Hello! (sorry for my bad english, i try my best xD)
I play WoW since BFA, with some inactive months.
Now since Dragonflight im back and want to try a new main.
I tryed every class, but my most favorites are the Hunter (MM & BM) and the Shadowpriest. But i cant fall a desicion.
I love to play a DPS, i love to have cool animations and a good damage. I dont have to be on the top 3 in a mythic+ raid, but i dont want to be at the end of the list.
I think i like burst damage (i still dont know what that means, but it sounds good)
I want to have a Main character about many addons. So i dont want to have only now one of them, because he’s good at the moment. I hope you know what i mean.
So, i hope you can help me. I like both class very much. But i have to choose one.
The answer to your question is what do you find fun to play?
It does not have to be one or the other. Blizzard constantly nerfs and buffs all classes and specs anyway. So your performance is subject to things outside of your control. So as with any videogame it comes down to its foundation. Gameplay.
ShadowPriest once hand Surrender to Madness that was so good that people bypassed entire sections of a raid by bringing ShadowPriests. But Blizzard ended up nerf that to oblivion.
So performance can not be counted on since Blizzard will forever nerf and buff classes and specs. But then you might develop history with a class or spec. That for X number of years you were Marksman Hunter and you have seen over the years how the spec has played.
I still remember when Lone Wolf was first introduced and Marksman Hunters got to finally ditch their pets. Now that Blizzard has nerfed that into oblivion it forces Marksman to have a pet around.
You spoke about the history that you can have with your character over the years. This is exactly the point. This is what I want to have, but I can’t choose the class which fits me.
In one way, I would easily say hunter. I love to play dwarf with the hunter class but sometimes when I play Hunter, it feels like a boring rotation. But I lost his style to fight. I love to have many different pets on my side. It feels like a little group beside you.
But the game feels completely different with the shadow priest spec. It feels more darker. More mystic, if you know what I mean. But the shadow priest is a caster. Against the hunter, the shadow priest is Les mobile. He is stationary, but his skills feels more powerful but this stationary playstyle can be boring to after a lot of time.
No other classes had this impact on me like the hunter and the shadow priest. Yes, in one way the hunter has a lot of more DPS specs. But the other way the hunter has only DPS. So if I want to play a healer, then I have the perfect character. But I don’t think that I ever want to play healer. I like DPS specs most.
So I don’t think that I only want to play the character or the spec, which fits best in the current add-on. I’m just a regular player that want to have fun in PVE and PVP. And maybe later in the bigger raids or dungeons. And and yes, I can choose booth, but I want to focus only on one character. I like burst damage, but I like control fights too. I like booth characters or classes on the same level but I have to choose one.
Sorry for this wall of text and sorry for my bad English, I tried my best
Sounds like hunter is perfect for you except for animations. Spriest is more interesting in that regard so I guess it depends on how much you value those animations over everything else.
Depends on how long you have been playing WoW you will see the changes that have been made to each class and spec.
I tend to main Fury Warrior but have dabbled in other classes and specs. I remember when Hunter pets used to be able to replace tank players. When tanks (a highly emotional role among players) would rage quit for this or that. As a Marksmen hunter you used to be able to carry the rest of the dungeon with your trusty tank pet. I remember it was toxx the rare Scorpion as we were doing the Wrath of the Lich King one with the Vrykul.
Pets had utility like combat ress for the quillen and being able to disarm players and npcs etc…
I still remember when as a Fury Warrior it would be great to unlock Titans grip, Now it is just mainstream, not just the gameplay changed back then but the feel of it and class fantasy.
But to focus on the thread topic. There will always be the “not enough numbers” players aspect of the player base. But as long as you understand your class and spend time to know it then you seperate yourself since there have and always will be a skills gap among the players.
To explain another way, a lot of mediocre to bad players are carried through to obtain good gear. That was more prominent in Battle for Azeroth.
The classes have a different approach to the same roles. Hunter was traditionally the most mobile of the ranged roles. You had odd times where, if you stood still then you have a ranged and dps buff, grounding people turning them into a turret.
But now there is a return to the talent tree of the past which gives new flavour but brings back old things for the players.
For example. Barrage used to be useful when first introduced it was a more effective version of what Rapid fire is now. But then they made a mess of it. Forcing Hunters to change their gameplay, since barrage just aggro’d EVERYTHING so positioning became important and learning its range etc…
You can listen to the WoWtubers and such with the flavor of the month talks. But not many players actually play through the nerfs. Its awesome to be feel like a god amongst your role one moment but then nerfed to oblivion the next. This has been a growing concern why some unsub.
As for the race - class combinations. There is the angle of min-maxing. Best race with haste / crit etc… There is the class feel as well.
Like having another Alliance playable race for Shaman that is not a dwarf or draenai whereas with the Horde it seems that every other race can be Shaman.
The racials have been too badly changed. Like the Void Elfs 5% buff to all damage and heals in void form, was very quickly nerfed or removed.
If it is class fantasy then you can pick what you want.
Until Legion expansion Gnomes could not be hunters. Now you can role a class fantasy of a pint sized predator.
Hunter is fun to play but hunters are in a really bad position balance wise. It has the damage of a wet newspaper. hunter is the class i started with for real in tbc. But now its just absolutely terrible. And despite me playing this hunter for years i am probably going to abandon ship and play another class
There is no right or wrong answer to be honest. So just a few additional things to think about:
Hunter has 3 DPS specs (2 ranged, 1 melee) so if you only want to DPS, you have a bit of variety within the class.
Priest has only 1 DPS spec. There are a few different talent variations but ultimately it is only one spec. So you are much more reliant on enjoying that one spec, and that one spec being good.
Conversely, Priest has healing specs. So if you ever fancy doing a different role, Priest could be good in that regard. As a Hunter, you can only ever DPS.
Shadow Priest is a caster that relies a lot on Damage over Time (DoT) spells to do its damage. Hunters rely on their pet and attacks, and are generally more mobile, particularly Beastmaster.
Both play very different, and Hunter is probably easier to start with. Ultimately there is no wrong answer though, only whatever works best for you!
Shadow Priests aren’t nothing like they once were, was fun to play back in the day. I’d chose Warlocks over S Priests TBH.
But if PvP is a goal of yours I’d go Hunter, OP really and get carried by their pets most of the time let’s be honest.
Or disc priests in PvP are pretty good also just lack DPS.
It really depends on what you see yourself doing the most.
BM hunter is really really boring and a very slow class when it comes to APM.
But they are definitely superior during leveling and questing and just doing open world stuff solo.
It might just be me, but casters in general feels bad to quest with. You pull a mob, it directly runs for you and you just stand there and cast. Maybe kite it for a few sec as all your ensnares gets broken by damage and go on CD for 30 sec to 1 min.
Shadowpriest in recent expacs have also been really wavey, going from being OP in niche situations, to almost being useless in any other content besides raids.
So depending on what Blizzard does later on, you might run the risk of either having to heal or be declined from every M+ if it gets nerfed.
I hate when people say this lol. We control the pets, all that kill command or cleave damage isn’t just automatic you know… we have to maintain 2 short cooldown buffs using active abilities to achieve it. The pets hit only a single target like a wet noodle if you don’t use kill command, multishot, bestial wrath and barbed shot.
hes not wrong tho. You just sent your pet at someone and then basicly just use 2 skills in rotation. If the pet dies you run away ress it and do it again.
