TBC class viability and PVE

[gaymer77]

You are extremely wrong on how you view shadow priests and how to utilize their utility or where to place them. In vanilla (not classic) I was a raiding shadow priest who cleared Naxx several times with my guild back then. I continued to raid as shadow all throughout BC as well. Shadow priests were one of the top tier dps classes in BC and we weren't put in healer groups in BC because there was a shaman in the healer group for mana spring totem. Shadow priests were put in the warlock and/or mage group to provide mana to them and if just warlocks were in that group it was so they could get constant health regen from VE. VE allowed warlocks to lifetap and get healed without having your healers waste mana to throw a hot on them or heal them directly if they didn't take damage from something else. Quite frankly, the synergy that warlocks and shadow priests brought to the table made mages get sat out because mages weren't as good as shadow priests + warlocks in your raid. Mages brought no utility in BC other than conjuring food and giving an int buff. Only one was needed in your entire raid to provide those. Shadow priests and warlocks brought multiple utility spells and having mulitples of each didn't minimize the utility the other ones brought (2 shadow priests could give 2 different groups the benefits of VE & VT and warlocks could keep improved SB up nearly constant with multiple ones in a group & 2 warlocks meant both curse of elements and curse of shadows for more casters getting more utility).

SPs were top dpsers in sunwell. I WAS THERE.

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So was I! In my guild I would routinely compete with the other DPS classes for the top spot on most fights. Sunwell was like our moment to shine because I don't think there was a fight I wasn't top dps in there. And when it came to arena once Sunwell hit, we were gods!

"Might" bring one. Not only is Enhancement an A-tier dps spec only topped by warlocks and hunters they also bring the most support. Wf, agi and str totems and bloodlust. Also they can use leather gear which would otherwise be wasted because you only have one rogue and maybe a feral druid in your raid.

For an optimal comp you want one in your tank and melee group and one in your hunter group. Thats at least 2 guaranteed spots.

Very well said and very correct. But I think you're forgetting that warriors also wore leather in quite a few slots too because most leather had strength on it not agility. In fact, if you look at a BIS list for warrior after Sunwell hit, there were still pieces in there that were leather.

[Fisher557]

Still waiting for you to provide a quote where you explained WHY you went on this ill fated crusade to "rescue" someone you dont agree with, while providing nothing on topic at all, and entirely derailing a thread. If something cannot be proven, because it is subjective, then it should be presented as an opinion, and not some historically accurate fact.

You also continue to avoid responding to the assertion that their claim is immediately undermined by their very next sentence.

On topic, I will again say that every single spec in the game will be and was viable in PvE, however it will depend on if your goals and ambitions line up with the groups. If you want to play one of the lower performing and less desirable specs in the game, that is absolutely fine, so long as you understand you may get passed over by groups and guilds wanting to push themselves as far and as fast as they can.

Its been said time and time again, but the best thing you can do is set those goals for yourself, and find a group of individuals or guild who have similar intentions.

Haha alright I’m done now. Just gunna give you a last thanks for continuing to make me sound even more right than even I thought I was.

[Musta]

You are extremely wrong on how you view shadow priests and how to utilize their utility or where to place them. In vanilla (not classic) I was a raiding shadow priest who cleared Naxx several times with my guild back then. I continued to raid as shadow all throughout BC as well. Shadow priests were one of the top tier dps classes in BC and we weren't put in healer groups in BC because there was a shaman in the healer group for mana spring totem. Shadow priests were put in the warlock and/or mage group to provide mana to them and if just warlocks were in that group it was so they could get constant health regen from VE. VE allowed warlocks to lifetap and get healed without having your healers waste mana to throw a hot on them or heal them directly if they didn't take damage from something else. Quite frankly, the synergy that warlocks and shadow priests brought to the table made mages get sat out because mages weren't as good as shadow priests + warlocks in your raid. Mages brought no utility in BC other than conjuring food and giving an int buff. Only one was needed in your entire raid to provide those. Shadow priests and warlocks brought multiple utility spells and having mulitples of each didn't minimize the utility the other ones brought (2 shadow priests could give 2 different groups the benefits of VE & VT and warlocks could keep improved SB up nearly constant with multiple ones in a group & 2 warlocks meant both curse of elements and curse of shadows for more casters getting more utility).

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So was I! In my guild I would routinely compete with the other DPS classes for the top spot on most fights. Sunwell was like our moment to shine because I don't think there was a fight I wasn't top dps in there. And when it came to arena once Sunwell hit, we were gods!



Very well said and very correct. But I think you're forgetting that warriors also wore leather in quite a few slots too because most leather had strength on it not agility. In fact, if you look at a BIS list for warrior after Sunwell hit, there were still pieces in there that were leather.

cant wait to play SP + lock in arenas again... SHADOW CLEAVE

[gaymer77]

cant wait to play SP + lock in arenas again... SHADOW CLEAVE

I was able to get in the 2000-2100 range with a RL friend of mine running as shadow priest resto shaman. He had resilience up the ass which is what allowed him not to blow up so fast and he was stacking haste too which helped when he would have to hard cast heals. And we weren't even really serious about it. We just did it for fun and got that high of a rating.

[Monteverdi]

High skillcap unlike "drop conc" paladin

I think you're gonna see a lot of misconceptions like this. People coming in expecting to be god-tier AoE tanks but at the same time expecting prot paladin to be "drop conc" and meme. It's *way* more complex and at the end of the day consecration isn't even the biggest part of it. And most of the youtube videos I'm seeing on the subject are dead wrong in a lot of ways.

Might be time for us vet tankadins to dust off our tomes of theorycrafting and spread the glory of the TBC prot paladin again.

[Crizdog]

Lmao prot pallies better than warriors in terms of tanking rank. I doubt you ever did anything higher than Normal Ramparts.

[Echocho]

So you believe that someone's extremely limited personal experience, over a player base in the tens of millions (over the years), is enough to make the statement:

"If history is any indication the most toxic players gravitate towards melee specs"

And not only is this statement accurate, but the statement below in no way invalidates said statement?

"Ret paladins, enhancement shamans and feral druids tend to attract more mild mannered types of players and since you need those more than you do warriors and rogues it's a win-win."

There is a gaping chasm of difference between "in my experience, the most toxic players i have encountered have all played melee" and "If history is any indication the most toxic players gravitate towards melee specs".

You are taking the second statement, and defending it as though it was the first - they are entirely different statements.

Lastly, by all means please do provide a quote or at least Post# were you explain why you commented, because I cannot see it at all.

The problem here is that you can only see things in black and white.

Let's assume players who prefer to play melee is more toxic than those who prefer casters, healers or tanks. Does this mean that every single melee player is toxic? Obviously no.

Let's also assume that players that prefer ret paladins, enhancement shamans and feral druids are less toxic than those that prefer rogues and warriors. Does that mean that paladins, shamans and druids are all saints? No, it just means that they're less likely to be toxic than warriors and rogues. They can still be more toxic than non melee roles as a whole.

Judging by how offended you seem by all this I can only assume that you play a warrior or a rogue.

[arkanon]

The problem here is that you can only see things in black and white.

Let's assume players who prefer to play melee is more toxic than those who prefer casters, healers or tanks. Does this mean that every single melee player is toxic? Obviously no.

Let's also assume that players that prefer ret paladins, enhancement shamans and feral druids are less toxic than those that prefer rogues and warriors. Does that mean that paladins, shamans and druids are all saints? No, it just means that they're less likely to be toxic than warriors and rogues. They can still be more toxic than non melee roles as a whole.

Judging by how offended you seem by all this I can only assume that you play a warrior or a rogue.

So how have you come to this very specific and detailed conclusion?

[LazuOG]

So how have you come to this very specific and detailed conclusion?

I followed your discussion in this thread and it has been great entertainment value.

Way too many people here assume wording things incorrectly is an excuse for saying stupid stuff. It's a forum where you communicate via written word, exclusively. Nobody owes you a second thought on if or if not something you said was meant to be taken serious or what your intent/source was if you don't include it in your wording.

Making preposterous claims such as " If history is any indication melee players are more toxic" without including something in the lines of "in my subjective experience" will lead to someone calling you out for the shit you spew.

Retconning this by pushing the blame on the responding person for not reading your mind that this was meant to be subjective is not the way to go here. Nobody owes you anything. People will judge you by your words, so be concise.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Arms Warrior is only really worth taking at Sunwell level, you need to offset the dps difference of Arms (which is one of the weaker ST specs) and Fury (one of the stronger ST specs). Fury loses less dps by keeping up improved demo shout (utility), less dps helping with applying sunder (minor utility), brings improved battle/commanding shout (prot can but doesn't spec that far into Fury, Arms does). Rogue may or may not bring exposed armor 2/2 (it must be talented, and it's not part of the default combat rogue build).

Ret was not a common raid class until Sunwell, it's still only an optional pick then. Fury Warriors are competing with Rogues for dps slots (of which every world first took 2-4) and really the only disadvantage a Fury Warrior has compared to a Rogue is single target due to threat limitations, they are extremely close on output (though Rogue is behind in early tiers due to rage from raid damage) but Rogues can reset threat allowing them to keep pumping. If threat issues aren't so relevant Fury becomes more attractive.

Arms Warrior 4% physical damage is a huge debuff to bring though, you’re going to run a lot of hunters and likely 5-6 melee (Warrior included) so there’s no reason not to do it. Fury’s raw dps numbers won’t offset the difference the Arms debuff gives.
Ret Paladins will also be brought for a number of reasons: You need 3 paladins to get all 3 Blessings- but not more than one of each spec. Ret refreshes Judgement debuffs from all Paladins, which is a big quality of life buff. Ret also brings another person who can do Imp Judgement of the Crusader for 3% increased crit chance for everyone in the raid. Finally Ret goves a 2% damage aura to their party- not massive but better than nothing.

Private TBC realms have all of this figured out, you can go and see their rosters and logged comps. There’s always one Arms Warrior and nearly always 3 Paladins, one of each spec.

[Bigbazz]

Arms Warrior 4% physical damage is a huge debuff to bring though, you’re going to run a lot of hunters and likely 5-6 melee (Warrior included) so there’s no reason not to do it. Fury’s raw dps numbers won’t offset the difference the Arms debuff gives.
Ret Paladins will also be brought for a number of reasons: You need 3 paladins to get all 3 Blessings- but not more than one of each spec. Ret refreshes Judgement debuffs from all Paladins, which is a big quality of life buff. Ret also brings another person who can do Imp Judgement of the Crusader for 3% increased crit chance for everyone in the raid. Finally Ret goves a 2% damage aura to their party- not massive but better than nothing.

Private TBC realms have all of this figured out, you can go and see their rosters and logged comps. There’s always one Arms Warrior and nearly always 3 Paladins, one of each spec.

I dunno I don't think this perfect world of exact raid teams is going to work out for many guilds. I've played with literally some of the best in the world on private servers (our rogue was a certain priest with gladiator R1 in every season on retail, one of our hunters was a raider in nihilum in TBC) and I've played in and around the top 100 on retail and you know what, absolute perfect comp rarely if ever happens.

One of the top 2 guilds on the TBC private server had a Rogue/Warrior dps on the officer team, the Rogue was Exander (he plays in Progress on Classic) and their raid setup and strategy was to boost their Fury Warrior officer into oblivion, I played Arms with them for a little while. These guys were demolishing bosses on speed kill pace, both of us were above 4k dps on Fathom Lord with the cleave strat, the hunters, locks and mages were also high on dps but by and large if the Fury wasn't top he was top 3, in Hyjal due to low boss armor he was top on every fight.

Back on Ret Paladins, we had one in my first guild on Pserver, we also had one in my Sunwell raiding guild in 2008 (you can see it in the Shade of Akama dps log I linked a SS of from August 2008), but you can be sure plenty of guilds will run 2 or more Holy Paladins. Why? Because having the benefit of a perfect raid setup is difficult, I've been through multiple expansions of retail and we pretty much never achieved it.

If you want to cheese you can summon 5 Shaman alts into the raid, BL for the pull, then summon the main raiders back in to have even more BL, you can do lots of min-maxxing madness at the extreme end and still have space for 1 Arms + 1 Fury + 1 Rogue, buffed by a Enhance shaman and the last spot a Ret. You can also juggle that around to having a Feral/BM hunter in that group, depending what you have available but in all cases this is going to be a blasting dps group.. 3 Paladins is a given, but which specs is another matter.

[clevin]

You are extremely wrong on how you view shadow priests and how to utilize their utility or where to place them. In vanilla (not classic) I was a raiding shadow priest who cleared Naxx several times with my guild back then. I continued to raid as shadow all throughout BC as well. Shadow priests were one of the top tier dps classes in BC

HAHAH. No. Not unless your other DPS was crap in TBC.

[Musta]

I was able to get in the 2000-2100 range with a RL friend of mine running as shadow priest resto shaman. He had resilience up the ass which is what allowed him not to blow up so fast and he was stacking haste too which helped when he would have to hard cast heals. And we weren't even really serious about it. We just did it for fun and got that high of a rating.

Gotta lova SPs in BC... and being 2.4.1 tuned since start, we gonna be good the entire time!

[Fkiolaris]

We had a Feral cat in our private server guild. It's a bit of a pain farming the gear pieces you need but you're loved for the 5% crit and utility and the single target is good enough to be taken, that said not gonna be high in demand if you're not gonna gear a tank offspec too.

I know that already mate, even from back the original TBC as a feral you had to in effect dual-spec as bear-cat for both 5mans and raids. I am not that fussed doing either and I will have sets for both roles, it's just I prefer to dps due to less responsibility

[anon5123]

Just like with vanilla, you need to remember that "viability" is a spectrum, not black and white.

A class being """unviable""" for sweaty 1% speedruns does not mean it is "unviable" for your average dad guild. You do not need to stack your raid comp just to clear content. Even "bad" specs in TBC still bring useful buffs and debuffs to help out the raid as a whole.

[Musta]

HAHAH. No. Not unless your other DPS was crap in TBC.

You clearly not played TBC.

[clevin]

You clearly not played TBC.

Not only did I, I played a shadow priest. Well. But we were not top tier DPS in TBC. Anyone how says they were topping the meters in their raid as a DPS either played with crap DPS or that raid didn't have locks, hunters, mages (early) or rogues (later).

[Volitar]

Why does everyone feel the need to post their clearly inaccurate 'class rankings' this is just regurgitated shit from other people who have no clue what they are talking about.

[stevenho]

Just to address a few points mentioned in the thread:

First of all, do not have preconceptions about TBC based on your experiences 14 years ago. There will be similarities, but the meta has evolved a lot, just like it did in classic.
As for class viability and comps - guilds naturally gravitate to the "optimal setup". They do in classic and they will in classic TBC. Will your guild need to optimize to kill bosses? No. Maybe not even in Sunwell.

Mages do have best AOE, mainly due to the fact that they can go ham 1 second into conc. Warlocks can't. And the reality of the situations is that when locks CAN go ham, mobs are 50% hp from arcane explosion. So unless you can arrange a bop rotation, you as a lock will usually lose to a mage in the aoe dept.

Warrior aoe tanking is not worth mentioning - they just can't tank stuff like hyjal waves or morogrim murlocs against aoe casters and there is nothing more to say about it.

Bears with 2.1 itemization and stock tuning are fine to tank everything from start to end.

Ret dps is on par with other hybrids and they will have 1 spot for the blessing.

You are extremely wrong on how you view shadow priests and how to utilize their utility or where to place them. In vanilla (not classic) I was a raiding shadow priest who cleared Naxx several times with my guild back then. I continued to raid as shadow all throughout BC as well. Shadow priests were one of the top tier dps classes in BC and we weren't put in healer groups in BC because there was a shaman in the healer group for mana spring totem. Shadow priests were put in the warlock and/or mage group to provide mana to them and if just warlocks were in that group it was so they could get constant health regen from VE. VE allowed warlocks to lifetap and get healed without having your healers waste mana to throw a hot on them or heal them directly if they didn't take damage from something else. Quite frankly, the synergy that warlocks and shadow priests brought to the table made mages get sat out because mages weren't as good as shadow priests + warlocks in your raid. Mages brought no utility in BC other than conjuring food and giving an int buff. Only one was needed in your entire raid to provide those. Shadow priests and warlocks brought multiple utility spells and having mulitples of each didn't minimize the utility the other ones brought (2 shadow priests could give 2 different groups the benefits of VE & VT and warlocks could keep improved SB up nearly constant with multiple ones in a group & 2 warlocks meant both curse of elements and curse of shadows for more casters getting more utility).

This is all probably true.
But the meta has evolved over the 14 years and given equal player skill SPs are bottom DPS that does not scale and gets progressively crappier with each tier. You don't have to believe me when I tell you that they will have 1 spot to buff locks and give mana to healers, but that's how it's gonna be for all the "optimizing" guilds.

I think you're gonna see a lot of misconceptions like this. People coming in expecting to be god-tier AoE tanks but at the same time expecting prot paladin to be "drop conc" and meme. It's *way* more complex and at the end of the day consecration isn't even the biggest part of it. And most of the youtube videos I'm seeing on the subject are dead wrong in a lot of ways.

Might be time for us vet tankadins to dust off our tomes of theorycrafting and spread the glory of the TBC prot paladin again.

Feel free to contribute with your thoughts on the subject.
Just make sure they are not 14 years old

[Askyl]

Ret is a little better in tbc still a meme but you human male paladins have to wait for wotlk to really shine sorry

Look! I found one of the guys with no clue, but still has an opinion!