So I’m having a really hard time to pick a main dps class. I’m a casual player which means I obviously won’t have that much time to do dungeon runs, and even less for a raid (if ever). So most of my time I’ll be open world questing on a PVE server.
The question is: Which one do you recommend for someone like me? Obviously the best answer would be to pick the one I have most fun with, but if your recommendations doesn’t suit me after a while then I can always pick up the other one so that won’t be a problem.
The thing is, even though the chances of raiding will be very small, I’d like to consider factors as gear dependency. Like if in this case both a mage and a warlock would be equally geared, would one of them suffer more than the other when the gear is bad or do both suffer/not suffer that much from not having optimal gear in a pve environment?
Also, affliction dotting and lifetapping might be optimal but seems boring to me, as does frost AOE. So even though destro is far less efficient than affli, how does it compare to say single target frost mage? Is it THAT much worse or is it just worse compared to affliction but still good overall compared to other dps classes in solo open world leveling (and dungeons)?
A warlock is more of a niche class, especially in classic. I think you should really know that you want to play a warlock if you choose one. I have played both and warlock can be boring if you just want to play casually alone. Mage is always more fun and straightforward.
However, if you really like the special class traits of warlock, for example the pets, the lore, the feeling etc, then go for it. Some people don’t like “normal” things and warlock might be a good choice for them.
When I first played a warlock I did so because all the other classes seemed boring and their attacks/spells seemed repetitive and not exciting. Warlock seemed cool because shadow bolt is more unique than frost or fire, you get dots, demon pets… There is a lot of utility and specs to play around with.
The big downside is that while all of these things can make the warlock a “cool and fun” class to play, it can be annoying to manage everything and the class can be less functional and “useful” than a mage… Sometimes you will wish you didn’t have pets and that your character was more straightforward and simple rather than having all these different play styles etc… especially when you have tried it all and it’s no longer new.
Edit: I wanted to add that I don’t recommend destro unless you are doing pvp. Yes, it’s a lot less efficient because you will take aggro from your pet, and you will run out of mana much faster. It is more fun though, but the fun can get old quickly in this case.