hello everyone Volfey here! regardless of what'll being fresh or not the majority of players get to that point where they can decide what class to main either for not having any characters or having too many they level up in tbc, same problem, we can't all be druids right?
whoops! wrong script, anyway you might have an itch for something new, something different since you are tired of destro warlocks, combat rogues and just tons of fury warriors and hunters, thanks to wrath lich king we are getting whole 30-ish specs that can be playable and viable in pve plus minus a few we're going to mention at some point.
Death Knight
Starting with the new kid in the class death knights or commonly known as dks with the average name of xx artist xx or old new hype starting from level 55 you skip pretty much 95 percent of vanilla content and go through tbc where you learn how to tank or dps.
With this new class dks are versatile with three viable specs and few more others which are less viable in majority of expansion like blood dps or unholy tank, blood decay tank will be strong always the amount of threat and self-healing abilities it has is massive plus hysteria buff for some melee that pays you good money to spam it on them.
However without the ability to block it has to rely mostly on dodge, parry and huge health pool so closer to the end of the expansion it just takes over some traditional tanking class like warrior first and unholy dks as dps are similar but depending on the player's preferred play style it can differ, you can play drums or you can bonk with a two-hander first.
Usually uses two one-handers and it's prevalent on a single dps fight, whereas unholy will do decent on a single target and mass damage in aoe.
Out of raid utilities dks do bring different stuff on the table such as melee haste, increase spell damage and attack power with each spec respectively but more about it in dk specific video so stay tuned and strike that subscribe button to be notified when it goes live.
Leveling a dk is a piece of cake, actually just by going through the death knight campaign and finishing all quests there you get a nice set of greens and blues that will carry your dead ass through the entire outland, almost loads of damage and self-healing help you to level both this tank or dps since dungeon finder will be sweet for tank leveling through instances which i do recommend if you want to pursue blood tanking as it's awesome practice do.
I see a lot of players playing death knights from day one, yes definitely new toy, new abilities freaking dead grip, holy moly i wanna log mine right now, both tanking and dps specs have
interesting abilities and rotation combined with the new resource system runes and runic power offer this will be a go-to class for old bottle clovers and players in general feeling of playing a dk
is just nothing you have experienced in tbc or vanilla so far, how overpowered it was and always has been will give you the sense of playing the boss npc and not just the class.
Regardless of your main class choosing, I suggest at least make a dk and go through campaign and try to level it, by that time you will either get hooked on or just go back to whatever class you enjoy more.
Hunters
Continuing the list is the hunters, absolute unit and god tier in tbc as we all know especially in the last phase with the armor penetration tsunami of items given to them, in wrath however i'll slap you with the harsh truth, the mother of all nerf hammers have landed upon thee many of the abilities and talents have gotten reworked and even pets now have their own talent tree kill, command for example now can be activated whenever off of one minute cooldown and increases damage done by pet by 60% on next three special hits and after every hit the effect is reduced by 20%, pretty lame.
Also beast within only increases damage done by you by 10 but it does reduce mana cost of your
abilities by 50 percent and so on, surely base damage is higher but beast master hunter is only but limping behind many other classes and spec in wrath of the lich king.
Hunter now has all three specs viable to play in pve, however the dominant one in majority of expansion is marksman hunter followed by survival in first half of expansion while beast mastery is keeping up from the beginning of expansion only to fall off far behind towards the second half.
Leveling in northrend is best done as bm spec which this time around has the majority of talents boosting damage done by your pet while marksman cant do good since pet can't hold aggro against you, survival on the other hand can be interesting with a trap weaving and kiting but i wouldn't recommend it to someone who is not experienced with hunter in the first place.
no karen, playing hunter in tbc only in tier 6 raid does not make you an experienced hunter although if you choose to level through dungeons and instances survival and beast mastery might come on par too.
I see a lot of players playing this class i'd say yes but not as much as in tbc, in the case of progressive servers yeah a lot of people will continue to play it as their true mains but in case of fresh not really no, there will be a similar number of them.
General feeling of playing a hunter includes pet and mana management since swiper is quite punishing and dragonhawk is quite rewarding along with restocking your ammo still but keep in
mind that quivers and ammo pouches don't increase haste anymore and ammo can be stacked up to a thousand.
As a hunter you won't be doing sick damage and especially won't be doing so through one button macro but rather you will have some utility and fun time being average dps.
Warlocks
Which class is the second most populated dps class in tbc? what do you think of course it's a warlock or at least it used to be since the majority of rogues and fury warriors were pushed and
refuged into pvp, anyway much like hunters destro warlocks were nerfed in order to make two other specs more viable, this went on to make the other two specs way more competitive sometimes even overachieving what deathknight used to be especially towards the end of the
expansion.
Unlike Beastmaster Hunter, destro will push from the start but during the middle of expansion bursty demo with the good raid support will take over, affliction warlock got some love and it just kept being good and getting better towards the end game.
It has constant output in dps fights with the wicked executed phase destro turns its burstiness towards pvp in twos, with Ele shaman for example they can obliterate anyone in just a double tap.
Leveling spec doesn't matter that much you can go with whichever you want and it will do good both in open world questing and inside dungeon leveling.
Will a lot of players play warlock? most likely in case of progression servers but i see the number going down way down, in case of fresh surely you can do decent damage with it but hardcore casters or min maxers will go mage or stay as lock and others will choose a different main or pick up a new dk class for example.
General feeling of playing a lock shifts from pure damage to support and decent damage, affliction gets interesting rotation, a lot of abilities including minion abilities and replay style resembles a lot to shadow priests in tbc which further on means that not everyone will be a damage carrying.
affliction and demonology has a decent damage just like affliction with somewhat easy rotation that relies on talent procs but raids usually want one parade as it becomes more of a support class with spell damage raid wide buff, playing it for metamorphosis is a legit reason to maintain what lock destro asset.
Earlier has nice bursts with mesmeric chaos bolt and juicy juicy soul fire crits highest flat damage in game.
So yeah, Warlock is still fun both in pve and pvp but will lack just a little bit under some other classes on dps meters.
Warriors
Warriors, what do you think when you hear the word warrior in wrath of the lich king? gigachad popularity and damage, titan grip of dreams come true or just bladestorm, all of that and even
more!
You can say that warriors have aged pretty darn well especially since most of the streamers either main it or come back around for it just to claim it, anyhow aging well part can't be said about protection warriors, yeah they are playable and yeah they are capable of doing so much single target damage and thus threat but almost every other tanking spec in wrath can do the same or even better in some aspects.
Apart from fury and protection spec there is still arms back as well, just like in tbc test and grip is what puts stars in everyone's eyes dual wielding two-handed swords, maces or axes is so epic but you gotta keep in mind that with that you need high hit rating, decent amount of haste and crit so you're not rage starved since both main hand and off hand will spring every three or more
seconds, meaning fury will get its time to shine later on in expansion around tier nine, until then bladestorm arms warrior will have the spotlight along with protection warrior.
In pvp sphere warriors will be just as strong like dks, warriors were always pure dps class and since they don't bring as much utility rate they do compensate for it in damage and since majority of buffs and auras of raid wide and what look it means that you can comfortably stack multiple warriors and achieve awesome results.
Leveling a warrior doesn't differ from before, even rewind spam protection warrior is viable, especially for dungeon leveling.
Will there be a lot of players playing it? oh yeah i don't even need to say it i don't know what is people's craze about it is it at monotone playstyle or ability to focus only on dealing damage since you have zero raid mechanics you have to take care of, unlike hunters for example from the
beginning of expansion mostly it will be spread over prot and arm spec and then all of those will funnel at once into pure fury warrior as soon as we step into tots and icc there will be only fury.
I mean fury warriors everywhere general feeling of playing this class is feeling of power with either bladestorm or titan grip crits. No doubt that warrior is a beast in right hands but decently good in left hands as well.
Rogues
If you have been with me for some time you're aware that my hate towards the yellow color and scum that plays it, surely there are decent people who just happen to stick with rogues but overall i can't stand it, too frustrating to pvp against or just to mind your own business in open world.
On the pvp realm however i'm getting milder towards them in wrath, i have grown and i'm ready to accept them as a proper class in pve scene without resenting them from the bottom of my sabatons, from single viable pve spec rogues are getting an additional one, assassination spec which is the prevalent one, in early stages combat just won't do good early on due to scalability and gear dependency but it will pay back many times over in the end game with a lot of agility, good weapons and armor penetration.
Assassination will still be decently strong in the good hands but overall combat will just do more, saying that rogue melee attacks actually do a lot of damage will bring a smile.
To the many rogue mains from vanilla, rogue sub will remain at pvp spec in its own league but that's all about it.
Fresh and welcome addition to rogue's arsenal is definitely a fan of knives and availability with 50 energy cost on gcd with daggers, adrenaline rush and huge amounts of mobs rogues can easily jump on top of the damage meters.
Rogues in raids and parties utility changes a little bit with tot, it acts as a nice thread boost for a tank since rogue's opening burst is among the biggest one in wrath of the lich king especially combined with adrenaline rush, look at me talking about it like i'm in love with it which i'm definitely not, maybe a little bit.
Leveling a rogue is a piece of cake i don't even have to elaborate on that stun lock evasion and you can even solo elites too.
I see a lot of players playing rogues? yes definitely, pure dps slash with just as easy rotation but more damage will fill up the majority of raid spots always especially towards the end where raid leaders will look for combat rogues, especially pick a rogue if you never played any other class or if you never played wow, altogether level it up and then practice your rotation like a proper rogue not on a target dummy but on low base innocently leveling in stranglethorn vale or in borean tundra.
Mages
And now to sing the song of fire and ice, or fire and arcane to be precise since frost is by far the worst dps out of 3 image specs though it is still regarded as a really strong pvp spec, surely it
can do some damage and has interesting rotation on pve but arcane in early game and especially fire in late game will outdps it by far.
So there you go, cold truth goes well with my preference of warmth over coldness in comparison with other classes and specs mages are still hanging there near the top of the damage meters.
Just like in tbc and echoes of vanilla raid ability has been increased the possibility of dalaran brilliance and focus magic which is symbiote buff, mage can cast on other raid or party members actively increasing their spell crit by 3% and achieving same buff every time buffed players scores a critical hit.
Leveling a mage is best to be done in frostback due to movement and pet usage too, i see a lot of players playing a mage well more or less, those who always play the mage since vanilla will continue to play it all the buffs and additions to mage arsenal one differentiated a lot from other casters especially in playstyle also with the fact that mage is just a pure dps such as fury warriors on the melee side of the dps spectrum.
As mentioned arcane will scale better in early game but once you reach the high enough crit chance rating fireball plus pyroblast and hot streak will burn your name on top of the damage meters, add sustained damage in both specs high mobility and excellent versus arcane i promise you mage is enjoyable as it always was.
Shaman
The most desirable of tbc is by far a shaman, why? well party-wide bloodlust the best ability in the entire game even though you might think well then it's probably the most played as well yes but no, there was always a shaman missing because nobody liked to play them due to simple rotation totems low output.
Although the rest of shamans were easy in the last phases in tbc, however with changes implemented for shamans their bloodlust is raid wide and leaves 10 minutes debuff along with raid wide totems which means you need 1 or 2 maximum.
They are quite mana unsustainable at lower gear it's just something that i found obnoxious from
time to time but later on ele shamans were just incredibly nicely optimized gear and a lot of mp5 does wonders.
That one or the one out of two shamans you take to what to create is definitely a restoration and enhancement shaman, what to say about that if you liked it in tbc you surely will in what look as
well as it's awesome from the start they pulled break towards the end game though rotation remained ever so interesting especially for spell hand shaman but without sometimes annoying totem, a twisting way to a good enhancement is managing your cooldowns and shocks well if you manage to do so your goddamn tour with the axes.
Elemental shaman remains meh, yeah they are mid-tier to above meter dps at the beginning of expansion so you might think that they are great, that's true to some extent because they don't scale as much with gear like some other classes at the end of the expansion they are going to be decent if rng says so but nowhere near the top of damage meters.
Utility elemental shamans gives the raid is not unique since beside totems any other utility is
either same as some other classes or even worse than those leaving a shaman to be average dps that provides bloodlust or heroism for those on the wrong side of the conflict leveling is best done as enhancement due to awesome burst potential with rather short cooldown however consider resto shaman if you want to level 2 instances.
Well a lot of players play shaman no more than there are shamans at the moment the true main, the general feeling of playing a shaman is objective if you like the playstyle don't let any other caller even try to convince you otherwise, it is a versatile and gimmicky class from creating and having cool visual abilities, too dull but very op healing in the right gear set.
Speaking of which, gearing up a shaman is so easy to optimize mail gear especially ele shaman of course there is a holy paladin to steal a piece or two but they do have optimized plate healing items so just rub that on their face.
Priests
About priests well it goes from extreme to extreme, this cooperates next to useless and tbc but now in wrath it will be a must to have one parade class preventing or absorbing damage before it bites a part of character's hp pool is what they excel at even though addons like recount don't pick that up it surely is a huge amount so you do want to prioritize a disc priests for 25 man raids because their patterns and cheap flash shields are going to be less effective for example in dungeons.
But in dungeons damage is not that great but it still can add up even though their spells are costing a lot of mana they have nice replenishment for themselves from talents and abilities
such as hymn of hope and all-time popular shadowfiend.
With more and more intellect disc becomes quite self-sustained and can carry out fights without going on, on top of that it has two awesome cooldowns one which resembles hysteria from dks but does not stack with bloodlust and other one for naughty dpsers who over aggro.
Holy priests the healing class of tbc just carrying both aoe healing and single target but now in wrath it just falls behind a little behind scaled up rest of shamans new resto druids and improved holy paladin, it still has the potential and really strong cooldowns too, hell even light well is kinda viable now.
the holy priest strong side is its weakness at the same time being able to cover any type of healing needed and working synergy with other healers makes the holy priest good at everything but not strongest in anything raid healing with praying of healing is great but mana intensive where a druid can just hot around like a madman and wild growth every cooldown for even higher output and half the mana cost.
Main tank heal spamming with huge heals and guardian is also good but holy paladin literally
laughs chats and watches wolfie videos on second monitor while doing it easier and more efficiently and so on so take it with a grain of salt and please by all means prove me wrong and say hey forehead holy priest is stronger than you think and here is why and then explain your stand through an essay or a video.
However the dps pack shadow priest found a new power in the form of new spells like mines here for example shadow priests will be quite decent dps throughout the entire expansion from start to the end and it's going to make some of us main shadow priests and tbc quite happy
Same thing with that buffed affliction warlock so much is doing the same for shadow priests and you know what i'm talking about purple colors, nah i'm joking is the dot creating ability which is huge since the vast majority of shadow priest damage comes from dots, also combine aoe ability with the multi dots and you get really strong caster dps that has some awesome utility
in the form of debuffs on target.
Can be stacked in great composition to boost overall dps heals while doing damage, can dispel and disperse, fade blah blah blah.
It's overall really rounded and fun to play with an ever-changing and interesting rotation which is modified by stats and gear, you have on top of that it remains the face melter in pvp still.
Do i see a lot of players playing priests? i'd say about the same amount as now maybe a tad bit more as shadow priest since it will have a nice output at the beginning but healing specs of it won't be stacked and will count at least one either holy or discipline or one of each as long as
Holy is not shielding anyone, having a priest with either healing of spec in what look is not a bad choice if you are into this thing.
Paladins
Now for the one class that is definitely booming in wrath in every aspect of it, is a paladin, even before wrath it had all three specs viable in race setup and any other content but now it just breaks free unleashing abilities to tank and threat, to heal and save and do dps and strike with big two-handers.
Protection paladin has the biggest improvement, just sweeps out warrior off of its feet as a main tank even on low gear level due to some awesome cooldowns and talents i mean dk tank is a dk tank a league of its own but pro pala rises from aoe tank to gigachad full tank behemoth.
Now that paladins are no longer relying on spell power items to dish out threats and damage it can do much much more and by more i mean just being 4 dps in a dungeon sometimes beating even pure dps glasses and spec on damage done, overall retribution as my favorite melee spec in tbc.
Improved and it's quite decent in wrath, they do scale well with more haste and crit especially in the end game they will be doing nice damage due to the majority of adds being undead, in the beginning however more or less frost dks will do better for example since retribution output will
fall off outside of its burst cooldown.
What makes me happy about retribution is that seal twisting is a thing of the past and retribution now has a proper identity with rework spells, cleavability and kept its rate utility along with cooldowns.
Just like any paladin spec i think it's important to know that they do some off-healing while dealing damage both themselves and others around themselves, which together with the plate
armor and other cooldowns and bursts makes threats quite hard to deal with.
In pvp still holy paladins i won't say much because i believe they are mega popular and just a stronger single target healer throughout the expansion, however with down ranking dead and your holy light costing a bit over 1000 mana you might find yourself struggling with mana where
even the wine play won't help.
After reaching a huge amount of intellect you can't just spam way more, being OP it doesn't mean it's fun to play, surely you will top them healing meters.
For many players choosing holy paladins as their main so, do i think there will be a lot of paladins in wrath? hell yeah will be all populated throughout the expansion, the amount of rework spells
For paladins it is huge, starting with blessings, there is a reduced amount of it to the point where you almost don't even have to use a spell power but please do still.
Same goes for seals, the biggest change being taking out the entire seal of the crusader and some others along with some blessings were converted into hand spells so it's safe to say that
Minimizers from tbc will jump into the warrior wagon but when it fills up they will drop down into a paladin joyride.
Druids
Lastly cherry on top my favorite class of all, druid remains epic as ever and i don't care what you think of them in tbc i assure you druids can be one of your top picks in wrath, either leafy healer
cute kitty fuzzy burp or guardian bear, just the sheer amount of specs available for one class is a selling point, it was the same in tbc but now in wrath you can actually stack druids easily without
drawback and each one of them brings straight utilities.
Restoration druid healing arsenal has been increased by two additional spells nourish and wild
growth which makes resto druids highly versatile in a single target and raid wide healing, i fell in love with this new resto druid and since it's so strong from the beginning to the end of the expansion boomkins went from decent support class for warlocks and mages to above average dps capabilities especially in the aoe fights with the new most op aoe ability in the game, the starfall.
Also next to aura which is raid wide now they have earth and moon which does the same thing as curse of elements does, for example rotation now includes more than just one starfire rotation now includes more than just a starfire spam as well but with much better mana regen and mana management.
Bear tank it was my favorite class and my main for a long time in tbc i just loved i, in wrath it remains what it is a dodge hp tank that deals a lot of damage single target, threat is amazing as always but now with 360 degree swipe you can aoe tank better than before.
Surely it won't be uber threat like prot paladin consecration or dks dnd but it will still be better than what it used to be, on top of that bear got some new and improved cooldowns to boost its
survivability.
Kitty dps has fourth and last viable druid spec heavily played in wrath is amazing it has the hardest rotation but if you manage to learn it and practice it enough you will see pretty high numbers especially in late game when you acquire a big chunk of armor penetration then you will easily compete for the first damage with fury warriors, i won't go deeper into abilities and how to manage your rotation in this video, maybe in the future do i see a lot of players playing ferals.
Yeah i do a decent amount who enjoyed raids in tbc will continue to like it in wrath but i predict some new players picking it up just because it is so versatile and if you can't decide what role to play you can make a choice down the road of leveling and still be viable.
Ending
before wrapping up a video i want to add a disclaimer this time around Blizzard added a lot of balance to all classes, at the same gear level the majority will do almost the same amount of damage with several percents less or more also inside the class and spec itself there can be big oscillation in terms of mastering the rotation optimizing your gear reaching caps and having a good rng, on procuring talents and such.
Just pick the class you think you will have the most fun with and play it for fun when and if it comes to it that it becomes boring switchback or entire class even some that were boring in tbc are now really fun, for example i personally never liked prot paladins but i had a blast playing one through wrath so yeah there's that.
Don't forget to pick that like button and subscribe if you think that arthas did nothing wrong, stay safe and have fun playing the game, i'll see you in the next video, bye bye!
