Picking a class for the new expansion (advice for casuals)

Community General Discussion
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Most of us has been in the boat with every new expansion or even trying to decide what to pick for a new main.

It’s an important decision, picking the wrong class means a lot of hard work and time invested into something that isn’t performing well or to your expectations, even if you enjoy the play-style. You’ll just feel robbed at the end of it all with buyers remorse.

So if you’re a casual player or newbie I have some tips for you on helping you choose a class you hopefully won’t be later disappointed with and regretting the class you picked.

Play the Beta or watch videos

With the Azeroth expansion it was immediately clear from the Beta that DH was going to be the class to play for the new expansion, so if you were looking for the strongest class or one of them it was obvious early on.

High mountains and speed, DH being able to take advantage of that with their glide ability and even just the overall play-style and even with ability pruning it was going to be a force because it was still putting out that burst damage.

If you can get into the beta and try different classes this will give you a big indication of what is going to be strongest next expansion or enjoyable for you (based on changes they are implementing) you’ll get a personal feel for it and you can tell if Blizzard has a good handle on it even it’s a little early, they likely won’t be making too many major changes by release to how the class feels and plays.

Find out what changes are being made to your favorite or chosen class before you invest in it.

However, even without the knowledge there are classes that are just consistently good picks and therefore reliable choices to help prevent the “Why did I pick this class to main?” blues.

Most reliable classes

  • Death knight - very strong dps overall, self-healing, resilient. Great in PVP and PVE

  • Demon Hunter - Crazy burst, high dps, fast and agile (gliding), good in casual PVP and PVE

  • Mage - Fantastic range dps, surprisingly resilient, tears through PVE content, high skill ceiling

  • Rogue - Always great in PVP. Very effective in solo/dungeon PVE. Stealth and can pick and choose your battles, get out of bad situations. High skill ceiling.

Even with nerfs and tweaks or game changes, those classes will likely remain solid throughout it all.

Strong solo in PvP and PVE and stress free

  • Paladin - Amazing tool kit, stays alive, helps others, can avoid most CC in game. Strong dps, heals, faster default mount speed, plate armor. Great burst and shields to escape trouble make it good choice.

  • Hunter - pet is your personal tank. Strong ranged dps, tricks to avoid damage and death, traps. Great class to learn raids or in dungeons as you can observe from a distance (just remember to take taunt off). Solid class in PVE and PVP.

  • Death Knight - it’s a Death Knight, has been one of the best classes in the game overall from it’s release and will likely stay that way

Classes that seem strong but aren’t until later or in group settings (high risk of singing the main char blues)

  • Shaman - strong dps but defensively weak and vulnerable. Prone to pulling more mobs than intended while trying to escape in PVE, vulnerable to interrupt, fear, low resilience, complicated, not a strong choice for casuals in solo or casual pvp. It takes more effort for equal results.

  • Warlock - Has a pet, but it’s not a hunter pet. Low maneuverability, long ramp up time on dmg (better in raids/long fights), can get easily overwhelmed, sitting duck due to casts to do big damage, extremely prone to interrupt, needs protection/heals, constant changes to the class by Blizzard.

  • Warrior - gear dependent, heal dependent, surprised it doesn’t wear depend diapers. Feels great, first impression is enjoyable but ultimately can be isolated and made to look very weak in PVE and PVP. Poor solo/casual play choice unless you’re willing to deal with the consequences, like needing potions, food or other aids or just accepting death.

Less reliable or inconsistent classes

  • Druid - great versatility, fun but the class is constantly being messed with. Very unpredictable on how your preferred spec will perform, but healing is usually solid. Furthermore, they might change your shift forms or just how things work, leaving you unsatisfied or underwhelmed.

  • Priest - Shadow lacks real punch out of void form, very vulnerable/not resilient, easily overwhelmed, CC is weak, single target damage mostly. Heal specs are questionable and ever changing, it’s a roll of the dice and not a great choice for a casual player.

  • Monk - I’m not too familiar with the monk but to me it’s a quirky and unpredictable class. What i do know is It destroyed in mists of pandaria and then they made some major changes to it and I just haven’t seen it as much of a force ever since. Choose at your own risk.

At the end of the day

If you’re a casual player that mostly plays alone or doesn’t really do raid content or does mostly dungeons or maybe with a group of friends, keep that in mind when choosing a class.

Also consider the other perks when choosing a main. A mage for example is a good main because he can move around quickly with self-portals and provide their own food. Warrior is a better alt because you don’t receive any perks so it’s a class that’s better leveling later.

Don’t worry about the highest dps rated class or what not, especially if you spend a lot of your time alone and don’t plan on doing high-end Raids or end-game content, if you’re just a casual it really doesn’t matter. Think about what you like doing and pick the better class that offers that play-style.

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Demon Hunter
Only
Demon Hunter

LoL

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Just choose this 5Head

What? Drooid always have at least 1 playable spec.

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I’m the most casual casual player that ever existed and I play solo and do fine with warlock :rofl:

Guys: play what you wanna play and what you enjoy! it’s that simple.

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If you’re a casual or a noobie you play what you like to play.

Chasing fotm or strong meta classes benefits you nothing because you don’t do that content or won’t play an off class well enough to abuse its OP state.

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paladins and death knight do well in casual pvp .personal expeeience

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Stopped reading here

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You can not write this in a “guide” without knowing how the class changes will be like.
To know this you would also need to know ALL the changes that is going to happen in the first place.
Anything about being great or good in pvp or pve can not be based in reality because you would have to know how the class is in shadowlands to base it of anything.
you can say historically or similar but saying defacto this is strong in X content is just not something you have any possible knowledge of at this point in time.

The thing is that we know FAR too little to make any judgment at this point in time.

Classes you put in this category:
DK has been massively op or bottom shelf many times from wrath to now.
it is rare to see them be steady just good at whatever they do.
DH the class has existed 2 expansions to early to make a good guess of how the class will work out (see monk and DK for how much it could change and how drastically.
Mage: 1 spec is expected to be good the 2 others might suffer so if you like mage as a class you will be good most likely if you only like a specific spec you can be lucky or very unlucky. Same goes for Rogue and the other pure dps classes.

So out of 4 classes you picked for Most Reliable 2 that should be having at least 1 good dps spec a class that has been in the game so little that we have no idea of what or how they will change it, and a class that has been swinging a lot from the start til now.

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You put a lot of thought into this, it’s detailed and well composed and for that you deserve praise. Lots of good thinking. Still this is imho an opinion based guide and I want to point that out. Hope you don’t mind some feedback. :smiley:

Really, you’re trying to look in the chrystal ball and forsee the future of classes. Buffs and nerfs come and go, there’s no way of telling what Shadowlands will bring more than just that. :upside_down_face:

I never expected the bully vicitim class of WoW, beastmaster, to actually do well in raids and marksman being at the lower half. But here we are and while I’m talking hunter mention we no longer need to turn taunt off, that is automatic in instances. Sidenote: Nor do we need to dismiss the pet to prevent it from pulling.

Shadowpriests are good at aoe, better than single target, but it’s tricky to make it work. They may not have much of CC like mage sheep or sap, talented psychic scream is quite good though and there are tricks like making your pet tank + fade. I think Blizzard loves healing priests and they have as far as I know always been viable or even at the top.

Ench shaman isn’t squishy but it takes time, timing and a lot of self heals, maybe earth shield talent, to last the tougher mobs. Fun class if you don’t aim at topping meters but not for beginners.

Same, complex and fun, goes for monk, that didn’t suffer so much from ability pruning because the class was still fairly new.

My very casual opinion based advise for any other casual is to play what you enjoy, try out different classes and specs. Make trials and test to your hearts content. :crazy_face:

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A bit early to say what will be good or not, but it’s safe to have at least a 2nd character ready for leveling. Especially if you’re a demon hunter. No way of knowing what Blizzard will do with the “exiting new thing every level”.

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Been playing solo on this hunter for 12 years. Both in PvE and PvP. I love this hunter, so i am going to stick with her.

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You’re not wrong.

I think destro actually has the shortest ramp up time in the game right now except fire mage but destro also has the longest downtime in the game right now.

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If we are talking about classes that you simply cant go wrong with, and judging by past expansions were always very good in either PvP, PvE or, most often, both, I’d say:

Mage, Rogue, Warrior, Druid.

These guys are constantly top tier at some part of the game. And if they’re not top tier at other parts, they’re at least “good”.

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In my opinion a new player should choose what he/she likes trying different classes. As you said, choosing a main is an important decision that has to be made cautiously.

That said, a new player can read guides if he/she feels insecure or cannot choose.

I wouldn’t recommend a Death Knight to a new player. In fact, on the character creation panel says Death Knight start at higher level than other classes. Although this would change on Shadowlands, Death Knights have two resources to manage and many things to track.

In my opinion, Death Knights are not a stable class. They not always do good.

Mage is one of those classes I would recommend.
High skill ceiling is debatable depending on the content and level your are aiming for; Arcane and Frost are simple and straightforward specs, Fire is a by more complex since you need to manage crits and procs.

Mages are a valuable in any group content, especially raids. It would be easier to find PvP and PvE groups.

I disagree that Druids are not reliable class. They have four specs, good for solo content and groups content, thus they will always have a viable spec.
Druids are one of the most flexible classes in the game and they’re not hard to play (excluding Feral).

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I say play what suits you, do not ever go for fotm classes, becuse, even if one class is realy good and op, it doesnt meen you will be, becuse that clas might not suit you at all, and you just can not perform at the level you should be able to.

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I don’t know how you can tell what classes will be next expansion, since their design will be changed and we have no idea how they will play. This would only make sense after we are sometime into beta.

Warlock is so much better for solo casual play than mage will ever be. Leveling a mage with questing gear (i.e. not geared from the previous expansion) is the one of the most frustrating experiences I have ever had. Highly resilient, lol :rofl:

As a casual player that mostly plays alone, I can tell you that monk is one of the best picks one can make, very strong, very reliable class. Touch of karma protects efficiently even the noobiest of players from any “big mob” they might encounter. Good aoe, good single target, earth, win and fire gives you burst and it has two charges. Slef-healing. Really, there’s nothing monk lacks for a solo player.

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When it comes to Retail and class pick, I only see…
What role you want to play? If dps, then what distance you want to play? Other than that, not much of a difference. Even the armor sets these days look same for same type of armor wearers.

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It doesn’t really make much sense to give advice for casuals about what to choose in the next expansion when we literally know nothing about the class design ideas for it, except for a few unpruned spells. There is a possibility that half, or more of what you wrote won’t be true in Shadowlands, and some is already completely false.

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Rolling a Flavour of the month class will result in tears & tantrums when it gets nerfed.
Play what you like is the only reliable advice.

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Thanks for your well thought out suggestions, there are some great pointers here for players of all levels of experience :slight_smile:

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