Best and worst classes for noobs?

[Sabitharan]

My first toon was a troll hunter. He was fairly easy to get used to other than the fact that I had used strength til lvl 60 something. I still chose agi over all so i wasn't that much of a noob. Questing went pretty smoothly with him, BGs were reasonably decent, when i stepped in the arena for the first time i did pretty well.

[bunnytrail]

I find that druid is the best newbie class. It was my first, and my main is a druid as well. Druids really do let players discover what type of play they like best, because they could be casters, tanks, healers, or just close-up dps. By rolling a druid they might find that they like warriors or rogues better, or really anything else. It gives them a large variety to work with.

The worst is warrior. Seriously. My second character was a warrior and I absolutely hated her. Shammies might be a little difficult now, I'm still trying to work out the totem system introduced a long while ago myself. xD

Anything with a pet is always good for a noobie though.

[Subliminal]

Wors: Imo warlocks. They have all those complicated spells and all :S

You're joking right?

[Baabinator]

Best PvE noob class: Mage, Paladin, and i am inclined to say Fury
Worst PvE noob class: Feral druid, Enhancement, Warlock

Best PvP noob class: Retribution, Frost Mage, Balance Druid (pop starfall and shit dies)
Worst PvE noob class: Enhancement, Hunter(mms or sv), Prot Warr

[klaps_05]

autoattack is win

[Finangus]

Easy: Hunter, Warlock, Paladin, Death Knight

Moderate: Mage, Shaman

Hard: Priest, Warrior, Rogue

Hunters and Warlocks are easy because they can pump out good damage while their pets tank mobs for them. Paladins and Death Knights are easy because of their self healing capabilities.

Mages are moderate due to their squishy nature and ability to go OOM quickly. Shamans are moderate due to Enhancement lacking it's core attack until level 40.

Warriors and Rogues are hard because of their lack of self heals and inability to deal with multiple mobs effectively. Priests are hard due to their poor damage output at low levels.

[mickloven]

My 4th or 5th toon leveled was a Mage around mid-TBC. It was the first toon I almost quit before reaching 60. I got to about 23 or 24 and was trying to do the Hillsbrad Farmer quests (horde) and simply could not kill anything without going OOM or running if a 2nd mob joined. This was by far my most frustrating leveling experience. I'm not sure that the new mana regen would help in the mid-20's which is a tough time for a mage. Thus, I would say Mage is No. 1 worst for a noob, in my experience.

Warrior is a close second. I tried one once, hated it and quit, but with BOA gear it became a cake walk. I suspect for a new player it would be both frustrating and boring.

Priest is tough early on as well, but with dungeon leveling you can heal your way to 70 (dungeons actually become a pain post-70 to heal in my experience as the players are too spoiled by simple earlier dungeons and won't learn the mechanics of the WoLTK instances).

The easiest (currently) is probably a Warlock (drain tanking), Hunter (pet tanking) or Druid (fast, good damage, stealth and self healing). While I think Lock and Hunter are the easiest, I would recommend Druid to any new player. With a Druid, you can experiment with any class mechanic in the game and see what you like. And, the Druid (leveling) is good, if not great, in all of its rolls.

I would stay away from the Warrior as a new player will die alot, annoy people in dungeons and be bored do to limited skills, slow swing mechanics (arms leveling) and being forced to level weapons (for now). While I said the Mage was the most difficult, I think that the big numbers combined with being able to port would still be appealing to a lot of new players.

Regardless, it will all change soon, so I would tell any friend interested in starting to simply wait for the xpac.

[Kettu]

Worst: Any tank or Healing class. Bound to not know how to keep mobs on themselves and will space out when someone needs a heal and go on saying they didn't do the quest to get res so everyone will have to run back!

Best: Uhm.. Hunter or rogue, suppose. Spam SS and just auto-attack !!

[Panoramixe]

Just on the note of warriors, they'll be slamming in cataclysm.
They'll have the new and improved heroic strike (no longer on next swing, but instead an instant attack). Mortal strike at level 10 for arms and bloodthirst for fury. In short they'll be able to actually do something prior to level 40, unlike now.

[Galvanon]

Find all classes rather easy to level. The experience varies

DK: High damage and survivability fun rotations

Druid: One of the more fun as can literally be everything except a pet class. High survivability heals and damage

Hunter: Bit more fun to level as marks, but obvious reasons for fun

Mage: Bit boring to level except as frost. Too much sitting and drinking, though very tough.

Paladin: My main and I leveled mine back when you had to seal twist. Still though, I see it can be boring till later levels. High survive, big damage or heals

Priest: Assuming you level as shadow, it sucks at the beginning and then you slowly start to murder everything in your path. What's 20 or so early levels to have fun later? Obvious great healer specs too in this day of random dungeons.

Rogue: People complain about lack of self heals. Well I found rogue a bit boring to level but things die faster then you get hurt. Also, if you take herbalism, you won't have to worry about heal downtime

Shaman: Boring as old toast. All the good stuff comes after level 40. Kudos to you who made it. Don't see it as difficult, just some perseverance to bigger and better things. Do rock in lower level PVP

Warlock: Both easy and fun to level. Over all a rewarding class that has a lot to offer

Warrior: Hulk smash. Both fun and easy. Duel spec and laugh as you crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women. Seriously, not hard and lots of fun no matter your spec these days.

[aeluna]

I've played every class in this game, and gotten most of the classes to level 80, with the exception of rogue(70), priest(40ish) and a war(78).

Fun class to level: shaman
Easy class to level: hunter
Pain in the arse class to level: priest
OP classes to level: paladin and frost mage

[Kooshkrusher]

Mages and hunter definitely aren't very noob friendly. Surprisingly few hunters that I know, know about and take advantage of the fact that auto shot timer rolls even when you move, basically allowing full dps while on the move apart from steady shot. Anyone can play a mage "decently", especially arcane. But being a really good fire or frost mage takes more than it does from most classes.

Warrior is by far the worst class for noobs. They require too much special interface enhancements, macros et cetera to be played to their full potential.

If you have a friend you're introducing to wow, I would recommend a paladin or a DK (they need level 55 duh).

Edit: typos.

Actually hunters are one of the easiest classes to begin with. Most new players don't hit buttons as fast as they should, resulting in a huge loss in damage, but with a hunter they can hit very little buttons and the pet will still get the job done.

My suggestion for the OP would be hunter/paladin. Both are extremely easy and won't die much. Throw a new person on a warrior and after the first 20 times they die before leaving the starter zone, they probably won't be too interested with the game anymore.

[Shampayne1985]

Lol, hence the so many dks facerolling the dps meter and rocking the arena top 100. Oh wait, you were talking bullshit, well why didn't you say so ?

We weren't talking about leveling. :P

Hope your not trying to incline that DK's are hard to do good on the meters in raids...

[Deleted]

Death Knight >> Paladin >> Rouge >> Druid >> Shaman >> Mage >> Priest >> Hunter >> Warlock >> Warrior

[Paladinb]

Easy imo : Paladins, Death knights (Once you get a toon to 55), Frost mage, hunter
Moderate: Shaman... just so boring at a low lvl, good pvp though, Demo lock, Warrior.. i grew bored easy though. and Druid

Hard: Rogues.. managed to get mine to 80 then said fuck it. Priests(Unless your shadow or healing instances)

Leveled a Pally as my main in Vanilla, it was much harder being ret then.. Yes I was actually ret , I've always played ret, with prot Offspec of course

[Traejun]

Death Knight >> Paladin >> Rouge >> Druid >> Shaman >> Mage >> Priest >> Hunter >> Warlock >> Warrior

More like...

Hunter > Paladin > DK > Mage > Shaman > Druid > Warlock > Rogue > Priest > Warrior

[Deleted]

You failed 2 times:
1. you put dk as the easiest, which is bs
2. you put hunter the 3rd hardest, which is even more bs

This is my personal opinion and i was trying to add up the leveling / 5man / and raiding experience

[Gilvoth]

I'm not sure about best but I'd say from level 1, either of the pet classes, Hunter or Warlock.

The worst I've personally leveled was a Warrior but that could be because I leveled it in Vanilla and there were some EXTREMELY slow points. I'm leveling a Shaman now and looking at from a noob PoV, I can see it being really bad between the totem quests and deciding when to use which totem. Just last week I was in a SM at level 36 with a another shammy that asked, no joke, what level I got the ability to have four totems out. He was only dropping one on every pull.

[Solarshot]

Just on the note of warriors, they'll be slamming in cataclysm.
They'll have the new and improved heroic strike (no longer on next swing, but instead an instant attack). Mortal strike at level 10 for arms and bloodthirst for fury. In short they'll be able to actually do something prior to level 40, unlike now.

cause you know... warriors dont have a spec that allows them to withstand more damage than other players

[Vook]

Mages definitely are not noob friendly. Had a mage in a ToC 5man group who kept running forward from range, Cone of Cold, Dragon's Breath and Blast Waving the mobs, then S-keying back to range again, only to cast a Frost Bolt and then run forward to melee to do those abilities again. He said it was "part of his rotation to get two fire blasts" or something.