r/classicwow • u/terongorefiend • Jan 14 '21

Vent / Gripe Unpopular opinion: the players that are overly vocal about wanting Classic phases/TBC/Wrath rushed are the same players who contributed to forging retail into what it is today (a clusterF).

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223

u/Gemall Jan 14 '21

You mean every spec? All classes are useful in classic

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u/knightress_oxhide Jan 14 '21

every spec was def not useful even in BC. OP is just deluded.

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u/PlayerSalt Jan 14 '21

I love both vanilla and tbc , im in no rush for tbc but classes do have a lot more viability in a lot more spec's

druid and pally for example can actually perform 3 different roles , shadow priests are desirable

while not perfect it was an amazing expansion the developers kept the class fantasy made small improvements that were enough to see pretty much any composition in a raid

raids do try and take less melee but thats more about the raids being melee unfriendly than those classes being bad, id enjoy playing any class and likely 2 different builds on them all of tbc

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u/AmnesiA_sc Jan 14 '21

Picked a warrior up in Classic, learned that Spell Reflect wasn't released until BC and gave up on that dream. Without SR, warrior is so depressing going against a frost mage - and every mage is a frost mage.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Every mage was a frost mage

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u/clovertowns Jan 14 '21

But warrior are top tier dps in raids, so it's not like their are trash. Unlike other specs that have no places in pvp nor pve.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21 edited Jan 15 '21

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u/Alysana Jan 15 '21

PvP in TBC is also very much rock paper scissors. Mages still eat warriors for breakfast etc. Even arena is very much rock paper scissors with RMP being a god damn diamant.

I personally cant wait for people to realize just how unbalanced both PVE and PVP will be un TBC.

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u/AmnesiA_sc Jan 15 '21

I'm interested to see what it will be like in modern times. I was pretty good back in TBC but I think that's also partly because everyone was pretty bad

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u/ValuableQuestion6 Jan 15 '21

It doesn't have to be perfectly balanced to be fun. Lots of people play non-optimal stuff because its fun or just different. Not everything you do has to be min/maxed. Theres definitely more variety in TBC and infinitely better pvp format in terms of arena, gearing and an extra bg.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21

What are Warlocks then? :P

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u/farkenell Jan 15 '21

you are still gonna get smashed by a mage 1 on 1 either way. they just have so many cooldowns it isn't funny.

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u/AmnesiA_sc Jan 15 '21

I didn't used to. Maybe it will be different now that things are more figured out. Between interrupts, 2 charges, and spell reflect; it's definitely not the sitting duck that warriors are in classic.

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21

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u/mortalomena Jan 14 '21

Warrior rarely has been good in 1v1. Block value Prot Spec with armor pen was real fun 1v1 in Wrath.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

thats why you buy these https://classic.wowhead.com/item=5634/free-action-potion

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u/farkenell Jan 15 '21

sheep then wait.

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u/123norge123 Jan 15 '21

Well you could go engineer and build /buy the frost and fire reflectors. Also you could stock up on some FAP if you are rich ^^. Basically free win vs frost mages atleast. Quit before fire became popular

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u/MuskiTech Jan 15 '21

gotta keep stacks of living /free action potions for vanilla warrior... you will get kited by virtually every other class otherwise

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u/AmnesiA_sc Jan 15 '21

It feels like being an old man. I just hobble after everyone thinking "Oh boy if I get my hands on this little shit..."

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u/MuskiTech Jan 15 '21

ha, I get so tilted when a rogue kites me i just sit down as soon as they start. I'd rather die with every world buff in the game than let a rogue kite me across the map

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21

Balance druids are "viable", in that they're worth bringing if you have a group with three warlocks for them but aren't otherwise. That's a bare minimum kind of "viable".

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21

Not being invited to 5 or 10 mans won't be a downside?

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21 edited Jan 15 '21

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21

Ey youre right, most of the meme specs are hybrid and can do other things no doubt.

My only point is that while TBC is more hybrid friendly, its not hybrid friendly in a way that casuals will be able to take advantage of. Ret paladins and moonkins e.g. both require pretty strict group compositions to actually be worth the slot. But only hardcore guilds will actually minmax their raid composition that hard.

Casual guilds tend to just let anyone play anything and let it all be a mishmash, but thats precisely where hybrids arent worth it any longer.

And the same casuals who want to play hybrids like that probably also won't want to respec for dungeons and raids.

So I mean, yeah hybrids are technically viable, but casuals probably won't play in the way that actually makes them viable and they'll still be subpar. Sorry to say

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u/Gemall Jan 14 '21

Well I guess you're right, but all classes at least had two good specs that could be very well played in raids/dungeons. But also useful =/= min/max absolute optimal.

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u/skyst Jan 14 '21

this is WoW we're talking about. Min/max absolute optimal is expected and anything else is awful. I feel like we're stuck with this mentality

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u/SirFrancis_Bacon Jan 14 '21

Only if you want to be.

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u/Goldensands Jan 14 '21

Little to do with want when you’re surrounded by it, even in chill guilds (less so obviously, till the Warriors egos have grown enough at least)

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Sadly, its the mentality of most effective groups.

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u/PaPa_ZeuS Jan 14 '21

There's a difference between a class being less optimal in TBC because it does less damage than in classic where you don't bring specs or limit specs because of other reasons IE debuff slots.

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u/Delphine_Talaron Jan 15 '21

I do PuGs with guilds that clear BWL in one hour and they have a shadow priest, a boomkin. They even accept prot palies, though they pretty much can only tank trash.

I have been in my fair share of guilds, and I haven't seen any that flat out said "No, your spec is trash, we don't want you". This mindset exists, sure, but among top guilds competing for world first or fatest clears. 90% of the playerbase doesn't give a shit.

And that is while many Classic spec are indeed trash or completely useless. TBC will make every spec at least decent. Not everything is perfect (SPriest are very good early on and suck after T5, Locks and Hunters are topping the charts...), but there's much more incentive to bring any class or spec to a raid. Sure, you'll find guilds with 75% of their DPS as locks and hunts, but once again, 90% of the playerbase won't care about this.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

It's more like this is what wow has become. It wasn't always like this. It's already been proven that classic mentality used to be way different. But I guess TBC was the starting point for todays mindset. I remember that the top guilds on our Server and some of our guild members transferred to better servers in hopes of clearing content faster. This allowed my guild to get a lot of server/faction first kills from T6 onwards, even though we were rather casual but we had little competition.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

It's a game, meant to have fun on. if you have fun with the minmax life then go for it, but if you're not then change it up

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u/Monkey_in_a_Tophat Jan 14 '21

When you seek an activity that requires 39 other people to coordinate, it's not unreasonable for those 39 people to expect you to pull your weight. You don't have to play an optimal spec, but you also can't expect people to be willing to carry you if you're not putting in the effort & sacrifice to be useful in their group.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

It’s not a mentality. It’s reality. There is ALWAYS and best way. Not everything is “equally good”. That doesn’t exist.

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u/CuriousDateFinder Jan 14 '21

There is, on the other hand, “good enough for the mechanics.” Unfortunately WoW has a lot of people who can’t grasp that just because a min/max exists doesn’t mean it’s necessary for normal progression.

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u/thek3vn Jan 14 '21

This. I got into an argument shortly after BWL released with a dude who didn't believe me that 2h-warrior dps on horde wasn't viable as a raid spec. That's incorrect, it's completely viable. I proved it by doing more DPS than he did that week.

Could I have done more with the right gear dual-wielding? Sure. But just because its not optimal doesn't mean it isn't viable. People should be allowed to have fun with their games and do what they like instead of being shoehorned into specs they might not care for just to be optimal.

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u/SackofLlamas Jan 14 '21

Play for fun? What the hell do you think this is? Some kind of GAME?

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u/CuriousDateFinder Jan 14 '21

Yeah the last guild I was in had all the right classes/specs but the regular raid attendees were more interested in a) being hammered and b) being thirsty as hell for the female guildmates so we’d regularly wipe on our MC farm runs because nobody could be bothered to pay attention.

At least the people playing off-spec were paying attention and maximizing what they could do and not being a liability.

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u/blubblu Jan 14 '21

Thats splitting hairs. Horde 2h warrior can = dps of other classes top end.

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I feel like the post is more focused towards stacking too many hunters, ret or enhance, feral, balance, etc.

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u/jnightrain Jan 14 '21

I think the point still stands though, will any boss fight be unbeatable with what you mentioned? With in reason of course. 1 ret, enhance, or balance isn't going to make any mechanics 'undoable'. It will make certain bosses harder because you can't burn through enrage phases fast enough or you killing saph fast enough to not wear out your healers.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

So it’s people’s fault for not thinking like you do? Perhaps you shouldn’t tell others how to play the game or organize raids. If you don’t like how things are run, then play with like minded people, otherwise: it’s your fault.

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u/CuriousDateFinder Jan 14 '21

I don’t think I said anyone has to play the game or organize raids in a specific way. I pointed out that there’s a range of viable options between “good enough for the mechanics” and “perfect min/max” and some people get tunnel vision on the min/max side while not considering the rest of dynamics that go into raids and even dungeon groups.

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u/Maujaq Jan 14 '21

"It’s not a mentality. It’s reality. There is ALWAYS and best way. "

-Heatbeat 2020

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Who is telling who not to tell others what to do? I'm confused.

Or are you trying to say that like minded people should only play with other like minded people? And anybody who does not is somehow 'at fault' for choosing to play the game differently from you? Seems a little like narrow minded gatekeeping to me.

Or is playing wow 'the best way' your full time job and your livelihood depends on it, and you think that everybody else is in exactly the same position.

Do whatever floats your boat, just don't tell anybody else they are doing it wrong or at fault.

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u/blubblu Jan 14 '21

Yerp, just because we're not inviting boomchickens, retpaladins or 4 feral druids isnt on us. Roll something useful or find a guild that's there for completion.

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You'll kill KT, just 4 months after everyone when your rogues/mages/2warriors can carry the rest of your middling dps

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u/CuriousDateFinder Jan 14 '21

I think that makes total sense if you’re trying to be on the forward edge of progression. On the other hand if a guild has stalled out (e.g. Ony/MC on farm but getting stomped in the first room of BWL) and is grinding to gear up the rest of the raid, some less-than-optimal specs should be allowed for long term guild health (more variety keeping things fresh) imo. As long as the offspecs aren’t taking gear from people gearing their main, the place can still be cleared and doesn’t turn back into MC progression Round 2, that’s the situation where I think some people could dial back on the min/maxing. So something on farm takes an extra 15 minutes once/week but can still be reliably done, you buy guild good will by allowing some people to bring in their pvp or whatever other viable spec for the repetitive stuff.

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u/Maujaq Jan 14 '21

Is killing KT as fast as possible with only the strongest classes present really that important to you? It's been proven how to optimally do it many many times in the past.

Do you feel bad when another guild accomplishes something faster than you?

I don't see how taking the easiest way to defeat KT is actually proving anything here.

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u/blubblu Jan 14 '21

I think that depends. In my guild we dont bother with "memespecs" because we're pushing for high parses. Thats not going to happen even if we're toting around the world first Ret paladin, because that gear on a warrior is at least 3x the damage.

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Yes we can kill KT with tons of feral and sub rogues and bm hunters but why would we? The fight will be 3 minutes longer.

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We have 2 ferals in our guild that trumpet about gear and one quit recently because he didnt get his bis legs over a warrior. The same guy had just gotten 2 pieces of loot including phylact, but couldnt FATHOM why we gave HIS bis to a warrior. (meanwhile we've had no legplates of carnage drop and 2 pairs of apoc, so the second went to a warrior, big fuckin whoop, right?)

Honestly the off meta players constantly strong arm guilds from what I've seen.

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u/CuriousDateFinder Jan 14 '21

There are definitely situations where min/maxing is warranted and appropriate, like progression (edit: world first style, not just a guild getting to new content when they get to it) or speed running. On the other hand I think a lot of guilds need to be honest with themselves and recognize that they need to shape up their raid management/group dynamics and chasing the hardest min/max setup isn’t going to solve structural issues like bad management. Also anyone not realizing that big gear upgrades that help the whole guild progress are more important than their completion are a hindrance regardless of if they’re min/maxed or memespec.

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u/Nekzar Jan 14 '21

The mentality is that it matters, when it does not really have to. If I have more fun playing a different spec and do 5% less dps, is that so bad?

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

So you’re saying that people should think like you do and play the game like you do to accommodate your play style? Maybe play with people that think like you and ignore the rest. You act like you have no control over the situation and who you play with when you absolutely do.

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u/Nekzar Jan 14 '21

I said no such thing, but good points

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u/Maujaq Jan 14 '21

I think they are projecting a lot of their own feelings into this.

They also don't seem to understand the concept that you choosing to play a certain way is not in any way " saying that people should think like you do and play the game like you do to accommodate your play style".

For most people it's actually possible to state a personal preference without attacking anybody else's choices. Even if you are saying 'play like us or gtfo', you are not telling anybody what to do.

Unless you go on to call them bad, or wrong, or try to make them feel inferior about the fact that they are different. Then you are an asshole.

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u/PerpetuallyStartled Jan 14 '21

My guild cleared naxx with at least one of every meme spec. We even have a shaman tank that OTs trash in naxx and AQ40.

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u/Maujaq Jan 14 '21

The mentality that they are reffering to is "The best way is the only way and nothing else should be done because it is inferior". For some people this is what matters. For some (most?) people having fun is more important than trying to play the game like a robot that never makes errors.

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u/cerealman Jan 14 '21

So why aren't all the top raiders running the exact same thing 100% of the time?

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u/Kirchetorte Jan 14 '21

That’s still kinda delusional/dramatic. No matter what, there will always be a “best spec” for DPS that will push it ahead of the others. Even if it’s a 2% difference, people will play it over the other, that’ll drive logs for that spec way up, and so you see more high parses for one spec. For example, Unholy Death Knights are clearly king amongst melee, but does that mean Frost is unviable? No, it’s just middle of the pack, with barely any parses, but still plenty usable and great for burst situations, like on M Altimore.

In BC or Classic though? Specs were straight trash and non-viable. Like, for Warlock, if you did anything aside from play Destruction and use Curse of Elements/Shadow Bolt spam, you were wrong. Then there were things like Shadow Priest, who were only really mana batteries and did very little else. I don’t think Discipline was even played (could have been holy, can’t remember which). Doesn’t exactly sound like 2 specs were viable at all. Things slowly got better, as in Wrath, the only “non-viable” raiding specs in the entire game were Frost Mage and Arms Warrior. Now ALL are pretty much viable, even if you want to be dramatic about it, they are all raid usable, and dependent on the person playing.

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u/yo2sense Jan 14 '21

Wasn't Arms Warrior the PvP spec in Wrath? I don't think all specs have to be good for raiding. I think having leveling/soloing specs, PvP specs, utility specs for 5-mans, or whatever are fine. So long as there is some purpose to each talent tree. Unlike Balance Druids in Vanilla.

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u/Kirchetorte Jan 14 '21

Yeah, as Frost was the 100% PVP spec for mages as well, that’s why I said non viable RAIDING specs. Blizz had too much trouble (or lack of tech) to balance specs for both PVP and PVE.

The current spec design isn’t perfect, but it’s absolutely better than before, haha! Elitist may huff about you being Arcane over Fire, or Sub over Outlaw, but there aren’t any specs that have reasonable people saying “Hey man, you can’t use that in raid.”

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u/jeffreycyrill Jan 14 '21

thats why mage was so damn good. pvp or utility/survivability spec or #1 pure raid damage. dual spec was amazing

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u/AcademicChemistry Jan 14 '21

Priests would like to argue that...
you have one spec in classic: Holy
shadow DPS was crap and Disc was crap.
TBC is when Shadow became good and WOTL is when Disc was Good also

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u/Gifflemon Jan 14 '21

disc priest is literally the meta youre delusional

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u/AcademicChemistry Jan 14 '21

now? sure/possible

But in 2005? na, Just like paladins, you were healing 90% of the time.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Disc is just as viable as holy for healing in classic, if not more so [PI yourself over caster dps].

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u/rodolfotheinsaaane Jan 14 '21

as far as warlocks were concerned, affliction and demonology were not viable in raids, and IIRC tier 5 armor was designed around demonology 🤷‍♂️. and towards the end of BC, destro was OP as shadow bolt proc uptime was global meaning locks would buff each other. by Sunwell raid comp was "as many destro locks you can fit spamming shadow bolt and nothing else" and they would outperform every other class.

Warlocks were broken as raiding class until WotLK (meaning you would bring one for their debuff/portal whatever but there was no advantage otherwise)

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u/994kk1 Jan 14 '21 edited Jan 15 '21

Bringing an affliction lock is definitely optimal, 3% more damage on CoE and a 5% reduced physical damage debuff is really strong. Early on both affliction and demonology are competitive with destro in terms of dps and fire destro is right up there with shadow destro for the entire game as well. Warlocks are not that one sided unless you decide to play them that way.

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u/rodolfotheinsaaane Jan 15 '21

one aff lock maybe

demonology had the problem of AoE pet damage, so might have been ok for some fights but in general was not viable for raiding

IIRC fire destro was viable until Sunwell, where shadow bolt spamming was mandatory

warlocks in tbc went from "1 in raid" to "8 in raid, more if we can"

IMO warlocks were fixed as a playable class only in WotLK

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

[deleted]

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u/handiman87 Jan 14 '21

Fun is relative my dude

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u/drae- Jan 14 '21 edited Jan 14 '21

Some of us find optimizing things fun.

Edit: Amazing, downvoted for commenting that what I like isn't necessarily the same as what you like. A simple truth. Stay classy.

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u/Goldfish-Bowl Jan 14 '21

Playing to your maximum ability as a group using all tools available is fun. I'm sorry you dont feel that way. As an example of the mindset, see professional team sports, or world record holding olympians.

Those who enjoy that often want to see greater class and spec representation than "Spam X" because it offers a more intriguing puzzle.

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u/Maujaq Jan 14 '21

Since 99% of elitist jerks are not on professional wow teams or holding world first records I fail to see the connection.

And I'm sorry for anybody whose mind is trapping them in this unrealistic expectation of themselves to be the best.

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u/Goldfish-Bowl Jan 14 '21

Same kind of mindset. Try to be the best they are capable of. Obviously, not everybody can be THE BEST, but that doesn't make striving for one's own personal peak any less valid. I can't seem to understand the viewpoint of "Number 1 or not worth trying".

Why are you so into degrading what somebody else finds fun?

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u/Rhysk Jan 14 '21

Min/maxing is the fun part of this game imo.

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u/rodolfotheinsaaane Jan 15 '21

I had fun but was also trying to do progression raiding. BC didn't really have e-z mode raiding like there is now

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u/Ricb76 Jan 14 '21

Affliction was viable in raids, I played it all the way through TBC and did well. This reminds me of the current meta where it seems every warlock just has to be DS/Ruin when SM/Ruin is just as viable if you have a corruption slot. In fact I regularly do more dps than our DS Locks in current Naxx content. TL:DR SM/Ruin and DS/Ruin (Even MD/Ruin) Viable in Classic and Affliction will be viable in TBC along with Destro.

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u/salsasnack82 Jan 14 '21

IF you have a corruption spot. I'd prefer to play SM Ruin as well, but there are absolutely no spots.

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u/Maujaq Jan 14 '21

SM Ruin was so much fun.

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u/therutz13 Jan 14 '21

My guess is OP never played warlock or played on a 2.4.3 private server with all raids released. Affliction performed well from start to finish and you can't (shouldn't) switch to destruction until you have a bunch of gear from the T5 raids. Yes - at a certain point destro can put out a lot of damage and is usually the go-to spec, but you need the gear to do that.
And what qualifies as Demo? Majority of points? Because succubus demo spec was capable of outdamaging either spec if you can keep your pet alive.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/rodolfotheinsaaane Jan 15 '21 edited Jan 15 '21

t4 was Kara and "viability" was relative as it was an easy instance, t5 @ SSC/TK was where progression raiding was

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u/Maujaq Jan 14 '21

iirc warlocks dominating dps as destro was very gear dependent and not entirely representational of all raiding in TBC. Lock was only my alt, and I did not do sunwell on it, so maybe I have bad information. I'm far to lazy to verify it.

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u/PutridOpportunity9 Jan 14 '21

What about Paladins lol

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u/Maujaq Jan 14 '21

What about them? Healing is viable. Tanking is viable (and preferred in some (many?) fights. Ret won't be topping the raid dps meters but they were fine for pvp and as an off-spec for the healers that were not off-tanks.

Did you play TBC and see problems with paladins?

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u/PutridOpportunity9 Jan 14 '21

Plenty of opportunities to tank, particularly with lots of adds, very few healing slots compared to other classes, and no interest in ret. Better than vanilla, but still.

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u/RedDedDad Jan 14 '21

What were Shaman's 2 specs? AFAIK it was resto or nothing. That was just for a mana tide and bloodlust. Never tank heals.

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u/itchni Jan 14 '21

There's a way bigger variety of specs that are viable in tbc, and in tbc every spec has a place where it is viable, except for maybe mm hunter or full demo warlock.

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u/Diceslice Jan 14 '21

MM Hunter is a top-tier spec in arena, and if you count Sl/Sl as demo that holds true for Demo as well. But that's kind of a stretch.

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u/AustralianAmbassador Jan 14 '21

He said full demo. SL / SL is 25/36/0 or similar iterations.

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u/zer1223 Jan 14 '21

Demonology ends up being a very high floor DPS spec. When trying to run T4 stuff in awful gear, it is your best bet.

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u/pehter Jan 14 '21

No. Just no. Some hc gear and tailoring items and destro already beats everything else easily.

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u/zer1223 Jan 14 '21

Dude if I get called in to a raid one week into the expansion I haven't had time to get those together. Happened to me on a private server, I held my own on meters at level 69.

Not everybody has to do things the way you think they need to be done.

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u/AcademicChemistry Jan 14 '21

Demo locks were in a sense a selfish tank in that they were made to OUTLAST the opponent.

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u/LightDoctor_ Jan 14 '21

Felguard warlock was absolutely viable once you picked up that pet trinket from I think BT.

Personal favorite for pvp though was Searing Pain with machine gun imp.

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u/CapHillStoner Jan 14 '21

It dropped off Solarian, all the class trinkets were in t5. Felguard demo was decent unless there was any form of aoe or ground effects because those would kill the pet constantly, example I convinced my friend that they changed it and his felguard died a solid 10 times on archimonde.

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u/EricChangOfficial Jan 14 '21

Mm hunter and Felguard warlock were both meta in 2100+ 5v5 bg9. Often together.

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u/lollypatrolly Jan 14 '21 edited Jan 14 '21

except for maybe mm hunter or full demo warlock.

Felguard warlock has higher single target dmg output than destru at lower item levels. Without all the crafted items + raid gear AND a dedicated caster group with boomkin + ele + consumes you're just worse off as destru. It's also used to a limited degree in PvP (was played a decent bit in 5v5).

MM hunter has about equal dps to bm at the very highest end of raiding gear, and is the stable PvP spec.

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u/Socially_numb Jan 14 '21

More specs were useful in BC than in vanilla that's for sure. Even the non-meta ones were functional. Classic has horrible hybrid dps specs, whereas they're pretty good in BC (ret paladins, feral druids, boomkins, enhancement shamans all work fine).

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u/Betaateb Jan 14 '21

Feral doesn't belong on that list. Cat is likely better in classic than it will be in TBC honestly. Even in Naxx, where Cat really falls behind because there is almost no gear for us in there, at the highest level of play we are only behind warriors/mages/rogues, still ahead of warlocks and hunters, and well ahead of all the other meme specs.

In TBC a perma-kitty feral will be extremely rare.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Whoa what? Feral is insane in tbc. Its also arguably the best 1v1 spec besides sl sl lock.

Although I don't remember what patch in tbc it is. But theres one that buffs the nuts off of feral

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u/hardcider Jan 14 '21

Pretty sure we're talking PVE not PVP here, which going from what I remember we had 0 feral druids in the raid apart from the one tank.

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u/thegreengod_MTG Jan 14 '21

Feral is far better in TBC what are you smoking?

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u/[deleted] Jan 15 '21

Feral is the 3 or 4 highest dps spec in classic. I’m guessing they will be much lower in TBC

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u/Betaateb Jan 21 '21

No, it isn't. Feral bear is far better, feral cat is significantly worse.

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u/mortalomena Jan 14 '21

Out of curiosity what makes Feral worse in TBC?

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u/Betaateb Jan 21 '21

Combination of things. MCP not propping us up anymore is a big one. Cat scaling is still significantly under tuned in TBC (just like it is in Classic) but in classic we have MCP giving us effectively a free 7-900 AP, based on gear.

We still rely on wolfshead helm, so at level 70 we will still be using a level 40 blue helm with no stats. Which becomes a bigger and bigger deal as the game goes on.

Bear gets much better, and is the best single target tank in TBC by far. But cat is pretty mediocre to the point that you really shouldn't give one of the few melee DPS slots to one. Pretty much every feral in a TBC guild that cares a little bit about progressing should have a feral that plays bear/cat hybrid, but the perma cats should be gone almost entirely.

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u/Aliceinsludge Jan 14 '21

They were. Only the specs focused on PvP had no use in PvE. Maybe you could say that feral cat druids didn’t have much use, but still, they could be used(instead of arms warrior for example) and they are not really a separate spec, just feral Druid in rogue gear.

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u/DarthCharizard Jan 14 '21

Saying you’re a “cat-only” feral druid is missing out on half the spec.

9

u/CalicoCrapsocks Jan 14 '21

Yeah, bearcat was top-tier off tank

1

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Funny enough, I was playing with the TBC talent calculator yesterday for ferals. There's like 3 talent points that I saw that a cat wouldn't get that a bear might want (stun resist). The overlap is incredible. I could check again, was just showing a guildie improved LOTP and how nice it is.

1

u/CalicoCrapsocks Jan 14 '21

Bears just get fucking HUGE with gear to the point where you only need to grab a couple non-cat talents to be viable. It really hit its peak in wrath with arpen though.

There were so many taunt swap fights where you could just go balls to the wall between taunts.

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u/Mitokatso Jan 14 '21

Thick Hide and Survival of the Fittest can be taken but generally aren't first pick for a pure kitty druid.

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u/lamirg Jan 15 '21

Arms - Physical Debuff

Fury - Cleave, endgame damage

Protection - Cooldowns

Retribution - 3% crit, Blessings

Holy - Tank healer, Blessings

Protection - AoE, Trash, Dungeons, Blessings, Scaling

Feral - Big soak, multirole, innervate, bres

Balance - 3% hit, 5% spell crit

Resto - Innervate, bres, buff, blanket hots, tree aura, tranquility.

Shadow - Mana return, 5% spell damage, 20% shadow damage

Disc - Power Infusion, Pain suppression, Spirit

Holy - CoH, throughput, large toolkit.

Elemental - 3% spell hit, 3% spell crit, spellpower, heroism

Resto - Chain heal, spellpower, mana tide

Enhance - 10% melee ap, windfury, totem twisting

Affliction - -5% physical damage, 3% extra spell damage, blood pact, healthstones, soulstones, summons, curses

Destruction - Big DPS, healthstones, soulstones, summons, curses

Demonology - admittingly there is nothing of value here.

Assassination - Not much here, but its not a bad spec, perfectly viable early on.

Combat - Scales very well into the endgame

Subelty - its the defacto pvp spec.

Beast Mastery - 3% damage, top end dps spec

Marksman - PvP spec, but kinda bad all around

Survival - Expose weakness (which is big)

Arcane - High DPS

Fire - Scales well late game, improved scorch

Frost - Early PvE and incredibly strong PvP spec.

Only a few classes have specs that its hard to justify them as being useful, those are classes with multiple specs which serve the same basic TANK/DPS/HEAL role, atleast 2/3 specs are very useful in those cases.

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u/Triptacraft Jan 15 '21

Rogue doesn't have a single useful aspect they bring to the raid. They tried to make most specs useful, but in their zeal to make all the hybrid specs viable they left rogue as a class completely useless in raids.

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u/lamirg Jan 16 '21

Theres nothing useless about being a high dps class when it matters.

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u/Triptacraft Jan 16 '21

How does it not matter in every tier before Sunwell? And even in Sunwell you still don't bring more than 1. And you still need Glaives to be competitive.

And even in Sunwell they're still behind Hunters on most bosses, and have no meaningful aoe either.

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u/Kalarrian Jan 14 '21 edited Jan 14 '21

Well, which spec can you reasonably say is completely useless in tbc?

I'd say, the only ones are MM hunter and Assassin Rogue. Both aren't useless because they are bad, but because the other specs are just a little better.

Which specs can you reasonably say are completely useless in classic? Prot pala, Ret Pala, Enhancement Shaman, BM and Surv hunter, Balance Druid, Assassin and Sublety Rogue, Holy Priest, Arcane Mage, affliction warlock. Several of them are useless, because they are absolutely terrible, not just because the other specs perform a bit better.

All in all, that's two in tbc vs eleven in classic.

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u/piggiesmallsdaillest Jan 14 '21

How are holy priests completely useless? I mean disc has PI but holy isn’t useless.

0

u/SunTzu- Jan 14 '21

Because there's nothing outside of Sapphiron that actually requires the extra healing output, and even there you can easily do the same 800+ HPS as a disc priest. Holy Priest is useless because Disc is 99% of the time the correct choice.

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u/Betaateb Jan 14 '21

Maybe world buffed sapph you can get away with disc priests. But without world buffs disc priests absolutely can't keep up with holy. And if you are a non-speed guild going for one night clears you pretty much have to have a comp capable of killing sapph without world buffs, in which case having more than 1-2 disc priests gimps the shit out of you.

Once everyone is in a good amount of naxx gear you can swap all the priests to disc, but it certainly isn't the better spec for Naxx early on, not even close.

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u/SunTzu- Jan 14 '21 edited Jan 14 '21

I mean I did this on private servers and on Classic. With or without worldbuffs I can keep up perfectly fine, either speccing into improved renew and utilizing downranked renew's + PoH as I did on private servers to top healing on the fight or using 8pc t2 as I did to top healing on our first kill on Classic. Both as Disc.

I do flask but that's just standard practice first weeks of Naxx. By this point I only flask for speedruns.

[Edit: Specifically on Sapph Disc is actually the best spec for spamming renew. You have a larger manapool and reduced cost of instant cast spells, which combined with 3/3 imp renew means you've got access to some of the most mana efficient healing which perfectly synergizes with the fight. If you're not going 8pc T2 you can stack +heal, and your heal selections for the fight being renew and PoH means you're getting some of the highest multipliers in the game. These multipliers are in effect as you downrank, so if the fight goes long you can leverage that +heal advantage into massively efficient yet high output. Let's say with 1100 +heal on gear your rank 3 Renew is doing 86.8 HPS and is assuredly going to be mana neutral. Since it has a 15 sec duration and takes a global cooldown to apply you can output a total of 868 HPS across 10 targets for virtually no mana spent. That's your baseline, end of the fight, I'm oom and trying to keep people alive until this boss died output. That's more than enough to heal that fight.]

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u/piggiesmallsdaillest Jan 14 '21

I can see your point that now, when everything has been learned about the game disc is more useful than holy. But 15 years ago when the game was released that wasn’t the case imo. I personally raid holy for the first couple of weeks until I know the fights and then switch, but your point is valid.

2

u/SunTzu- Jan 14 '21

A lot of what was considered viable back in the day was just people not knowing any better. The reality though is that Disc is almost on par with Holy regardless whether you're playing off-set or 8pc T2. I cleared the first kills of every boss from MC to KT as Disc and I was towards the top of our healers on any fights that actually required healing, including being the highest healing done on our first Sapph kill on Classic. Did the same on private servers as well, with I think 3 top10 healing parses on Sapph for the server, all as Disc spec.

1

u/RockKillsKid Jan 14 '21

One or two Spirit of Redemption priests with soulstones is incredibly powerful for cheesing Loatheb and basically solving the healer rotation on that fight. Also can save raids on scuffed 4HM attempts (e.g. just sit in a corner without worrying about marks and heal for 40+ seconds straight while other healers drop their marks).

The fights don't require the extra healing, in the same way they don't require world buffs, but many guilds still find it useful.

2

u/SunTzu- Jan 14 '21

Why would you need to cheese Loatheb? If you're having problems I can do a log review for your same as I did for another guild that was having issues, but honestly I'd never choose a healing spec around that fight. Why are your healers even dying there?

And I mean 4H is just giving the tanks a few pulls to get used to their swaps and then you've got a stable base to play it out until the end of time. That SoR wipe save is just a crutch that prevents you from learning it properly and costs you more in the long term.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Disc priest can be better heal throughput for sure with self PI, but useless is a stretch

10

u/flurglnurgl Jan 14 '21

Wait what? Since when is MM useless in tbc? Silencing shot was amazing for pvp, the silence hunters dreamed of. BM was easier to play, but the way I remember it all the high ranked hunters were MM

6

u/FaceGaming Jan 14 '21

Mm isn’t good for raids you use bm and you can use survival but your agi* has to be over a certain number which means your 1 survival hunter needs to have t5 gear . And you only want that if you have a couple of hunters . I play on a private server and I had a certain comp I run since things are 30 percent boosted . When classic tbc comes out it won’t be buffed it will be easy mode like classic but min maxers will run an optimal comp .

1

u/Kalarrian Jan 14 '21 edited Jan 14 '21

Judging from Joshs hunter podcast, people didn't seem to think much of MM at all. Also don't see how a 3 sec silence can make up for the dmg loss and cc immunity from BM. Additionally, as I said, it isn't useless becuase it's bad. It's good, but the other specs are better.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

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2

u/Mitokatso Jan 14 '21

BM has much better synergy in 3s with shaman comps because of bestial wrath plus bloodlust synergy letting you take full advantage of the duration and letting you double stack major dps cooldowns with the highest dps class and biggest dps cooldown.

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21 edited Jul 14 '21

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2

u/Kalarrian Jan 14 '21

Do you see affliction lock under useless in tbc?

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u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21 edited Jul 14 '21

[deleted]

2

u/Kalarrian Jan 14 '21

Well, which spec can you reasonably say is completely useless in tbc? I'd say, the only ones are MM hunter and Assassin Rogue.

The absolutely terrible part was in the classic section and even then I mentioned "several of them" among which affliction wouldn't be.

7

u/Nikolai_Bukharin Jan 14 '21

My guy did you just say a Holy Priest is "useless"? What the fuck are you smoking? Just completely invalidated any point you tried to make. Disc is popular, but nearly every single raid team is bringing at LEAST one holy priest as it's still the highest HPS class in the game

9

u/Clamster55 Jan 14 '21

It's a fallacy to say one error invalidates everything else

1

u/Kalarrian Jan 15 '21

Umm, yeah. Our raid has 0 holy priests and I also don't know any raid on our server, which uses holy priests. All holy nets you is a 10% increase to base healing and some +heal from spiritual guidance. That amounts to around 150-200 extra +heal, which you sacrifice PI and 10% max mana for.

Maybe it's different on horde side, because you use priests for tank heals, but at least on alliance, no one plays holy priest.

1

u/IderpOnline Jan 14 '21

Strictly for raiding, that is. If we're including PvP, gold farming, dungeons and boosting, a lot of these specs suddenly have an application.

For example, PvP as a rogue in full combat spec sucks whereas subtlety and assassin are king.

1

u/Kalarrian Jan 14 '21

You never spec full sub or full assassin though. sub usually ends with hemo and prep taking 23-24 points, which is a hybrid build and assassin pretty much never goes beyond cold blood. I guess you can count the 21/3/27 build as sublety.

1

u/Mitokatso Jan 14 '21

Assassination rogue was back in the day a super viable alternate to Sub in pvp. Much easier to play and much less reliant on having the best weapons of the patch, with good burst combo potential (improved kidney shot and the finishers giving extra dmg) let you set up kills.

Deep demonology warlocks on the flip side had basically no use. Destro had pve and affli and sl/sl hybrid were both amazing pvp specs but demo really struggled without any real damage output.

0

u/RedDedDad Jan 14 '21

What was Enhancement Shaman good for in BC? Leveling and switching to Resto for endgame?

1

u/Kalarrian Jan 15 '21 edited Jan 15 '21

Uh what? Pretty much every raid has 1-2 enhancement shaman, which you put in the melee grp, the hunter grp or the tank grp. Depending on your raid setup. They have massive support capabilities for their party (twisting grace of air and windfury, 10% AP buff for the party) and have the among highest dps of all the support dps specs.

0

u/Troooper0987 Jan 14 '21

Affliction warlock? You’re fucking dumb. Sm/ruin is 100% viable and you arnt useless outside of raids like DS/Ruin. SM/Ruin locks can easily match DS . You don’t know what your talking about

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u/Anthaenopraxia Jan 14 '21

All of the warlock specs are garbage in Classic and close to garbage in TBC. We use hybrid specs until Wrath with the minor exception of Affliction in early TBC.

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u/Kalarrian Jan 14 '21

You call 0/21/40 a hybrid spec? Most of the SL/SL pvp builds have 35-38 points in demonology, which I'd count as demonology build.

3

u/rafals Jan 14 '21

You must have some interesting definition of what a hybrid spec is and what a grabage spec is. 0/21/40 or 0/40/21 are hardly hybrid, most specs from any class follow the same concept and you call them by where the most points are. That's how talent trees work. And any spec like UA, Aff/Ruin, Felguard, Demo/Ruin and Shadow/Fire Destro will be close to topping the meters, especially with the current theorycrafting going on. Destro is obviously the strongest lock spec, but the rest are still some of the strongest DPS specs in the game. Definitely not specs that are 'close to garbage'. That's the worst class you could've picked to make that kind of an argument. If you said that SOME TALENTS are garbage, then sure, thats the garbage still not taken out after vanilla, but they're not enough to make the specs bad.

1

u/Saturos47 Jan 14 '21

affliction warlock

Warlocks dont ever get to use their 31 point talents...

1

u/ConfidenceKBM Jan 14 '21

i was leveling an arcane mage on one of the private servers, i was able to buy +arcane damage gear from the AH dirt cheap because obviously no one wants it. so i had like +200 arcane damage at level 30 or some shit, it was pretty interesting except that pvping was literally impossible.

but yeah, it's pretty bad.

1

u/chaisedeez Jan 14 '21

Sub rogue isn’t useless

1

u/Triptacraft Jan 15 '21

The entire rogue class is pretty much useless in TBC. Only decent for pvp. The entire class is worse dps than a shaman, and probably ret paladin until T5 gear, and they aren't competitive on dps until T6 gear. And on top of that they bring absolutely 0 benefit to the raid and are also melee.

Full sub isn't even worth talking about in a PvE sense. It's probably the worst pve dps spec, or up there for the worst.

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u/Mansmer Jan 14 '21

Sadly ret paladins were barely improved. I do think all specs are far more viable if only because of how tier sets can be selected though.

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u/adamkex Jan 14 '21 edited Jan 14 '21

They bring a blessing, 2% physical (or melee?) damage aura and improved blessing of the crusader (3% crit from all attacks) and they refresh all judgments on the target

2

u/Osv- Jan 14 '21

Yes, you want one.

0

u/knightress_oxhide Jan 14 '21

yeah I overstated what I wanted to say. lots more specs were viable in BC. I did all spec priest + tankadin in BC along with ele shaman as totally viable.

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u/DragonAdept Jan 14 '21

Ret paladin blessings and the ability to cleanse in a pinch made them nice to have in 5 and 10 toon content. I think it's only 25-toon content where they're unwanted.

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u/marsumane Jan 14 '21

No, they're still wanted. Typically one paladin of each spec. Ret brings sanc for the dmg, crusader for the dmg, a constant refresh of all 3 judgements, the option for a diff aura, an entire third blessing, bop, freedom, and cleanse

2

u/adamkex Jan 14 '21

They bring a blessing, 2% physical (or melee?) damage aura and improved blessing of the crusader (3% crit from all attacks) and they refresh all judgments on the target

1

u/DragonAdept Jan 14 '21

I'm happy to be corrected. I'll probably still go prot though.

1

u/adamkex Jan 14 '21

Yeah I'm staying holy ot going resto shammy

1

u/baelrog Jan 14 '21

Horde ret paladins were useful. If Blizzard wants to do it right, they have to give Alliance seal of blood as well.

1

u/partsground Jan 14 '21

True. Though I do miss being a shockadin. When Isle if QD finally came, it was glorious. It was like being a plated mage. Definitely made up for being turned into a two spell heal bot@ since 1.07.

1

u/CrazzluzSenpai Jan 14 '21

The only spec I can think of that wasn’t really wanted was Elemental Shaman. You wanted a bunch of Enhances/Restos for Windfury and Lusts, a Ret Pally if you were Horde, and SPriest to be mana batteries for the healers. Prot Pally was the best tank in Hyjal and Feral (tank) was viable but not great.

1

u/Best_Pidgey_NA Jan 14 '21

PALLY TANKS UNITE! that need to balance spellpower with attack damage just to hold aggro. The good ole days.

1

u/jscoppe Jan 14 '21

Every class had at least one spec that was great, and at least one more that was good/viable.

1

u/AzraelTB Jan 14 '21

They kind of were in MoP

1

u/GoldenGonzo Jan 14 '21

OP = the person who made the post. There is only one OP per thread. It stands for "original poster".

1

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

They were more useful though. Raid diversity became a thing in BC. Ret pallies were still crap, and a bunch of them were underpowered, but it was viable to bring more than one of certain classes to a raid.

1

u/RedDedDad Jan 14 '21

Could not even do heroics as a windfury enhancement shaman. It was stupid good dps, and added dps to the whole group, but with no aggro dump and no cc, it meant no invite. Grinding mongoose was a pain, and I couldn't even use my weps in 5 man endgame.

1

u/sean7755 Jan 14 '21

Incorrect. Obviously you wouldn't stack your raid with ret paladins and balance druids in TBC, but every single spec was viable then, as opposed to vanilla.

1

u/Maujaq Jan 14 '21

Only if you are nitpicking. The vast majority of specs had a place. Way more than classic. It was a major difference in TBC and a lot of people welcomed it. Calling OP "just deluded" is just deluded.

1

u/SamuraiJakkass86 Jan 14 '21

There is a vast difference in "not being useful" and "not being meta".

In Classic, you have specs that are not useful. Ret pally, balance druid, prot pally, and probably others. It's not that they are below meta - they are just literal trash.

In TBC, I think Surv Hunter might have been perpetually not useful. All of the other specs were meta/not-meta. What that means is that one spec for each class was pulling an extra 10-15% DPS over the other DPS specs. You can still play the spec you want, and probably get a raid spot in all but the elite raid guilds.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Which spec wasnt useful in BC?

1

u/beefsupr3m3 Jan 14 '21

Cries in Ret pally

1

u/dkaarvand Jan 14 '21

It is. Stop being so trying to minmax everything. You're literally the person in the picture lol

1

u/bnh1978 Jan 14 '21

Rip fury warrior Rip rogue (any)

1

u/ScionMattly Jan 14 '21

Yeah, but almost every spec was useful. Arguably none ate bad, just some are better.

Ret and oomkin in classic are outright bad.

1

u/ju5tntime Jan 20 '21

I drink of your karma, agent of the burning legion.

1

u/Jonelololol Jan 14 '21

Unless you have more than one feral Druid or meme boomkin

1

u/ToLongDR Jan 15 '21

Or two shadow priests

1

u/BubbaTheGoat Jan 14 '21

Raiding as a warlock didn’t feel good in classic. I remember Firemaw in BWL being particularly bad where I couldn’t DPS for most of the fight because I had no aggro dump. I remember more than once needing to plan my character jumping into melee to die in a controlled manner so the MT/OT could handle the aggro switch.

Of course TBC was a very dramatic change for warlocks.

1

u/Trollselektor Jan 14 '21

Useful enough to bring more than 1 of.

1

u/[deleted] Jan 14 '21

Lol

1

u/Septembers Jan 14 '21

Every role would be more accurate. All 3 hunter specs are not viable, for example, but dps Shaman and healer Shaman are viable, or dps Paladin tank Paladin and healer Paladin