What Were the "Working" Roles + Specs in TBC?

[munkeyinorbit]

From what I understand...
All 3 tanks specs were VIABLE to a point but Warriors were preferred boss tanks while Pallys were preferred trash/AOE tanks...Druids were also considered viable boss tanks but warriors were preferred

Your main tank was a warrior and off tanks were druids or warriors. There was the odd fight that paladins were good off tanks but in those situations a holy pally could do the job.

[Clawsout]

Your main tank was a warrior and off tanks were druids or warriors. There was the odd fight that paladins were good off tanks but in those situations a holy pally could do the job.

Lol what? Paladins were amazing gtfo

[munkeyinorbit]

Warlocks werent anywhere near top dps in Sunwell. Mages and Hunters were much higher. I remember the buff, but I'm pretty sure all the crazy hunter shit in Sunwell was MM.

This is just embarrassing...

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No raid won't include a shadow priest.

No raid will include more than one.

[ifrah]

2 or 3 even depending on group,wasnt the mana thing party wide?

VT mana regen was party-wide, correct. Although as stevenho earlier suggested, the kills will likely be so fast that this mana regen usefulness will be vastly down from what it used to be. Pots, mana tides and some odd innervate will probably keep the healers nourished until stuff is down.

[deenman]

VT mana regen was party-wide, correct. Although as stevenho earlier suggested, the kills will likely be so fast that this mana regen usefulness will be vastly down from what it used to be. Pots, mana tides and some odd innervate will probably keep the healers nourished until stuff is down.

yeah...that is for sure going to be the case,but luckily not everyone will be min maxing and most of the tbc encounters are a big step above vanila,and i know for a fact waaaaaaay to many guilds had issues in classic in 2020 even with onyxia lol....i cant even beging to imagine how those guilds will deal with tbc stuff,i mean bosses like mag are gonna release in their original state,that boss is modern day like personal responsabilty wise

[clevin]

If you wanna get invited to try hard groups.
Corrected for you. Even when every spec is viable, you still will be struggling to get into groups, just wait and see since you seem to be only guessing.

Here's what you meant, but you type some ridiculous stuff instead

[Dreyen]

Illidan had an ability called Shear, which would reduce a tank's health by 60% unless it was blocked, dodged or parried. That meant druids were entirely out of the picture and paladins were at a severe disadvantage because warriors could guarantee a block using Shield Block. They were the only ones able to consistently tank him.

Druids were a solid tank choice for flames I believe, so druid + war would work well. I also believe illidan couldn't do crushing blows... Or at the very least the entirety of sunwell wasn't crushing blow capable which probably made druids insane as it was their weakness.

[Akka]

That said I'm not sure how things will play out with the current playerbase, but I would assume that Prot Paladins will be vastly preferred over any other tank, especially as the expansion progresses and pulling packs + aoe becomes more and more standard. I don't believe people will bother with CC classes as much as they did back when I played, at least.

Don't forget though that if we get the pre-nerf heroics, AoEing packs will often lead to simply a dead tank. Of course it will depends on the instance, the packs and the gear of the tank (even pre-nerf Mechanar was certainly not a gauntlet), but there is some SERIOUS amount of damage in many cases where you won't be blindly AoEing thing without a wipe.
I expect mage will still be a favourite.

VT mana regen was party-wide, correct. Although as stevenho earlier suggested, the kills will likely be so fast that this mana regen usefulness will be vastly down from what it used to be. Pots, mana tides and some odd innervate will probably keep the healers nourished until stuff is down.

While the fights will certainly be much more commonly quick due to hindsight, meta and more experience generally from the playerbase, don't expect the same delta as we saw in Classic.
Classic was a cocktail of factors that made its content much easier than what it was in the day, and all these elements will be either much toned down, or even downright absent :
- The class mechanisms and talents are certainly better in 2.4.3 than 2.0, but it's a much smaller difference than the 1.12 to 1.1, so we won't be much more powerful in comparison.
- The content is supposed to be pre-nerf, while 1.12 was post-nerfs and with massive gear upgrade.
- People started Vanilla as a completely blank state, with most players having never even touched a MMORPG. BC came after people played for two years, and it was the time where theorycrafting was in full swing and EJ had already become a mainstay.
- More than anything : no world buffs, no stacking consumables. People won't be able to completely brute-force an encounter by doubling their character power, so mechanisms WILL need to be done (no killing Grull before he stomps the ground like we can kill Gluth before the decimate, for example). I do expect some serious hangover from people who thought they were playing well because they could throw big number in logs, when they actually have to play instead of having their buffs carry them.

I obviously don't expect to struggle with the content compared to how I did at the time, and certainly the experienced raiders who have all the content on farm on private server will speedrun through it lightning-fast, but for the vast majority I fully expect there will be actual real progression beyond Karazhan (and Karazhan is fun enough that it'll be a blast even if it's not hard).

[Flatspriest]

Every raid I went to was for guilds I was not even part of on my shadow priest. Every raid wanted at least one since we were mana batteries for every mana class, and for fortitude. They also wanted at least one pally for kings, and one mage for intellect. Arcane was not good for mage until late TBC, so fire was the best.

[stevenho]

I obviously don't expect to struggle with the content compared to how I did at the time, and certainly the experienced raiders who have all the content on farm on private server will speedrun through it lightning-fast, but for the vast majority I fully expect there will be actual real progression beyond Karazhan (and Karazhan is fun enough that it'll be a blast even if it's not hard).

I'm really curious how its gonna turn out, because in my personal experience the only raid in TBC that is harder than Naxx is Sunwell.

[Akka]

I'm really curious how its gonna turn out, because in my personal experience the only raid in TBC that is harder than Naxx is Sunwell.

That's not an unreasonable take, but there are two points to remember :

1) We're supposed to get the pre-nerf bosses. They are a good step up over the post-nerf ones.
2) More importantly : as I pointed in the post, BC doesn't have the "stack buffs and consumables" meta we have to endure in Classic. People trashtalk Naxx, but very few tackle it without WB and a whole line worth of elixirs and flasks, which would increase SIGNIFICANTLY its difficulty.

Again, as said before, hardcore/very experienced guilds/players will of course demolish the content (because, well, that's what progress means and these people already did the progress), but for the regular Joe it will be pretty challenging. Naxx IS progress content for those who haven't experienced it already, and it's downright challenging for those not abusing the meta (which is, admitedly, a very small crowd).

[stevenho]

1) We're supposed to get the pre-nerf bosses. They are a good step up over the post-nerf ones.

Don't put too much hope into that. Not that many bosses were changed in meaningful ways, and the difficulty increase they present will be offset by the availability of 2.1 itemization in T4 and T5 (my assumption). T6 is just easy overall and Sunwell will perhaps test some less devoted guilds.

But if Gehennas has 50+ guilds clearing Naxx 15/15 today, there will likely be 75+ clearing all of TBC up to Sunwell. Don't set yourself up for a big disappointment in the difficulty department.

[Huntingbear_grimbatol]

Early on the only specs struggeling for raid spots will be Rogues, Fury Warriors, MM Hunters (pvp spec) and possibly tanking druids (because they’ve not yet got access to good gear).

For Rogues, Fury Warriors and Tank Druids this changes when you get full Black Temple gear. You are still viable, but the same kind of "viable" as Ret, Balance and dps Shamans in Clasdic Vanilla.

[loras]

In TBC all specs were working, unlike in classic. Class balance was a bit off, but you didn't have completely useless specs like classic feral, prot Pala or enhance (pve).

This.
I remember it being a breath of fresh wind after vanilla's stale nonsense.

Hell i might just give it a genuine try again, seems far more worthwhile than normal classic.

[iosdeveloper]

pretty much every spec was good, if played and geared right for the gamestyle
even retribution(only Horde though) was ok

i member warlocks got to tank a demon hunter boss in Shadow Fang Keep and mages got to tank an ogre-caster dude in Gruul's Lair
i played fire mage in raids, it was easy, pleasant, effective and required you to level Tailoring during first raid tier

[RainBoi]

No raid will include more than one.

I remember going OOM as Mage quite often in the early tiers, might be due to bad raid dps, but a Shadow Priest would have been awesome for mana regen. Obviously the first is reserved for healers.

A bit surprised it isnt worth it for the Warlocks so they can tunnel even more Shadowbolts. I remember a mana pot being more DPS than using a DPS pot, simply because it meant fewer GCDs used on taps and more time spent tunneling Shadowbolts.

[Thunderball]

No raid will include more than one.

That's assuming that everything will be 2.4.3 from the start. If it's not the raids are going to be filled with shadowpriests.

[Akka]

Don't put too much hope into that. Not that many bosses were changed in meaningful ways, and the difficulty increase they present will be offset by the availability of 2.1 itemization in T4 and T5 (my assumption). T6 is just easy overall and Sunwell will perhaps test some less devoted guilds.

Depends what you call "less devoted guilds", if it's only from the pool of hardcore players who want to clear everything, or the larger pool of all guilds which include a majority of social ones. People on these forums tend to overexagerate so much (like the clowns who compare Naxx to LFR) and in such numbers it paints a much different picture from reality.

But if Gehennas has 50+ guilds clearing Naxx 15/15 today, there will likely be 75+ clearing all of TBC up to Sunwell. Don't set yourself up for a big disappointment in the difficulty department.

I'm not looking for hideously difficult content. Just a "challenging" one, and I've not worries that BC will provide that and then some. Naxx is already rather challenging, and it would be even much more with BC context (no WB, no stacking consumables), so I'll be good.
My main worry is how the PvP gear will outcompete PvE one and make the loot unrewarding if Blizzard cave in and advance seasons as they implied they might.

As for guilds being shown as 15/15 in Warcraft logs, remembers that WCL already causes a huge statistical bias because it shows only the ones who care enough for competition to even log their raids, and on top of that many guilds have a "false" higher progression due to having members participating sometimes in PuG with more advanced guilds (I know several of the casual guilds on my server which are shown with a progress that I found weird, after checking it's just their more hardcore members participating in other events, while the main guild isn't even raiding Nax by itself, for example).

[DarkAmbient]

How are spriests in 5 man HCs in TBC? I played lock in TBC and can't remember how priests fared.

[Malacrass]

Don't forget though that if we get the pre-nerf heroics, AoEing packs will often lead to simply a dead tank. Of course it will depends on the instance, the packs and the gear of the tank (even pre-nerf Mechanar was certainly not a gauntlet), but there is some SERIOUS amount of damage in many cases where you won't be blindly AoEing thing without a wipe.
I expect mage will still be a favourite.

Yeah I guess that's possible. I think Mage will be in demand with or without Aoe farming packs, it's simply an amazing dungeon class throughout TBC.

But in general the main message is to not treat dungeons like an afterthought in this expansion, we will never outgrow them like we did in Classic and they will dominate your gametime much more than the raid once or twice a week.

Like people worry what will get them into a raid and it's a valid concern, but imo dungeon performance is equally important. My bet, as of now:

1. Prot Paladin
2. Mage
3. Resto Druid

Prot P. is the uncontested dungeon tank, even more so when people start to overgear / zerg through them. Druid is the most mobile healer and running Sethek Halls is suddenly attractive, if only for the mount chance.

I absolutely expect there to be severe class and spec discrimination in TBC, at least when it concerns dungeons. Even more so than back then.