How powerful are the Classes?

Lore Story
21

A stampede? We need like two.

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22

Funniest thing is that Druids have a abtility to put the beasts to sleep :sleeping:

23

I mean, if an axe thrown to the back was enough to almost kill Malfurion, my talent called “Stampede” which summons a legion of wild beasts should obliterate that silly smurf.

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24

Warlocks, warlocks, warlocks, and warlocks.

Then everything else.

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25

Death Knights. Immune to psychological harm. Tireless. Extremely hard to kill, as in The Black Knight from Monty Python.

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26

Strong case made for DKs.

Would be very interesting to see a Darian Mograine vs. Jaina (or Khadgar) fight.

27

This is the thing. Each class excels in certain situations. Like a mage, for example who can either freeze an entire army or a large part of an army or burn it.

One of my favorite battle scenes concerned a feral druid who could use magic to rapidly heal the wounds inflicted by countless opponents while tearing them apart in his bear form.

Or the example of an assassin (ranged or melee) able to eliminate an opponent before the opponent is even aware of the assassin’s presence.

Each class has its own strengths and weaknesses. But the Death Knight has the least weaknesses and many strengths.

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I would put Mages at the top of the list.

If we go by theoretically most powerful, a mage can be anything from a scrawny nerd who can barely make a pen levitate, to a master of the universe with literally earth shattering spells, a master of all forms of magic. Granted, this becomes a bit muddled, as a true master of magic would command far beyond mere arcane powers, but even into void and fel magic as well.

If we are going by averages, then I would say Death Knights and Demon Hunters are the most powerful by average, albeit each have their distinct strengths and weaknesses. They are more exclusive clubs, and each of them are infused with extremely powerful fel and necrotic energies that elevate them beyond anything a mortal warrior could ever hope to match in terms of physical. The downside however is that they would struggle more against say a Light user than any other class.

Among the normal classes I would say Warlocks.

That is because Fel is basically like a cheat-code to great power, sort of like the Dark Side from Star Wars. It is the high-risk, high-reward path. The only downside is that it is also perhaps the most dangerous class option, and a slight slip up can lead to a fate worse than death. This means that there are likely not as many surviving high-level Warlocks as there are high-level mages.

In terms of the weakest class however, I would make that the Warrior.
He is but a mortal Orc or Human. A warrior can wield magical items and possess great skill and military knowledge, but at the end of the day, they are only a mortal with some fancy weapons and skills. And unlike Rogues, they generally lack their amazing ability to circumvent their enemy’s strengths.
(Mind you, in a high-fantasy setting like Azeroth, proper magic weapons can make or break warriors.)

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29

I don’t know. A Demon Hunter is a Demon which can heal himself by shattered souls. His only weakness is that he is very unstable.

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30

Except they aren’t. If you have ever made a Death Knight character you -have- to play through the quest that shows this not to be true (I mean, assuming you level them beyond 55.

Orbaz Bloodbane, the so called ‘Hand of Suffering’ flees in terror the Battle of Light’s Hope. They really are not fearless.

Tireless is bad, very bad. We’ll leave aside the fact that makes them de facto insane, as none of the races capable of becoming Death Knights are designed to function without sleep, the whole feeling no pain and injuries not stopping them is really bad for a soldier. You do not want soldiers who feel no pain, seriously. That is like the worst idea ever. Unless you are fielding an army of Lepers, you -want- your soldiers to feel pain. If Death Knights could actually feel no pain, they would be rubbish, not just in terms of they would all be dead now, but they would have been rubbish fighters anyway. If the only way you can tell if you are holding a sword is to actually look and check, then you are a pretty rubbish soldier.

Death Knights are good shock troops, they are appallingly bad line infantry. I mean you know an army that feels no pain is bad, right? I mean that is why Lepers lose extremities, its not the disease Leprosy itself, that doesn’t make bits drop off. Its all the small cuts, grazes and infections, its death by installment plan in terms of mini-gangrene.

Like I say, Good Shock troops to be used quickly and decisively, but absolutely awful line infantry. And they would need a lot of upkeep, as in people actually checking them all over to see if they have sustained injuries they simply have not noticed…

In terms of effectiveness, they’re actually pretty low down the list in terms of the ‘bang for your buck’ factor. They’re hard as nails, but some of their ‘strengths’ are not actually strengths at all…

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31

That would be cause of the Light, which seems to not cause fear but pain. So fearless in any situation but involving the Light.

That makes absolutely no sense. Look, having no need to rest means you can move and fight. The key word being “need” here. Cause if they broke down in any way unless they rested and slept then sleeping and resting would be necessary which, as far as I know, is not.

Plus taking into account that a normal living creature runs out of battery, so to speak, by performing certain physical actions such as swinging a big effing weapon for example. You can’t do it non stop because you are gonna get tired eventually. A Death Knight does not have that problem and can go on as long as they need to.

Also being immune to the effects of pain does not necessarily mean you cannot feel damage inflicted. It just means you don’t succumb to the effects of pain which often can totally disable you and prevent you from operating. Death Knights don’t seem to have that issue being able to keep operating even after you chop one of their arms off for example. And why would they, since they are dead to begin with. So for example, puncturing their lungs would really piss them off, instead of causing them to fall down and start choking.

The death knight is essentially immune to any form of attrition and that puts them above most. They are hard to kill, because they are not susceptible to issues that a normal living person would not be able to shrug off WHEN it occurs.

So I am not sure what you are on about because what you said makes absolutely no sense.

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32

I’m not so sure it is the Light that causes it, I mean all the Death Knights are in the same situation at that point, none of the rest of them flee, just Orbaz He’s not even being hit by an especially Light wielding character at the time if I remember right from the times I did it. (It actually seems random as to who he is fighting at the time, so that can’t be a factor that ‘matters’ )

Its a weird one, like a lot of the physics and biology behind the Undead in general it doesn’t make sense, and can only really be explained by going “Umm, Magic” which is fair enough, but these things need clarifying, and in some cases even magic doesn’t make them make sense. Let me give you an example. Undead, what do they smell of?
9/10 people will say they smell rotten and decaying.

Why would they? They’ve -done- their rotting, it is the process of decaying that smells, That process is over. They are in perfect stasis, they are not decaying any more than they already are. by definition they cannot, otherwise they would skeletonise and have no biological tissue left. You can’t smell of decay without actually decaying.
Equally they don’t sweat, breathe, give off pheromones or all the tiny little smells that living creatures do that we hardly notice until they are gone.

An actual Undead (A Wow one, not your classic zombie shamblers) would actually smell of absolutely nothing. Zero smell at all, more odourless than even the most antiseptic of hospital wards.
Now that in itself is pretty creepy, and would likely wig most animals and people out, especially animals who rely more on smell.

But you ask people and they will almost always say Undead smell, which, even by magical logic, they shouldn’t.

So not needing to rest, has to make sense at least in a ‘magical logic’ fantasy setting. As in it has to obey the logic of that world. Whether it is a physical or psychological need is another matter. I completely agree, they do not need -physical- rest, they do not physically tire. I’m not so sure about mentally. Some form of mental surcease is a common thing required by -all- the thinking species of Azeroth. If a Species can become a Death Knight, its default psychological setting is to need Sleep. Lack of it will cause psychosis and eventually death. By Psychosis I don’t mean turning into a Psychopathic killing machine, I mean genuine drooling insanity being about as much use as a glass hammer.

Those facts we know. Every race that -can- become a Death Knight, psychologically needs rest. Need further proof? Even the Forsaken need rest, how do we know this? Check out Undercity (Err, oops, alright, before current events check it out) Lots of Coffins there. Why? Why would there be lots of Coffins there, for what purpose, Beds? I mean there is no other reason. Undercity was the Lordaeron Sewer network. We know the people of Lordaeron buried their dead in graves, as we see elsewhere, they didn’t just plonk them in a box and flush them down the sewers… Apart from anything else, those coffins would have rotted. Basically therefore the coffins were placed there -after- the Forsaken, -by- the Forsaken. Why would they do that? Forsaken are not immune to the psychological things that afflict living beings, we see this in Silverpine, with terrified and demoralised Forsaken soldiers, we see this with Orbaz Bloodbane, they can still feel fear, which means they are not immune to all the negative emotions of being alive.

A Sentient and Sapient being, even in a magical world, simply could not function without rest. Physically maybe, but mentally, no. Ironically the only intelligence that could survive without mental rest, would be one that we would not recognise as intelligent at all. Such creatures do exist in our real world. They’re called insects. (Or iinfant children who seem to function mainly on messing themselves, screaming and not knowing that 3.00 in the morning is sleepy time for grownups :stuck_out_tongue: )

So I kind of agree and disagree. Physically, yes, no rest is needed, for a Death Knight to qualify as an ‘intelligent’ being however, some period of mental dormancy, even if fleeting, would be needed.

My bad, I misunderstood. So you mean they can feel pain, in the sense of like a warning light on a car dashboard but are not debilitated by it?

Yeah, that makes more sense, they would have to be able to actually -feel- sensation, as I say, if they couldn’t, they would be pretty bad, They (Neurologists) have reevaluated the ‘How many Senses does a being have?’ debate, currently it is scientifically reckoned as at least 9, and perhaps as many as 21. Pain is actually regarded as a Sense, as is Proprioception ( You can test this by closing your eyes and touching the tip of your nose with a finger). You have no visual evidence where your finger is, but you can unerringly place fingertip to nose, you can sense where your limbs are in relation to your body (Unless drunk or on narcotics) Even people born blind have this unerring sense.

A Death Knight would have to have this sense, have to, else they would not know if they were holding their sword, without actually looking at it. Their spatial awareness would be shot to hells,

So they are not immune to sensing pain, heat and pressure, but perhaps they are not debilitated by it. I can dig that, that makes them pretty scary indeed.

Please bear in mind here, I am not saying Death Knights are rubbish, far from it, they are terrifying engines of destruction, last time we had a Death Knight nemesis in my RP DM’d campaigns it took ten elves to take him down, they are -scary-

However they are not invincible. That lack of pain response, means they are shut off from a powerful asset that the living possess. Adrenaline.

Adrenaline would do absolutely zilch for a Death Knight. Without being grim, I have/had a fairly physically robust hobby, and have racked up a fair few broken bones in my time (29 and counting… :smiley: ) and we’re not talking “Oh I broke a finger or toe” but “Oh, I have atomised my left funnybone” “oh, I have broken both bones in my lower leg” kind of thing. In both of those cases I distinctly remember getting back to my feet, making a quip, and just buzzing with energy, in one case reaching down and picking up my weapon in an arm that should not physically have been functioning, in the other advancing threateningly with a limp on my opponent going “When I get to you lad, They’re going to have to redefine the word ‘trouble’ to describe what you’re in”

In both cases I got about five seconds grace, before the pain chewed through the Adrenaline, I looked at myself and went “Ahh, the Bones are supposed to stay on the inside…” and collapsed.

In an actual scrap where you wanted to kill someone, as opposed to just fighting them with ‘safe’ blades, those 5 seconds could win a fight.

Death Knights alone of all the classes (and Forsaken) just don’t get Adrenaline.

They operate at a constant peak, but can never exceed that peak. other living creatures operate below that peak, but can -exceed- that peak in extremis.

There is one weapon that would be absolutely lethal to Forsaken and Death Knights alike, all the way up to Sylvanas and Nathanos, and it took ages of research for us to investigate it IC, Its not a quick Kill, but it is a certain one. As this is the Story forum however, I’m guessing a lot of us are RP’ers, so it would be bad form to mention what it is here, and give people ideas they may not have had. It is a weakness that the Undead have, that would not affect the Living at all.

Go up against a Death Knight face to face in a scrap? Oh boy you are gonna lose so hard. Everything will be stacked in their favour and not yours. Anyone who thinks they can just smash their way through Death Knights like they were mooks is really underestimating how hard they are.

But the thing is, I could write something like this for each of the Classes, what makes them so hard, but what also is their weakness. That’s because they all have them. Death Knights are hideously obscene brutal combatants that fit our preconceptions of tireless soldiers. They do have flaws however, and if you prepare for those, you can mess them right up.

If I was prepared to go out doing it, I could Kill a Death Knight or Forsaken for the princely sum of £7, So could you (Or whatever your local currency is) So could anyone over the age of 12(Or whatever age certain sales are restricted to in your country).

Sure, the Death Knight would tear me apart, but equally, it would be dead in days.

Using a weapon that I am entirely immune to, and cannot harm me, but will be absolute death to them. This being a real thing, not some trippy Magic stuff.

Power is massively relative in Wow, massively so.

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I’m not arguing for the sake of arguing by the way, I actually love discussions on these things, so thank you! :slight_smile:

34

Not even close, overall the ranking are like this: Basically anyone who can use some sort of magic is superior, especially if they are casters.

Warlock
Mage
Shadow priest, about as powerful if not more than warlock, because void magic is amazingly strong
Shaman,druid
Demon hunter
Pally/death knight

And then the rest.

Mages and warlocks are stronger because they don;t rely on anything to cast magic, they don;t need to please the elements like shamans do, shadow priests fall into the risk of madness, but void magic seems to be the strongest overall.

People overestimate death knights.

If the light is as strong as the void, then pally would be higher, but the problem is that we usually see the light as a healing force rather than a offensive one, so there’s that problem, but there is the potential.

Demon hunters overall so far are the best melee.

Keep in mind though that this is just an average, the characters we are playing probably don’t have an enormous disparity like the average warrior and the average warlock, i would bet that the warlock char is still more powerful than the warrior one, but the difference shouldn’t be abyssal, or maybe it is who knows, blizzard never really made a statement about that.

Anyway, our characters at this point are basically top tier, if we consider just the fact that in legion we were the ones to get the artifacts, which are only given to the best of the best of their respective class, that pretty much already puts us in top tier.

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35

But Demon Hinter are basically like Warlocks but they don’t only use this kind of magic, no, they consist from her.

36

Monks draw from the same energy as Shaman. Not sure how you can group them with the others at the bottom.

37

He think that melee classes don’t use magic :rofl:

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38

Well, if you actually read the thing you would have read that casters are usually better than melee.

They have more destructive power, demon hunter is the best of the melee though.

Also i don’t know where did you got the monk use the same energy as shamans zol, they don’t, monks use chi, which is basically internal energy, shamans draw power from the elements, where is the connection??

And also the second post is a strawman, but on the forums i guess everything goes right?

39

Chi literally means Spirit. Shaman draw power from the spirits, the only difference being monks draw from within, shaman draw from without.

Source: wowwiki

40

Only because they can cast and make more dmg cause of it doesn’t means that they have more power.