Which classes/specs are going to be highest demand once the xpac is released?

[patrik9321]

I love playing hybrids, since I like flexibility without having to be an altoholic but I'm also very competitive. In the past these things have not been complimentary, even as the gap between pure classes and hybrid classes has been lessened as time goes on, with classes that can fulfill 2/3 meta roles (dps, tank, heal) topping the meters for many bosses (like warriors or shadow priests in legion). Ultimately I would rather my class finishes strong than starts out strong but fizzles out as times goes on. I'm also hell bent playing a pure dps class in PVE if my class isn't topping the meters..I'd rather bring flexibility to my raid group and don't want to go through the xpac worried I'm gonna regret my class choice like I regretted paladin in TBC, where you either healed or got laughed at(although Ret did get a token raid spot towards the END of the xpac where their dps was decent enough to warrant bringing ONE along for the debuff we left on bosses(3% crit for the raid along with offering another blessing back when we had like 5-6 unique buffs that other classes couldn't give and +2% damage for the group we were in).

Honestly, damage is definitely the most important thing here IMO. Sure, you get faster queue's as a tank or healer when it's just 5 people but in a raid the dps:healer and dps:tank ratio gets much better for damage dealers(imo poor balancing on blizzard's part, classes should be more of a flavor than this all-important dice roll you can't take back when you design your character). As a result, if you want to tank or heal in a raid group people better trust you because you're now responsible for a much larger % of the raid group's success AND we need less of you so your unique choice is no longer a perk like it was when you were gearing up through random dungeons.

I remember seeing an old vanilla Rag kill where the top 10 dps on the meter were mostly rogues. Obviously this has changed and I would argue that playing a pure class seems pretty unattractive these days, but this is mainly because they are not guaranteed a higher dps potential than the hybrid classes; as things smooth out and calm down we should almost always see a rogue, mage, warlock, or hunter at the top of the meters until the day they can fulfill another role other than dps.

At the end of the day, the goal we ALL value is that the boss goes down as quickly as humanly possible. As a result, tanks and healers are not really the MVPs of a raid group..they are support roles. Their job is literally to make the dps classes look good. Even if every dps in the raid group has 1 health at the end of a boss fight, the main point is that they were able to maximize their dps against the boss. The group's "subpar healing" can be corrected AFTER the boss is down, if you're still calling that subpar healing(more like perfect raid planning). IMO if a raid group brings along the fewest healers possible and they manage to MERELY KEEP THE GROUP ALIVE around the time that damage peaks within a raid instance, that means we brought along the PERFECT amount of healing because the meta goal is to kill the boss as quickly as possible. EVERYBODY's value in world of warcraft boils down to "how much damage was this character worth?" A holy priest's value stems from the damage they enabled the dps classes they are supporting to dish out past the time that they should have died without the holy priest's assistance. In the same way, a tank that cannot keep threat is of no value to anybody. Quite frankly I like casters, especially undead casters; i like their animations. But I can't bring myself to play one if it means being a subpar addition to a raid group; the whole "different but equal" thing is great, but I feel as though this design often falls apart. Just as there is no trophy for "soccer team that didn't win but did show the most team spirit through passes and are therefore really swell guys", there is no trophy for "took forever to down the raid boss but showed a lot of heart and love by making sure everybody's fake avatar was kept as far from death from possible on an online role-playing game".

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In the same mold, a classes utility/healing/damage absorption must always be weighed against the amount of damage being sacrificed in order to bring it along. While there is a cap to how much tanking/healing the raid requires, there is no cap to how much damage is required because we ALWAYS want more damage until the point where we can look at the boss and it immediately dies from our gaze alone.

[Trep]

I love playing hybrids, since I like flexibility without having to be an altoholic but I'm also very competitive. In the past these things have not been complimentary, even as the gap between pure classes and hybrid classes has been lessened as time goes on, with classes that can fulfill 2/3 meta roles (dps, tank, heal) topping the meters for many bosses (like warriors or shadow priests in legion). Ultimately I would rather my class finishes strong than starts out strong but fizzles out as times goes on. I'm also hell bent playing a pure dps class in PVE if my class isn't topping the meters..I'd rather bring flexibility to my raid group and don't want to go through the xpac worried I'm gonna regret my class choice like I regretted paladin in TBC, where you either healed or got laughed at(although Ret did get a token raid spot towards the END of the xpac where their dps was decent enough to warrant bringing ONE along for the debuff we left on bosses(3% crit for the raid along with offering another blessing back when we had like 5-6 unique buffs that other classes couldn't give and +2% damage for the group we were in).

Honestly, damage is definitely the most important thing here IMO. Sure, you get faster queue's as a tank or healer when it's just 5 people but in a raid the dps:healer and dps:tank ratio gets much better for damage dealers(imo poor balancing on blizzard's part, classes should be more of a flavor than this all-important dice roll you can't take back when you design your character). As a result, if you want to tank or heal in a raid group people better trust you because you're now responsible for a much larger % of the raid group's success AND we need less of you so your unique choice is no longer a perk like it was when you were gearing up through random dungeons.

I remember seeing an old vanilla Rag kill where the top 10 dps on the meter were mostly rogues. Obviously this has changed and I would argue that playing a pure class seems pretty unattractive these days, but this is mainly because they are not guaranteed a higher dps potential than the hybrid classes; as things smooth out and calm down we should almost always see a rogue, mage, warlock, or hunter at the top of the meters until the day they can fulfill another role other than dps.

At the end of the day, the goal we ALL value is that the boss goes down as quickly as humanly possible. As a result, tanks and healers are not really the MVPs of a raid group..they are support roles. Their job is literally to make the dps classes look good. Even if every dps in the raid group has 1 health at the end of a boss fight, the main point is that they were able to maximize their dps against the boss. The group's "subpar healing" can be corrected AFTER the boss is down, if you're still calling that subpar healing(more like perfect raid planning). IMO if a raid group brings along the fewest healers possible and they manage to MERELY KEEP THE GROUP ALIVE around the time that damage peaks within a raid instance, that means we brought along the PERFECT amount of healing because the meta goal is to kill the boss as quickly as possible. EVERYBODY's value in world of warcraft boils down to "how much damage was this character worth?" A holy priest's value stems from the damage they enabled the dps classes they are supporting to dish out past the time that they should have died without the holy priest's assistance. In the same way, a tank that cannot keep threat is of no value to anybody. Quite frankly I like casters, especially undead casters; i like their animations. But I can't bring myself to play one if it means being a subpar addition to a raid group; the whole "different but equal" thing is great, but I feel as though this design often falls apart. Just as there is no trophy for "soccer team that didn't win but did show the most team spirit through passes and are therefore really swell guys", there is no trophy for "took forever to down the raid boss but showed a lot of heart and love by making sure everybody's fake avatar was kept as far from death from possible on an online role-playing game".

- - - Updated - - -

In the same mold, a classes utility/healing/damage absorption must always be weighed against the amount of damage being sacrificed in order to bring it along. While there is a cap to how much tanking/healing the raid requires, there is no cap to how much damage is required because we ALWAYS want more damage until the point where we can look at the boss and it immediately dies from our gaze alone.

I get this feeling deep down in my gut that you have never raided.. Like LFR and even Normal don't really count. Hell, Heroic by todays standards don't truly count. If you have ever done serious raiding (mind you I am not even talking top 100 guilds) then you wouldn't sound like a college kid crying in his safe space right now.

[Motso]

Not sure I agree with your main point about DPS being the stars of the show, but its a pretty fair point and well made. I can only speak for what my dumb arse has observed on the beta, but as it stands rogues, demo locks, paladins and priests oddly seem to be fairly common. Veng DHs are in a strong spot as well from what I hear. Honestly though its a tough call. There seem to be less obvious standouts this time around, people can and will complain till the cows come home but really I think we are starting at a decent point this expac around, better than some and really it was years ago + rose coloured glasses idk if we have have any exacs with more active effort put into class design. Legit though, most in demand classes early on this xpac, anything that can stealth, and anything that can solo rare elites. I levelled my rogue 110 to 120 'monster hunting' alone, it was shitloads of fun.

[Halobob87]

Dafak have you just wrote.

Btw, it seems clear that you have no clue about ehat are you talking about... “tanks and healers are not the MVP of a raid group” lol what.
You can kinda still do good (talking about top 100/50 world) with a few relatively bad dps in your group, but if your healers are meh, good luck doing anything. The roler of an healer is the most important one most of the times. About the Tanks, well, it really depends on tiers, couse you can have tiers where tank skills dosn’t really metter a lot (like NH, where whe did like 78 world with 1 ok-ish tank and one just terrible one that single handily coused like 1/5 of our 440 M Gul Dan wipes, but we still manage to do pretty well in that tier anyway).

Anyway, I understand your sentiment about wanting to avoid playing sub par dps, but, right now, is kinda hard to tell. Class balance will not be done till M Uldir open prob, sooo.. who know (but hey, easy tip: avoid ret palas and shamans couse they kinda suck most of the times, and if you wanna play a true hybrid, druid is kinda a safe pick couse balance is almost always good).

[Sonnillon]

Asking people to give advice what class/spec should I play is not allowed here. Closing.