Something a bit new...

[Smashfiction]

Firstly, apologies if this is the wrong forum but here was the only place it really seemed to fit...anyway.

I am not technically new to WoW. I have a 78 enhancement ( :D at that spec) tauren shammy, a 70 belf frost mage i should probably level soon, a 70 frost orc DK that i got very very into levelling, and a variety of levels meddling around below that.

I have always wanted one of each class in the game at at least a compenetent level, and i have found that starting again with a fresh new class and really getting into the new experiences it brings to old quests and so on give my playing experience a shiny new feel :) It's why i callously abandoned my shaman at 70 during BC and levelled my mage before improvong them both high-end, and it's what i want to do again now.

Once my shaman is 80 the obvious option is to level my other 70s through Northrend, especially since i have taken a shine to tanking. But its nice to have a break from the big stuff and so i want to address one of my 'problem classes'.

As i said above, i want (and technically have) one of every class, but the ones i have never even gotten past 20, and who constantly get remodels of name, race, appearance, spec etc have always been:

Druids
Rogues
Warriors
Priests

I think mostly my problem is i prefer a caster/survivability and/or melee blend which my shaman, DK and pally fulfill quite well. My mage i just find fun and as frost i enjoy his challenging playstyle and good dmg with survivability. I am constantly envious of rogues and shadow priests in pvp, and warriors and druids seem like fanatastic classes for PvE, but i just cant seem to level one past around 15. I have replayed the first 10 levels of those classes so often it is hard to get a good feeling from the fresh start.

To bring this ramble to a close-i was wondering if anyone could give me some pointers on
a) which of the above four classes i might enjoy levelling/playing the most
b) how to make those first 20 levels more enjoyable and perhaps easier or faster
c) good reasons and ways to utilise these classes high-end

even sitting here typing it seems a pretty tall order so to help out ill say a bit about my laying preferences:
-I like to be able to dish out damage, but when the going gets tough i like to have some survival tricks up my sleeve
-I enjoy just having those odd abilities you rarely use but are nice just to have, like Far Sight or Water Walking
-I am not a serious PvPer, i generally prefer PvE, but i like odd bouts of battlegrounds and stuff, and i think its time i had a character i could really have fun with and use a lot in PvP (becuase often its very frustrating as either a clothie or a huge horned smash-magnet)

Sorry for the ramble and my thanks in advance to anyone who might be able to give me any tips or ideas about why i should stop dawdling and play one of these classes :D

[Marlous]

Rogues are dps machines, but don't really have that many other nifty things - survivability goes as far as Evasion and Vanish, but that's about it. Excellent choice for PvP.

Warriors are tough, can pack a few punches and in their dps specs are pretty good at doing damage. They can also spec protection and become tanks. No nifty abilities though, although they do have a few that'd be great for PvP.

Priests are considered to be quite squishy, but can hold themselves pretty well if they go shadow (the dps tree). They've got fun tricks like Levitation and Mind Vision, and they can spec as a healer.

Druids are the only ones who can spec into all 4 groups: tank, healer, caster dps, melee dps. They have animal forms they can turn into, like a seacow for swimming or a cheetah for running, and some specs even offer an extra form for better use of their talents. Depending on their spec they can be either great or meh in PvP.

If I go by your list, then I'd say
a) I think a Druid, because of their versatility, their animal forms, and the fact that they seem to have a lot of things that gives them an edge over other classes (battle ress, prowl in catform to sneak past tough mobs, 2 buffs, etc)
b) hm, that doesn't rely on the class as much as it does on the area you play in, who you play with, things like that. Maybe you could find a guild that has some lowbie toons (maybe alts from other high-level players) and play together, and even run some instances
c) I think this would be too extensive an answer at the moment.. but if I'd focus on the Druid example, then I think their utilisation lies mostly in their versatility. Druid tanks are wanted because of their high hp and Leader of the Pack, healers because of their battle ress, and moonkins because of their 5% crit buff - just naming a few, but of course there's more to them.

[Wintrow]

I can say for priests I long had the same feeling. I couldn't really find their groove and kept going OOM fast and well, ... I wouldn't die a lot because I know how to pick my fights. But I didn't get that "juggernaught" feeling that shammies and pallies give from the start.

Then I got a wand. The world flipped upside down!
I'd pull with a combo of nuke and dot (Holy Fire, walk backwards while casting SW:P, Mind Blast, Smite till they get close) and then wand away while mana is ticking back. If I got into a pickle I'd have mana to spare to heal while dps was provided by the wand.

Later on you get spells to replace the wand (L20's Mind Flay mostly) but that lil' boomstick really pulled me through those uncertain L14 --> L20 levels.

You say druids are one of those classes as well and ... you are 100% correct. My main and first char (a short-lived UD lock not counting) is a druid and as such I "grew up" accustomed to the hard teens. Druids REALLY are a pain to get past L20. It gets better when you get Cat Form at 20, but you'll still feel underpowered until about L35. That's when the form gets Pounce. A great opener. I really felt that, from then on it was smooth sailing and there were few situations I couldn't either sneak by or devastate.

Sorry, if you want a druid, you'll have to grind your teeth and get by.

Rogues are great. Having said that I don't have one over L15 either. But that's not because rogues aren't great (they are). It's just that, having a druid takes a bit of the novelty off a stealth-class. The great thing I feel about a rogue is the possibility to completely set up a situation where you think "if I sap guard 1, while guard 2's patrol is over there I can take down the boss, guard 3 and get back to stealth before 1 wakes up and 2 gets back" and then you do it and you're all gloating inside when you see guard 2 returning and guard 1 waking up not having noticed a thing. THAT is the big difference with playing a druid.

But that difference isn't enough to make me play my rogue more.

Warriors are great too (sounds familiar? :tongue:) IF they have good gear (and I'm mostly talking about weapons). A warrior with a blue, slightly overpowered, two-hander literally mows down mobs in a visceral way not duplicated in the other classes. It's the feeling of having your lifebar and ONLY your lifebar. And once you lock into combat it's either you or him. There's no fancy vanish or heals or blink to save your butt when you mess up. All you have to make it is your strength and your gear. That... inevitability makes you play in a different way. HP is precious and losing even a little bit of it fills you with a rage (and I'm not talking about that red bar up in the left corner of the screen) that makes you put your heart into every swing.

Standing on top of 5 corpses after a pull of 1 gone wrong ... trying to calm back down. The warrior brings out the animal inside. And you know you like it.

Does it show that my warrior is my horde main (druid is NE, alliance main)? :grin:

[Smashfiction]

thanks very much for the replies guys, i appreciate the detail you went into there :)

Marlous, i can see what you are saying and that your Druid choice does in fact tick most of my boxes. But i get the feeling that attempting to level one (again) would be almost too similar to my shaman, who in fact when i first started playing only just won the top spot over a druid. Wintrow, i love how you described the feeling of playing rogues and warriors-the intensity and the additional sneakiness afforded by those classes, and so i think i might try my hand at one of those two. I do enjoy having some nifty casting to back me up, but from the sounds of it something like a warrior would be very fresh and very rewarding and a rogue could do much the same thing, albeit on a slightly sneakier level :)

Thanks again for input, i think ill give the full-on melee classes a real go for once, because im sure i will actually enjoy them past the tough teens, and now i have reasons to give me momentum through those :)

[Wintrow]

You know, that specific scenario (it was on that undead rogue-quest where you have to kill some scarlet captain was the very moment I had my "wow, rogues are FUN". I mean, they were always cool. Who isn't attracted by the "outside of the law, ruggish, sneaky" aspect. But until that very moment I wasn't sure how much FUN I'd be having.

And fun IMHO is being able to, and only if you make the effort for it, being a tad overpowered.

The fact that each class can achieve that - yes, even the priest - makes this game so great. On my troll priest I once survived an onslaught of mobs by repeated shielding, healing and wanding them down one by one, one would run, bring back 2 more adds, repeat, they run again, more adds and so on until I had cleared an entire area. I was L20, they were L18.

[mmorpg man]

if you get your shaman up to level 80 you'll have access (after a time) to the BoA (bind on account) gear which is great for low level classes as it far suppasses anything you can get for your low level characters, especially the shoulder pads which give a 10% increase in exp from killing mobs. I found it really helped speed up the first 20 levels enormosly (dual weilding balanced heartseakers on my rogue is awsome). also since they scale with you when you level you can go from 1-80 and never have to change to a different weapon.

for the warrior, it was quite tough untill level 20, then (as a tank) I was suddenly taking on 5 mobs at once. the feeling you get after downing 5 mobs at once is incredible.

[Renata]

Rogues are dps machines, but don't really have that many other nifty things - survivability goes as far as Evasion and Vanish, but that's about it. Excellent choice for PvP.

<blink> "don't really have that many other nifty things"?? </blink>

Rogues have tons of nifty things. I play an 80 rogue almost entirely PvE (she didn't even get her first honorable kill until I had to go into an AV to complete the PvP Winter Veil holiday achievement this past year). Evasion and Vanish are just two things you can do. I can't believe you never even mentioned the main "nifty thing" about rogues, and that's improved stealth. Yes, druids have stealth too, but not quite to a rogue's degree if they spec into it.

The huge thing about rogues, and what makes them so much fun, is the ability to stealth past mobs you don't need to bother to kill to get to the end mob you need. Tired of clearing entire areas to get to the one guy buried in the back? No problem on a rogue -- sneak past all that pesky trash, sap something nearby if you need, kill what you need, stealth back out. Sapping has more uses than just annoying people in PvP; the walrus puppy-stealing quest is cake for a rogue. Just sneak in, sap the den mother and steal the puppies. Also useful for dealing with mobs near herb or mining nodes. Rogues are nearly ideal for doing a lot of the achievements, especially ones that involve entering enemy cities.

On top of that, 80 rogues with Fan of Knives are excellent instance rushers. With no cooldown and no limit on the number of targets, hit Evasion, gather up literally DOZENS of low level mobs, wipe them out with a couple of Fans. It's amazing fun.

While I am not saying that druid is a bad choice -- a lot of people love running druids -- I don't want to see poor rogues sold short.

...Ren

[Marlous]

I don't want to see poor rogues sold short.

Heh, I wouldn't do that so easily.. my ally main is an 80 Rogue - it was my first toon, and I love her to bits (especially because she's a Dwarf and as such very rare and really cute.. the assassin from the shadows with a big bum and red boar tails! rawr!). Rogues have always been also special to me, ever since I started to play D&D and NWN. ^^

I more meant that they don't have any 'nifty things' as in, no water walking or levitation or eyes of the beast or other funny things that give that class a bit of shine/comic relief. I suppose you could mention pickpocketing, but I don't know if other Rogues like it as much as I do. Maybe they should drool over my Worn Troll Dice sometimes, that might spark their nimble fingers. :wink:

And I dig you about sapping - I'm a herbie and it's bloody brilliant how I could grab nodes in the Basin at level 76 without having to fight those nasty crocs. Oh, and Fan of Knives is also really nice if you want to give someone a boost! Before when I ran someone through Deadmines it was mostly one mob at a time, but now I can finally do it like other AoE boosters and round up a group and spam FoK. And have you tried doing the Frenzyheart/Oracle daily where you get something to become nigh-invincible? Then round up a horde of those mobs and just watch them drop dead from 2-3 Fans? Just fab.

[mmorpg man]

also to add favour to the rogues, the low level rogue quests are so much fun. they make you use all your skills in order to get what you need which the other classes' quests don't. nothing gives you a bigger thrill than having to stealth passed loads of mobs, sap a boss and pickpocket him to get a quest item.

[Smashfiction]

From what everyone has been saying it certainly sound slike rogues are the 'something new' i am after. The low level skills quests sound good and i can't think of another class that does it in the same way as you said mmorpg man :) In fact before posting this i started a rogue on my main server and he is level 6 at the moment, i plan to get hi mto 20 so he is ready to level properly once my shaman is 80. thanks :)

[Renata]

The only thing I would mention in the spirit of full disclosure, as a long term thing, is that druids are going to find an easier time getting groups than rogues will. Trust me on this one.

...Ren

[TPMdm]

Regardless of server tanks and healers are usually the main stumbling stones for forming a group (some servers have more of one or the other but all servers are in shorter supply of either than of DPS), true enough.

I notice you don't have it on your list but you didn't mention my favorite class: Warlocks
Fun class quests throughout their career up to lvl 60+
"Fun abilities"; Detect invisibility, underwater breathing, summoning stone, eye of killrogg, Teleportation circle, class mounts, Metamorphosis
They are reliable top end DPS
Fantastic soloers
Interesting Lore