I’ve covered each class and specialization in a huge amount of detail for RAF classic. In fact, I’ve got a near four hour video on the channel containing an overview of each class, but I realized that it’s not going to be for everybody. So I thought, why not try and do a quick rundown of each spec by the category instead, I know some people prefer to play a certain role or want to give something new or try they’ve never seen before in the expansion. Now here’s an overview of what we’ll be talking about and how things will be rated whilst I am discussing them.
What Is The Best Melee Class in WOTLK Classic?
I wanted to pick something which made sense for every specialization in the game. Whatever video it is, whether we’re talking about tanks, heals or DPS and to cover areas which take into account how Wrath of the Lich King is expected to work, I split performance into early game and later game or scaling as many classes change in power as itemization is updated. We will then have the complexity of the specialization. How difficult is it to play on a baseline level? How stackable is it? are you likely to bring more than one of them or even two or three the utility is in buffs or debuffs. And finally PvP more concerning arena each area will be rated on one to five stars and here is what each means, though.
For example, one star scaling means the specialization falls off harder later in the expansion. Three Star means it stays quite consistent, and five star means it improves massively. I hope that makes sense. Let’s make a start. I want to start off with a new hero class the death knights they have two DPS specializations both for frost and unholy Ross begins RAF has a hard hitting single target spec with excellent AOE burst although very prompt dependent and they don’t require a ton of gear to really start pushing excellent damage putting them as a strong contender for top DPS in early raids.
As the expansion progresses though they don’t fall off and even begin to scale up with armor penetration gear and trial of the Crusader and Beyond Lifestyle wise the frost F night is I would say on the simpler end of things apply your diseases keep them up and dish out huge crits through killing machine and Brian prosti Qaiser a spec that you certainly don’t mind seeing more than one of in your raid but it doesn’t feel super necessary either. So I’ve given them an average score for stalking I really rate definate utility in general frost in particular doesn’t have the most utility overall but the way it provides it is just super consistent, namely improved IC talents giving your entire raid 20% mele haste. Thats why i can’t wait for the WOTLK prepatch to end.
Other alternatives to get this buff just are not as good HEDP wise sure it can hit hard but it’s ultimately overshadowed hard by its unholy counterpart which just does nearly everything better speaking of and holy that is next and I have a feeling they are more on par with frost than what I’m giving them credit for here. If boss fights are short enough your gargoyle and pets just do an absolutely dumb amount of damage during the opener they certainly scale well to favoring more strength over armor penetration.
I’d say both death knight dps specs start good and only get better not everyone can say that complexity wise I think they have more going on than fosters maintaining your desolation bar for 5% damage your girlfriend’s yup timekeeping diseases going time in cargo right was snapshotted buffs and of course it’s a pet class don’t forget that one more thing there’s been a great deal of experimentation with Dual Wield and holy instead of the more traditional two handed spec it could very well be the case that both dk dps want to one handers backing and holy feels similar to frost doesn’t hurt but often you won’t be actively looking for it utility again here is something which I really rate and holy or something totally unique which almost wants to make me pull it up to five star because it’s so good and that’s Abin plague Bringer This makes sure diseases passively apply what is essentially curse of elements causing 12%.
More magic damage taken the other alternatives to apply this debuff are only single target making and holy decays have a fantastic Nisha finally in the arena this is a total monster of a specialization at quite literally no point is it bad and finds itself in some of the strongest arena teams throughout wrath it’s a utility and damage dealing machine next a rogue assassination first it very well maybe the top performing single spec in the game early on in reading content needing next to no gear bar a couple of daggers this class just get so much power through its baseline talents and poisons its AOE is good too but not top tier scaling wise if Blizzard buffs all the while gear which they very well might from a recent blue Post we could see assassination rogues do things we’ve never seen them do to DPS meters before in Wrath if not they’re expected to remain consistent consistently high that is as for how hard this spec is to play I’m gonna say this is the easiest MLA in the game a slice and dice is auto refresh thanks to talents you press mutilate and then you invent them and yep, that’s it very chill spec backing rogues assassination.
Yeah, sure you could early if you’re given multiple rogues in your raid, or you want them for later game content and epic gear as we progress though. Well, we’ll talk about that when we get to it. Utility wise rogues don’t bring a huge amount but tricks of the trade gets them more or less all of the credit for the score here are During a great threat transfer and the damage buff EDP, I mean, it’s like how playing SAAB is in TBC. It’s high pressure if it’s given uptime, but it has a less tools to maintain that uptime. Combat is also in a great spot for wrath much like assassination. It comes into early rates offering great damage with a nice strength of cleaved damage through Blade Flurry.
It also has a powerful set of DPS cooldowns to blow through the scaling on combat is also top tier combat benefits heavily from armor penetration games that are offered in late game break tears though it should start well and only get better as we go on. Much like assassination. Not the most complicated spec in the game after your cooldowns are through is back to maintaining slice and dice and weaving in some finishes in between. It feels less attractive to start combat early compared to assassination.
But the opposite can be said for later in the expansion were multiple combat rogues can be a great choice utility also gets a pass thanks to tricks of the trade, though combat also brings the 4% physical damage taken debuff which is more or less going to be the only specialization providing that late game in PvP you’ve run in you press all your cooldowns and you hope you’ve won the game by then because if you haven’t, you’re probably gonna lose sobro Am I really covering sub here? I mean, I guess I am maybe just maybe it’s secretly overpowered. But nobody has figured out how to play it yet. Perhaps that’s what it is. Or maybe it’s just so bad in PvE.
There’s nothing to really say about how it performs in raid content. I’d say if you’re in best gear and want some 100 passes to put on your Tinder profile, you can call yourself a big pumper that’s more or less the only use for sub in PvE. PvP was completely different story of course, this is one of the most iconic PvP specs in the game with your standard rogue suite of CC burst and utility in BRAF. There’s definitely a chasm between the viable PvP and PvE specs for Rogue for arms warriors.
They should be the go to DPS specialization for the class early in the expansion but don’t expect anything too great from them quite yet. Nice sweeping strikes into bladestorm can certainly decimate on trash or AOE pools, but the single target often leaves a lot to be desired as the expansion progresses Sure, they scale well with armor penetration, but at a certain point in time, every arms warrior will really want to be hitting that respect button and considering that other DPS spec the specialization is also very simple to play in that you keep up your rent and you use your proxy and sudden death and tasteful blood as they come up.
There’s no need for a swing timeout anymore because slams and regular auto attacks are tracked separately in between that bladestorm away it’s simple but it is satisfying. I have to say stacking wise you don’t need to but chances are you’re going to be gearing more than one warrior at some point in time for later in the expansion. Utility wise they’re pretty good actually bring the 4% physical damage debuff and a major armor reduction. Enjoy arguing between yourself and the rogue for literally the entire expansion.
As for who has to sunder in PvP, I think arms is legitimately one of the strongest melee if not the strongest melee in the game with extremely high damage and pressure free Mortal Strike decent mobility and much improved survivability compared to TBC and as they gain armor penetration they only ever get better highly recommended for PvP enjoy us the already exceeded expectations in TBC powerful far earlier than expected of wrath I’ve seen the beta raids and this time around surely it will be the correct prediction that fury will be weighed down on the meters during the start of the expansion bailing wise there is quite literally nothing that compares to a fury warrior late game and they are absolute beasts with insane single target and AOE capabilities they just need an absolute ton of gear to really come alive but stacking well it kind of goes without saying early game no late game yes they need that trial of the Crusader and beyond gear to be worth really stacking because on top of that the utility is is kind of bad they do bring a number of buffs but nothing that’s hard required or there isn’t already another class doing it in PvP I just Well I don’t know why he would really exists play arms next to feral DPS a highly anticipated specialization for RAF classic I feel early on we expect them to perform well on single target with rate burst on AoE.
Their bleeds can create now and of course they bypass armor making them a solid starter. They also scale well with armor penetration in later game raids due to a sizable portion of the damage still coming from the likes of auto attack and shred. However, despite being a good performer, the class is hard to play. In fact, I would say it’s the most complicated spec in the game to play well. And if you aren’t playing well, its performance suffers enormously. It’s a juggling act of managing buffs and debuffs and you really can’t afford to drop anything. On top of that. You may have heard of the likes of power shifting in the past from the likes of classic or TBC and that is no longer a thing, thankfully, but feral druids in the apparent endless quest to make the spec harder than it needs to be have come up with something new called bear weaving which is shifting into bear form when there’s nothing that needs to be done in cat and upon your lacerate and operability story In that downtime, i semi feel like this is a meme.
But hey, if it’s a DPS increase, then it’s a DPS increase and I just thought I’d mention it you don’t need to start Farrells it’s more than likely going to be a one off spec in your raid. The utility is good, you still bring that 5% crit buff, somebody has to do it after all, and the combat res never goes amiss either giving them an average score here.
I think they improve in PvP a lot compared to TBC with each five Combo Points spent the next spell such as cyclone is instinct cast giving them a very high pressure and a large amount of CC for a melee spec next retribution Paladin I see so many Paladins out there leveling it feels as though this is already a popular choice early gaming raids I see them being solid on AOE um middle of the pack on single target, they do deal a ton of their damages holy though bypassing armor and Max is full of undead meaning spells such as exorcism are always going to create the scaling for wretches probably the only time where I’ll put an asterisk next to it as most of the time classes begin to take off in trial of the Crusader or ret however, it’s a tier set bonus which they very specifically need and that is the tier 10 to set this gives the auto attacks a 40% chance to reset the cooldown on divine storm. This is possibly the most powerful TSL bonus that has ever existed in classic so far, and completely changes the power of the spec, albeit RNG heavy basically don’t expect to do super well until ICC it is what it is.
Brett is also very straightforward to play. It has a priority system of short cooldown abilities, you press them in the correct order when they come off cooldown. There’s definitely some learning to be done there and making sure you’re pressing the right button at the right time. But on a baseline level, right, very simple but stacking route I mean maybe an ICC before that you wouldn’t exactly go looking for it. Brett is an absolute utility powerhouse and I think they are one of the single best one of additions you can make to any raid team.
By themselves. They provide seven separate buffs and debuffs know the spec in the game that comes close to this on top of that you can spec into or mastery or even divine sacrifice for a raid wide cooldown, they have hand of sacrifice and the protection and the freedom lay on hands and so much more sure, Rhett is a bit easy to play. But you can really stand out by making the most of your huge toolkit of utility ebp wise, I’d say that again improved compared to TBC but have a much different playstyle.
Now in TBC. It was all about proxying that wind fury and trying to global somebody these days rats has a lot more consistent pressure with a strong amount of utility and CC in their toolkit as well. Finally, enhancement shaman, they come out of the gates as a very impressive specialization for both single target and AOE encounters dealing a good mix of physical and magical damage. The scaling is a bit up in the air if I’m honest, I’ve heard both sides of it. I’ve seen both sides of it between they do amazing and they fall off but I’ve decided to go down the middle with it. I think the scaling can be difficult to assess because this specialization is kind of hard to play well, the employee part there’s just a lot of different buttons you need to be managing between your cooldowns your totems, your totem placement, and even pet management with feral spirit active and if you drop the ball your DPS can suffer fast.
There is also an alternative playstyle for enhancement too known as spell Hance where you will use spell power jewelry trinkets and weapons. This variation focuses more of its damage into fire by the likes of flames on weapon and fire Nova typically people won’t look to stack enhancement either due to the fact that Charmin utility takes a huge hit moving from TBC to wrath. Other classes can now do what they do, and often easier. However, I will say if a raid does not have a shaman, they instantly become the best utility class in the game bar none. It doesn’t even matter which spec you’re playing at this point because heroism and blood lust are just too good not to have in PvP, they can pack a serious amount of burst in the opener applying high pressure with Feral Spirits heroism and purge they often need to score a takedown fairly fast or they’ll begin to get counted out and that’s a short rundown of each mele, DPS specialization in Wrath Classic with a bit of a different format. Let me know how you thought the video went and whether you liked something done differently and do let me know which role you want to see next between range DPS tanks or healers. As always guys, thank you all so much for watching and listening and I’ll see you all on the next one. Very soon.
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