Will warlocks and mages be half the population of classic?

[Useful]

wait, are you serious?

my memories of playing my Enhance in PvP in classic was DREADFUL, i had zero mobility, everything kited me, and I just felt like my burst windows were so SO small... but then again my main was a Frost Mage and I think the amazing mobility and kite-ability of mages might have just made me think any melee class was rough.

this is my old video. sorry sound got banned. https://youtu.be/wLeq1ymiYr4?t=382 this is what happens to HWL mage after 1 WF strike.

[Chipperbane]

Warlocks are mushrooms

Exactly. Warlocks in early Vanilla were so fragile and weak.

Someone needs to watch World of Roguecraft, amirite, Agnow?

[bash the fash]

ITT: People thinking BC's spec's damage was the same as Vanilla's version.


SM/Ruin spamming shadow bolt was average damage at best.

You're right, excuse me; use CoE at the beginning of the boss fight. Forgot.

[orderschvank]

playing a warlock or druid means getting your full tier set before almost anyone else, maybe even the MT.

not like your tier was the best gear but hey it makes you look bamf in IF amirite!

[Torrasque]

Warlocks are not very formidable in classic WoW. You'll see many more melee, especially rogues and warriors.

[Moggie]

Unless Blizz copies one of the numerous private servers 1:1 where the limited population has things like revised class balances, debuff slots increased, QoL changes, etc... then trying to use them as an example how good Warlocks were back then is just silly talk. 1.12 changed a bunch of things, and for locks is when they were able to dominate pvp but in raid scenes, it didn’t do much to improve them. And 1.12 on the private servers is a tad different than what was put on Live.

Far as gearing, locks stacked stamina...spell power was rare and you definitely didn’t bother much with secondaries as most didn’t let alone even scale. Hell, itemization was all over the place. Literally, neither pets nor lock spells benefited much if at all, from any other stats much less Haste where you go oom faster and crit where your 4th sb crit could and probably would pull aggro.

From some of these comments, I highly doubt a lot of the ones making comments like how great the class was, actually played Live Vanilla WoW, especially when a lot keeps bringing up things which happened in TBC... And private servers do not count.

I said earlier, I’d only wish Vanilla Warlock gameplay on those I hate. We ride single file to hide our numbers...

[corebit]

The most popular class will be Warriors by far. Only viable tank and the best raid DPS as fury.

[Zyky]

Most people will get tired of playing a lock before lv20 because of needing soul shards that take up bag space lol.

[ringpriest]

Wasn't Warrior the only viable tank back then? Should be played a lot due to that.

That's what I was told.

For raiding, basically yes - but one thing to keep in mind with all the "only X was viable for Y" stuff is that only a tiny percentage of the game population raided, and an even smaller percentage raided with deep dedication. Played by someone with a brain who was willing to put a modicum of effort into gearing and understanding their class, most spec/role combos were perfectly playable for everything up to (but not including) Molten Core. (There were a couple oddballs - I want to say going deep Disc as a priest or deep Survival as a hunter were not really worth it; you could play, but it would be at a significant disadvantage.) A bigger problem was that healers and tanks would generally level/quest much more slowly than dps if they were fully talented into their core role (and re-speccing was expensive enough that you couldn't do it constantly until BC).

[corebit]

For raiding, basically yes - but one thing to keep in mind with all the "only X was viable for Y" stuff is that only a tiny percentage of the game population raided, and an even smaller percentage raided with deep dedication.

I think to assume that the raiding scene will be the same as 13 years ago is a mistake. Most people who play Classic or are interested in playing Classic are WoW veterans. They aren't the innocent first-time MMO players who barely knew what threat was. A large percentage of these veterans know the raids inside out.

[Super Kami Dende]

For raiding, basically yes - but one thing to keep in mind with all the "only X was viable for Y" stuff is that only a tiny percentage of the game population raided, and an even smaller percentage raided with deep dedication. Played by someone with a brain who was willing to put a modicum of effort into gearing and understanding their class, most spec/role combos were perfectly playable for everything up to (but not including) Molten Core. (There were a couple oddballs - I want to say going deep Disc as a priest or deep Survival as a hunter were not really worth it; you could play, but it would be at a significant disadvantage.) A bigger problem was that healers and tanks would generally level/quest much more slowly than dps if they were fully talented into their core role (and re-speccing was expensive enough that you couldn't do it constantly until BC).

I read stuff like this all the time, yet I was purely Ret from Vanilla -> Wrath and Raided my most heavily and among the Top of the server on the couple most populated Unoffical NAOCE and Official OCE servers during these times. Hell I raided with just about every spec and class through all those expansions and people that wanted to be good played good and still did well enough to clear content with.

People going onto Vanilla servers should simply just choose what they think sounds or looks cool. because if you want an authentic experience that is literally how 99% of people chose their classes in Vanilla, and once they hit 60 most raiders just figured out the best way they could use their class. People that were elitists in Vanilla just spouted some garbage about who was viable and who wasn't, and the raiding community just went along with that and gave up on classes which just required to be geared in certain ways to be good.

[ringpriest]

I think to assume that the raiding scene will be the same as 13 years ago is a mistake. Most people who play Classic or are interested in playing Classic are WoW veterans. They aren't the innocent first-time MMO players who barely knew what threat was. A large percentage of these veterans know the raids inside out.

True, and I don't disagree that there is likely to be a much larger raiding scene in neo-Classical WoW than in the original, but at the same time, I think it's important that players who may be new to that version of the game understand that if they want to roll a bear so that they can tank with their friends while leveling they will be able to do so. (Also, I'm really wondering how many casual RPers will come back to classic - I still have a lot of friend who wouldn't touch modern WoW with an eleven foot pole, who react to mention of Classic servers with interest. Who cares about min-maxing, raiding, or even leveling? We just want a whole team of stealthed gnome rogues for PvP! Doubtless that will drop off a little as people re-remember how long it takes to level and gear for any pvp, but some will hang around. And Classic might be a better place for the hunter who just wants to fish with his cat a few hours a week and then sell his fish in the market.)

[Saphyron]

This is the same crap I got during Vanilla and ever since I have been a warlock. But boy isn't this entertaining or what? The OP clearly gives his opinion and he says why he thinks that warlocks would be played mostly and almost literally everyone thinks because of the optimal builds and damage wise.

World of WarCraft, vanilla or not, just like a real life is not binary. Claims that only Warriors, Mages, Rogues will be played are delusional.
I bet there are going to be people who are going to roll warlocks just so that they can provide summoning services and take gold for it.
Not me though, not going to bother with vanilla.

Good idea about the gold for summon thing. Easier to buy my lvl 60 mount.

[Popthehood]

No but rogues will be

[ringpriest]

Good idea about the gold for summon thing. Easier to buy my lvl 60 mount.

Um.... er.... you realize that as a lock (iirc), you just need some (okay, a lot of) time (and a decent party for DM) for that, right?

[Merie]

Why stop there? We could just call all of it classic. Obviously with their little ice cream remark they meant vanilla. They have also spoken exclusively about vanilla. You talk about unskippable raid progression that stopped in BC and didn't matter at all by the time Wrath came out.

- - - Updated - - -



For questing or pvp that might be great. In a raid setting their damage did not justify bring multiple locks over other specs. You certainly didn't want to keep trading the mana of a lesser dps for the mana of the healers keeping everyone alive either.

So people won't roll Warlocks to be among the 1% that raid Naxx 40. You're still going to have Warlocks by the boat load for even leveling and easy pvp. And also easy farming. In my opinion, rolling an Affliction Warlock makes sense even if you're a raider if you're raiding as a healer. Blizzard did not put spell damage on healing sets and the cost of respecing was too cost prohibitive, making a Warlock farm mule extremely useful for farming your raid consumables.

[Alvito]

So people won't roll Warlocks to be among the 1% that raid Naxx 40. You're still going to have Warlocks by the boat load for even leveling and easy pvp. And also easy farming. In my opinion, rolling an Affliction Warlock makes sense even if you're a raider if you're raiding as a healer. Blizzard did not put spell damage on healing sets and the cost of respecing was too cost prohibitive, making a Warlock farm mule extremely useful for farming your raid consumables.

I think a lot of people are going to be shocked by how much less tanky the void walker is in vanilla then the last few years. It has been damn near indestructible for awhile and generated a ton of aoe threat and has a taunt. The vanilla version is nothing like that. I do expect people to play their favorite class/spec no matter what the benefits of it just to see how far things have come in 13 years. As people get closer to 60 there will be a reality check for many and at some point you will see different specs or classes thin out rapidly.

[Cairhiin]

Um.... er.... you realize that as a lock (iirc), you just need some (okay, a lot of) time (and a decent party for DM) for that, right?

Unlike commonly thought, the Dreadsteed is not free. You can reduce its cost by using someone else's J'eevee's Jar but there are reagents you still need to buy. Having said that, it is still way cheaper than a normal mount. I guess most Warlocks end up paying 400-500g if I recall.

[faithbane]

I barely post here but iam surprised about the warrior-rogue hype. The most freaking unbalanced class was Shaman. Selfhealing, dot, stun with tauren racial, raid utility via mana tide and NS, lots of situational totems (poision totem cleansing blind says hello to rogues), spammable purge, and of course the scourge of pvp - 3k WF crits on plate. And also - u didnt need to raid to gear up. Farm Dire Maul for hunter gear and Alterac for TUF - u all set to pew pew. I know all that can be "balanced" but i wish they rather not. I am definately levelling a shaman.

As someone who was a shaman main back in vanilla.. if they balance classes out I will probably won't come back just for the sake of wind fury alone. there were some great utility like tremor totem and spam purge but nothing beats a WFing shaman in vanilla that was basically crit capped in agi gear or had tier 2.5 or above. technically a shammy could 1 shot a boss in vanilla since there was no internal CD to WF, you could proc a wf in a wf endlessly. Never did happen to me since I was only allowed to raid enhancement in naxx but still, the possibility existed lol.

[Super Kami Dende]

When "certain ways" meant world drop epics that would cost you more than a mount, singular items from random dungeons and even quest rewards that if you had not considered and vendored then you'd lost that slot, this is not really a modicum of effort. A truly dedicated player could manage to make a bear tank that was fairly viable but it would take significant effort. There were also some specs that made no sense playing if you ever wanted to raid; fire mage meant doing no damage for the first couple of raids.
If people want to have the least frustrating experience, they are better of rolling a character informed of its limitations and potential.

Sounds pretty boring to have an entire serverbase of raiders playing the same boring 5 specs forever.