The unbalance and gap between the specs/classes performence and functional is huge, it’s so huge that if you play a undertuned spec/class you’re useless and not invited and prevented to do content!..
What’s point of haveing many classes/specs
Just be happy that most classes have a spec or two that’s viable.
With how the covenant system is, I’m surprised the classes are even this balanced. It should have been far worse, but i guess the overnerfing of conduits helped a bit.
They can do the end game content. In most cases it’s a few % here or there, sure there are wider gaps for certain classes, but to say the “majority” of them is laughable. For most people in most situations most classes can do anything you want, unless you’re a min-maxer or elitist, individual performanace can often wipe out any class specific gains in real world play, where people often make mistakes or don’t have the timing of a pro.
What’s happening here is that some people have latched onto this idea of a “meta”, there’s always been FOTM but recently in the last couple of years this has been pushed to insane levels because of competitive play, tournaments and streamers pushing a way of doing things.
I’m not denying there are stronger and weaker classes and specs. Of course there are, and some specs have it bad depending upon balance at any given point in time. What I am saying is that the perception of that performance gap is far larger than the actual gap for the average player. Until we all stop thinking we’re cutting edge players and for the most part it doesn’t matter this will end up putting off so many people. Sure with like for like skill you’ll get better perfomance from some classes/specs for the same amount of effort and therefore have a slightly easier time of it, but this reliance on meta for relatively trivial content is depressing.
I can’t play on my DH …
It does very poorly in every content ( both pve and pvp)
and no i dont like tank role.
On my Druid the only thing i enjoy playig is healer (resto)…
I dont enjoy feral as much because it req much more work for little gain…and it’s only decent in PvP.
I dislike moonkin and cant play that.
I enjoy BM spec on hunter, but i dont like MM and SV…
BM is like DH does very poorly in both pve and pvp .
All the specs i find fun is in a terrible state atm…
I didnt choose to play wow to play specs and classes i dont enjoy playing!
I dont like playing priest,warlock,mage,warrior,rogue,dk,palla,monk,shaman…
I play havoc. Respect to me. 
You know, the worst part is that Activision takes months to buff or balance the game. At this time tho many have quit anyway. They don’t react fast so the costumers to be satisfied, but they do months for a patch with class balance. MONTHS!!! I keep wonder why and how a company with already made games, ended up destroying one by one all of them?
They are all “functional”, they are all “viable”.
Stop throwing words around. They actually mean stuff.
Not with this meta mentality the majoirty of wow player has… the issue is also in the community…
Only way you get a group if you’re a under preformence spec/class is to join a guild who is kind enough to drag you along…even if you are burden to them with your low dps…and you feel bad for playing your class because of it!
and forget about puging also…they only want meta classes.!
same issue in rated PvP!
Oh please stop it. You’ve fallen into the same mentality you accuse others of.
Waa, I’m getting dragged along! Get over yourself.
What’s “fun” about playing a spec that is always last on dps meter on every boss?
Well and guess what you cant do PvP - because it same issue there also… low dps!
See, you don’t even understand how pvp works. “dps” doesnt kill stuff, burst does. Keep whining though.
Damn I did something wrong then as Havoc because the game actually allowed me to queue up as DPS in PvP and play
You kinda need decent dps to do brust in the first place.
and many underpreforming spec dosnt have any brust… let alone dps…
Any classs who can heal themselves have no issue out healing that weak dps…
they make the balancing job harder for themselves by introducing those external power gain systems on top of regular class abilities.
We have 36 specs in the game, each spec has a number of talents and abilities available to choose
Then we have 4 covenants, each class has a different spell from them
Then we have soulbinds, we have 3 different ones per covenant and all specs have their own soulbinds (improving their abilities)
Then we have the usual stuff which is gear, trinket, legendaries.
It amasses to insane number of possible combinations, iterations and possibilities. It’s just not possible to balance all this.
Great question.
It sounds like most specs are functional, but you only enjoy like 2-3.
Btw, I know very good DPS demon hunters and great resto druids, so you saying the specs aren’t functional is a straight lie.
It’s not as bleak as you make it seem…any class can pump out decent dps if they know their class and have some gear…
It isn’t always just about perception. There are many gross imbalances currently that make certain specs total crap for X or Y content. It isn’t a subtle O.OOOO5 difference either.
Look at MW monk mana situation and compare it to holy pala. It’s night and day. Why on earth would anyone pick a MW that goes OOM in 2 minutes over a holy pala that never goes OOM? Doesn’t matter if you’re a pro or a noob, you’d be an idiot to go with MW, regardless of situation or perception.
And Blizzard takes forever to address these issues if at all.
They slightly nerfed 3 OP specs today. That’s good but it’s WAY too little in my book.
DPS is not the principle factor in PvP, it’s a combination of burst, survivability and utility (both defensive and aggressive).
For example ret is a mediocre pve spec at current (according to player estimations) yet is one of the best pvp specs at current. Why? Because it has a strong burst phase, exceptional utility and a valuable immunity effect.
Arms is mediocre in pve compared to the likes of MM, Boomkin, WW, OL. Yet it is the number 1 melee dps spec to run with a healer in 2s for example. Why? Because despite it lacking the damage and even burst of other decent specs, it has a truckload of utility, is very tough to kill, exceptionally hard to peel and is very good at outlasting opponents and playing slow until a kill opportunity can be created on the enemy healer (whilst creating pressure of its own upon them).
Healers too. Holy Paladin is performing okay in PvE for sure, but it ain’t no holy priest/disc priest in raids and it ain’t no resto shaman in M+, it’s an all rounder. Commonly regarded as the best healer in 2s and 3s though, why’s that?
It might lack some of the raw HPS other healer specs have over the encounter, but it is tough to kill and has a lifesaver defensive in DS which is absolute gold on a healer because healers are typically a kill target otherwise. It has two emergency cooldowns for allies to save them from being killed instantly if selectively (Blessing of Protection and Blessing of Sacrifice w/ Ultimate Sacrifice). It can make a target immune to snares and peel with Freedom. It has a 6 sec stun which is extremely good for setting up kills if you can land it without DR. Beacon of Faith in 2s and 3s means a majority if not everyone on the Paladin’s team is receiving healing whenever they heal, and in conjunction with Saved by the Light means everyone effectively gets an emergency shield when approaching death.
With Avenging Wrath doubly so with Venthyr) the HPala can also put out notable burst when required, albeit for a small window, again this helps to secure kills. This is of marginal use in raids and M+ (I’d be better of healing to keep people up) but in PvP the fact I can crit a guy for 14k instantly with one spell is significant. If I opt to invest more time in burst (and crits favour me) I can take that burst up to about 30k within a few seconds which is a massive boon to gaining a kill, which is what rated pvp (arena) is all about, as the kill massively changes the outcome of the game.
Yes, good DPS is often an asset for sure in PvP I won’t try to deny it, but when you look at the best classes according to the rated meta, you will see their burst is largely but one of many things they offer, and were their burst on it’s own, it would be regarded as fairly meh. Take mages, Arcane can put out astronomical burst if they need to, but they aren’t mobile whilst doing it (utility) whereas Fire is. Fire also has cauterize and Arcane doesnt, and Fire also has Ignite to keep people from destealthing on them and Arcane doesn’t. Fire is picked over Arcane every single time in PvP.
It’s the same with Sub rogues. Sub rogues can burst yes, but their sustained damage is woeful compared to Outlaw. But their main calling cards are they can reapply stuns across the enemy team frequently and they can isolate a target for kill with duel preventing a healer clutch to secure it. This is invaluable. If they couldn’t use cheap shot repeatedly nor duel, i’m not sure you’d see nearly as many sub rogues at all because their burst can be countered but it;'s their utility to makes them continually dangerous even if you mitigate their burst. Their burst target gets BoPed? NP, they can just step to new target and being stunlocking them and call for a swap. No other rogue can do that without spending their combo points (killing their own damage in the process).
I mostly agree, though to be fair probably there are 1-2 that are really barely viable (e.g. Survival Hunter, which I for one have never met in game)
You’re right about BM, it’s second lowest on wowhead’s DPS chart. But feral? It’s #6, so “only decent in PvP” is a lie.