Nonviable specs. Which are they?

[Goondicker]

Nearly every "non-viable" spec still has a niche.

Sometimes a spec may be less desired, but for the most part you'll be able to play what you want.

[Felrane]

It mostly comes down to how well you gear. Every spec is viable but just like Live some specs are better then others.

[Deleted]

you have to remember too that the mind set was different back then to class design. not every spec was supposed to be viable as the main tree. some specs were there for the sole reason to splash into like survival hunter for some melee and CC and priest into disc/shadow e.t.c

[RuneDK]

Shadow priest as a manabattery for holy.

Vanilla shadow priests didn't have the ability to be manabatteries. That came in TBC

[Charge me Doctor]

Actually viability is an opinion unless it's mathematically not possibile to kill a raid boss while having X spec in your raid group. I'm sure you can kill any raid boss in vanilla while having 1 of each spec you conisder not viable in your group.

The word you are looking for is "optimal".

Plz stahp dead memes

Yes you can kill any outdated boss that you overgear with any setup, but good luck on patchwerk without 7 rogues or mages

[PewPewArrowz]

Sorry, but you can't say "you did it all" when you only did MC and BWL. I actually cleared C'thun and most of Naxx. And I don't even say I did it all.

I haven't played retail for the last 3 expansions, but nothing from BC, Wrath, or Cata could compare the the difficulties of Naxx 40 and the second half of AQ40, except for Ulduar Hardmode.

You'd be hardpressed to find anyone who raided Naxx 40 say anything in the last 6 years has come close.

Naxx 40 was easy and so was everything else. You know why? Because addons were a myth and you had to assemble 40 people that actually had half a brain cell alive. My guild got stuck on 4 Horsemen not because it was hard but because you literally had to have 8 tanks otherwise it was impossible to do. Stop saying it was hard when in all factuality it wasn't hard at all, most of the bosses had 1 or 2 mechanics that were as easy as today's LFR. C'Thun, Twin Emperors, Heigan, Thaddius were a couple bosses that I agree were actually hard but not in today's standards hard, but more of a have a 1 brain cell to kill boss hard.

Another thing that made Vanila bosses hard were number tuning and no fixes for bosses for months, such was the case with C'thun, I guarantee you once Classic server opens up, bosses will be dead with blue gear from lvl 60 instances within a week from their release (Assuming no bugs happen)

[Talsar]

Ah the classic children have finally decided that their response to the horrible class/spec balance in classic is "but but it's a feature! some specs are SUPPOSED to be shit, duh"

Being forced into a specific class/role because you want to do endgame content is bad design. sorry. it worked back then because people didn't know better/have better options, that's it.

[Deleted]

Vanilla shadow priests didn't have the ability to be manabatteries. That came in TBC

Thanks for correcting

[Nomads]

Naxx 40 was easy and so was everything else. You know why? Because addons were a myth and you had to assemble 40 people that actually had half a brain cell alive. My guild got stuck on 4 Horsemen not because it was hard but because you literally had to have 8 tanks otherwise it was impossible to do. Stop saying it was hard when in all factuality it wasn't hard at all, most of the bosses had 1 or 2 mechanics that were as easy as today's LFR. C'Thun, Twin Emperors, Heigan, Thaddius were a couple bosses that I agree were actually hard but not in today's standards hard, but more of a have a 1 brain cell to kill boss hard.

Another thing that made Vanila bosses hard were number tuning and no fixes for bosses for months, such was the case with C'thun, I guarantee you once Classic server opens up, bosses will be dead with blue gear from lvl 60 instances within a week from their release (Assuming no bugs happen)

You contradicted yourself. You said raids werent hard. Then said getting 40 people to do all the mechanics at the same time was hard. So raiding was hard?

What you dont seem to understand is what makes raids difficult is the teamwork aspect of it. All of the gears turning at the right time to fulfill the boss mechanics. This is the exact same in Vanilla as it is in retail. Vanilla was substantially harder because you had double the number of people needing to perform the class mechanics.

You didnt need 8 tanks for 4 horsemen. That just made the fight easier. You could do it with 4 tanks, as the guilds who first cleared them did. You just needed good plYers to pull it off.

So clearly your guild was not good enough.

Legion Mythic 20 mans are not harder. You have less class mechanics, less people to coordinate, more experience to draw from. They are a simple matter of having good enough gear to make the encounter easier, and running through the mechanics of the encounter. (Get out fire, kill adds, push boss dps now, blah blah blah)

No matter what you say, coordinatibg and gearing 40 people is always going to be harder than doing it for 20 people.

This does not even account for the fact that retail classes are much more versatile now. One class can easily switch to fulfill multiple roles. Shadow for 1 fight, holy the next, disc for the 3rd if you want. No druids for battle rez? Thats ok, the hunter can do it with his pet now.

Retail raiding is retarded easy by comparison.

[Alidfe]

Ah the classic children have finally decided that their response to the horrible class/spec balance in classic is "but but it's a feature! some specs are SUPPOSED to be shit, duh"

Well, it was a feature. Some classes and specs being hot garbage was literally a stated design goal. The devs openly flaunted stuff like Warriors being demonstrably better than everyone else. There were some token attempts to improve things, but only very late into the xpac's cycle and going into 2.0.

This does not even account for the fact that retail classes are much more versatile now. One class can easily switch to fulfill multiple roles. Shadow for 1 fight, holy the next, disc for the 3rd if you want. No druids for battle rez? Thats ok, the hunter can do it with his pet now.

While you're generally correct that on the whole Vanilla has hard raids, role versatility doesn't really have anything to do with encounter difficulty. Shadow priests not being a noob trap or bears being able to tank doesn't in and of itself suddenly make the game easier. You can have a game that's both well balanced and difficult.

[munkeyinorbit]

Nonviable specs. Which are they?
Are there still a negative stigma attached to some of the specs or people have changed their attitude towards some of them?

it is easy.

If it has a healing spec then healing is the only viable spec.
Else if it has a tank spec, tanking is the only viable spec
Else dps is the only viable spec.

Pretty simple.

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Well, it was a feature. Some classes and specs being hot garbage was literally a stated design goal. The devs openly flaunted stuff like Warriors being demonstrably better than everyone else. There were some token attempts to improve things, but only very late into the xpac's cycle and going into 2.0.



While you're generally correct that on the whole Vanilla raids are easy, role versatility doesn't really have anything to do with encounter difficulty. Shadow priests not being a noob trap or bears being able to tank doesn't in and of itself suddenly make the game easier. You can have a game that's both well balanced and difficult.

Just fixed that for you buddy.

[Alidfe]

Else if it has a tank spec, tanking is the only viable spec

The only class that had a tank spec but no heal spec was Warrior and Fury got stupidly strong, especially later in Vanilla's lifetime. So not entirely correct.

[Nomads]

it is easy.

If it has a healing spec then healing is the only viable spec.
Else if it has a tank spec, tanking is the only viable spec
Else dps is the only viable spec.

Pretty simple.

Fury Warriors say hello.

Also, while you might be generally correct for raiding... that's seriously only a small aspect of the game. Most people won't be raiding for a long time... I'd wager a lot of people won't even make it 60. Less will go through the end-game gearing process to get raid ready. Even less will actually do raids. Just like it was in Vanilla.

[Rehija]

Yes you can kill any outdated boss that you overgear with any setup, but good luck on patchwerk without 7 rogues or mages

If i remember correctly we had 3 Rogues, 4 Mages, 4 Hunters, 2 Locks and a 2Hand Fury Warrior in the main setup during Naxx 40. And a Ret who did really well on meters bcs. he scraped leftover dps items for the entirety of classic.

C'Thun, Twin Emperors, Heigan, Thaddius were a couple bosses that I agree were actually hard but not in today's standards hard, but more of a have a 1 brain cell to kill boss hard.

Fixed C'Thun was mostly a matter of coordination. Once ppl. had the movement patterns down it was a free Kill every week. You could even jump over the dark glare at the outer end of the room when you fucked up during that phase. that eye was hypnoticing ~~

Twin Emperors required having "TWO!" capeable Locks and a functioning Bug group, and once again coordination. Plus teaching the dps to leave the fingers off any button wich did aoe damage. The first and last points were the actual hard parts. Tell a dps whoring Rogue to leave his fingers of flurry . . . . .

Heigan and Thaddius were actually really easy when you had 40 ppl. with state of the art PC's and i-net connections. What Killed the most guys there were pingspikes, lags and low framerates. On Heigan it only killed yourself, on Thaddius it was a wipe. We made our Thaddius firstkill with 28 ppl. on the Boss, while two Healers with low framerates stood on the pillars and the rest of the team with issues helped with the adds and then stood in the back and watched.

Not every Guild wich raided Naxx was world top 10 Material and had to work around differnt problems with different solutions. Like having a Bear offtank on Patchwerk wich worked great in our case and the same Bear tanked Meaxxna during the enrage with ease.

[anon5123]

Shadow is just as terible as the rest due to the terrible sustain.

You're not there to DPS, you're there to provide +15% shadow damage for the warlocks, bubbles, and dispels.

You pretty much just spam rank1 mind flay (since it scales 100% with spell power) and dispel as needed. On shorter (MC) fights, you can use higher ranks and spend more mana to do more damage.

Shadow priest as a manabattery for holy.

You're thinking of BC. Shadow did not get mana-restoring talent (Vampiric Touch) until BC.

They werent garbage. What you retail children cant seem to grasp is that every spec is not supposed to be good in every situation.

Hybrid DPS did laughable DPS compared to pures. Ret was shit DPS. Shadow was shit DPS, and only brought to buff the warlocks. Feral was okay DPS, but really only brought for extra innervate/brez. Balance was shit DPS because you couldn't use dots and would oom fast. Enhance was shit DPS. Ele was actually decent DPS, but you'd OOM very fast.

People aren't expecting "every spec to be good in every situation". Stop projecting.

[Nomads]

People aren't expecting "every spec to be good in every situation". Stop projecting.

Yes they are. They are bitching because every spec can't do everything. So shadow can't raid well? Then go PvP with it, and don't role a priest if you don't like healing.

That's how Vanilla is meant to be played.

[anon5123]

Yes they are. They are bitching because every spec can't do everything.

Literally who?

People are pointing out that hybrids are bad at DPS. That's not "bitching because every spec can't do everything".

Stop projecting.

[Protean]

They werent garbage. What you retail children cant seem to grasp is that every spec is not supposed to be good in every situation. Period. You do BM for leveling and solo play. You do marksmen for group content. You do survival for PvP.

This was the design that made Vanilla fun. Otherwise you get the monstrosity of talents and builds that is currently in Legion, where every 10 levels you pick a new talent from 3 options and can somehow, magically switch your spec at the drop of a hat.

That's exactly what a real child would say to appear adult.


Very few classes had specs that were viable for something.

"levelling" isn't an activity worth an entire spec, unless you can level multiple times.

[Woobels]

I don't really get the hunters being top 3 comments I'm seeing, I strongly remember them getting quite weak at some point and the private server 'meta' supports this too.

[Nomads]

That's exactly what a real child would say to appear adult.


Very few classes had specs that were viable for something.

"levelling" isn't an activity worth an entire spec, unless you can level multiple times.

Which is why I said "leveling and solo play"... Seriously, if you're trying to make a valid argument against what I said, at least think through it first.

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Literally who?

People are pointing out that hybrids are bad at DPS. That's not "bitching because every spec can't do everything".

Stop projecting.

You really don't seem to know what "projecting" means. And if you actually read the whole thread instead of trying to jump in on the last few pages, you'd know what I'm talking about.