So you watched every class guide video. Read every forum thread. Created 3 "Help me decide my class" posts on reddit, to the joy of that community. Created spreadsheets. Quit your job to research classic wow classes full time. Hired a lab assistant. Etc. But after a year of research, you're still unsure what to play. You're not alone.

The truth is, Classic Wow is a genius artifact created by alien gods. It's perfectly designed so that every class is perfectly appealing, and it's impossible to make the objectively correct class choice. However, I have good news. There is an objectively correct class choice for each individual person, based on their playstyle. Last night, Necro of Grobbulus got inebriated and spammed friends in Slack with an unsolicited, comprehensive, class selection guide. He was told to shutup and go to bed, so some classes got only a cursory review. But by the end of this, you will know what to play. Enjoy!

Intro

For class selection, I start by identifying the area of the game you enjoy the most, which will be the thing you use your class for for the majority of days play time over the next 2+ years

Example 2 year playstyle analysis

• Raiding I will probably raid roughly ~0 hours over the next 2 years, because I rather die than spend time in raids.
• Grinding It'll take me about 80 productive hours to get to Level 40 and then another 120 productive hours to go from 40 to 60. Roughly 200 hours.
• Battlegrounds I'll do it now and then, but likely only 1 hour a week on average, which is roughly 100 hours over 2 years.
• World PVP I'll do it throughout leveling 30% of the time (roughly 60 hours), I'll do it at 60 80% of the time. Over 1250 hours. (((365*2)-100)*2)

Warrior

Overall, warrior is fun. It feels good. Two things stand out for me. [1] You're playing a different game; you're ragefacing. Like, mage requires some finesse; it's like dancing. Rogue is like artful murder. Warlock is like 4d chess. Warrior almost feels like you're ignoring the game rules and just pushing pedal to metal on physical raaaaage. COME HERE. HIT. DIE. RAAAHHHHH. The other thing that stands out is [2] weapons. I thought about weapons a lot. It makes a big difference. They're like your spells. They're your signature. They effect how cool you feel, how effective you are.

Solo world pvp for warrior requires careful positioning. Even in a lower level zone trying to gank, you're limited in what chaos you can cause. You have to worry about guards more. You require melee range to fight, you require melee range to snare, you don't have escape options, you don't have heals. In solo wpvp, you feel like a warrior that had experienced too much trauma and has just SNAPPED and is BERKSERKING. You can mess up unsuspecting single targets. But, going back to the class fantasy/feel, you're a petal to the medal wrecking ball. That means you can only get so clever. If the world throws a bit more than you can take at you, you die a warrior's death.

Southshore style large scale world pvp In world pvp, if you get a healer to attach on to you, you become your final form. You become 2x what you were moments ago. And you just mess stuff up. Too bad taunt doesn't work against players. My experience at 60 in group world pvp and BGs as warrior for me personally was not fun. The opposing sides cluster up, and characters in the deadzone in the middle get wrecked. "Warriors charge than flee, poor poor melee". I just couldn't make it work for my play style, which is a very 'off roaming the world looking for trouble' playstyle.

Priest

Overall, priest is weird. Class fantasy wise, you're, in major part, THE stereotypical cleric class. But the third dimension of this class is polar opposite to the other two dimensions. That's why priest is weird. Because if you're after a do-good holy jesus class, you found it, but you also found satan himself. And yes, shadow priest is the pure evil of wow, not warlock. I mean, firstly, appearances; nothing is more horrifying than seeing a character that is literally a levitating shadow, just hovering there. No fire, no demon helper. You can't hit him, you can't dot him, if you get close, you're immediately feared, he takes away your magic effects, he takes your mana and burns it to hurt you, he silences you, he controls your mind, and for every damage you take, he is healed. Wicked. That's wow's cleric. Weird!

Solo world pvp for shadow priest is, at least on paper for me, deceptively good. Levitate is key. It means you're the master of mountains and water. They both become both escape paths and ways to cheese-kill (mind control). In world pvp, cheese-kill is the best kill. Levitate alone gives you incredible mobility near shores and high ledges. Inner fire and shadow form make you pretty beefy against melee attacks; maybe somewhere between leather and mail? Add power world shield and heals from vampiric embrace, and you're able to just stand there absorbing hits in 1on1, saving fear as a panic button if the situation becomes 1v2. I feel like the class just needs to really use it's environment. Without water or mountain, AOE fear is the only oh crap button, although you can dispel some roots that are on you. I think you're at your best when you're hunting down single targets, and using your environment to escape as needed. Mind control is an incredibly fun spell, especially when trolling players in a town.

Southshore style large scale world pvp I dunno, I'm getting tired, but you're a ranged class, so, you can sit back and dispel folks, heal folks, etc. You can mana burn the edge of the enemy line for funsies. Just burn up all those batteries. It's fun! Cast rank 1 pain on enemy dispelers just as an FU. AOE fear some overzealous melee dudes. I dunno. Seems you're at your best dispeling and healing, which is a nice change of pace from solo world pvp hunting.

Warlock

Warlock is like the goths back in middle school. They really look the part. They even have a scantly clad kinda ugly kinda hot girl following them around. They have a wiccan book in their offhand, they seem pretty badazz. But then crap goes down, they just flip out a bic lighter and try to burn you, then cut their wrists yelling lifetap while trying to cast fear and you kick 'em to interrupt that sheeit. Idk, warlocks can be gods, it's true. But like, farming shards is a thing. It's not just that it takes up bag space, which is annoying. But you gotta farm them. Not until you're 60. Like, forever. And, coming back from the dead is rough. Summon pet is expensive. And the pet isn't something extra; it's an extension of you. Like, a warlock without his pet is not at 100%. So you need your pet. So you re-summon, then drink. Meh? But looking past these 2 things, they can dish out both burst and dot, mana isn't often an issue, and they're funky fun. If you're in a fight you can't win, you're reliant on deathcoil/fears and charm if you have suc out. Not enough usually to avoid dying when in a losing situation I don't think? SL is scary but I think I prefer +15%DMG, -15% melee damage non-dispellable over +3% DMG, -30% damage overall. for general wpvp? Math aside, omg shadow form looks so scary tho! I like lock, but it feels like a clunky class; I just mean, the soulshards, the pet management, the time it takes to get back on your feet after death. Just feels a bit chubby goth to me

Mage

I'm personally not considering Mage because I'm not into the class fantasy of using raw magic (arcane) to form extreme elements fire and ice to damage foes; of using intellect to glitch around (blink) and to control the enemy movement while firing direct damage or massive damage to multiple enemies in an area of you choosing. It's like, the class that takes raw intellect to the fantastical extreme that he's exploiting physics, and doing it in a very directed, direct manner while himself being very defensive and avoidant. I prefer a class that taps into a mysterious, horrifyingly powerful force from beyond, not one that manipulates the nature of our physical world. I prefer a class that stands there being hit, but yet his heal bar rises. A class that can use your mana to harm yourself! A class that basically curses and deseases you, then just watches you die off muhaha. Priest can be such a sinister troll, and that's why I love him. The mage, sure he's breaking the rules of physics, but he's putting in the hard work, he's putting in those cast time seconds and getting the expected damage reward right back. An honest, hard working caster. Well to the mage I say, FAK OFF NERD IMMA SILENCE N' FEAR MANA BURN UR AZZ

Paladin

Paladin is lame

Druid

Druid is the class that I lose the most sleep over. First, limited race choice. Again, class fantasy, as in, kinda sorta getting immersed in the game world and becoming connected to your character — you’re either a dork elf, a hot girl elf, or a cow. For horde bois, you’re a cow. Some folks like being cow. Some folks don’t. But that’s day 0; you’re a cow. That okay? Next, you’re not just a cow, well sometimes you are, sometimes you’re a bear or a cat. Theres 2 important things here you have to take a moment to really absorb. First, you’re always an animal. Second, you don’t feel like you’re a Druid. You feel like you’re at all times one-third a Druid. Does that make sense? You never feel whole. You feel like you’re auto-multiboxing 3 gimped chars, but only control one at a time. You don’t have a real Rez; just the long cooldown one which sucks. Your abilities are cool though: Root is cool, tho only usable outdoors. Stealth is best ability in game. HoT is cool. You have grade B melee activated DoTs. You can escape almost any fight and few can escape you.. outdoors. It’s such a master of none class. On one hand, you get the most fun mix of abilities, like stealth and heal and travel form, but those abilities belong to 3 different subclasses, you’re never playing a Druid, you’re always taking turns playing one third a Druid, and on the whole all this is accompanied by an equal, or perhaps sadly a more than equal, mix of sadness to balance that bundle of fun mix of abilities out.

Rogue

Rogue is designed to kill players in world pvp, if you ask me. I imagine myself as rogue hanging in ironforge, picking off gnomes who wander too far from guards. A few reasons this classes give me pause though: [1] When it comes to southshore style world pvp, he’s just creeping around in stealth, and as a melee dps that doesn’t augment his allies, he can’t do a whole lot, and he’s quite vulnerable near the opposing army front line. He can sneak around the side or back, but rogues aren’t at their best facing a cluster of foes, mages are, the rogue is better off just getting the f away from the heat of the battle so he can go back to assassination like he should be doing. [2] I feel like, they’re masters of gank, not masters of wpvp. I say this because they’re mobility and escapeability is not bad but not A+, and because melee they can be kited. And really, master of gank is, idk, it can feel hollow over time.

Hunter

World pvp class, with Druid perhaps it’s equal for that title. Hunter is appealing to me because of that. Best range in game, with a long range pet to boot. Viper sting for days. Tim is telling me to go to bed. K night guys.

Shaman

Much good, many totems

10/10 would recommend, awesome last minute panic guide.

shako154 wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Paladin is lame

Yes, burn them.

Dealing with seeing less than 5 hours left to Classic's release.

Step 1: PANIC!

Step 2: Stop crying and read Necro's Last Minute Class Picking Guide