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All of the latest Mists of Pandaria newsBreakfast Topic: Class vs. content
by Allison Robert 
Sep 10th 2008 at 8:00AM
It's no secret that classes and specs are not the same when it comes to the likelihood of getting Gladiator or raiding all the way to Kil'Jaeden. You may love your Hunter, but arena's not that kind to them at present. Your Warlock might be endless fun to play, but the guilds on your realm are probably swimming in them. And if you've ever cruised past the recruitment forums, you've probably noticed that they all seem to want the same thing: healers (and lots of 'em). If you were the sort of person who sat down, looked at the content in the game that you wanted to see more than anything else, and picked your class and spec solely with that goal in mind, your path forward would be fairly clear...but you might also become one of those people who logs off their primary toon as fast as they can after raid, or after their 10 games for the week, and goes to play the alt they'd secretly love to be playing as a main.
Ideally we get the perfect intersection of a class we love to play that's able to accomplish its goals in content we want to experience, but it doesn't always happen -- and if you have to choose, the decision is a pretty personal one. So I ask you: class or content?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, PvP, Breakfast Topics, Raiding, Classes, Alts, Arena
Reader Comments (Page 3 of 3)
Evi Sep 10th 2008 1:46PM
This is part of why I enjoy hybrids so much. I was able to break out of my pigeonhole without changing classes. Back in the day, I was forced to spec resto with my druid if I wanted to raid. There just wasn't much support for ferals or moonkin. There was no real place for us. I grew to resent healing quite a bit because I felt forced into it. I specced feral for TBC and never looked back. I've had so much fun tanking and dps'ing since then. Now that it's been years since my MC days, I'm finally able to enjoy healing again with my priest. My druid is never going back to healing again, though!
Lemons Sep 10th 2008 3:23PM
I wish There was someone to tell you about that crap b4 you rolled. I rolled a paladin and didn't know jack about wow.
I started going down the holy tree because the talents sounded good. divine strength? sure i want to be stronger. divine intellect? great I'll be smarter. Glancing further down the tree I saw holy shock and thought :that must be awesome!" I really thought I'd be dpsing all over the place pwning face with holy shock XP
turns out holy = healing :/ by the time if figured that out it was too late really, so I started a rogue with my friend and I'm much happier now pwning than healing.
Skarlette Sep 10th 2008 3:26PM
If you play a class you enjoy and are skilled at, and are with a group of people you know and like, that's the best of all worlds.
Fortunately I've managed to do that with my first/main character. Mages may not be a rare class, but every guild needs them, and needs them to be good players. ("Huntards" get most of the bad press, but "magetards" can be every bit as painful to group with.) DPS may not be hard to find, but skilled players who pay attention and aren't jerks...those are much rarer.
Every class has something unique to offer to a group. Figure out what your strengths are and master those skills.
Voridor Sep 10th 2008 5:25PM
Well I have a few chars. I have two 70's and a few alts, with various twinks. So I get everything as far as what class I like to play.
So when I started playing WoW pre BC. I started a paladin. Which in WoW Classic was only a Healing/Buff class. I did it to get into RAIDS. That's it. I didn't like the class. I hated leveling the class. I couldn't stand solo questing with the class. But I did, and I did it in a long hard painful time. I leveled that annoying paladin for almost a year. After about 9 months I hit 60. Yay 60! I raided and raided and raided and got a few T1 sets pieces and T2 sets pieces. Finally I got bored. Whipsers of an expansions were rising and my thoughts kept growing (I should play a dps class) which made me Reroll.
Now the beloved and most anticipated Warlock!!!! I wanted to dps so bad. I wanted to make things die and die by my dps! Not only did Warlock's do a massive amount of dps pre BC. They also faired very well in PVP. Which was something I liked to do. But never could on my healadin pally. So about 3 months before BC came out I started my warlock and kinda twinked him out at some tiers because he was just so much fun in BG's. After about 4 months after BC released date I finally got this warlock to 70. From there things about the cass had changed and were up and down. However, I still PVP'ed and tried to get geared for Kara. Warlock got most of Season 1 set and was able to have enough to run Kara off of Heroic badges and some PVP gear. Ok.... I'm getting off topic.
Anywho!!! The Warlock I raid with and I love it. The walrock is the most fun I had with a char until! I reroll on a friends server a Druid. My intentions for the Druid was to get him to 70 ASAP and be a healer. Well I've been leveling him as Feral (of course). Until I hit the higher 60's this week and (I should be 70 by this weekend). But I have switched to Feral dps. To Feral tanking. I've had no trouble at all adapting to the Tanking style for Druids. I'm have a lot of fun tanking and I think I might just stay with that for a bit. Feral seems to be getting beefed up a bit in WotLK so it might be benificial to stay Feral for a while and see how it goes. For content puposes I play my warlock, which I enjoy playing through and through. For fun I play my Druid and also my Warlock (PVP) on occasion. My pally is on a seperate account and sadly he never gets play time. He's got decent healing gear to heal Kara, but I have mabye taken him in there 5 times out of the whole time BC has been out. He's just not fun to me. Almost a dead character I have.
Minidrake Sep 10th 2008 7:44PM
Class first.
The game may need more healers and tanks, but I love playing my rogue. Sneaking about, picking locks and pockets with equal abandon, backstabbing things... These things bring a little tear of happiness to my eyes.
Endgame content is important to me, especially BECAUSE of my class. If I weren't a rogue, I wouldn't give a damn about Warglaives (I know warriors can use them too, but I hate warrior play).
Being a rogue meant having a hard time finding a guild on my server: after all, what do I bring to the raiding table? DPS. We're one-trick ponies and who wouldn't prefer a druid or a shadowpriest or a hunter or a mage or a warlock, all of whom bring other things to the party?
Luckily, I have friends who dragged me with them into a good guild that values its rogues, so I've got a chance.
As for the PvP side of things, rogues are supposed to rock there, but I don't see it. Of course, I'm balls at PvP, so that could be why I don't find it at all interesting.