Nonviable specs. Which are they?

[Wiedzemir]

Your own weight like you said, but statiscally, retpal were useless as dps, but brought only for buffs.

Show us the statistics.

[Shisui-kun]

Jesus, Mary and Josef! You don't know what you're talking about son!

My guild used some of these "Nonviable specs" in all our raids and we cleared up to mid Naxx.

Mid Naxx is a fairly vague statement and might even explain why you didn't get full clears, because you lacked POWAH

Rofl, never got Atiesh? Not even most pure specs got Atiesh. Did you? I was one of the best geared mages on our server and never got it.

And yes these specs DID see Naxx... my guild cleared up to 4H on our server with these specs. Just because your guild was run by imbeciles who didn't understand the game does not mean every guild was. But with members like you, it's no secret why people have these misguided notions about these specs.

Stop right there. It means you didn't have Naxx shard runs neither did you even have the requirement to get Atiesh at all since you needed KT and C'thun, but surely BiS, only pre-KT and with no staves compared to most hardcore guilds having around 2 to 4 before TBC started

Shadowpriest WAS useful during progression and farm on pretty much a couple of bosses, one of them being Loatheb. Gee, I wonder why it worked so well on Loatheb with VE being non-use because of threat reasons in other raids

I raid leaded and also PvPed to Grand Marshal, I wasn't insignificant on the damage meters (not first by any measure, but at least mid-pack) and was one of the most well known Retribution paladins on my server.

I also wrote one of the most popular Retribution guides from Classic until about mid way through Cataclysm.

I'd say I pulled my own weight :3

If I am not mistaken, weren't you on Stormrage or Silvermoon during TBC? I'd remember your name vaguely for some reason.

[Hottage]

If I am not mistaken, weren't you on Stormrage or Silvermoon during TBC? I'd remember your name vaguely for some reason.

Dunemaul, then Executus and finally Sylvanas. Spent a very brief spell on Argent Dawn... shudder.

I know there were a couple of copy-cat paladins on EU and US realms though.

[Orange Joe]

What's the difference between the best and optimal in context of WarCraft, raiding and specs?

?

best = optimal

viable = possible

If a spec can complete something it is viable. The spec that does it the best is optimal.

[Gunnery Sgt Hartman]

Mid Naxx is a fairly vague statement and might even explain why you didn't get full clears, because you lacked POWAH

No. We lacked dedication and time in the end (before TBC came). Unfortunately I can't remember how many of the bosses we managed to send to the maker but I would guess around half of them.
I have no doubt however, that we would have cleared it sooner or later with these "nonviable specs" in the raid.

We were not like the US Marine Corps but we did fairly well!

[Storfan]

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.

Fury warrior was THE best dps class/spec in mid/late vanilla. Just look at Lilos and his 1500dps on Patchwerk.

[FelPlague]

Fury warrior was THE best dps class/spec in mid/late vanilla. Just look at Lilos and his 1500dps on Patchwerk.

i couldent remember what spec was the one that wasent good, arms or fury. but i also dont remember what was good late vanilla for anything other then mager and warlock

[Storfan]

i couldent remember what spec was the one that wasent good, arms or fury. but i also dont remember what was good late vanilla for anything other then mager and warlock

The problems with Arms was basically bad DPS output combined with MS-debuff taking up a debuff slot better used by something else.

[epLe]

The bestial warr dps you see is actually arms slam spec.
And they depend on having a windfury totem to pull good numbers.
So you wont find any such meters on alliance.

Mages, rogues and hunters are brought for DPS.
Warriors and priest for tank and healing.

Rest is support, regardless of they actually do heal or dps some inbetween buffing and/or debuffing.

This is because of debuff limit mostly, i.e why you dont bring that Spriest who use 4 of 16 debuffs alone.

[Lumineus]

All three Paladin specs. Prot doesn't have the tools or gear needed to tank, Ret is undertuned and plagued by RNG (and frankly, even if it did proper levels of damage, generates too much threat besides), and Holy, without HoTs or any kind of AoE, is such an incompetent healer that you can go 31 points in Ret and scarcely change in efficacy.

[pateuvasiliu]

Didn't trueshot aura only affect ranged attack power, which was a completely separate stat from normal (melee) attack power?

No, in vanilla it's melee and ranged. That s why hunters play MM in raids

[Unforgivenn]

any spec is viable if it's raid leader playing it.

on more serious note - through vanilla history many specs got changed from not viable to godlike specs, so, there is that. Which vanilla do you want to hear about?

yep..

hunter can even be a tank!!

[Orange Joe]

Then, let's claim that every spec is "possible" and bask in the shit that we have spilt around.

What? No idea what you are saying.

[Segus1992]

I raid leaded and also PvPed to Grand Marshal, I wasn't insignificant on the damage meters (not first by any measure, but at least mid-pack) and was one of the most well known Retribution paladins on my server.

I also wrote one of the most popular Retribution guides from Classic until about mid way through Cataclysm.

I'd say I pulled my own weight :3

Because you were the raid leader. You were hindering your team by playing a bad spec, however.

[Nomads]

Because you were the raid leader. You were hindering your team by playing a bad spec, however.

Incorrect. Ret Paladins had spots in my #1 on server progression guild, because 1) they pulled their own weight DPS wise, and 2) Increased raid DPS by buffing the melee.

[Segus1992]

Incorrect. Ret Paladins had spots in my #1 on server progression guild, because 1) they pulled their own weight DPS wise, and 2) Increased raid DPS by buffing the melee.

Incorrect, simply not true for the DPS part in the majority of cases, and a Holy Paladin could provide the buff assuming you didn't need the debuff slots (unless you're talking about Blessing of Might, which every Holy Paladin specced into).

[Nomads]

Incorrect, simply not true for the DPS part in the majority of cases, and a Holy Paladin could provide the buff assuming you didn't need the debuff slots (unless you're talking about Blessing of Might, which every Holy Paladin specced into).

Except for the fact that you don't fill a raid with Pally healers just to get all the buffs. Thus Ret brings middle of the pack DPS and raid utility. Ding ding!

[Segus1992]

Except for the fact that you don't fill a raid with Pally healers just to get all the buffs. Thus Ret brings middle of the pack DPS and raid utility. Ding ding!

Except that's exactly what you did. You could, like I said, get a Ret Paladin because of the warm body phenomenon that Vanilla raids had (only 75% of the raid had to actually participate), or a Prot Paladin for certain trash packs (generally Prot/Holy hybrids so they could be useful even when not tanking).

If you raided Vanilla, you'll remember that you had a shit ton of healers in most raids, so you could (and would) definitely stack Holy Paladins for the buffs the class provided primarily.

[Nomads]

Except that's exactly what you did. You could, like I said, get a Ret Paladin because of the warm body phenomenon that Vanilla raids had (only 75% of the raid had to actually participate), or a Prot Paladin for certain trash packs (generally Prot/Holy hybrids so they could be useful even when not tanking).

If you raided Vanilla, you'll remember that you had a shit ton of healers in most raids, so you could (and would) definitely stack Holy Paladins for the buffs the class provided primarily.

You'd have to bring 5-6 Paladins to cover all the useful auras. While maybe some guilds could field that many paladin healers. Your HoTs would be mostly non-existent. That would leave room for... 2 druids and 2 priests?

[Segus1992]

You'd have to bring 5-6 Paladins to cover all the useful auras. While maybe some guilds could field that many paladin healers. Your HoTs would be mostly non-existent. That would leave room for... 2 druids and 2 priests?

Kings, Might/Wisdom (few classes needed both, and those could forgo Salvation), Light, Salvation. That's four. Get a Prot Paladin for Sanctuary and you have 5, no need for a 6th. Definitely not for auras as those were party wide only. Not to mention that Blessing of Light was definitely one you could do without in a pinch.

I don't remember the exact number of healers a 40-man raid had, only that a raid had significantly more healers per non-healers than today.

Druid healers as I remember it weren't even that effective at anything except maybe tank healing (Tranq was, again, party wide), and you only needed one for the buff. So 10-12 healers, 3-5 Paladins, 1-2 Druids, 5-7 Priests. Seems appropriate to me except possibly the total number of healers.

EDIT: You could use up to 8 Paladins in a raid to have a resistance aura in every group, but even then it's not a bad idea to have them all healing. You can still fit plenty of Priests, and Paladins are great dispellers and decent tank healers.