Blizzard announced "Classic" World of Warcraft

[Maculo]

It depends on what we consider OP. Paladins have the potential to top healing meters due to Judgement of Light, but I'd say all healers have that potential and who exactly is on top depends on luck, JoL is just the easiest way to get there. Is that OP? I wouldn't say so, especially in the context of PvE and what the spell actually does, i.e. small sustained healing for the majority of the raid. Prot and Retri are underpowered if anything. As for the plate part, you'll only be wearing plate in Naxx as a healer, everything else is a combination of stuff, mostly cloth, due to the bad plate itemization.

In vanilla, I think a distinction exists between what is OP and what is just a necessary role. While I would not label Paladins OP, I would argue that the class is borderline necessary for group content, whether that be PVE or PVP content. "Necessary" in the sense that it would be foolish not to bring at least one paladin, because Blessing of Wisdom, Blessing of Kings, Blessing of Freedom, etc. can provide such a huge boost. The fact that Paladins can heal efficiently is just icing on the cake imo.

As for my point about plate, I was thinking more so about PVP survivability. In retrospect, I imagine many Paladins still had to bring cloth sets in PVP, which nullifies that point.

 

[Ninjerk]

There's a guy named Skarm that apparently has tanked every raid boss on overtuned private servers with some kind of consistency with exception to Maexxna (because of stun+enrage) and maybe a half-dozen others.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Actually, you wear plate for healing in pvp, if i remember correctly. And i mean you take pve raid gear to pvp, where it becomes actually useful. Both the Lightforge and Lawbringer sets have healing bonuses on them, and the extra stamina and armor is actually useful in pvp even as a healer, more so than maximizing healing stats since surviving longer to give that extra healing is better than having powerful healing while dying quickly. Once you factor Divine Shield holy pallys can make for some really obnoxious healers in pvp. Can't kill them, can't allow them to run around with impunity.

 

[Lacrymas]

Druids are basically Priests' bitches in vanilla. The moment Priests shout mana low. You quickly click on said Priest and click on Innervate like a good boy.

This is a bit of a misconception, especially with 1.12 talents. While generally yes, druids are "worse" than priests, that's only because of mana issues and the huge mana cost of regrowth, if you are, say, the guild leader and have a dedicated team of shamans constantly feeding you mana tide totems, you don't have to innervate any priests, you'll use it on yourself (along with chaining mana pots and demonic runes). Then you top meters like nobody's business because hots are surprisingly good at that.

That's an extreme case, obviously, but it does happen, my guild leader was exactly like this, it was really annoying and he only used mana tides for himself. And *even then*, he wasn't always the top healer in fights and at one point after AQ came out, he couldn't compete with paladins (due to JoL).

 

[Lyric Suite]

Druids are "worse" in the sense they have slower healing spells than both priests and paladins, so you'll always lose out to them in a direct competition, which says nothing of the overall value of druid healing because while slow, they are very mana efficient, which is one of the reasons your innervate goes to the priest instead of yourself, because you don't actually need it as much. You are essentially a support healer. The priests and paladins will take care of all the "ho shit" moments while druids will just try to keep the whole raid healthy and innervate whoever is assigned to heal the tank.

 

[cw8]

This is a bit of a misconception, especially with 1.12 talents. While generally yes, druids are "worse" than priests, that's only because of mana issues and the huge mana cost of regrowth, if you are, say, the guild leader and have a dedicated team of shamans constantly feeding you mana tide totems, you don't have to innervate any priests, you'll use it on yourself (along with chaining mana pots and demonic runes). Then you top meters like nobody's business because hots are surprisingly good at that.

That's an extreme case, obviously, but it does happen, my guild leader was exactly like this, it was really annoying and he only used mana tides for himself. And *even then*, he wasn't always the top healer in fights and at one point after AQ came out, he couldn't compete with paladins (due to JoL).

I healed in all raids from Onyxia till Naxx (which we didn't clear). Most guilds will want a Resto Druid who can Innervate Priests. It's something I really hate. Your only spec viable for raids is pretty much Resto, most guilds won't bother taking in non-Resto Druids for raids. I'm in a local guild with some real-life friends, and they tolerated me not having Innervate for half the time. I was mostly Balance for the mp5 and half Resto till Nature's Swiftness iirc. I rmb that I loved stacking mp5 gear before putting MC on farm for those non-resistance fights. I could heal non-stop even without Innervate. We didn't use max ranked heals in vanilla. Most don't. I don't use Regrowth either. Mostly Rejuvenation and lower ranked Healing Touch, mostly HT4 or HT5. My hotkeys are all lower ranked heals. Emergency heal is the NS-HT macro, basically an instant heal.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Your only spec viable for raids is pretty much Resto, most guilds won't bother taking in non-Resto Druids for raids.

That was true in vanilla. Nowadays you can get at least one spot as feral. Cat dps loses out to rogue and warriors (unless you have some serious cash to blow on flasks, like the Distilled Wisdom one. 2000 extra mana is powershifting galore) but the feral aura boosts their dps which compensates for the loss and feral druids can still bring some decent utility. You'll be able to off-tank certain encounters with a simple gear switch because the cat and bear build overlap to a degree (this will free a fury warrior so he can dish out more dps), and you bring an extra innervate to the raid.

The downside is that you won't usually be allowed to roll on druid gear, but you WILL be rolling on dps gear which can piss off some people, all though some of the best feral gear out there is stuff nobody wants. There's also no way a raid will take more than one feral so that means you'll have to fight for that spot if you have more than one druid who wants to do it too.

I believe Naxx gear makes ferals even more viable but i never got that far. AQ40 too but i only got to AQ20.

 

[cw8]

That was true in vanilla. Nowadays you can get at least one spot as feral. Cat dps loses out to rogue and warriors (unless you have some serious cash to blow on flasks) but the feral aura boosts their dps which compensates for the loss and feral druids can still bring some decent utility. You'll be able to off-tank certain encounters with a simple gear switch because the cat and bear build overlap to a degree (this will free a fury warrior so he can dish out more dps), and you bring an extra innervate to the raid.

The downside is that you won't usually be allowed to roll on druid gear, but you WILL be rolling on dps gear which can piss off some people, all though some of the best feral gear out there is stuff nobody wants. There's also no way a raid will take more than one feral so that means you'll have to fight for that spot if you have more than one druid who wants to do it too.

I believe Naxx gear makes ferals even more viable but i never got that far.

Yeap, I meant vanilla. I don't know about nowadays. I last played in Legion and only managed to clear up to Heroic Night Hold in pugs... You can easily get into raids as a Druid bear tank no problem in Legion. Back in Cata I think ferals were even stronger or strongest then but I didn't do any raids in Cata. I quit raiding pretty much after Naxx and only played casually on and off for the other expansions. After all the shit and stereotype they suffered in vanilla, the exppacks finally did Druids some justice. But I still miss the vanilla druid. The only time where you could utilise all 3 forms in PVP. There are many old-school PVP videos of them doing so. The great PVP legends like Zalgradis.

I remember Naxx being ridiculous. The dmg spikes in Naxx were insane. You can have a fully healed tank in AQ40 gear, drop to red in 2-3 seconds. Constantly looking at the MT bar and trying to heal your party members is the stuff of nightmares. And not to mention we have to quickly brez anyone who fell. We wiped on some of the opening bosses for at least a week or 2. Raided daily, 6 days a week, 4-5 hours a day just to kill an opening or 2nd boss in a fucking Naxx wing. Doesn't help that we are from Singapore playing in the US server. Literal lag killed us enough. Fuck Vanilla Naxx where one fight where a poor Priest had to MC a mob just to tank the boss. The MC broke more than 1/2 of the time and we just stood there waiting for the boss to wipe our arses repeatedly. Then to gather again and rebuff, shit, cry and pray to the RNG gods for the MC to stick and then you still have to win the fight...

 

[Lyric Suite]

Yeap, I meant vanilla. I don't know about nowadays. I last played in Legion and only managed to clear up to Heroic Night Hold in pugs... You can easily get into raids as a Druid bear tank no problem in Legion. Back in Cata I think ferals were even stronger or strongest then but I didn't do any raids in Cata.

I'm talking about bringing ferals in vanilla because of the added knowledge people have since the early days. Back in 2003 there was no way you'd see a feral in a raid but it is a common occurrence in private servers because people figured it out how to make it work. My guild on Elysium actually had two of them, me and some other guy and we took it up to AQ20. I quit after that because i burned myself out, no idea how far the other guy got, or if they ever did Naxx.

I'd say it's probably one of most solid "meme" specs out there:



With this powershifting style you'll still lose out to fury wars and rouges but Leader of the Pack gives a 3% extra crit to everybody in your party and that's the trick of it. The 3% aura also works when you are off-tanking. With the extra innervate (that you can also use on yourself to boost dps if the raid doesn't need it) and combat rez you add enough utility to compensate ditching an extra rouge or warrior.

 

[Lyric Suite]

BTW, bear tanking:

 

[Maculo]

This thread is only making it harder for me to choose between Paladin and Priest. On one hand, engaging class (Priest), but on the other hand, great group buffs/spells (Paladin).

 

[Metro]

Paladin 4 sure.

 

[cw8]

With this powershifting style you'll still lose out to fury wars and rouges but Leader of the Pack gives a 3% extra crit to everybody in your party and that's the trick of it. The 3% aura also works when you are off-tanking. With the extra innervate (that you can also use on yourself to boost dps if the raid doesn't need it) and combat rez you add enough utility to compensate ditching an extra rouge or warrior.

Vanilla druids are full of surprises. Vanilla Balance druids work decently well too even before the days of the Moonkin. The more open guilds will welcome the offspec Druids but those are few and far between. PVP wise, Druids are just a lot of fun especially when u utilise all the forms:



Too bad modern WoW just pigeonholes you into using your selected spec these days.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Another knewl thing is that Druids have a world of their own. There's like underground camaraderie between them you don't see with other classes.

 

[Steamboat Willie]

Another knewl thing is that Druids have a world of their own. There's like underground camaraderie between them you don't see with other classes.

Cat durid dosent talk about fite

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Real villains roll Undead and wait patiently for Druids to do that quest they need to go underwater for and proceed to CC them to oblivion until they die of drowning.

 

[Gregz]

Another knewl thing is that Druids have a world of their own. There's like underground camaraderie between them you don't see with other classes.

 

[J1M]

Warrior solo leveling. Ironically, warrior and priest together are a match made in haven.

Doesn't compare to Paladin solo leveling. You don't even have a rotation. You just autoattack and then AFK for a full minute while the mob dies to auto because Paladins don't have actual offensive abilities, just seals (auto-attack buff) and judgment (which, if used for instant damage, does pathetic damage on a high cooldown while burning mana that you're better off saving for self-heals to reduce downtime). A Paladin's auto does far worse damage than a Warrior's too, or a Shaman's for that matter.

You're not wrong, but I'll take dull over extended downtime warrior has even if you rely on bandages to minimize it. Not to mention if you're remotely conscious while playing that paladin basically cannot die compared to a warrior who pulls two mobs and is done goofed.

At vanilla launch people didn't understand how important spirit was for warriors with regards to reducing downtime.

 

[Lyric Suite]

It's also good because armor with spirit in it sells like garbage on the AH. This allows you to upgrade your stuff more often than you would normally.

 

[Hobo Elf]

Druid healing may not be as optimal as Priests, but it's a lot of fun in PvP.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Warrior solo leveling. Ironically, warrior and priest together are a match made in haven.

Doesn't compare to Paladin solo leveling. You don't even have a rotation. You just autoattack and then AFK for a full minute while the mob dies to auto because Paladins don't have actual offensive abilities, just seals (auto-attack buff) and judgment (which, if used for instant damage, does pathetic damage on a high cooldown while burning mana that you're better off saving for self-heals to reduce downtime). A Paladin's auto does far worse damage than a Warrior's too, or a Shaman's for that matter.

I mained paladin for years, from about patch 1.5/1.6 through WotLK. Anyway, my favourite memory of the class was definitely leveling up in Vanilla:

1: Move up to mob + start auto-attack.
2: Tab out, read news.
3: Tab back in, see if the mob is dead (go to 1) or if I need to heal (go to 4).
4: Heal (go to 2).

I loved the class and imagery. The game play in Vanilla was brutal and I doubt I'd do it again, even if I was playing for free. On top of that, once you hit 60, you'll only get taken in groups if you're healing. And if you want to roll on gear, have fun with people complaining that it could be used better by literally every other class, except healing plate. That's yours. Granted, that's less of a class issue and more of a point that WoW's community was a toxic shithole even back then.

 

[cw8]

Druid healing may not be as optimal as Priests, but it's a lot of fun in PvP.

I remember the number of Horde I pissed off in vanilla AV. I liked selecting the Alliance members on the frontline who are in red hp and close to death, just do a Nature's Swiftness max Heal (instant) on them and throw another HOT. Switch to the nearest Horde, Moonfire and nuke from behind. More often than not, they'll break off their targets and come after me instead. Cast Nature's Grasp to snare the closest melee attacker, cheetah form away to the back and repeat. If I get trapped, I'll just bear form till I die from the angry mob.

 

[FreeKaner]

Priests are the most engaging class with the broadest toolset that actually gets used. They have 3 viable and *great* specs (shadow for PvP) and have access to probably the best itemization in vanilla. They also have a very smooth leveling experience once you know what you are doing and are always in demand in groups for dungeons and raids.

t. healslut

This is actually correct, perhaps only Warrior DPS in vanilla isn't mindless, otherwise everything else is. Warlocks spam shadowbolt, Mages frostbolt/fireball, Hunters steady shot + aimed shot, Rogues sinister strike + eviscerate/slice and dice (you don't use the bleeds due to the debuff limit).

It's very funny how people think they won't have to grind in vanilla or that the DPS rotations aren't extremely short and repetitive. If you want to play something that isn't mindless, play a healer or a tank, and if you don't want to grind, play the AH.

That said, it IS possible to find an engaging playstyle (healer, tank) and not to grind, as opposed to current WoW, where you have gamey shit like artifact power for which you HAVE to grind and healing/tanking has been consistently degenerating in their complexity over the expansions.

Hunters don't have steady shot in vanilla, hunter rotation in vanilla is very rhythmic and complex where you are weaving auto-attacks between aimed shot and multi-shot, you can even go in for melee in mob fights to squeeze out more dps, you also peel and kite when necessary.

Casters are all same though it is true, it is generally couple of ability spam, warlocks spam shadowbolt and mages spam frostbolt. Warlock and mage pvp is very fun however.

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, it's multi-shot, my bad.

 

[FreeKaner]

The reality of vanilla pve is that hardest part is finding people with gear and persistence. Overall the dps and heal rotations are going to be simple, while tanks and healers have a bit more responsibility to be reactive. PVP wise, casters are fun, priests not much.