Best Class for Solo BG's

[Deficineiron]

Depends what you want to accomplish.

if you just want to farm as many kills as possible while ignoring the objectives in warsong/arathi, then go for a range DPS like Mage/Warlock or Hunter. As a Warrior you will have some bad time without proper gear and a pocket healer.

If you want to win as much as possible then focusin on objectives will be very important. Druid as a flag carrier is great in warsong or with stealth to cap some flags with another druid/rogue combination. Rogue can also be a good flag carrier and excellent in arathi for capping the flags of unprepared defenders.

A well played rogue makes huge differences in fights as well, if you keep on interrupting the casters and healers, using CC on mass and knowing when you can obliterate a low target. Of all the classes you've listed I would take the Rogue. A well played Rogue is a huge asset in BGs and most people play it wrong as sad as it is (just going on a killing spree is not a good rogue imo).

the one thing I want is a wsg gy timer (to try to make sure folks get ~30 second rez timer rather than 2 seconds, when applicable. keeping enemy healer cc's and/or gy'ed has a disproportionate impact on them.

as far as I could tell, wsg gy's are on a 31.5~~ second cycle. an addon to track that seems obvious. I had read that bg commander? or something like that would track it but never got it to work.

[Noct]

Thank you for the responses!

I think I will focus on rogue, and when bored, be one of the many night elf hunters for some faction variety. Eventually I'll level a warlock with a friend who plans to casually level a priest, but not have it be my priority. Though maybe it will become more of a priority in later patches.

I do like the occasional healing, and have nostalgia for shaman, but if I'm not going to prioritize gearing it to any degree (and it likely not see the light of day until a couple years later), it sounds like druid would be more fun.

(Any further thoughts still appreciated)

[Animalhouse]

Thank you for the responses!

I think I will focus on rogue, and when bored, be one of the many night elf hunters for some faction variety. Eventually I'll level a warlock with a friend who plans to casually level a priest, but not have it be my priority. Though maybe it will become more of a priority in later patches.

I do like the occasional healing, and have nostalgia for shaman, but if I'm not going to prioritize gearing it to any degree (and it likely not see the light of day until a couple years later), it sounds like druid would be more fun.

(Any further thoughts still appreciated)

Honestly, for pure BG fuckery nothing beats hunter imo. I played hunter all through vanilla and spent most my time in BGs. Almost always had the most damage and kills. Hunters are THE anti-rogue class. Lock and Hunter bring the pain in BGs and if that is your focus than nothing is better. But if you intent to spend most your time in WSG specifically than UD rogue or druid would be the best.

[Rampant Rabbit]

Either a rogue or a hunter. Two of the most independent classes PvP wise, and the easiest to learn (not master).

[PaladinBash]

Hunter is great at low level and max level, it's good at quickly killing multiple scrubs at once and 1v1, it requires no skill to start and yet has complex shit for when you're good at it, you can world pvp as it against most things without consequence and it doesn't take much if any gear to be effective with.

Other things like warriors are only scary if you have a pocket healer and while mages/warlocks can instantly delete people, that's only really with very specific gear. A small comfort to be sure when they 1shot you but that's life in random BGs. Rogues, as ever, take a lot more skill to actually win with than people ever give them credit. Yes, you can effortlessly gank people and spam emotes and bully random people at flags in Arathi all day but if you actually try to fight people that aren't useless, you very quickly realise you actually need to know what you're doing as a rogue or die.

[DerJules]

Honestly, for pure BG fuckery nothing beats hunter imo. I played hunter all through vanilla and spent most my time in BGs. Almost always had the most damage and kills. Hunters are THE anti-rogue class. Lock and Hunter bring the pain in BGs and if that is your focus than nothing is better. But if you intent to spend most your time in WSG specifically than UD rogue or druid would be the best.

How could you have the most damage if there wasn't even a damage number displayed (neither was it tracked) in the BG window ?


BTT:
If you are solo I'd say any range dps class or a stealth class. That would only take out warriors and paladins as all other classes have a range(casting) specc or can stealth.

[czarek]

Mage, rogue, hunter

[Sorcereria]

How could you have the most damage if there wasn't even a damage number displayed (neither was it tracked) in the BG window ?

There used to be dmg/healing stats at the summary screen.

[Whistl3r]

If you just want to run around doing your own thing then Lock is a decent option. SL locks with good gear are not easy to take down and just dotting people up and watching them die while running away never gets boring.

[fooliuscaesar13]

I'm a sadist, so I'll be leveling another fkn paladin to 60. I'm not sure it's the best class to go into BG's solo, but I really do enjoy healing on a paladin in BGs, especially AV. Can't wait to do it again.

[Ange]

They really were. I remember my BWL geared priest being soloed by hunter's pet.

Also had some fun in BC with hunter alt and spider pet being major pain for flag runners. Don't know if spider pets were good in vanilla too.

You either had the cat from the barrens (fastest attack speed in game) or you took the ZG bat for its ele damage + range attack to bring out rogues from vanish (broken).

Hunter was by far the strongest class even with mediocre playerskill. It only took blueish gear to survive rogue/mage openers and after that it was GG. With the ZG trinkets (BOTH tank and DPS) BM hunter just broke 1v1, 1vX completly, since the pet oneshotted everything while beeing unkillable.

btw. this is what a vanilla account looks like, played HUNTER, ROGUE, SHADOW, SHAMAN till R10+raided with all and min maxed as much as possible. I did not need weapons, since I used barman shanker with the rogue (non-scaling evis dmg LOL), AV knockback 2h with shaman and class epic weapons with the hunter/shadow. (check my armory, I dont hide/lie)



I did not need the time to grind from R10->R11 since I could play the AuctionHouse well enough

[kamuimac]

I would say rogue, at least you can keep moving in the BG and avoid everyone as long as you remain invisible.

cant wait for bgs with premades with both sides having 20 rogues with enginerring on each side

jezus bgs gonna be such fail its hard to graps for anyone who hopes for real pvp in classic

- - - Updated - - -

You either had the cat from the barrens (fastest attack speed in game) or you took the ZG bat for its ele damage + range attack to bring out rogues from vanish (broken).

Hunter was by far the strongest class even with mediocre playerskill. It only took blueish gear to survive rogue/mage openers and after that it was GG. With the ZG trinkets (BOTH tank and DPS) BM hunter just broke 1v1, 1vX completly, since the pet oneshotted everything while beeing unkillable.

btw. this is what a vanilla account looks like, played HUNTER, ROGUE, SHADOW, SHAMAN till R10+raided with all and min maxed as much as possible. I did not need weapons, since I used barman shanker with the rogue (non-scaling evis dmg LOL), AV knockback 2h with shaman and class epic weapons with the hunter/shadow. (check my armory, I dont hide/lie)



I did not need the time to grind from R10->R11 since I could play the AuctionHouse well enough

jezus those 1300 days played -_-

[Sosua]

Hunter, rogue, or Lock, and whatever I pick will have Eng as a prof.

[Zanguru]

As someone who has been playing classic on pservers for several years now and gotten R13-14 on 4 different classes (both solo and premade pvp ), it doesn't matter which class you play for solo bgs tbh, some classes have certain advantages in some bgs but nothing drastic enough to affect the outcome of a pug vs premade fight.

And as pug vs pug it can go either way and your class choice isn't what's going to affect the outcome of the match most of the time, the grind to R14 as a solo player is hell and takes significantly longer than in a premade, not to mention you'll get stuck at around rank 12 because premade rankers will almost always have more honor than you making it impossible for you to out-pace any premade ranker, but I've noticed so long as you put in the effort and grind your way to r8-10 solo most of the time a premade group will pick you up, so it's not hard to join premades.

As for class bg strengths I feel like some people got it right and others not so much, for example:

- Although druids are great for solo play because of the randomness of pugs , in premades only 1 druid spot is offered and as such there is incredible pressure on the druid being better than the other team's druid, not to mention outside wsg druids take a step back and become defenders or ninja cappers, you will never fight with the main group as a druid regardless of your spec preference or style, druids are always the playmakers and that doesn't involve being where the big fights are happening ( like the middle for example or at blacksmith etc), I'd still give druids a higher grade for solo queueing since pugs are hectic and you can change some outcomes by ninjacapping bases by urself (sometimes).

- Warlocks/rogues : when I first started the grind to R13 on my lock I had very different ideas of about the class, to sum it up locks and rogues are much stronger in the open world than in bgs, locks specifically are very squishy outside soul link spec and if you have no healers around ( pug) you're pretty much screwed, you're great at 1v1s sure but most of the time you won't be fighting 1v1 since you'll be where the action is going on, so expect large group fights.

Another issue with locks in bgs ( in both premade/pugs) is that they are extremely prone to getting their dots dispelled, having no dot protection in vanilla and all. This means that locks have to work twice as hard as a mage to get the same result, not even going to mention how many shards you spend in a bg or how many times your pet dies, if I had to choose a mage or a lock in any bg setting I'd always pick mage from now on.

-Rogue suffer from the same issues locks do, they are better in 1v1s and scenarios where they can counter opponents with their cds, a rogue never wants to be caught unaware or without cds or they die, this becomes incredibly apparent when you try fighting group vs group fights which tend to last longer than you'd want, any dot on you will mess up your resets and most of the time a warrior does your job better than you in group fights, rogues like druids will mostly be given the ninja-capping /playmaking roles and often only get 1 spot in bg premades, extra work is expected compared to warriors.

- Hunters / mages : If you want to be a ranged damage dealer in bgs these 2 classes are the best options in terms of complete kit and comfort, they are tailored towards group fights but can also deal with solo situations incredibly well.

- Warriors : best melee dps in the game for any group content (pve/pvp) so long as there's a healer, no need to go into details here I'm sure you know this.

- Healers : Holy pala and disc/holy priest are the 2 best healers for bgs, resto (or feral) druids are often considered utility as explained above so they are usually never near a big fight and resto shamans are too inefficient and often suffer from being trained so aren't encouraged in premades.

- Ele shamans ( 30/0/21) : the ele/resto hybrid is the default spec for shamans in bgs and are actually picked over full resto shamans because they provide the same utility ( purge/totems) while having very strong offhealing but providing incredibly strong burst, ele shamans will always have at least 1 spot in horde bg premades for the burst role.

- Shadow priests : although they are one of the strongest 1v1 specs in the game , they suffer from the same issues locks have in bgs , getting dots dispelled is the worst thing a dot class wants and to top that off they run oom very fast and need to drink often, although they are quite fun to play in any other scenario I've seen many R13 spriests grind up to rank 10 solo and then swap to disc to join a premade to push the final ranks , spriests can often be wanted in premade group on alliance side more than horde ( i'll explain this later below).

- Meme specs : ret pallies and enh shamans are very fun to play in solo bgs but are horrible in premades.

Enh shaman :

When I find hit 60 on my shaman I wanted to try the enh bg 1 shots I'd seen everywhere but little did I know it's far from the advertised clips from the past, for starters in patch 1.12 windfury was fixed to not proc off itself which makes it weaker than the WF we've all seen in pvp clips, not to mention as an enh shaman you have sever limitations when it comes to closing gaps, you get hard kited for days by hunters/mages who sit too far from you to shock ( 20 y range) and your ghost wolf isn't instant ( 1 sec with talents) can be dispelled off you, you either have to chug free action potions just to run normally or you will have issues connecting most of the time, then you have the WF rng factor which doesn't always proc when needed, if you factor in the amount of time you need to connect to the rng, you might reach that mage only to white swing once before they root you/blink away without 1 shotting them, I later swapped to elemental and felt much better overall as i was able to deal with most classes significantly better than enh ever could.

Ret pala:

Although I've never played the class I knew a lot of rank 14 pallies who always always ALWAYS tell me and I repeat, ret is trash for anything outside open world pvp random 1 shots, heck even that isn't full ret ( the 1 shot spec is reckoning so that's deep prot with some points in ret), I'm sure you've heard the saying about never going full ret

Overall you suffer from the same issues enh shamans have, although slightly less due to freedom but this is purgeable and often shamans spam purge pallies all day, besides that ret has no real burst damage outside stacking reckoning stacks which isn't likely to happen inside bgs since you need time to stack it preemptively, the only damage sources are judgment damage and white swings, that's literally all a ret can do, you have no snares no gapclosers your only CC is repentance which is a 31 pointer in ret and has a long cd which most pallies don't even take, your stun is melee range so you'd need to be on top of someone to stun and you bring nothing that other pally specs bring to the table ( literally nothing), a holy pala sits on the peak of the bg premade ladder while ret sits at the opposite end ( in terms of performance).

Now regarding faction styles , I'll get into some details that might not have been apparent from the get go but since horde has shamans and alliance has pallies and then you factor in that priests also have racial specific spells , compositions and playstyles vary depending on faction premade.

Since holy paladin is the absolute best single target defensive healer in the game ( hands down) they are in charge of all defensive things such as dispelling debuffs / defensive healing/peeling etc, so this leaves the offensive healing job to alliance priests, so offensive dispels/shielding etc is mostly a priests job in alliance premade pvp , unlike the horde since they have no paladins the roles are reversed, disc priests take the defensive healer role and shamans ( who are mostly ele/resto hybrid) take on the offensive healing role with purges /nukes and offhealing, that's why I said spriests might be more appealing for alliance premades because you could sub a spriest instead of a disco for offensive pressure in some situations, whereas on horde you don't really need to sub an ele for a spriest.

Sorry for such a long post ,I hope this has given you all an idea of how classic bg pvp is going to be.

[Cempa]

I'm a sadist, so I'll be leveling another fkn paladin to 60. I'm not sure it's the best class to go into BG's solo, but I really do enjoy healing on a paladin in BGs, especially AV. Can't wait to do it again.

Retr? If I recall they do well in PvP. But Holy was amazing in group play. As a Warrior (Arms/Prot) I could carry the flag end to end through an entire team with a holy pala and pots with me (FRAP) -obviously just once a game seeing how long shield wall CD was.

- - - Updated - - -

Hello all! PvP has always been my main game-mode in any MMORPG I play. I played classic but was so damn young I had no idea what I was doing and couldn't get my shaman to 50 before I spent all my time in SFK to make a twink rogue.

What do you all think to be the best class for solo queing bg's when they eventually release?
Right now I am swaying towards Warlock and Rogue but cannot decide on which. I was also thinking SPriest and Mage would be top contenders.

Any thoughts on the matter are appreciated!

[DerJules]

There used to be dmg/healing stats at the summary screen.

I'm pretty sure that wasnt the case in vanilla. It was added in later expansions. Yet I'm not 100% sure.

[fooliuscaesar13]

Retr? If I recall they do well in PvP. But Holy was amazing in group play. As a Warrior (Arms/Prot) I could carry the flag end to end through an entire team with a holy pala and pots with me (FRAP) -obviously just once a game seeing how long shield wall CD was.

They do well in PVP, but leveling one to 60 is masochism. The rotation is slow, their movement is slow. Not saying I dislike it, just saying that compared to other classes/specs, it's slow. Once you get to 60...different story.

I'm excited to do it again.

[Sorcereria]

I'm pretty sure that wasnt the case in vanilla. It was added in later expansions. Yet I'm not 100% sure.

100% sure. I have almost completly stopped pvping due to how bad it become in next expansions.

[Fascinate]

Id like to re-iterate the importance of capping towers in AV on classic. If classic plays out like 2006 did (and there is no reason to think it wont) AV was easily the best honor/hour for alliance and being able to solo cap/defend a tower is more important to the team than pretty much anything. For that rogue is superb and nothing else really comes close. Rogue is also amazing in AV for tanking warmasters with evasion/prep,. gives your team enough time to kill drek without them beating on your healers (as AV rarely has one tank, let alone two).

[DerJules]

100% sure. I have almost completly stopped pvping due to how bad it become in next expansions.

This is how the scoreboard screen should have looked for all of vanilla IIRC. I couldnt find the official patch statement, yet I couldnt find a single BG Screenshot from vanilla which shows damage numbers.

How are you 100% sure ? Do you know/have some old footage which shows damage numbers ?