WoW - Which class for a returning player?

[SiliconValley]

Background:
I played WoW at launch for a good year or so and quit because it was eating too much of my time. I then rejoined after a long break and was able to successfully play at a "casual" level (~2-3 hours in a sitting a few times a week). Well, after being on a break since the summer, I've decided to come back. I know lots will try to talk me out of it but I think it's worth it for $15 to see how I like it after having been away for a while. However, since I last left, I know a LOT has changed. I have a 60 hunter, 60 rogue and 60 paladin. I've heard something about attack speed being normalized for hunters but I don't know exactly what that means.

What I'm looking for:

I've always enjoyed soloing but I also like to play in the occassional PUG for a dungeon or random questing. I'm not big on RAIDing or guilds. I want a good, solid solo/grinding class that is fun to play (duh!).

Questions:

1.) Should I start over with a different class or take one of my 3 60s into BC and shoot for 70?
2.) If I start over, which class would you recommend?
3.) If I take one of my 60s into BC, which one?
4.) What are the "powerful" classes at the moment?
5.) Is the content in BC compelling enough or just simply more of the same?
6.) I've heard BC is pretty hard - is it still possible to solo much of the content (excluding dungeons)?

Thanks!

 

[PolarbearBigEd]

Background:
I played WoW at launch for a good year or so and quit because it was eating too much of my time. I then rejoined after a long break and was able to successfully play at a "casual" level (~2-3 hours in a sitting a few times a week). Well, after being on a break since the summer, I've decided to come back. I know lots will try to talk me out of it but I think it's worth it for $15 to see how I like it after having been away for a while. However, since I last left, I know a LOT has changed. I have a 60 hunter, 60 rogue and 60 paladin. I've heard something about attack speed being normalized for hunters but I don't know exactly what that means.

What I'm looking for:

I've always enjoyed soloing but I also like to play in the occassional PUG for a dungeon or random questing. I'm not big on RAIDing or guilds. I want a good, solid solo/grinding class that is fun to play (duh!).

Questions:

1.) Should I start over with a different class or take one of my 3 60s into BC and shoot for 70?
2.) If I start over, which class would you recommend?
3.) If I take one of my 60s into BC, which one?
4.) What are the "powerful" classes at the moment?
5.) Is the content in BC compelling enough or just simply more of the same?
6.) I've heard BC is pretty hard - is it still possible to solo much of the content (excluding dungeons)?

Thanks!

1. take 1 of your classes to 70 and see how you like it first
2. I chose Warlock (I had a priest before that I took to 70)
3. Don't know my choices
4. Same as before, Warlocks, Rogues, Mages
5. Lots of quests to do, hardly the same as there is something ALWAYS to do.
6. Not hard by far. Going from 60-70 is INSANELY easy. The experience output is more than double in outlands and the quest rewards are crazy. You will find yourself replacing Epics with Greens in no time.

Just a side note, I had a level 60 priest and after burning crusade came out, I leveled him all the way up to 70. After a week of being 70, realizing that it went by way to fast, I decided to quit and delete the character. As you know when you are level 60 (prior to BC), things can get excrutiatingly(sp?) boring because all there is to do is farm for something or PvP. Same thing goes for when you hit 70. I didn't want to start the farming/pvp'ing bordum route again, so I quit. I even had a flying mount, but I felt like it took up too much time.

I went back just a few days ago on a different server with a different faction (Alliance to horde, as I've had alliance characters the entire time I've had WoW; day 1) and found it to be more interesting seeing the world from a different perspective. I don't play more than about 5 hours a week now, because I'm in no rush, but I started a warlock from scratch and I'm enjoying it. But the WoW gets repetative as you surely know.


Hope that helps!

 

[Rich Tate]

1.) Should I start over with a different class or take one of my 3 60s into BC and shoot for 70?
2.) If I start over, which class would you recommend?
3.) If I take one of my 60s into BC, which one?
4.) What are the "powerful" classes at the moment?
5.) Is the content in BC compelling enough or just simply more of the same?
6.) I've heard BC is pretty hard - is it still possible to solo much of the content (excluding dungeons)?

Thanks!

1) You obviously know the route from 1-60 so why not roll with an existing toon and enjoy new content.
2) If you were going to roll a new character, warlock is pretty hardcore ATM.
3) Hunters are still very badass, as is a rogue. I guess it depends on your playing preference. Of the three, I'd want a rogue.
4) Warlock, DPS warrior, Mage, Rogue, Druid, Shadow Priest. Really all of them got great buffs between the 41 point tree and further tweaks. Once again, on your playstyle.
5) It is certainly a continuation, but there are things in BC you've never done before. It's still a ton of grinding though. Caverns of Time is simply badass. If you haven't read about it do so.
6) I don't find it hard, or more difficult than previous content. It just takes much more time to get a level. Pretty much the same deal here as previous content. If you are careful and patient you have no issues. THe dungeons I have run aren't any harder, they might have more of a focused path though. For example if you ever ran Strat Live you know it's real cake with a rogue and a mage. Kind of the same deal with the instances I've run. It can be done with any group, but it's a lot easier with certain jobs in the party.

If you enjoy PvP and want to reroll, I play a toon on Haomarush. Feel free to join us. We have a couple [H]ers on the server.

 

[SiliconValley]

1. take 1 of your classes to 70 and see how you like it first
2. I chose Warlock (I had a priest before that I took to 70)
3. Don't know my choices
4. Same as before, Warlocks, Rogues, Mages
5. Lots of quests to do, hardly the same as there is something ALWAYS to do.
6. Not hard by far. Going from 60-70 is INSANELY easy. The experience output is more than double in outlands and the quest rewards are crazy. You will find yourself replacing Epics with Greens in no time.

Just a side note, I had a level 60 priest and after burning crusade came out, I leveled him all the way up to 70. After a week of being 70, realizing that it went by way to fast, I decided to quit and delete the character. As you know when you are level 60 (prior to BC), things can get excrutiatingly(sp?) boring because all there is to do is farm for something or PvP. Same thing goes for when you hit 70. I didn't want to start the farming/pvp'ing bordum route again, so I quit. I even had a flying mount, but I felt like it took up too much time.

I went back just a few days ago on a different server with a different faction (Alliance to horde, as I've had alliance characters the entire time I've had WoW; day 1) and found it to be more interesting seeing the world from a different perspective. I don't play more than about 5 hours a week now, because I'm in no rush, but I started a warlock from scratch and I'm enjoying it. But the WoW gets repetative as you surely know.


Hope that helps!

Thanks, that does help. As for #3, my choices would be Huner, Rogue or Paladin (my current lvl 60 characters).

 

[SiliconValley]

1) You obviously know the route from 1-60 so why not roll with an existing toon and enjoy new content.
2) If you were going to roll a new character, warlock is pretty hardcore ATM.
3) Hunters are still very badass, as is a rogue. I guess it depends on your playing preference. Of the three, I'd want a rogue.
4) Warlock, DPS warrior, Mage, Rogue, Druid, Shadow Priest. Really all of them got great buffs between the 41 point tree and further tweaks. Once again, on your playstyle.
5) It is certainly a continuation, but there are things in BC you've never done before. It's still a ton of grinding though. Caverns of Time is simply badass. If you haven't read about it do so.
6) I don't find it hard, or more difficult than previous content. It just takes much more time to get a level. Pretty much the same deal here as previous content. If you are careful and patient you have no issues. THe dungeons I have run aren't any harder, they might have more of a focused path though. For example if you ever ran Strat Live you know it's real cake with a rogue and a mage. Kind of the same deal with the instances I've run. It can be done with any group, but it's a lot easier with certain jobs in the party.

If you enjoy PvP and want to reroll, I play a toon on Haomarush. Feel free to join us. We have a couple [H]ers on the server.

I'm sort of thinking maybe I should take all 3 of my characters into BC and lvl them all equally and see how it goes. Then again, I might now have the time for that kind of a slow crawl.

 

[Space_Coyote]

I'd continue with your 60's so you can experience everything Outlands has to offer. You can always reroll a BE or something on the side.

Background:
I want a good, solid solo/grinding class that is fun to play.

That seems to be the line that stood out most to me, in which case go with the Hunter or Rogue. Which one depends on what play style you prefer now. You played both to 60 so you know what both are capable of. Paladins are generally more desirable in 5-man instances, so take that into account too if you like dungeons.

 

[Drace]

1. For solo grinding - Warlock or Hunter hands down. For dungeon crawling, the paladin would be your best choice (healers are generally high in demand). But it would also depend on your server's class layout, i'm speculating and using mine as a reference.

2. I wouldn't recommend any particular class, it really depends on the player. Right now from your three classes I can tell you this.
A) Paladins are usually expected to heal, although they can be viable tanks.
B) From my experience many people play rogues, and although viable in dungeons, Burning Crusade is -not- friendly toward melee classes right now.
C) Hunters are really hit and miss, I usually don't like them, but a good hunter can be a powerful asset to a party.

3. Once again, this really depends on your playing style. If you like to heal, go paladin. Hunters and rogues can both solo pretty.

4. For powerful classes, I'd say paladins are the best single target healers in the game right now and quite valueable in a PVP/Arena team. People also complain about warlocks being powerful, mages have large burst damage, and warriors with a really good weapon can wreck just about anyone.

5. Burning Crusade really expands on the basic WoW game, but a lot of compelling and fun content has been added along with the boring stuff too. Bombing run missions are especially fun, along with more world pvp, arenas, a wide array of dungeons that you can do in two modes: normal and heroic, and more to boot.

6. The solo content can be pretty tough, but it's not a huge leap over the first WoW. There is a little more focus on group PvE content. Dungeons are a lot more interactive and require good team work with a slight emphasis on crowd control with the tougher content

 

[SiliconValley]

1. For solo grinding - Warlock or Hunter hands down. For dungeon crawling, the paladin would be your best choice (healers are generally high in demand). But it would also depend on your server's class layout, i'm speculating and using mine as a reference.

2. I wouldn't recommend any particular class, it really depends on the player. Right now from your three classes I can tell you this.
A) Paladins are usually expected to heal, although they can be viable tanks.
B) From my experience many people play rogues, and although viable in dungeons, Burning Crusade is -not- friendly toward melee classes right now.
C) Hunters are really hit and miss, I usually don't like them, but a good hunter can be a powerful asset to a party.

3. Once again, this really depends on your playing style. If you like to heal, go paladin. Hunters and rogues can both solo pretty.

4. For powerful classes, I'd say paladins are the best single target healers in the game right now and quite valueable in a PVP/Arena team. People also complain about warlocks being powerful, mages have large burst damage, and warriors with a really good weapon can wreck just about anyone.

5. Burning Crusade really expands on the basic WoW game, but a lot of compelling and fun content has been added along with the boring stuff too. Bombing run missions are especially fun, along with more world pvp, arenas, a wide array of dungeons that you can do in two modes: normal and heroic, and more to boot.

6. The solo content can be pretty tough, but it's not a huge leap over the first WoW. There is a little more focus on group PvE content. Dungeons are a lot more interactive and require good team work with a slight emphasis on crowd control with the tougher content

What is the deal with weapon speed normalization (if that's the correct description)? Does it now mean that there's no or little difference between a hard-hitting slow crossbow and a fast, low damage bow? I'm still equiped with the AV crossbow lol.

 

[SiliconValley]

Okay I think I'm leaning toward taking my rogue to 60. A couple of quick questions:

1.) What's a good lvling/grinding build?
2.) Are rogues undesirable in PUGs for dungeons?
3.) Daggers or swords, or is it a personal preference?

Thanks...

 

[thrawn86]

don't be fooled by the grind to get to 70. yeah, its easy, because there are lots of quests but it takes FOREVER. remember that you'll need 800k xp or so to get to 61.

I am biased, however. I leveled a holy/disc (healing build) priest to 70 (and then respecced to shadow wtf)(and then quit the game)

In my experience, mages and warlocks are the most desirable classes these days. If you want to talk about overpowered, you've no further to look than a demo/destro lock. abso-fucking-lutely SICK in pvp, they have no equal. However, unless they change this, rogues are currently tearing up pvp because of cloak of shadows (shadow invul, 1 min cd).

 

[Drace]

About weapon normalization - Basically, slower weapons used to do more damage, depending on how slow they were they got a larger bonus to damage from your attack power, this resulted in -huge- hits/crits with attacks such as aimed shot. Normalization lowered the amount of bonus damage a slow weapon would get so that faster weapons were more viable/slower weapons didn't wreck people.

 

[Rich Tate]

Okay I think I'm leaning toward taking my rogue to 60. A couple of quick questions:

1.) What's a good lvling/grinding build?
2.) Are rogues undesirable in PUGs for dungeons?
3.) Daggers or swords, or is it a personal preference?

Thanks...

Depends again on your style. I use combat tree primarily on my rogue with swords.

Combat Swords is more of a sustained damage build while dagger specs tend to be burst. You blow your wad off of the backstab, but its a hefty hit.

I like overall damage better because I play on a PvP and if you miss that backstab crit you are in for a long fight, burning all your cooldowns.

 

[denaps]

not being a jerk (or thread thief) because i love WoW but maybe try lord of the rings online, since your starting anew. i've been playing beta for three weeks and i think it's going to be pretty awesome. it may be the next mmo that has a following large enough to keep it around for a while. i have also been playing vanguard beta but in my opinion it doesn't come close to the quality or immersion of LOTRO.

 

[CodeX]

Locks are the strongest right now... they are also the next to be nerfed. I love my prot warrior, I love being right up in the faces of the big bosses, seems kind of pussy to stand back and shoot magic at things... Plus, the second I die the group wipes, kind of makes you feel important, same thing for healers. where a mage, druid, shaman, lock, etc could die and you wouldn't barely notice on trash mobs.

 

[MrFace]

Around 65-66 gets slow. Once you hit 67 and get in Blade's Edge.....HELLOOOOOOOOO LEVELING!

 

[Space_Coyote]

If you enjoy PvP and want to reroll, I play a toon on Haomarush. Feel free to join us. We have a couple [H]ers on the server.

Horde or <shudder> Alliance?

 

[CodeX]

Around 65-66 gets slow. Once you hit 67 and get in Blade's Edge.....HELLOOOOOOOOO LEVELING!

Nagrand will get you to 67 pretty fast

 

[SLiGuy]

Around 65-66 gets slow. Once you hit 67 and get in Blade's Edge.....HELLOOOOOOOOO LEVELING!

Actually, I never even went to Blade's Edge except to get the FP and cross to Netherstorm.

60-63 = Hellfire
63-65 = Zangarmarsh
65-68 = Nagrand
68-70 = Netherstorm

I never even touched Terokkar or Blade's Edge, and I didn't go to Shadowmoon until after 70. I never grinded either, all my EXP was from quests or instances.

 

[Vile]

Locks are the strongest right now... they are also the next to be nerfed. I love my prot warrior, I love being right up in the faces of the big bosses, seems kind of pussy to stand back and shoot magic at things... Plus, the second I die the group wipes, kind of makes you feel important, same thing for healers. where a mage, druid, shaman, lock, etc could die and you wouldn't barely notice on trash mobs.

Locks are definitely the strongest right now, but I definitely disagree about mages, shamans, etc...Healers will always be in high demand for obvious reasons, but I consider my mage (69, soon to be 70) important, because crowd control still goes a long way
Don't get me wrong, taking is fun, and I'm going to get my 60 warrior to 70 after the mage, but there is nothing wrong casters. To each their own though

 

[Rich Tate]

Horde or <shudder> Alliance?

Horde of course.

On our server most of the alliance guys are REALLY awful. It makes for good times.

 

[Space_Coyote]

On our server most of the alliance guys are REALLY awful

QFT. I went up against a Rogue from Pretorian and a random Mage the other night on elemental plateau. Pwned them time after time both individually, and when they decided to team-up on me

 

[Rich Tate]

QFT. I went up against a Rogue from Pretorian and a random Mage the other night on elemental plateau. Pwned them time after time both individually, and when they decided to team-up on me

5 of us fought 7 of them for about two hours. We had two highly geared 70s they had 4. The lowbie rogues, myself included would run around stunlocking while the 70s cleaved them down. It ended in a pile of bodies and we were still standing.

They then decided to come try and assault Hammerfall. We killed their asses all the way back to Arathi.

 

[kamxam]

I doubled my health and mana on my 70 warlock in BC just from quest rewards and from buying the occasional good green or blue on the Auction house. (About 7500 health/mana atm)
It's not hard to get gold or upgrades in BC atm especially if you have a good gathering profession or a desired crafting one to help fund buys and crafts.
So whatever you decide to play, it will get easier as you progress.
A pet class will do better imho than most. Taking 2x as long to level my 61 priest solo (Only have time to play a few hours tops a night atm) as it did my lock.
Ryoba 70 lock
Vek' nilash

 

[CodeX]

My prot warrior has 11053 health, 13256 armor, and 480 defense (giving 50% chance to either dodge block or parry). Overall I take about 20% of normal damage... and almost no damage from spells since I can either reflect or interrupt them. My only weakness is in PVP when guys CC me and I am stuck in place while they take me down from a distance.

 

[munkle]

Horde of course.

On our server most of the alliance guys are REALLY awful. It makes for good times.

Oh man this makes me regret rolling alliance, people are just awful, just horrible. Its so frustrating that there are that dumb of people in the world.

Background:
I played WoW at launch for a good year or so and quit because it was eating too much of my time. I then rejoined after a long break and was able to successfully play at a "casual" level (~2-3 hours in a sitting a few times a week). Well, after being on a break since the summer, I've decided to come back. I know lots will try to talk me out of it but I think it's worth it for $15 to see how I like it after having been away for a while. However, since I last left, I know a LOT has changed. I have a 60 hunter, 60 rogue and 60 paladin. I've heard something about attack speed being normalized for hunters but I don't know exactly what that means.

What I'm looking for:

I've always enjoyed soloing but I also like to play in the occassional PUG for a dungeon or random questing. I'm not big on RAIDing or guilds. I want a good, solid solo/grinding class that is fun to play (duh!).

Questions:

1.) Should I start over with a different class or take one of my 3 60s into BC and shoot for 70?
2.) If I start over, which class would you recommend?
3.) If I take one of my 60s into BC, which one?
4.) What are the "powerful" classes at the moment?
5.) Is the content in BC compelling enough or just simply more of the same?
6.) I've heard BC is pretty hard - is it still possible to solo much of the content (excluding dungeons)?

Thanks!

1-2. Id go with one of your 60's personally, but if you want to start over maybe shaman (just because i havent ever really tried one)
3. I don't really know all 3 are good classes, I personally hate hunters (not because they suck but because they cheap, and most people that play hunters arent all that smart but that just maybe the alliance)
4. Honestly there isnt really an answer to this because depending the class you play you are weaker to some classes than others. I have a 65 warlock, 59 rogue, 35 pally, and various twinks. Overall I would say warlocks and hunters are the strongest right now but I know on my warlock if warriors get up in my face im pretty much dead. Rogue nothing is really all that hard its more of kill one guy and then die. Pally is way fun to me but its frustrating that you cant kill anything but you do live forever.
5. Bc is alot better than the original I would say, its actually really fun to level.
6. Its way easy to solo.

Okay I think I'm leaning toward taking my rogue to 60. A couple of quick questions:

1.) What's a good lvling/grinding build?
2.) Are rogues undesirable in PUGs for dungeons?
3.) Daggers or swords, or is it a personal preference?

Thanks...

Personally I loved hemo because it was viable in pvp and wasnt so boring like combat swords. You stunlock mobs so you dont take all that much damage. Id go swords for leveling but for pvp its all about choice, daggers is all about burst damage while as hemo swords its all about controlling the fight, once i lost control of a fight it pretty much went to crap but if you keep control you can own someone (premed cheapshot evis makes a nice combo)

 

[Rich Tate]

Hey Hemo might be boring but it sure as hell is effective, especially in PvP.

 

[munkle]

Hey Hemo might be boring but it sure as hell is effective, especially in PvP.

Meant to say wasn't so boring as combat swords, fixed now. Hemo is way fun, combat swords = boring (ss, ss, ss, ss, ss, my finger hurts) and rupture is money on warriors because it does alot more damage as a hemo build. I went daggers on my rogue and got bc gear and basically staying at 59 on him, If you havent tried out shadowstep you have to try it out, it is so fun, it may not but the strongest spec but it is so much fun it makes up for it. Ambushing someone for 90% of there health = win! Warlock Im at a loss, I love my lock but Im weird. I love affliction for pvp but hate it for leveling but I love demo for leveling but hate it for pvp and I do both regularly.

 

[Ashtaka]

Locks are the strongest right now... they are also the next to be nerfed.

Rumor is holy paladins are next on the nerfing block, reducing illumination from 100% mana return to 50%. Because you know, they have awesome spirit regen and innervates...

and yeah, Alliance is the worst, it seems. I was running Mech a few days ago, and as a healer, I tell the melee DPS on the second gatekeeper to get out of melee range when he raises his hammer.

Who sits there soaking up the full duration of the aoe attack? The warrior, rogue, paladin , hunter pet.

Later on, during the gauntlet, the same melee were breaking CC and letting adds run around while they DPSed like idiots, leaving me to tank 3, one mob that shield bashed, while I was the MH, with me spamming my "healer is under attack" macro. The hunter in the group tried to frost trap, only to have the warrior or paladin break it with aoe, and then blamed me for repeatedly wiping on the gauntlet.

Sadly, that was the better run of the night.

If you want to pug and want to actually get into groups, reroll a tank or healer. If you're going to do DPS, I suggest ranged DPS with utility. With all the stupid AOE attacks, multi-mob pulls, it's really nice to CC, MC, or FT while doing damage from afar.

 

[icetrey47]

some very good information, i'll reinterate some of it and add a few things ...

Don't waste your time with the Hunter. It's the most useless class in the game right now. The itemization is terrible, the quest rewards are sub-par compared to other classes, and you are completely replaceable end-game.

Rogues are excellent in PvP right now; if you continue your Rogue you should strongly consider doing arena. As for PvE, it's iceskating uphill right now for Rogues. Unless you've got some great friends, don't expect to do very much end-game raiding as a Rogue right now.

Pally is going to be your best bet if you want to truely experience this expansion. Top-notch PvP and PvE class, Pally really has it all other than doing massive DPS. You will be expected to heal in raids so prepare for it, and in PvP you will be healing as well. Fortunately, a Holy-spec Pally is pretty effective all around, and the gear in BC supports it.

Unless you just don't want to play a support role, I'd go with the Pally. Rogue isn't bad, and if melee DPS sees some love in the next patch things might improve for them. But by all means STAY AWAY from the hunter.

 

[Space_Coyote]

Yeah, I’d have to agree with the Hunter evaluation. Rogues, whilst replaceable in most endgame, are still required for some specific encounters to kick (Shade of Aran, pre-Magtheridon trash etc). Pally for all-around utility to be sure, like noted though, you will be primarily expected to heal.

 

[TheCowOfNow]

Hunter for solo lvling and play in general. They are like ranged dps with mail armor and a pet... i mean come on..... and all gear can be somehow useful to a hunter.

 

[MemoryInAGarden]

PVE is broken in general right now. Crafted epics are better than raiding gear, and raiding gear is so poor that it doesn't make future clears of an instance appreciably easier. Karazhan, the introductory 10-man raid, is fine, as are the two "short" 25 mans. But the first real 25 man raid, Serpentshrine Cavern, requires consumable usage beyond that of any previous raid. The loot doesn't get much better in Serpentshrine. Getting into Kara groups as a DPS class, especially melee, can be very iffy if you're in a large guild. In short, if you're coming back for PVE, wait.