I've researched a bit for the past few weeks and I've reached a crossroad. I've narrowed down my class picks to rolling between Warrior or Mage. I really wanna make up my mind before launch because I hate rerolling, feels like a bit "waste of time" that I could be investing on a main character.

For context, I started playing WoW in BFA for 4 months as DPS (Mainly as DH, but I also leveled for a while a Warrior and a Mage, enjoyed both). I dont have the knowledge/experience of most players in Classic. And Im probably be playing solo most of the time, cause 2 of my friends said they were gonna play, but its not guaranteed and they dont know which classes or faction they are gonna roll (*EDIT: One of my friends said he is rolling a Rogue). Plus, there is a chance that they end up quitting the game after a couple of months. I would be playing something like 3 hours a day or so.

My main goals are: Reach lvl 60, find a guild to Raid and PVP (BGs).

Key Points (from what I read these past few weeks mixed with some of my preferences):
- Leveling: Mage is easy to solo lvl, Warriors is probably the hardest class to lvl (but gets easier with a pocket healer). Mage have more tools to escape if they get ganked, Warrior get kited around. Mages basically spam Frostbolt to kill mobs, easy but might get boring. Warrior have a more engaging skill rotation. However, "Stance Dance" looks kinda hard to learn properly, seems like it could take some time.
- Gearing: Mage is not gear dependant, Warriors are very gear dependant. Plus, competing with other classes for gear.
- Roles: Mage only DPS. Warrior can be both DPS and Tank (I dont care much for tanking and I wasnt that good when I tried it in BFA. I had to tank some Timewalking Dgs when I was farming for Water Strider Mount on my DH. I did that to speed up the queue and it was kinda bad tbh. I didnt know which skills to use, how to hold aggro, generate threat, the dungeons routes, etc... But anyway, I would learn how to Tank if this is really important and good for Warriors) There will be times that people are gonna pressure Warriors to tank in certain times.
- Time Invested: Warrior needs way more time invested than Mages to reach a satisfactory level.
- Raiding: Both Mage and Warrior are Top Tier DPS and Warrior is Top Tier Tank. As a Ranged Class, Mages have less mechanics to avoid than Warriors.
- Dungeons: Again, both are Top Tier. And Warriors can Tank on a DPS spec.
- Battlegrounds: Mages are quite good at it. Warriors are not that good, unless they got some backup healers. If they got heals, they destroy everyone.
- World PvP: Same as BGs.
- Duels: It seems like Mages got less counters than Warriors.
- Group Find: If you Tank as Warrior, you'll find groups very fast.
- Skill Kit: Mages got more utility and CC skills to deal with different scenarios (food, water, portals, ice barrier, blink, poly, nova). Warriors skills seems more like damage-wise or tank-wise, less utility.
- Farming Gold: Mages are probably the best class to farm gold due to AOE farming. Plus, mages can charge to provide food, water and portals.
- Repair Costs: Warriors have higher repair costs.
- Pre-Raid BIS: Gear is cheaper to Mages than Warriors.
- Health pool: Mages are squishier than Warriors.
- Skill Animations: Mages got more "flashy" skills, with ice and fire going everywhere, amazing. Warriors are more simple in that matter as a physical class.
- Armor looks: Mages can only wear Cloth and Warrior can wear Mail and Plate. (Cloth is kinda lame, Mail and Plate looks awesome).
- Weapons: Mages got wands and staves. Warriors can roll with everything but wands. (I really prefer to roll with a big ass sword or dual wielding some badass axes than a tree branch lol)
- Races: Warriors got more Races avaiable (I really like Orcs, Tauren, Humans for Warriors. For Mage I would go Gnome or Undead. I prefer Warrior races tbh).
- Macros: Warriors seem to have more Macros to be setup comparing to Mages.

Which class do you think I should pick? And Why?

EDIT: One of my friends said he is rolling a Rogue.

In the end it comes down to what you want to do, tank or DPS.
If you want to tank, Warrior is it and for DPS mage is a winner to me, not that warriors are bad DPS but as far as I know Warriors require a huge time investment and gear to get rolling while mages not so much so.
As you said you have 3 hours or so a day and mostly solo so a mage would make everything a lot easier for you, it’s powerful with low downtime and the ability to AoE farm.

Warriors are in its own tier of terrible to level solo without a healer to follow it around.

I’d say mage based on those factors alone but what do I know :P

Echoing Tec here, but since you don't seem to think your friends are sticking around, warrior will be tough. Not wanting to tank also may hurt your grouping opportunities, as melee dps are prevalent.

You put up a lot of the points to not play a warrior yourself, and a lot more reasons to play mage. You sound like you're trying to convince yourself to play mage, but would rather play warrior?
It depends on how hard you're willing to work. 3 hours a day on a warrior won't get you very far, but if you don't care about reaching 60 or reaching it quickly, then you can have plenty of fun as a warrior.
Otherwise if you just want to play casually mage is the way to go for you.

snickerwicket wrote: ↑

5 years ago

You put up a lot of the points to not play a warrior yourself, and a lot more reasons to play mage. You sound like you're trying to convince yourself to play mage, but would rather play warrior?
It depends on how hard you're willing to work. 3 hours a day on a warrior won't get you very far, but if you don't care about reaching 60 or reaching it quickly, then you can have plenty of fun as a warrior.
Otherwise if you just want to play casually mage is the way to go for you.

The class fantasy of the Warrior appeals more to me. But I feel like mage would be a better fit to my time avaiable.
If I go Warrior, there is a chance I could end up rerolling because I could get discouraged from all struggle related to leveling, gearing, farming, being facerolled on PvP.
And if I go Mage, there is a chance you could end up rerolling because I could get discouraged from playing a Class/Race that doesnt feel like the best class fantasy fit for me.
Its not that I dont like X or Y, its just a matter of trade-off.

I mean, you could always start with the warrior which you prefer for the fantasy and roll a mage later or vice versa.

You pretty much know your preferred fantasy class takes more effort in pretty much all aspects and you might enjoy it more for that once you start getting the powerful upgrades.

Or you can go with the simpler more straight forward pick which more suits your time and grouping situation.

I don’t think there is a answer here that we can give you, but something you need to figure out as you seem to have the benefits and negatives going already.

If warrior speaks to you, by all means go warrior! Nothing insurmountable about it, but levelling may take you a bit longer. It's not going to be so punishing that you can't play and level up, and the gearing process, class depth, and skill ceiling are certainly there.

Zanthir wrote: ↑

5 years ago

If warrior speaks to you, by all means go warrior! Nothing insurmountable about it, but levelling may take you a bit longer. It's not going to be so punishing that you can't play and level up, and the gearing process, class depth, and skill ceiling are certainly there.

This is the answer. If you pick an optimized class/race but don't like it, you won't play it or will not like it as much as playing the class/race you really want to play.
The best solution for this sort of thing is also a good strategy for leveling in general, make your main, play it for a bit, then make and alt. Be sure to leave them in inns/cities for rested experience, and play whichever one has rested experience at the time! Or just play whichever you want while your alt continues to gain rested xp.

If I could, I'd change my vote to warrior.

Zanthir wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Nothing insurmountable about it

Holy shit, I had to google that word. lol
Yeah, a lot of ppl say its harder to roll warrior but at the same time the reward is way higher too. The feeling of accomplishment is different, right?

snickerwicket wrote: ↑

5 years ago

make your main, play it for a bit, then make and alt

I get 100% what you're saying. And I agree that is a good solution. Rolling both would get the best of both worlds, I wouldnt burn out too. However, lvling alts feels like I am “losing time” that I could be investing on my main. You know? Especially in Classic, that seems like every second counts.

NinjaBomb wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I get 100% what you're saying. And I agree that is a good solution. Rolling both would get the best of both worlds, I wouldnt burn out too. However, lvling alts feels like I am “losing time” that I could be investing on my main. You know? Especially in Classic, that seems like every second counts.

I'd say as far as your time goes it depends on your goal. Do you intend to run with the big dogs becoming a mainstay in endgame raiding? Then yea, what you do and how long it takes is important. If you're going to be casual, especially about endgame content, then go slow and smell the roses! A lot of people say this and it's true, Classic is a marathon and not a sprint.

Also the rested experience makes it so that the time you do spend on your main is used more efficiently. As far as World of Warcraft in general goes, I wouldn't say that playing an alt is losing time, provided you're okay with reading quest text, exploring the world, and making your own goals.

Looking at the time you being playing wow, I suggest mage. Warrior is super slow pacing for everything as you already know, unless you want to tank. Mage will be better for you imo. The only down for mage is that you need to drink (mana) half the time you are playing, but you can make food, so it's fine.

snickerwicket wrote: ↑

5 years ago

I'd say as far as your time goes it depends on your goal. Do you intend to run with the big dogs becoming a mainstay in endgame raiding? Then yea, what you do and how long it takes is important. If you're going to be casual, especially about endgame content, then go slow and smell the roses! A lot of people say this and it's true, Classic is a marathon and not a sprint.

I got you. At the same time that I'll be playing like 3h a day (I believe this would be semi-casual?), Im also into trying to min-max some stuff. For example, if I roll Mage Alliance I'll definitely roll Gnome for Racials and Undead for Horde. I try to balance both fun and efficiency. Idk if 3 hours a day will let me roll with the "big dogs", probably not. Plus, I dont have much experience, like I said.. 4 months of BFA, Im a noob lets be honest here lol. But I would like to learn the game and be good at it, because right now it seems like the best option at MMORPG, and its my favorite game genre.

yugen wrote: ↑

5 years ago

unless you want to tank

Do you guys feel like will there still be a Tank shortage this time, compared to Vanilla?

NinjaBomb wrote: ↑

5 years ago

yugen wrote: ↑

5 years ago

unless you want to tank

Do you guys feel like will there still be a Tank shortage this time, compared to Vanilla?

I would be surprised if a tank would have a hard time finding groups, mainly because leveling tank spec is a slow go of it.

what about melee leeway and spell batching, are they gonna have a big impact on the meta?

If you were down to levelling both to 60 then you could funnel gold from your mage to warrior. Mage is very good at farming and I think it would save you lot of time in the long run. Just something to consider.

Also if you are aiming for raiding as well as pvp, mage might be a lot of fun in the pvp aspect as the gameplay is much more engaging then in raiding.

If you have to ask if you should play a warrior, you probably shouldnt. It is a special kind of pain.

He doesn't know yet whether he would enjoy the pain or not :D

Make a Mage and slowly level up the Warrior afterwards. I doubt that you will stick only to 1 character anyway.

Heya @NinjaBomb,

from reading the thread, I gather that you really want to play a warrior, but are skeptical it might come at a high cost or discourage you along the way.

Since you pretty much know the pros and cons, I'll address only this: time to level up & whether that is a bad thing.

• Being a newbie to Classic, but not to WoW overall, as you said yourself, leveling said warrior to 60 will probably take you somewhere between 7 and 9 days of /played time, depending on your play-style. On your 3h/day budget, that's somewhere between 8 and 10 weeks.
• Rolling a mage with the same constants will likely result in 6 to 8 days /played, the result being around 7 to 9 weeks.
• These numbers are assuming you are neither using a guide, nor running around aimlessly.

Personally, a week or two of difference don't feel like much when it will probably take you around 2 months anyway. I'd probably be more likely to quit a class that I chose for efficiency than one that I chose for preference.

Also please consider this, my plea to all newbies coming to Classic:
If you have never played Classic WoW before, let me tell you that leveling time can be quality time, even as a warrior. The long journey to level cap is when you meet other players out in the open, have adventures together, /f add, get ganked and abandoned, /f remove, get revenge together, join a guild, have epic fun in dungeons, suffer ninja looters, /ignore, get to know each other as you wait for a quest/rare mob respawns, ponder over life in Azeroth as you escort Tooga across Tanaris, maybe you come across a group of people helping a hunter tame a rare pet, maybe you stand and cheer with a crowd watching duels in Gadgetzan, maybe you want to start fishing a little because you saw someone leveling transformed by Savory Deviate Delight; the world is your oyster and you have all the time in the world. At least that is the experience I would want to have, if I played again for the very first time.

If you go after the pros and cons list you made, Mage obviously comes out at the top.

It's personal preference, we can't make the decision for you.

Warriors aren't as bad at levelling as people make them out to be. Personally I think Warriors are better levellers than Rogues, Shaman and Paladins because of Sweeping Strikes, Whirlwind and Cleave. Can't compare to the ease of levelling a Mage though.

Warriors endgame aren't meant to be solo. Warriors are really squishy. Sure Warriors have Plate but they also have terrible mobility. Once you get in combat you'll find it difficult to get out of combat, it'll basically be a damage race to see who can kill who the fastest. Compare that to the toolkit of Mages. Mages are definitely the hardest to kill of all DPS classes in PvP (Warlocks are tankier but also have no mobility so it's not that hard to kill them if they get out of position). Ice Barrier, Mana Shield, Ice Block, Blink, Polymorph, some slows and Frost Nova. Skilled mages are extremely hard to kill and I think you really underestimate the survivability of Mages.

morbidmike wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Warriors aren't as bad at levelling as people make them out to be. Personally I think Warriors are better levellers than Rogues, Shaman and Paladins because of Sweeping Strikes, Whirlwind and Cleave. Can't compare to the ease of levelling a Mage though.

Warriors are the worst class to level. For many many many reasons. But lets directly compare a rogue and a warrior. The rogue and warrior have similar kill capacity and downtime. So why is warrior worse? Warrior has major cooldowns, cooldowns that can still fail to keep it alive in a pinch. The rogue? The rogue has TONS of minor cooldowns, each have a way to stall a fight, to avoid a fight or to simply reset the fight. The rogue also has stealth. Stealth allows the rogue to avoid a lot of mobs and work around mobs to an objective, saving valuable minutes while leveling. In PvP, the rogue performs FAR better in low level PvP than a warrior does and requires less gear to be lethal. The rogue can also rez and stealth to avoid being camped by players.

In most circumstances where a warrior will need to flee, he must hamstring/piercing howl the mob/mobs and try to reset the fight. This is their escape plan. In most PvP engagements, they will lose against equally skilled players. Rogue has stealth, he can choose his PvP encounters. In PvE he has gouge, sprint, blind, sap, kidney+run, vanish, crip posion - SO many options to prevent death.

I always think its funny when people try to downplay the difficulty of leveling a warrior... No one here is saying that leveling a warrior is equivalent to darksouls, but it is unarguably the worst class to level. In contrast to every other class in WoW, warrior is the worst, to say otherwise is a bit silly.

Stfuppercut wrote: ↑

5 years ago

Warriors are the worst class to level. ...
I always think its funny when people try to downplay the difficulty of leveling a warrior... No one here is saying that leveling a warrior is equivalent to darksouls, but it is unarguably the worst class to level. In contrast to every other class in WoW, warrior is the worst, to say otherwise is a bit silly.

I've levelled 3 Rogues 1-60 and 2 Warriors (on 1x realms obviously). My /played record with Rogue is 5 days 23 hours, my /played record with Warrior is 5 days 9 hours.
The reason is simple, Warriors have a way better kill speed if you take Sweeping Strikes @ 30 and know how to manage rage. As a Rogue you're stuck damaging 1 mob at a time whenever Blade Furry is on cooldown. As a Warrior you can kill 2 mobs at the same time every second pull. And the best thing is when you're killing those 2 mobs you're killing them faster than you would kill 1 mob because you get more rage (from 2 mobs hitting you) and more damage (from Sweeping Strikes + Cleave/Whirlwind additional hits).
Problem is people try to go and quest with a Warrior. Warriors suck at questing. Ditch questing @ level 30 (Sweeping Strikes). Just find a place with melee mobs with low armor, preferably with decent mob density that allow for easy 2 mob pulls, and grind your way to 60.

Pick mage, go frost, and watch other warriors succumb to your frigid snares and gloat!