Hey all,
My main is a mage. It took me 2 months to decide that this was the perfect caster for dps only. I have also decided that I’d love a rogue. Although that goes on the back burner. My horde main is a mage. My alliance main will be a hybrid class. My main focus is world pvp, and then secondarily pve. My main determining factors will be ability to pvp in an off-spec and have utility and survivability, followed secondly by the ability to heal as a primary spec for late game gearing.
Help me choose. This is alliance as to level with a group and some old old friends.
I originally settled on a priest. And then Druid. And now considering Paladin. I decided early that I wanted the ability to heal and dps as a caster, and therefore it was only between Druid and priest. But then the utility of Ret began to entice me and I’m now back to square one. I am well versed in their abilities and have some of my own pros and cons, but having never played them max level I am looking for some expert opinions.
Stfuppercut where you at?
I played priest at 60 and I kinda envied the paladins when it came to healing, being able to wear plate armor basically
Plus priest you have to go OOM buffing yourself every time you rez in a battleground
Also playing a warlock now I can tell you the number of times I've dropped dead in front of a ret paladin standing around has been 100% of the time lol. Either the class is too complicated to right click and heal at the same time or these dudes just lazy >.<
I think I’m stuck between priest and Paladin for the ability to res and dispel. Shadow vs Ret what do we think.
I'm going to start by giving you the boring reply "play what you want to play not what's best" because at the end of they day you will be spending hours upon hours on your character so pick what you want to play.
With that out of the way. Paladin is the best support class in the game. Their utility is insane. Blessings, auras, bubbles, freedom, cleanses, stuns and Repentance. You wear the heaviest armor in the game which will make you hard to kill. Did I mention bubble? For + 10 seconds NOBODY can touch you, but you can cast spells, heal and even continue swinging your greatsword. Everyone will want a Paladin in their grp and Horde players will HATE you.
Take into consideration if you roll a Shadow Priest that 50 % of the Horde population are Undead and Warriors so your one CC will be rendered useless a lot of the times.
With that said Shadow Priests are still one of the strongest 1v1 classes in the game and the buffs they bring are invalueable; Stamina, Spirit, Shadow Res. Power Word: Shield will make every Warrior cry as they swing at you like a wet noodle gaining 0 Rage. They have amazing heals and great debuffs for your fellow Warlocks.
Honestly you can't go wrong with either.
If you are more of the caster type go Priest.
If you are more of the figther type go Paladin.
Why am I telling you what to play?
You do you man!
I think I’m stuck between priest and Paladin for the ability to res and dispel. Shadow vs Ret what do we think.
Shadow is one of the best 1v1 PvP specs in the game.
Ret is a spec you can also choose. :lol:
I originally settled on a priest. And then Druid. And now considering Paladin. I decided early that I wanted the ability to heal and dps as a caster, and therefore it was only between Druid and priest. But then the utility of Ret began to entice me and I’m now back to square one. I am well versed in their abilities and have some of my own pros and cons, but having never played them max level I am looking for some expert opinions.
Can I offer you our lord and saviour, the shaman? Always needed in PvE and a god in both randomly chaotic pugs and organised team-play.
I decided early that I wanted the ability to heal and dps as a caster, and therefore it was only between Druid and priest. But then the utility of Ret began to entice me and I’m now back to square one. I am well versed in their abilities and have some of my own pros and cons, but having never played them max level I am looking for some expert opinions.
Stfuppercut where you at?
Hey!
So heres the rundown from my perspective...
Priest: Awesome at healing in PvE/PvP. Shadow is meh in PvE IF you can get that desirable spot and you are very strong in wPvP. Shadow is meh in group PvP as they provide very strong frontloaded value and tons of utility but lack longterm sustained for long team fights.
Druid: You are okay at healing in PvE/PvP. You have a ton of viable builds for PvP. You can flag carry, you can run boomkin, you can do all sorts of stuff. You essentially have two viable builds for PvE in tanking and healing, and can play anything in PvP and still remain viable.
Paladin. Amazing at healing in PvE/PvP. Ret is awful. Any of their meme builds are meme. You have some unique builds to play in PvP but everyone will shutter in disappointment as they watch you enter their BG if you are not healing. The reality is that almost everyone who roles paladin dreams of that plate clad t2 pally swinging a 2hander, but you would simply provide more value as a healer in almost all circumstances.
I would ask yourself where the gap is in your friend group. If you plan on playing with them, the longevity of this toon and your loyalty to it will likely rely on their success. What class will compliment and round out your friend group the best? No tank? Go druid just so you can fill the gap if need be. No cloth wearer? Easy loot, go priest. I usually dont recommend taking other people into account when selecting your class, but seeing as the entire point of this toon is to reroll and play with your friends, I'd say they are a pretty big variable.
Can I offer you our lord and saviour, the shaman? Always needed in PvE and a god in both randomly chaotic pugs and organised team-play.
No.
My horde main is a mage. My alliance main will be a hybrid class.
He's rolling alliance and asking for a suggestion. He already plays a mage on horde side.
I always love reading your responses. So I settled on Druid or priest. I leveled a priest up to 15 as I thought I had chosen it. I was a little discouraged that my mage and priest used the same gear and professions. But this also won’t deter me. Druid seems like less of a support class than priest with no dispels or shields, just heals. Do you really feel that they can be viable as balance for damage as compared to shadow? Are they more sustainable or just because of innervate? Also no res for leveling seems like a deterrent.
Stfuppercut
My friends are playing mage and warrior but that is not a deciding factor I just know I want to play a ranged dps healer.
The reality is that almost everyone who roles paladin dreams of that plate clad t2 pally swinging a 2hander, but you would simply provide more value as a healer in almost all circumstances.
But that's hardly a dream. Spec recko/holy, accumulate them crits and give them back. Still a main healer and you can also tank dungeons when needed.
I decided early that I wanted the ability to heal and dps as a caster, and therefore it was only between Druid and priest.
Then I would recommend PI disco/holy priest spec. Smite can do decent dps and all you need is a gear swap. I'd say it's very similar to how ele/resto shaman works, you can switch between healer and dps on demand. Become a raid buddy with one of the damage dealers of your choice and boost them with Power Infusion on bosses.
Stuck at lvl 15 with both. They’re both fun for different reasons. A priests utility seems to definitely outweigh a druids with MC, dispel, shield. But a Druid has mobility that seems addicting.
Druid seems like less of a support class than priest with no dispels or shields, just heals. Do you really feel that they can be viable as balance for damage as compared to shadow? Are they more sustainable or just because of innervate? Also no res for leveling seems like a deterrent.
They can absolutely be viable as balance in PvP, especially wPvP. No general res is a drawback, but thats mostly a PvE drawback, so if your main goals are related to PvP the lack of that res is less impactful. Spec/Class doesnt matter for AV. For WSG, you can easily flag carry as a variety of feral builds or boomkin builds. For AB, flag transition (rotating) is really strong for druids due to aqua form / travel form etc. Your stealth allows you to assist for flag attempts in AB, your stealth and survival makes you great at spinning flags on defense. You can make a strong case for the viability of almost any feral spec on a BG team so long as the user is playing into their spec strengths. Then in wPvP you are incredibly resilient. You will never be a spooky powerhouse in comparison to other classes, but you also dont die - ever. You just live forever and ever.
When comparing damage between a druid and a shadow its tough, because no one is bringing the druid for damage. The druid provides utility. The Spriest provides front loaded utility and then spikey damage but fades very quickly. The druid is almost the antithesis. The druid sustains for an incredibly long time. A Spriest would find themselves in the team fight and would pop off almost immediately trying to create the largest value net that he can before he is killed or ooms. The druid would observe the map and peel off of the team fight for a stealth cap or to sit in stealth and defend a node. The druid may find themselves trying to flag cap in WSG where the priest would be fighting for field control or trying to attack the EFC. The issue with Spriests is that they diminish too quickly when playing against strong teams and the same role can be performed better by a warlock or mage. However in wPvP, where you can usually be very selfish and your play wont really impact anyone else, Spriests are spooky. But while druids may not be able to dispatch an enemy as quickly, they can survive for an extended period. Druid fights often turn into a long battle of attrition where as Spriests have a 15-25 second timer before they oom, so they either win or lose in that window.
Druid seems like less of a support class than priest with no dispels or shields, just heals.
Druids do have a set of dispells:
https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=2782/remove-curse
https://classic.wowhead.com/spell=2893/abolish-poison
We can't dispel magic or cure diseases, but we can yank curses and poisons off people. I am a bear tank and there are some fights in MC where I put on my int set, drop back, stay in caster form and just spam decurses and spot heals. I spend the entire time on Shazz decursing and spot healing, I drop out of bear form against Gehennas and Lucifron once my target is dead and spam decurses as well. And that's as a full feral spec, if you were healing you wouldn't even be juggling different sets of gear and roles to drop decurses on people.
But yeah we don't have shields, neither physical shields like a warrior nor can we cast magic shields on others like a priest.