Which class has the most complicated DPS rotation?

[Jeremypwnz]

So far this expansion, I have played every dps spec of Hunters, Mages, DKs, Shamans, Druids, and Warriors. Though I only play Hunters at a competitive level so I could be overlooking some things for the other classes.

On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the most difficult)(imo),
BM Hunters are 10/10,
Survival is a 7/10 (I would actually rank it as 1/10 since I've been able hammer the "rotation" into my fingers),
MM is 4/10,
Frost Mage is 5/10,
Fire Mage 4/10,
Arcane Mage is 3/10,
Frost DK is 4/10,
Unholy is 5/10,
Elemental feels 4/10
Enhance is 8/10,
Feral is 6/10,
Balance is 5/10,
Fury is 5/10,
Arms is 3/10

Again, I might be overlooking some thing for non-hunter classes and these are my opinions on the difficulty/complexity of their DPS rotations/"priorities"/"rotations".

[Deleted]

DoC Feral if you are looking to min/max. It's not even close.
As I hear affliction has some of the same challenges BESIDES the fact that feral has two resources they need to balance in order to min/max in stead of just one.
And yes, I am biased.

Hunters are not very hard. Just use some kind of addon to display your dot and cd of your abilities. Know your priorities and think just a bit in advance. It is nowhere near a DoC'ing feral in terms of planning that has to go into the play. Feral DoC is very proactive while BM Hunter is very reactive. Ofc you get better by being proactive, but you do not need to be in order to even be competetive.

People have said frost mages... rly?
Omg this is so hard... i have to..what... Get my lvl 90 buff, use cd's, keep bomb on target as much as possible, dont waste any procs, cast filler.

[Deleted]

In my experience this mostly comes from the urge to resist button mashing the way you were able to do previously and instead constantly be aware of what and when you spend the substantially more limitade rage supply on most effectively. Also the fact that you no longer get free rage from incoming damage except in very high damage situations where you go zerk stance makes rage starving and a situation where you have no buttons to press much more common (and yes, we warriors get very antsy if we don't have something to press on every gcd). Fixed rotations are history

And that is exactly why it is so hard. I won't say it's "the hardest", because you can only fairly decide that if you'll have played all specs competitively, which no one has. Having to adjust to everything and essentially only emptying your rage in a 6 second window makes for a lot of "on the spot" decisions. Which, IMO, is a lot harder than just having "buttons" to press.

[Tehstool]

What I can gather from this thread:

random poster: my class is the hardest.

DoC Feral if you are looking to min/max. It's not even close.
As I hear affliction has some of the same challenges BESIDES the fact that feral has two resources they need to balance in order to min/max in stead of just one.
And yes, I am biased.

Hunters are not very hard. Just use some kind of addon to display your dot and cd of your abilities. Know your priorities and think just a bit in advance. It is nowhere near a DoC'ing feral in terms of planning that has to go into the play. Feral DoC is very proactive while BM Hunter is very reactive. Ofc you get better by being proactive, but you do not need to be in order to even be competetive.

People have said frost mages... rly?
Omg this is so hard... i have to..what... Get my lvl 90 buff, use cd's, keep bomb on target as much as possible, dont waste any procs, cast filler.

Hunters aren't hard for me, but I've been playing mine for some time. It's mostly BM that is the most complex out of the 3 specs/rotations. For the average player, BM is up there. You also must not have played a hunter then, because focus management is huge with hunters and knowing what to do only comes with experience.

[nightfalls]

DoC Feral if you are looking to min/max. It's not even close.
As I hear affliction has some of the same challenges BESIDES the fact that feral has two resources they need to balance in order to min/max in stead of just one.

Having played it, correctly playing affliction is brutal, not just because of dot refreshing but also shard management. Feral would win my vote for most complicated rotation though.

In general, most heavy DoT-based classes would be worse than nuke-based, if only because a lot of thought has to go into DoTs, and they aren't very forgiving due to their snapshot nature. A nuke is a nuke that's pressed in a priority order.

That said, I'm actually pretty terrible at rating "X/10" difficulties for classes. All DPS classes have their own challenges when it comes to min/max'ing them for encounters.

[Keoren]

Frost Mage is 5/10,
Fire Mage 4/10,
Arcane Mage is 3/10

While dpsing as a mage in PvE is reasonably simple in general, I am going to have to disagree with this order. Arcane is the hardest spec out of the three to play to the full potential. Fire has been the easiest of the bunch for years.

[Deleted]

ferals, with slow energy, annoying positional requirements (still), and having to micro manage heals with Doc, and get the buff on the right abilities

hunters aren't hard, i mained one for 4+ years. i played it during 5.0 pre-mop patch. it's just bloated, but the mechanics are very simple.

Play both and i have to agree, hunters might have a lot of buttons but also a lot less shit to keep track of.

[stellvia]

I've never played a Hunter before, so I can't really say you're wrong. But I really find it hard to believe it's that difficult with the number of Huntards around putting up top or competitive damage I've seen. Yet they make some of the most derp failures in raid situations and die, so I know it's not that they're just super exceptional.

(Obviously have to take me at my word that I play exceptionally well at Assassination Rogue. And yes I know the rotation has dumbed down in recent years, but I was relatively competitive to our Combat Rogues using it even in BC when there were 982156716 timers to watch. Like 1kdps behind Combat which was blatantly OP at the time)

[Teye]

Almost no one in this thread has brought up Demonology, but I promise its more complicated than you think.

[Canderous1]

sub rogue imo.

[Runewrath]

People keep saying hunters are complicated because they have many low cd buttons to press. If that's the case that means that ret is complicated, even though I believe it's pretty straightforward.

[nyc81991]

I would say Feral and Ret are up there. I don't normally see too many good ret paladins.

[Shimitsu]

I would say Feral and Ret are up there. I don't normally see too many good ret paladins.

I'm not sure why you don't see many good rets, but rotation difficulty definitely isn't it. I might say they have the easiest rotation of anyone. They play like rogues but with no energy management and with combo points on themselves instead of the target. It breaks down into a priority queue / wack-a-mole style of play that is really simple.

[Biggles Worth]

Arcane Mages

[Runewrath]

It breaks down into a priority queue / wack-a-mole style of play that is really simple.

Which is all hunters are except they have something to hit when everything is on CD.

[Deleted]

rogues and cat druids, imo.

[Cirque]

Amount of buttons - "complexity" - doesn't really matter. I've seen horrifying arcane mages, and horrible ferals. Any spec requires a good eye for detail to maximize. I can't play Arcane properly for the life of me. Sure, I'll do decent numbers, but I wouldn't be maxing, as I have been maxing my warlock ever since the end of TBC (which has usually been considered one of the harder classes to play).

I guess that's sortof the problem a lot of people have, whatever class they play, they just have no idea how to maximize. That's also why the vast majority of locks you'll meet pull mediocre numbers; they have no idea what to be looking out for (going by my own class here), but for the same reason, you'll find shit mages (the one most usually laughed at as "ez mode"). Talk to any mage in a high end guild and he's guaranteed to blow your mind on the stuff he does to maximize, it's probably more than you do on your main, whatever it is.

The amount of buttons does not amount to complexity. My hunter has shitloads of buttons to press, but there's no more skill required in using them than any other class, and that just makes it feel like a lot of "gcd fillers", waiting for my gcd to come off so I can press the next button.

[celinamuna]

Probably feral (granted didn't have too much time to mess around with him), after that i'd assume sub rogues and possibly hunters / locks.

[Cirque]

rogues and cat druids, imo.

This is actually a good example. Rogues' buttons are mindnumbingly easy for all specs - the old sub complexity has gone. You have 3 buttons to press in any spec, and sometimes a buff to keep up. But to actually maximize, you'll need to think and do a lot more than spam muti, or whatever spec it is you play. As such I'd actually argue that rogues are one of the harder classes to play properly, because a shit ton can go wrong in just one small moment, though their 'rotation' is mindnumbingly easy and boring.

Edit: mind that, really, as I said before, all classes are going to require a lot of skill to even come close to maxing.

[rogoth]

arcane mage>sub rogue>feral druid>demo warlock (since the class revamp)>ret pala


my own personal list of what i think is the most complex specs in game at this moment in time.