Nonviable specs. Which are they?

[Cien]

thats what i miss about vanilla, certain speccs were designed or performed much better in different situations e.g pvp/pve/solo content

fire did decent damage but try soloing and leveling as fire you'd be constantly drinking and taking loads of damage, whereas frost, you'd be so much more in control and survival, frost barrier trumped mana shield hugely and does anyone remember blizzard farming the peons in arathi highlands for xp haha?

i miss that style of things because if you saw someone pulling big numbers or just being so much more skilled in pvp, you knew it was because they had the talent to play that spec, rather than it being because spec X pulls bigger numbers than Y so enjoy your faesrol or FoTM.

[FelPlague]

Nonviable specs. Which are they?
Are there still a negative stigma attached to some of the specs or people have changed their attitude towards some of them?

Fire mage until AQ.
affliction or destro warlock until AQ
druid other then healer
paladin other then healer
fury warrior (i think?)
elemental shaman, enhancment was "eeeeeehhhh"
it wasent great but was useable...
shadow preist
survival hunter


now some of these had use in pvp as that is very much about burst and doesent matter about mana or debuff slots.

[AeneasBK]

Sure. And stand like idiot with zero mana as a boomkin after 1 min when every mage has mana for 6 min fight. I mean, you are chicken so probably not the brightest on the raid.

lol 6 min fight. Nefarian doesn't last much longer and his encounter is give or take 10 times longer than most others up until that point :P

[Aliven]

lol 6 min fight. Nefarian doesn't last much longer and his encounter is give or take 10 times longer than most others up until that point :P

Four Horseman had 25 min enrage time. Imagine why. Onyxia too got really long.

Also, fight with Nefarian takes much longer, the encounter itself.

[Deleted]

Some boss fights are short.

At least the time is progressive, the better you are the faster it dies. In legion, it still takes ages to kill quite a lot of bosses you've killed many times

[AeneasBK]

Also, fight with Nefarian takes much longer, the encounter itself.

Maybe in 2005. Most bosses up until AQ are gonna die in under a minute. Ragnaros, well maybe you miss first submerge, but otherwise thats a <3minute fight. Nefarian and Chromaggus are the first bosses that start to take a while but even they are not a lot longer than 5 minutes.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Razorgore takes a while but meh you aren't burning mana for the first 4 minutes anyway and the actual killing of Razorgore takes about 30 seconds.

I won't comment on the AQ bosses and beyond because I don't have the personal experience of them and I'm sure by this stage they wanted to design the encounters to take longer, but I could certainly see fights like Fankriss being bruteforced down, considering the already very apparent difference in DPS output now compared to then.

[Goondicker]

Oh really? Then what is the purpose of disc priest? Elemental Shaman? Retribution/Protection Paladin? Shadow Priest? Feral Druid?

Most of these aren't nearly as rough to play as Balance. Much of their purpose revolves around providing buffs or utility to the raid.

[Aliven]

Maybe in 2005. Most bosses up until AQ are gonna die in under a minute. Ragnaros, well maybe you miss first submerge, but otherwise thats a <3minute fight. Nefarian and Chromaggus are the first bosses that start to take a while but even they are not a lot longer than 5 minutes.

EDIT: Oh yeah, Razorgore takes a while but meh you aren't burning mana for the first 4 minutes anyway and the actual killing of Razorgore takes about 30 seconds.

I won't comment on the AQ bosses and beyond because I don't have the personal experience of them and I'm sure by this stage they wanted to design the encounters to take longer, but I could certainly see fights like Fankriss being bruteforced down, considering the already very apparent difference in DPS output now compared to then.

Sooo you like your dps die because of aggro stealing?

Also - 3 min fight means 66% time being useless.

- - - Updated - - -

Most of these aren't nearly as rough to play as Balance. Much of their purpose revolves around providing buffs or utility to the raid.

Yep, they are. Useless because they lack any mana managment. Issue which is severe in raiding.

Mage - evocation, dont remember if mana gems were there or they were introduced in TBC.
Lock - infinite mana.
Hunter - feign death and drink.
Holy priest - each innervate is your personal bitch.
Rogue - lol
Warrior - lol

Each of "nonviable" specs deals solid dmg. Point is they are out of juice really quickly and stand there being waste of space. Unless it is moonki. Dance little bitch. Dance for your overlords chicken.

[Sarkol]

They werent garbage. What you retail children cant seem to grasp is that every spec is not supposed to be good in every situation. Period. You do BM for leveling and solo play. You do marksmen for group content. You do survival for PvP.

This was the design that made Vanilla fun. Otherwise you get the monstrosity of talents and builds that is currently in Legion, where every 10 levels you pick a new talent from 3 options and can somehow, magically switch your spec at the drop of a hat.

It was fun that certain players couldn't use their class in loads of content? Ok then. I think you just made that up, because Blizzard certainly didn't agree with that. What a ridiculous attitude you vanilla guys seem to have. Vanilla was absolutely dreadful balance wise. Trying to suggest anything else is dishonest. It didn't matter then, but it does now, and having every spec viable is actually perfect for an MMO.

[AeneasBK]

Sooo you like your dps die because of aggro stealing?

Also - 3 min fight means 66% time being useless.

No you just give all the best +hit and DPS plate gear to your main tank and shout at the healers if they are so shit they can't keep a Vanilla tank alive. Have you even played Vanilla recently?

I'm not trying to make a solid case for Boomkins being awesome I just think your "Ermergerd useless for 5 mins of a 6 min fight" was a ridiculous comparison so I'm ridiculing it.

[gaymer77]

Shadow priest as a manabattery for holy.

Um you have the class it was a mana battery for wrong. Shadow priests (if taken to a raid setting) were mana batteries for warlocks so the healers didn't have to waste mana healing them after they life tapped to get their mana back. Vampiric Embrace was like a hot for them. This assumed the shadow priest wasn't put in the tank group for the extra healing to the tank from the same spell. Shadow priests didn't get their "mana battery" replinishment until BC.

On topic, there were A LOT of non-viable specs for each class during vanilla. Hell some classes weren't even viable back then regardless of their spec with the exception of a token player brought along for a specific aura/buff for the other people. In addition to some specs not being viable, some talents were pure garbage and anyone who took them was seen as a noob for taking it over other things that increased their damage/healing/tanking abilities/utility. The viability of some specs changed with the raid you were doing too.

@Nomads Not sure what WoW you were playing in vanilla but it sure as hell wasn't the one Blizzard was putting out that we all paid for. Survial hunter was garbage including in a pvp situation. Yeah BM was good for leveling and you planned on just doing a solo thing but if not, you went MM as a respec fee was outrageously high & gold harder to come by back then.

@tetrisGOAT Shadow was significantly better than balance was in all stages of vanilla especially if you had warlocks in your group. Shadow was allowed to actually put up SWP, VE, shadow weaving (ok so you don't put it up but it is put up automatically), and mind flay (and devouring plague if you were undead) while popping mind blast on CD as long as you faded on CD too. Warlocks would do either curse of shadow or curse of elements (some times both) depending on the overall number of casters in the group so your raid did better damage. I was fortunate to have been in a couple guilds in vanilla and raided all content when it was current as a shadow priest including Naxx.

But to the OP @Mushkins, most players would level up in one spec and typically respec at 60 to an acceptable raiding build and play that until/unless talents changed or the raid you were doing was something new & it didn't support the spec you were in.

[Aliven]

No you just give all the best +hit and DPS plate gear to your main tank and shout at the healers if they are so shit they can't keep a Vanilla tank alive. Have you even played Vanilla recently?

I'm not trying to make a solid case for Boomkins being awesome I just think your "Ermergerd useless for 5 mins of a 6 min fight" was a ridiculous comparison so I'm ridiculing it.

You do understand that aggro stealing was all too common? Critted as a mage? Better stop casting for a while because you are just right below tank.

There is a reason why aggro meter was more important than dps meter.

[Rehija]

Survial hunter was garbage including in a pvp situation

I think most ppl. mean with SV Hunter talents down to lightining reflexes and the rest into MM - . 0 / 21 / 30

Something like this ; https://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#cZVqkhxZfVMV0Ghx

[Deleted]

I mained warlock and re our 3 vanilla specs:

Demo: Depending in where you were in vanilla and which iteration of soul link was current (changed massively during vanilla) people used it for PvP specs to become unkillable DoT machines in battlegrounds. With the most HP of any class, except main tank raiding warriors, the 20% negated damage was just too much for any class to burst down. Demo was never fully used for raiding but 30 points in it for master demonologist and 21 in destro was the main spec for raiding.

Destro: Full destro was also rare, but a novelty spec with spamming searing pain and hoping for crits and then conflagrate and shadowburst for instant damage. 21 destro was very common for Ruin talent with either 30 in affli or demo.

Affli: Very popular for leveling because of sustainability with life tap and self healing. The 31p talent dark pact wasn't very popular at end game either for pvp or pve but dumping 30 points in for shadow mastery (10% more shadow dmg) was very popular, either with 21 in destro for ruin (most popular) or demo for demonic sacrifice.

To summarize: "hybrid" specs for warlock were much more popular than pure specs, as the 31p talents weren't that highly valued in general. In PvP you could have fun with any of the specs. Destro was broken for leveling. Raiding was either shadow mastery / Ruin or master demonologist / Ruin, anything else wasn't even in question.

[AeneasBK]

You do understand that aggro stealing was all too common? Critted as a mage? Better stop casting for a while because you are just right below tank.

There is a reason why aggro meter was more important than dps meter.

You do understand that the moon orbits the earth roughly once every 27 days.

More to come in "Unrelated Facts"

[Aliven]

You do understand that the moon orbits the earth roughly once every 27 days.

More to come in "Unrelated Facts"

So you are ignorant about that. Good.

[AeneasBK]

So you are ignorant about that. Good.

Yes please explain what on earth "aggro" is doesn't sound like a Wow term.

At the same time do explain how it relates to most bosses up until AQ are gonna die in about an average of 1-2 minutes, I went through it in the earlier posts, but you've gone barking up this mostly unrelated side path of aggro stealing.

Bosses are still gonna die stupidly fast without any DPS stealing aggro; it isn't just the DPS that have 15 years of WoW experience under their belts, the tanks will too. There are plenty of videos and guides about how to maximise TPS over mitigation (because dmg mitigated = rage not generated, hence the comment about shouting at healers; it won't be the tanks job to minimise damage in most cases; it will simply be the healers job to heal through it).

I mean this all depends on what balance the "classic" servers are released at; but if they are anything approximating what they were; then yeah, the idea of a 6 minute boss fight outside of Nefarian is a joke.

And because you seem to be missing the point: None of this is me trying to say Boomkin is viable.

[Wiedzemir]

There are no non-viable specs. It's just specs in vanilla were meant for different things. What to PvP? Spec for PvP. Want to raid? Spec for raid. Want to farm in the open world? ... you got the idea.

[khalltusk]

"insanely tight number tuning" doesn't translate into "tedious", I'm afraid.

Maybe because the tedious part was going out and getting all those buffs before the raid? I think that is the tedium they were referring to.

[bash the fash]

Fights being overtuned just requires you to spend more time farming gear to outgear them, farming consumables, and doing silly shit like killing Ony and Nef and holding the head so you get a shot at doing Loatheb or KT with world buffs. That's not 'difficult', don't try to pretend it is. There's a reason complicated fights like Firelands Rag and Lich King are called memorably difficult and gear checks like Brutallus and Patch aren't. Get your head out of your ass.