If you'd go for an unpopular class/spec...

[Deleted]

Will people be liberal enough about it for you to find a group anyways, or will everyone be even more selective than back then?
Ret paladin has nostalgic value to me, and I'd love to play one. Shadow Priest would be interesting too. But if I'm unable to find a single group, even for 5-mans, it's just not worth it.

Should I just go Rogue or Mage, as so many others will?

Thanks in advance

[Wiedzemir]

Seriously. All this talk about viable\non-viable specs is a bit exaggerated. It really only mattered for the competitive or semi-competitive raiding guilds. Outside of that I saw people playing nonsensical builds and no one cared and raids were cleared eventually anyway. Plus even the most "non-viable" specs sometimes had their moments to shine. Also, people always talk about how strong rogues were, well, despite that, there was literally no reason to bring one specifically in the raid outside of dealing with UBRS traps room.

[berdrek]

im gonna play shammy or pally. Im sure ill still find a group, without having to heal. even if im there for just my buffs, im still there

[Mysterymask]

Seriously. All this talk about viable\non-viable specs is a bit exaggerated. It really only mattered for the competitive or semi-competitive raiding guilds. Outside of that I saw people playing nonsensical builds and no one cared and raids were cleared eventually anyway. Plus even the most "non-viable" specs sometimes had their moments to shine. Also, people always talk about how strong rogues were, well, despite that, there was literally no reason to bring one specifically in the raid outside of dealing with UBRS traps room.

Yeah that was then....now lets think in terms of today's wow players playing on Yesterday's game....

[Flarelaine]

Will people be liberal enough about it for you to find a group anyways, or will everyone be even more selective than back then?

Wait for launch. We cannot rule out that Blizzard will be pressured into at least some balancing. I'm going to play a Ret paladin either way.

[AeneasBK]

People clear DM:W as Holy DPS (priest) sure they knew they were gonna have to drink a LOT of mana pots but sod it, something new :P

[Wiedzemir]

Yeah that was then....now lets think in terms of today's wow players playing on Yesterday's game....

It's going to be even more relaxed because the Classic WoW isn't current anymore. Almost no one will care about the maximum efficiency and the speed of clearing the raids, this time has gone. There will, of course, be a bunch of hardcore players but the majority won't give a shit. Plus I doubt that teenagers are going to rush in the game in droves and the older players are usually less focused on this.

[MMKing]

The issue arise when the dedicated don't want to practically boost the guys who refuse to play a viable specc. As if i'm gonna raid with Ret paladins taking Warrior loot when the warrior deals over twice as much damage and the bosses drop 2-3 pieces.

Plate dps = warrior
Mail dps = hunter
Leather dps = rogue
Cloth dps = mage/warlock

Would it be fun for a healer to come as DPS on a farm night? Certainly. Bring your boomkin, shadowpriest, feral, elemental, enhancement, retribution and whatnot on the farm nights. But don't expect to get any gear needed for mainspecc.

[Usagi Senshi]

If I were to play Classic, I would be rolling gnome warrior or rogue and only playing AV as my endgame.

[Flurryfang]

You can proberly play whatever you want, but if people get very happy to look at recount and numbers, then people will quickly start to see, that some classes are really good in PVE and some just don't work, the same with PVP. People are gonna try their best and maybe the gaming community will allow it since the skill has increased highly, but if you start wiping in diremaul because the healer gets out of mana and the boss is not dying fast enough, you will proberly get the "why are you playing X class, you noob!" alot.

[Slashnox]

Two things I think maybe will make you feel a little better

1) It's 2017 and the players are way better than back then, some classes that weren't that good back then could be pretty good now. For example Feral Druid wasn't that popular in Vanilla, but on private servers ferals are pretty OP. So don't just think mage and rogue are your only choices.

2) When Classic WoW releases the amount of people playing at first is gonna be massive, think numbers of 10 million. So it's not like you won't find a raid or 5-man group because you're not playing mage or rogue, because the community isn't gonna be that tight knit, it's gonna be massive.

[Vintersol]

Best thing about classic: There won't be any updates so everyone will get his gear sooner or later.

1) It's 2017 and the players are way better than back then, some classes that weren't that good back then could be pretty good now

People aren't better nowadays, most of them are still utterly garbage in terms of performance or knowledge.

[Akka]

Let's remember a few things :

1) Raids are gonna need warm bodies. Filling 40 places is not like filling 10 or 20. More guilds failed because they couldn't field enough people than because they brang an alt spec.

2) Most of this "useful vs useless classes" shit is due to people being retards. A good player with an underperforming class will still be more of an asset than a mediocre player with "the best" class. That's true on current WoW too, that was true in Vanilla too.

3) The power creep is MUCH (MUCH) lower in Vanilla than in current WoW. As such, despite the more barebone gameplay, the player matters actually more than the character in Vanilla.

4) The "super powerful rogue" is mainly about PvP. PvE-wise, rogues were certainly one of the highest DPS class, but they were a dime a dozen. Rogues are certainly NOT the class you wish to roll to get into a raid, because you're going to face one bazillion others. You wish to get a guaranteed spot ? Roll a healer. Any healer.

5) Unless you wish to be in a bleeding edge guild (and even then in many cases), it's better to just benefit from the more social-based aspect of Vanilla. You get into a raid mainly because you get friend with people you encounter during the game, especially running dungeons. Because Vanilla has a MUCH slower pace and no automation, so you actually NEED to communicate to enter a group and you have to spend quite a lot of time to clear the instance. So you speak with people, and get known, and get friends, and end up in a raid. That counts for MUCH more than the class you roll.

[Deleted]

Once shaman, always a shaman

[Deleted]

This is not gonna be vanilla. People now know the inside outs of the game. They won't be taking underperforming joke specs. If I were you, I'd roll warrior (tank), rogue, priest(healer), mage or hunter. The rest are dead classes unless blizz rebalances the game.

[Deleted]

This is not gonna be vanilla. People now know the inside outs of the game. They won't be taking underperforming joke specs. If I were you, I'd roll warrior, rogue, priest, mage or hunter. The rest are dead classes unless blizz rebalances the game.

Guess you never played vanilla if you think shaman is a dead class

[Deleted]

The issue arise when the dedicated don't want to practically boost the guys who refuse to play a viable specc. As if i'm gonna raid with Ret paladins taking Warrior loot when the warrior deals over twice as much damage and the bosses drop 2-3 pieces.

Plate dps = warrior
Mail dps = hunter
Leather dps = rogue
Cloth dps = mage/warlock

Would it be fun for a healer to come as DPS on a farm night? Certainly. Bring your boomkin, shadowpriest, feral, elemental, enhancement, retribution and whatnot on the farm nights. But don't expect to get any gear needed for mainspecc.

Cough dps warriors wore leather as it had better stats for dps cough

[Aggrophobic]

Will people be liberal enough about it for you to find a group anyways, or will everyone be even more selective than back then?
Ret paladin has nostalgic value to me, and I'd love to play one. Shadow Priest would be interesting too. But if I'm unable to find a single group, even for 5-mans, it's just not worth it.

Should I just go Rogue or Mage, as so many others will?

Thanks in advance

You know the answer to this already, do you not?
You will be playing with the same people on a classic server as you are on the retail servers.

The difference is that when people say a spec was bad in vanilla, it REALLY was bad compared to the best specs.
Ret paladins, feral/guardian druids, spriests are all good examples of specs that just could not do the job they were designed to do or at least could not do them well enough.

So yeah, you will most probably have issues finding groups as a ret paladin.

- - - Updated - - -

Guess you never played vanilla if you think shaman is a dead class

Nah, I mean the WF totem was great... and thats about it.

[Segus1992]

Yeah that was then....now lets think in terms of today's wow players playing on Yesterday's game....

This is why I think Vanilla without balance changes can't work. People are too aware of what's superior, and in Vanilla those differences were MASSIVE in some cases (T3 Warrior/Rogue vs T3 Shaman/Paladin/Druid/Priest/Hunter (to a lesser degree)), and some classes didn't even have that great healing specs and were just buff bots (Paladin/Shaman). The class representation on the Vanilla realm will be way off, and it'll hurt the game.

The reason it worked in Vanilla is because people weren't as aware, especially from the get-go.

[Dangg]

Go for Balance Druid!