fact, and then also gain the benefit of reduced CC for another 6 seconds (screw up and nimble out of a fear right as the 2nd one landed? No problem, it has 60% reduced duration, so you'll be out in 1 second and now are immune for 20 seconds).

And that doesn't even begin to get into the positional issues (Gouge can only be used from the front, but Backstab can only be used from behind).

I had been playing Sub Rogue since Vanilla and I still find it challenging and am constantly trying to improve with it, whereas WW Monk I was able to pick up in a day in the middle of MoP and was immediately successful despite being unfamiliar with the spec. Brewmaster is even easier (not playing WW in WoD for obvious reasons).

Skill Caps in bar form:
Bottom * = How easy it is to be successful with the Spec
Top * = Potential

Frost DK. |*************************----------|
Com Rogue |---*****************************---|
Sub Rogue |-----------------------************|
WW Monk.. |--------------*********------------|
Feral.... |--------------------***********----|

[Deleted]

DPS: As been mentioned before, the combo point classes with lots of buffs/debuffs to keep track of are mechanically most demanding. That's not to say you can't swifty shit as a feral at the moment or play some gimmicky rogue burst spec, but to play them correctly at their full potential takes quite a bit of getting used to and paying attention.
I haven't played them too much but the classes that just mongo their pve rotation and click everything that glows never looked very deep to me. May be biased (huehuehue).
Healer: I think every healer has their struggle. Mechanically none of them are very demanding. Keep up Harmony or your Earth Shield and that's it pretty much for maintenance buffs. Shaman get trained hard, so you have to cope with the constant pressure and rotate your CDs to live. Druids have a lot of potential for setups with clone; I'd say they have the highest skill cap just because of the sheer potential and choices they have at every moment. Exact opposite for monk imo, you stutter-step your heals, bubble on CD because you can't keep up either way and use your cc - more clunky than deep imo. And monk gets destroyed by the rampant interupt hacking. Haven't played paladin in years and haven't played priest in a while. Priest was similar to druid in that they have lots of offensive potential and thus depth.

[Deleted]

Lol @ Rinnegan. He has an opinion and he's going to stick to it, the facts be damned.

I love that people reply so thoroughly to my post...that's really all I want when arguing on mmo-champ. if people don't take their time to respond then your argument was bad no matter whether you are right or wrong. so thanks!

I play both WW Monk and Rogue (Sub and Combat). WW Monk is similar to a Sub in some respects, but Sub is just far less forgiving mechanically.

The double trinket for Monk alone allows you to play a bit more mongo (both specs are most vulnerable in stuns, but Monk has 2 outs compared to just trinket for Rogues), and abilities like Transcendence are fairly straightforward in utility (kite behind a pillar, or put it next to the lock portal and follow them). Vanish is a much more difficult CD to use well and Vanish is probably used more as a way to close gaps (usually in tandem with step or sprint).

You also put Fist of Fury down for the Monk but left off Shadow Dance for Sub Rogues, which again, Shadow Dance is significantly more complex.

Smoke Bomb is another one of those Rogue abilities that really has no equivalent and is extremely difficult to use well. I've seen bad Smoke Bombs quite often from 2300+ players. Rogue abilities often tend to require you to be a Jedi Mindreader and preemptively use important cooldowns (like trying to Cloak a Fist of Justice), instead of something like Nimble Brew that allows you to get out of any stun or fear AFTER the fact, and then also gain the benefit of reduced CC for another 6 seconds (screw up and nimble out of a fear right as the 2nd one landed? No problem, it has 60% reduced duration, so you'll be out in 1 second and now are immune for 20 seconds).

And that doesn't even begin to get into the positional issues (Gouge can only be used from the front, but Backstab can only be used from behind).

these are all fair and valid points, BUT my op was more concerned with STOPPING the enemy team from whatever they are trying to do as quickly as possible. I was differentiating between the options a melee spec has to counter arena123. and with flying serpent kick and transcendence: transfer a ww monk can and HAS TO do SO much more than a sub rogue. the amount of thought you have to put into landing a transcendence:transfer-> spear hand strike doesn't even compare to step-kicking someone.
or when your healer is across the map and the enemy mage casts a critical deep->sheep on him then the one and only melee who can and HAS to stop it is a WW monk using flying serpent kick.
and don't even get me started on roll->spear hand strike. you have to friggin aim that shit. it's an AIMED step-kick. I repeat...aimed shadowstep into kick.
People wet their panties when pikaboo lands a step-kick. I wonder what will happen when Zeyond or Balance land a roll->spear hand strike or maybe even a transcendence: transfer->spear hand strike.
I sincerely hope everything is as clear as day now for everyone

Skill Caps in bar form:
Bottom * = How easy it is to be successful with the Spec
Top * = Potential
Frost DK. |*************************----------|
Com Rogue |---*****************************---|
Sub Rogue |-----------------------************|
WW Monk.. |--------------*********------------|
Feral.... |--------------------***********----|

successfully debunked

[dak1]

[snip]A bunch of text explaining that trans/roll -> spear is harder to pull off than step -> kick, therefore WW Monk has a higher skillcap[/snip]

If that's all you've got, I think you've lost the argument. There's a lot more going on mechanically than just that (and I'd argue a trans -> spear says more about the healer than the monk). I'm not going to rehash them though, I think my previous post said enough.

[Rennegadelawlz]

This is a tricky question because mechanically I believe balance/feral/resto druids are the hardest class/spec to play, but they are so powerful that even a player lacking complete grasp of the mechanics can have moderate success.

Factoring in mechanics and relative class/spec strength, I would say that the hardest to play are subtlety rogues or frost mages.

This is a tricky question because really it comes down to the play style of the class it self.

In a sense it isn't neccessarily about how many buttons you have to push because rogues have a lot. But it's the comps in arena and how specific classes are performing at any given patch. Ret pallies are good examples. Yes you can tunnel super hard and not use any of your utility on your teammates or off heal you will lose to anyone that is competent at the game.

If you want accurate data look at the community 3v3 chart ranks because every season is different for what is easy and what is hard as straight forward mechanics the most difficult class in the game to play is a spriest. It's the only class with spread pressure big burst off heals and cc controls.

I can assure you a sub rogue is not hard to play in pvp extremely low cds on cc except blind, and one cooldown on a low timer and a reset ability. Sub rogues are the most fluid class in game for pvp.

Pushing in rating as an ele, or spriest is light years more difficult than any class anyone has mentioned yet.

Hybrids just have way more to do than a pure dps and they have more downtime than a pure dps class.

Few hybrids are really strong right now feral ret and boomkin are on top of that category.

If you are looking for a reason to say hey I play the toughest class to play in arena play ele or shadow.