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Choosing a Class in World of Warcraft

Hi everyone,

Sooo, I'm thinking of possibly playing World of Warcraft for the first time ever and, needless to say, I'm a little overwhelmed by all the information out there.

Right now, I'm trying to choose a class and there's obviously a lot of options, but I've narrowed down my interests to a druid, paladin, or priest.

Does anybody have any experience with any of them?

Thank you in advance!
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
I've played paladins and druids pretty much since the game was released and I'd say they're both good options.

One other thing that's worth considering is the look of your character - what race you're playing. You'll potentially be spending a lot of time with it and how you perceive your character is quite important. Check what races are available to the characters.
For example, worgens and night elfs can't be paladins, but they can't be druids. Humans and dwarves and draenei can be paladins, but can't be druids. Among the horde it's a bit different.
 

Khama

Scribe
GRANTED, I have not played since Cataclysm. But I've experience with both the Druid class and Priest.

First off the question is at the start what do you want to be? DPS? Tank? Healer? If you want to be a healer you have three options. Disc. Priest, Holy Priest, or Restro Druid, and of course Holy Paladin. Now I'm not sure how Holy Paladins have been shaping up, but I know that Blizzard essentially screwed over Restro Druids. Thus, I would suggest not maining that spec for the long run(They may have fixed them.).

Which honestly besides potentially a Holy Paladin leaves Disc. Priest, or Holy Priest. The key difference between them both is that Disc is for focus healing, and Holy is for AoE healing. Thus choose either of which you want in that regard, and at the higher levels you could just switch between them. Funny enough, as a Disc. Priest I took on 2 Shamans by myself. Bubble, deal damage, and heal was essentially the rotation. Worked quite well, and neither of the Shamans was bad at PvP. Though, one was like 2-3 levels below the other and I.

Now, when we are speaking of DPS I know Pallies are decent(may be wrong) at dealing damage. But you also have the Shadow Priest which is not that bad. I did a little bit of Shadow Priest PvP/PvE and it was decently good. Though, my main for PvP/PvE for a long time was the good ol' fashion Druid.

I remember the days where Feral was a single talent line. Anyways, for DPS you have two options with the Druid. Balance and then Feral(Cat). Balance and Feral cat are both quite good at their job. On average (last I checked) you will find that Balance will give you more DPS overall compared to Feral cat, however if you get good enough with Feral cat you can do as much as a Balance druid. From there its just a matter of which play style you like.

Now, we move on to tanking. Which I think Prot. Pallies are good at, again not 100% sure. But the other option would be rolling a Druid. Which then you would take the spec. Feral Bear. Which is absolutely AMAZING when it comes to tanking. By far one of my favorite specs. Which is why I loved it so much when the feral trees were combined. You had an unstoppable machine right there, where you could deal damage in cat, and if you took to much you just shift forms. Then while in bear form you just insta-heal yourself via rage. And in 1v1 PvP barkskine, cyclone, and then healing had been good for last resort.

Anyways, these are just my personal experiences with these different classes. I've seen all of them played quite well, but in the end each spec. is geared towards certain things. And certain classes/specs can not excel compared to others as easy. Then of course there is blizzard who can accidentally break a class for good or bad.

To reiterate, the last time I have played World of Warcraft was Cataclysm. And as Svrtesse said take the time to choose your race, as well. Best to be visually pleasing several months down the road!

~Former WoW player of 7-8 years
 

sankunai

Scribe
Hi everyone,

Sooo, I'm thinking of possibly playing World of Warcraft for the first time ever and, needless to say, I'm a little overwhelmed by all the information out there.

Right now, I'm trying to choose a class and there's obviously a lot of options, but I've narrowed down my interests to a druid, paladin, or priest.

Does anybody have any experience with any of them?

Thank you in advance!

My main character when I play is almost always the priest. It's just awesome to stand back and make sure the group stays alive. As for the gameplay, think of a mage with heals. You can go discipline or shadow for leveling, that way you'll do enough damage to kill the mobs quickly and still have some emergency heals, and at level 30 you can select dual-spec. (I think it's 30 now).

With dual-spec, you can activate a heal only spec where you can queue for dungeons and heal em' up, using awesome spells. Go priest! :D
 

Khama

Scribe
My main character when I play is almost always the priest. It's just awesome to stand back and make sure the group stays alive. As for the gameplay, think of a mage with heals. You can go discipline or shadow for leveling, that way you'll do enough damage to kill the mobs quickly and still have some emergency heals, and at level 30 you can select dual-spec. (I think it's 30 now).

With dual-spec, you can activate a heal only spec where you can queue for dungeons and heal em' up, using awesome spells. Go priest! :D

Eh, wouldn't say a Mage with heals. Mages are from what I've seen more about locking your target down, and then bursting them all the while staying out of range. For a Priest, at-least a disc one that doesn't exactly matter at-least in 1v1s. You bubble, use a couple of your CCs, heal yourself. All in all you don't really need to move as much. They're quite different play styles, even when looking at the bare mechanics.
 

sankunai

Scribe
Eh, wouldn't say a Mage with heals. Mages are from what I've seen more about locking your target down, and then bursting them all the while staying out of range. For a Priest, at-least a disc one that doesn't exactly matter at-least in 1v1s. You bubble, use a couple of your CCs, heal yourself. All in all you don't really need to move as much. They're quite different play styles, even when looking at the bare mechanics.

Not really. I've played both, and they are very similar, the main difference being the mage can't heal himself. (Well, I haven't really played the Panda expansion much so I don't know if they gave the mages a self-heal). Usually a mage will take the target down before it even reached him, while a priest may get hit a few times, but the shield keeps him alive long enough that it doesn't matter. I guess the play style would be different in the end. Mages have to utilize a lot more CC abilities.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
One thing to keep in mind here is that World of Warcraft is an immense beast of a game and that getting into it can seem rather overwhelming at times.

If you're just starting out you may be more interested in knowing things like "what's inside this cave" or "why did the world suddenly turn into shades of grey and why can't I attack anything" - than which class/race combo best utilizes cooldowns and CC in high ranking arena PvP.

It's something that is really easy to forget if you've been playing the game for 10 years straight (yes, I have). One eye opener was something that happened to me a few years back. I've gotten a friend to join and play, but after a while she started to complain that it was boring and that she didn't do any damage with her spell. I tried all kinds of suggestions to come up with a solution, like making sure she cast as soon as it was on cooldown and that she used the right rotation and all that.
In the end, it turned out she'd never been visiting her class trainer and never bought any spells other than the one she started with (this was quite long ago).

So, really, if you're just starting out, my recommendation would be to just focus on what seems fun and what looks cool, rather than on which class performs best in certain situations.

As an aside, current theorycrafting indicates that boomkin is the on-paper best dps spec at the moment. That'll probably change soon though. ;)
 

Khama

Scribe
One thing to keep in mind here is that World of Warcraft is an immense beast of a game and that getting into it can seem rather overwhelming at times.

If you're just starting out you may be more interested in knowing things like "what's inside this cave" or "why did the world suddenly turn into shades of grey and why can't I attack anything" - than which class/race combo best utilizes cooldowns and CC in high ranking arena PvP.

It's something that is really easy to forget if you've been playing the game for 10 years straight (yes, I have). One eye opener was something that happened to me a few years back. I've gotten a friend to join and play, but after a while she started to complain that it was boring and that she didn't do any damage with her spell. I tried all kinds of suggestions to come up with a solution, like making sure she cast as soon as it was on cooldown and that she used the right rotation and all that.
In the end, it turned out she'd never been visiting her class trainer and never bought any spells other than the one she started with (this was quite long ago).

So, really, if you're just starting out, my recommendation would be to just focus on what seems fun and what looks cool, rather than on which class performs best in certain situations.

As an aside, current theorycrafting indicates that boomkin is the on-paper best dps spec at the moment. That'll probably change soon though. ;)

You should at-least go with a class that seems appealing. I know I made that mistake. Made a Gnome Warrior, then at level 10 didn't like it and went a Night Elf Hunter.

But I know whatcha mean! I remember when I first started playing (Granted was like 9) I had got lost. Was trying to get back to Dun Morogh after having gone to Stromwind. Took me hours for me and a friend to find our way back, but was one hell of an adventure!
 

ascanius

Inkling
Don't remind me, lol. You're making me want to resubscribe and go make a new night elf :D

ha good times. I remember jumping around the branches and falling off into the ocean on the opposite side of the island and ended up swimming for what seemed like forever to reach the dock. From what I read about the most recent patch notes I'm not enthusiastic about renewing my subscription.

As for what class to choose keep in mind what you want to do, right now end game is the game. It's easier to get into raids if your a tank or healer, dps is a dime a dozen last I played. Also some classes are easier to play good others are hard to play well. I've played, elemental shammy, warrior, dk, ret pally, and MM hunter. Hunters have a bad rap mostly because the vast majority of players don't know how to play it well. Its really easy to find crappy hunters but hard to find players who can play that class well. When you know how to play the hunter class it's loads of fun and never boring. For me the other classes were never as engaging and too simple. Though a lot of time, especially arena and BG, the odds are stacked against you but it makes it that much more enjoyable to be in the top five in bg. Though from what I have read about the most recent patch we got nerfed, again, and they made the hunter rotation boring to play.
 

Svrtnsse

Staff
Article Team
As for what class to choose keep in mind what you want to do, right now end game is the game

If you're an experienced player, this is true, but if you're just starting out, it's a concept that's a bit tricky to grasp. If you're logging in for the first time and haven't ever played before, exploring the world, leveling up and doing quests is what it's all about, and it can be quite fun.
It's also worth keeping in mind that you can only do something for the first time once, so take your time with the leveling. It's much too nice an experience to be ruined by stressing over an endgame you don't really know anything about.
 
lol@fell of teldrassil, I remember the time I almost fell of teldrassil and the first time I fell off the Outlands... BTW, I am liatun on Emerald Dream, I think it's Emerald Dream, but it's been a while. I've been thinking of grabbing WoD though, so add me if you all like.
 
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