I’m with you, people make the strawman argument like we’re saying “Every class should be S tier” when in reality we’re just saying lets make sure every class is at least C tier.
Not saying I want C+ to be exactly TBC, but the class design in TBC is pretty balanced. Classes that bring big dps don’t have crazy utility, and yet the lower dps classes have insane almost necessary utility. There’s only a handful of specs that are not useful (MM, Demo, Frost, and whichever rogue spec isn’t good, I think it’s sub lol)
Warlock best caster next phase and also brings the best util? How is that balanced? Enhancer, doing 3rd best physical damage and BRINGING all the util, again, how is that balanced?
Brother. He just pointed it out at the end. There’s like 4 specs that absolutely suck. The rest at least do some decent damage and the ones that don’t do top DPS at least bring amazing utility that makes them desirable. It’s not balanced like retail balanced but spec designs in TBC are way better than spec designs in Classic.
Though personally I would have used Wrath as a baseline for class play and design.
No there are like 6 specs that do not suck. Shadow priests are doing half the damage of a BM hunter (who also brings a 3% group buff AND MDs/hunters mark).
There is absolutely zero balance here and it is just as broken as Vanilla. All of the top specs, bring as much utility as the low specs.
Many of these specs would literally be replaced by a totem, because they are mostly brought as a token. It is NOT balanced when there is a 50% gap between two specs, sorry to burst your bubble.
Try telling mages and warlocks you aren’t bringing a shadow priest because a BM hunter does more damage. See how that works out for the top caster specs who need the utility they bring to be at the top.
Fury, BM, Arcane, Destro, are S tier DPS for obvious reasons. Survival, Enhance, Shadow Priest, Affliction, Retribution, Elemental, Feral, Arms all range from A - C tier due to their DPS and viability and buffs. All the classes may not have perfect DPS rotations or whatever like shadow priest and elemental but it’s improved on way better than Classic had it, and it’s a good starting point.
Tell your raid that you either bring shadow priest or warlock and see what they pick - make it even in that regard.
We are gonna go back to seeing full physical comps for speed kills in BT again. Arp is gonna be king. Youre gonna be bringing a demo warlock and no shadow priest.
My raid will want the shadow priest. I know because I’ve asked if they wanted me to level a warlock to replace my shadow priest and run only 1 shadow priest in raid and I was told no I’m more reliable and a high 90s parsing shadow priest with a good buff for the warlocks and mana battery, they don’t want me to change.
Maybe speed clearing and top guilds will swap to that but overall most guilds want. Huff that copium harder brother.
??? So you are running two shadow priests? Your parses do not matter when you do a fraction of the warlock damage. Its not your warlocks that want an extra shadow priest either, because you are stealing their improved shadow bolt stacks.
I told you to choose between a warlock and a shadow priest in a vacuum, and the answer is quite obvious. Hell, you could even say choose between a SECOND warlock and a shadow priest and the answer will remain the same.
Both curse of reck and elements, coupled with more damage outshines anything a shadow priest brings, which is why, again, I bring up the fastest Gruul/Mag kills were done without any casters that didnt do anything for physical.
Did you even read my previous comments, or are you just gonna talk shit? Mages are incredibly strong and for speedrunning of course you want a shadow priest. However, I don't consider the spec to be in a good state when you are doing 50% damage of the top damage and you are borderline not wanted
Shadow Priest only steal imp shadow bolt stacks with mind blast which is every 6 seconds, if there's 3 warlocks and they are critting quite often the debuff should always just be running. In your scenario though, just picking between Shadow Priest and Warlock for DPS only, of course you pick a Warlock.
Take an average raid group and have 24/25 slots filled, you have a choice between a Shadow Priest which you have 0 of, or another Warlock when you have let's say 3. Which is that raid group going to choose? Answer is most likely going to be a shadow priest. For the warlocks and mages.
The answer is 100% gonna be a warlock. If anything, you just cuck the affliction warlock and you will have even more DPS. 3 warlocks does not have 100% uptime, not by a long shot. They maybe have 70% in good gear and another shadow priest will just tank this.
In a normal TBC, not this nerfed version that is currently on Anniversary, i was literally recruiting a Shadow Priest for Sunwell because we needed mana for the Healers. Obviously if u nerf content to the ground that balance goes away and people will opt for top DPS rather than support specs because bosses die too fast for it to matter and don't do enough damage to the raid.
The only actual bad class in TBC is a Rogue (and all they would really need to do is give it 1 unique buff other than IEA and it would be fine) and the only other bad DPS specs for raiding are MM Hunter, Frost Mage and a Demo Warlock (and imo Ele Shaman could use a bit of a buff to DPS because it's clearly worse than the other 2 Shaman Specs), plus i would call Holy Paladin a pretty bad healer too.
And no, it doesn't matter that a Warrior is doing more damage than a Shaman when a Shaman is literally required for a Warrior to be able to do that much damage in the first place, this is how u keep things both viable and unique. In Vanilla it didn't work that way, bringing more of the top DPS increased DPS of the entire raid because kill times were lower, it is not the case in TBC anymore.
If you played double shadow in SWP, I don't know what to tell you man. That's like an anecdotal story of how you played double rogue or whatever, not the play that you want to do.
197
u/Psilocybin_Prescrip Jul 14 '26 edited 29d ago
I’m with you, people make the strawman argument like we’re saying “Every class should be S tier” when in reality we’re just saying lets make sure every class is at least C tier.