the easiest class to play

[Stevoman]

Well as usual there's a huge difference between the difficulty if doing a sufficient amount of damage to finish a heroic, and mastering it to being able to do a sufficient amount of damage to nuke heroic Maloriak's adds in time.

The generalized answer for either would be the same it's been since Vanilla: range DPS of some sort. Which one in particular changes with the FOTM. Of the most likely candidates, Beast Mastery is pretty easy to do acceptable DPS with right now, and as usual both Mage PvE specs are extremely simple, but it's difficult to put your finger on exactly one.

[Omegasupreme]

arcane mage isnt the hardest to play...
but as always there is a big difference between playing a class and playing a class well

[cata]

Not quite sure why people are saying Arcane Mage isn't viable. Personally I don't play a mage, but we have an Arcane Mage in our raid and he does great numbers. I hate to say l2p about a class I don't know much about... but Arcane is a very viable spec.
http://us.battle.net/wow/en/characte...gaway/advanced

OT: Elemental Shaman is pretty easy to play.

[Lurtex]

You're trying to say that's easier then an arcane mage? haha, guess you haven't played much.

AB x 50, Missles when proc, Evocate when out of mana, mana gem when out of mana.

Use mana gem when out of mana? You don't know anything about arcane mage.

[Deleted]

OT. As you probably figured out by now, most classes are easy to play in cataclysm.
But very few are hard to master with ease.

A few classes are easier than others to play [at least on a more basic level]. Might have missed some posts, but I think people so far mentioned blance druid, elemental shaman, enhancement shaman, mutilation rogue, combat rogue, fury warrior, arcane mage, fire mage, survival hunter, marksman hunter, shadow priest, frost deathknight - as having a rather easy priority system that make them easy to start out with (but even the listed classes are hard to master, mind you - just might have less stressful rotations and priority systems to start out with).

That would imply that this list of classes are a bit harder:
Holy Priest, Disc Priest, Resto Shaman, Resto Druid and Holy Paladins, aff Warlock, Destro Warlock, Demo Warlock, Frost Mage, Sublety Rogue, DPS Feral Druid, Beast Hunter, Arms Warrior, Retri Paladin and Unholy DK. Tank Feral Druid, Blood DK, Prot Paladin and Prot Warrior.

Of this short list I'd say some are harder than others. I'd say the following have a rather tricky rotation/prio system for beginners:
Holy Priest and Disc Priest, Resto Shaman, Resto Druid, Holy Paladin, Afflicion Warlock, Subtley Rogue, DPS Feral Druid and Retri Paladin

Dasani stated a few pages ago:

The only remotely challenging ones left would be DK tanking and feral DPS

Now I don't know about deathknight tanking - but Sublety Rogue have probably by far the most complex prio/rotation (cant even practice it solo as you depend on combo points from the raid to even keep rupture, recuperate and slice n dice running on a theoretical level). On top of that, they don't really deal any good damage in a PvE setting even if you master the spec.

DPS Feral Druid used to have a really complex system, they are much easier to get going now. Still not really "easy" as you have to manage cooldowns refresh durations and your main go-to attack have a position dependency.

Tanking in general is pretty easy/newbie friendly imo. It was more demanding being tank in vanilla/tbc.
Prot Warrior is probably the more demanding of the four.
Tank Feral Druid have a rather easy rotation/prio, but their AoE Threat suck right now which make them a bit frustrating to play in pugs (fixed in 4.1)

All healers are rather hard to start out with in cataclysm. But personally I think they almost get easier the more you progress (at least Holy Paladin, Resto Druid and Resto Shaman - dont have first hand experience healing with 85 priest yet).

And if you think DK tanking is easy, you aren't doing it right and I promise you're taking more damage than any other evenly geared tank of other class.

Same can be said about Paladin Tanking. Easy to play, but hard to master. For example, I don't see many paladin tanks that intentionally rotate both Judgement of Just debuff (20 sec single target debuff on judgement that reduce attackspeed by 20%) and Vindication debuff (30 sec single target debuff on CS/HotR that reduce physical damage done by 10%).

All classes/specs are very demanding to master.

[takolin]

Not at all. You can easily tank using only 3 buttons (CD excluded, but every tank has CD to watch for, so it doesn't count). I have tried 3 out of 4 tanks (still not have a druid) and can easily say that DK is the easiest.

That's a flawed logic and you know it.

A DK tank has far more CDs than lets say a warrior and are designed to juggle those CDs while DS'ing at appropiate times.

And with only 3 buttons, the boss won't have the required tank debuffs on him (encounter dependant obviously) which some tanks apply easier than others.

[Crazycab]

Really? You guys shouldn't even be thinking about this one. It's arcane mages hands down you can literally put arcane blast on every key bind and smash your head against the keyboard and get as much or even higher then other people in your party. Just roll your head to the other side of the keyboard for evocation.

[guil]

Definitely not warlocks. Alot of dots to track and cooldowns to hit.

[SilkforCalde]

Easiest by far:

Mage

Second easiest:

Paladin

Third easiest:

Rogue

---------- Post added 2011-04-14 at 09:31 PM ----------

Saw some people arguing about which tank is the easiest and which is the hardest. I've played all four.

Easiest - Paladin
Druid
Death Knight
Hardest - Warrior

[Dacien]

Mage in terms of rotation, You can't really pinpoint on the "best" dps. It can vary depending on environment and raid setup

Between keeping Living Bomb up, Critical Mass up, trying to nail a good Combustion with an Impact proc up to spread the dot, then doing Blastwave or Dragon's Breath, and casting Fireballs in between, I disagree.

Unless you meant Arcane Mages

[Keoren]

Between keeping Living Bomb up, Critical Mass up, trying to nail a good Combustion with an Impact proc up to spread the dot, then doing Blastwave or Dragon's Breath, and casting Fireballs in between, I disagree.

Unless you meant Arcane Mages

Actually fire is often easier than arcane as long as you're not playing with the threat cap on AoE. Arcane does get more forgiving with the Sinestra trinket though.

Both are really easy, all in all.

[MayronWoW]

Arcane mage or hunters

[Deleted]

Between keeping Living Bomb up, Critical Mass up, trying to nail a good Combustion with an Impact proc up to spread the dot, then doing Blastwave or Dragon's Breath, and casting Fireballs in between, I disagree.

Unless you meant Arcane Mages

Out of the classes I've tried spriest and mage is by far the easiest, least amount of spells used for dps'ing. Manaclasses are easier than resource classes since mana is easier to keep track of and you don't really run out of it. I mean as spriest you use 5-6 spells for dps'ing and no DPS cooldowns. Firemages use like pyro, fireball, living bomb and combustion for single target and scorch if you are really unlucky.

Most complex rotation is probably warlock. Havent tried feral though so can't comment on it.

[Shadoweye]

Makes me Lol every time

[crowpala]

Threads like this reminds me of the epic "what's he best hunter pet" vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhvvNGeHHME

I would say that all classes and spec are easy to play, but to master a dps class/spec is a nother story.

[Deleted]

Makes me Lol every time

Indeed, i laugh too and it's just.. it's genius.

And if you think DK tanking is easy, you aren't doing it right and I promise you're taking more damage than any other evenly geared tank of other class.

So if i feel like it's pretty easy to tank with my dk, i'm doing it wrong? Well.. luckily that's a matter of opinion, and i gotta say instantly, you can't know. I gotta keep my attention on the dk, yes, but i'm bored when i do it. That has nothing to do with it not being done right.


OT:
It's clearly arcane mages. Hell, i can sleep though a heroic and be 1st on the meter, avoiding everything included. That should not be possible, so.. yeah.

But other than that, i'd say hunter and boomkin. Survival hunter has become a little harder, but definately not hard enough when i can push 4 buttons rapidly and have myself 11k dps in half greenies/half NORMAL blues + 1-2 heroic pieces.

With boomkin, the rotation is slightly boring and easy, and the dps... therefore not earned at all. The only thing i find difficult about boomkins is thier looks, i can't look at them and take them seriously. :P

[Bakis]

Between keeping Living Bomb up, Critical Mass up, trying to nail a good Combustion with an Impact proc up to spread the dot, then doing Blastwave or Dragon's Breath, and casting Fireballs in between, I disagree.

Unless you meant Arcane Mages

Oh that seems very hard indeed..
Mages any spec is pisseasy. Mages is the entryclass for new players in terms of picking a caster for a reason.

I deleted my mage alt simply cos it was mindnumbingly boring and without any challange at all to dps WELL as one.
Things that add up to that is the survivability with shields, iceblock, 15s blink, no manaissues at all.
Mages are the most forgiving and easy caster there is. Are other casters that have it just as easy but with a shadow of mages survivability.

[Keoren]

no manaissues at all.

This is quite true at the moment even if in the beginning of the expansion fire was somewhat unforgiving with mana, but with the changes it is nearly impossible to oom. Frost is currently the only spec which is annoying with its mana, but luckily arcane blast is being changed slightly in 4.1 meaning you'll end up having to spend more time conserving your mana.

I'd still say that arcane is less easy to play perfectly than fire even if both are very, very forgiving. When it comes to spells unrelated to any spec, most notably blink and ice block can make the mage class extremely unchallenging on certain boss fights where another class might struggle.

It's hard to be the judge overall, not having played all the classes at the maximum level and some playstyles fit some people better, but back in WotLK I had even easier time on my enhancement/resto shaman than I had with my mage. Especially ICC was a heaven for melee.

[Deleted]

Easy-ish specs for beginners

• Fury Warrior
• Frost Dk
• Elemental Shaman
• Enhancement Shaman
• Survival Hunter
• Marksman Hunter
• Balance Druid
• Assassin Rogue
• Combat Rogue
• Arcane Mage
• Fire Mage
• Shadow Priest

Normal-ish specs to play for beginners

• Arms Warrior
• Prot Paladin
• Unholy Dk
• Blood Dk
• Beast Hunter
• Bear Druid
• Demo Warlock
• Destro Warlock
• Frost Mage

Hard-ish specs to play for beginners

• Prot Warrior
• Holy Paladin
• Retri Paladin
• Resto Shaman
• Resto Druid
• Cat Druid
• Subtlety Rogue
• Afflicion Warlock
• Holy Priest
• Disc Priest

Anyone disagree?

[nemex]

Closing. Forbidden Topic as well as nonsensical class bashing.