My wife wants to play this one with me, the first one of this genre she has shown any interest in. She has her heart set on a shaman class. So for all of you beta testers out there, what would make a nice duo? I like the concept of both the rogue and hunter. The needs of the pet concern me with the hunter. The rogue purely because I have never played a type like that one before.
The Hunter works well with nearly any class (and is a decent solo class, too). Bear in mind that the Shaman in a Horde-only class, so if she has her heart set on playing a Shaman, you’ll have to play Horde characters.
Priest/warrior would be cool, but honestly in WoW almost any duo will work fine up to higher levels.
The Hunter’s pet needs can be taken care of easily by training fishing. Less easily by feeding your pets meat from animal kills.
If one of you is going to be a caster type, the other should be a tank. Neither of the pet classes’ pets can hold aggro for very long even when soloing, adding another nuker to the mix is just asking for trouble.
Shaman/warrior is a great combo. The warrior actually has so many moves and stances that it is one of the more interesting and strategy oriented classes.
The shaman is a very versatile class. Only the druid can (theoretically) rival it in team adaptability, so you really can’t go wrong no matter what class you choose.
Rogue:
Pluses
-Very high damage
-Stealth
-Minor crowd control
Minuses
-Poor hitpoints
Hunter:
-High damage
-Pet
-Traps and assorted beast abilities
Minuses
-Poor hitpoints
I would personally choose the Hunter, simply because the pet would get the shaman’s totem bonuses. Perhaps the final pet system will allow you to customize your pet into a “tanking pet”, but that is yet to be seen. The Hunter is still a rather unfinished class right now, so its potential has yet to be realized.
But the Rogue is not a poor choice either. For casual play/questing, you really can’t go wrong with class combos. Some are better than others, sure, but all are reasonably playable I think.
The real challenge is getting her to choose among the rather ugly Horde females. :wink:
FYI, I’m thinking it’d be wise to avoid undead unless you enjoy a power rollercoaster ride. Dominating efficiency at the release of some patches, and crippling nerfs at others are what I expect. The noise about their racial abilities on the forums make me extremely leery about picking 'em.
Although, my shrivelled powergamer heart still yearns for those brief periods of dominance.
Also, since no other WoW threads appear to be floating to the top right now:
http://worldofwarcraft.com/thread.aspx?fn=wow-general&t=450631&p=1#post450631
Spiffy.
Honestly, the Druid seems cooler since you can shapeshift into other forms.
I’ve got a 50 Rogue on the PvP server, my wife has a 50 Priest. Great duo. She’s specced Shadow, and does nasty damage, plus her Flash Heals keep me alive. I’m specced for combat mostly (vice stealth and assassination) and use a lot of nasty poisons. My hunter is only 19; he’s fun, but melee is iffy though a Shaman pairing would help a lot. Hunters are fun in lots of ways, but I love the Rogue.
I’m a Gnome btw. Normally I take about 2500 hitpoints into battle, less than a warrior by far but more than most casters. Dodging and evasion keep me alive often, plus there’s always Vanish and run :)
You should play a Warrior. That will make your wife feel more important.
I would suggest warrior with shaman, if you think your wife is good at staying alive. If you’re worried on that score you should probably take a class with res
the whole staying alive part is what concerns me. She’s played toontown, but that’s about it. We played the stress test and she had a tauren shaman named elsie that she loved. What I’m looking for is the best class to keep her alive, and presumedly, still interested in playing. I picked hunter because the class description is identical to what I played in ac2, so I figured no learning curve for me. Rogue because the description said it was the best damage dealer. We didn’t actually try a rogue in the stress test though.
The other side to this is I have a habit of picking the worst character class out there in these type games. For instance, in the original ac I picked a vagabond. In ao I picked an adventurer. In daoc I picked a warden (still easily the most boring character class I’ve ver seen). They all look good in the description, but the reality usually isn’t quite so appealing.
Thanks for all the replies, btw.
Definitely go with Warrior then. Assuming that changing her mind is out of the question.
She should be a Priest, but whatever. Float the concept but don’t press it. If she enjoys the game she’ll be making alts left and right later on. But I think it would be unwise for you to be any kind of “fancy” class at first. Just tank, tank, tank. WoW Warriors definitely aren’t boring.
Just an FYI, regarding the “I pick the worst stuff” list.
Rogues are one of the most well-balanced and complete classes in the beta currently. They do their job exceedingly well and bring a lot to a group and have obvious stellar abilites in PvP. Their sustained DPS is indeed tremendous, and it’s fun playing a character whose best real-world analogue is a weedwacker.
Hunters are probably the worst all-around class right now. They have not yet received talents or any balancing of those talents, pets are pretty goofy, and their DPS, for a class that is really only good for DPS in practical matters, is well below other DPS-only classes like the Rogue or Mage.
Both classes have high-end gear problems currently, with Hunters being worse off than Rogues, but not by much. All melee classes in the game are very gear-dependent, and both of these classes have very little endgame choices for daggers and bows/guns.
I wouldn’t roll a hunter if the game went live tomorrow. I would consider rolling a rogue. Note also that you’re going to probably want to play a Troll or Orc, since your wife’s Shaman cannot be an undead, and she, in all likelyhood, doesn’t want to play a character that looks like Bessie the Cow. :)
Another factor to consider for retail will be, what tradeskill do you want to invest in? In many MMOs, tradeskills are primarily economic; you make stuff, you sell stuff, with utility being limited to the very upper echelons of the skill. In WoW, though, some skills are more valuable for their direct utility, and early on too.
The two that come to mind are Engineering and Alchemy. My Rogue is a Gnome Engineer (there are two top-tier Engineering categories, mutually exclusive: Goblin and Gnome). Throughout his career so far he has been able to make good use of the stuff Engineering provides. Primarily that means explosives. Though you can make guns and various devices, some of which are very useful (the net projector and shrinkray for example), it’s the grenades, bombs, and mines that really help out in combat IMO. They give you an otherwise unavailable area of effect (AoE) attack that is great for grabbing agro if you need to, damaging large numbers of crappy mobs, helping the AoE mages/warlocks in taking down swarms like in Uldamon with the scorpions, and generally in PvP for causing havoc, though the change of totems to be invulnerable to AoE removed that nice bit of utility sadly.
Trinkets like the net projector are great too but limited in that they require high levels of Engineering to use. That’s the limit on Engineering in general–virtually all the good stuff requires you to be an Engineer to use them. There are things like EZ-Throw Dynamite, guns, and scopes that can be used by all but most of the good stuff is exlcusive.
Alchemy, on the other hand, has great utility across the board, even for non-Alchemists. It’s potions of course, and they run the gamut from basic healing and buffing to exotic stuff like water breathing. demon slaying, and invisibility seeing. Essential for magical types for the mana potions IMO, and the healing pots are vital for melee types. Like Engineering you can derive beneift from Alchemy from day one, though in the same fashion collecting resources is a bear (herbs and ore will get you killed a lot as you trek over the landscape hunting them).
You can sell Alchemical products easier at auction than many Engineering items, as the people who can use Engineering items are almost always by default already Engineers; you can make more selling the ingredients sometimes. But if you are into combat effectiveness in a pure damage dealing sort of way, Engineering is grand.
Of course the best of both worlds is to get into a good guild where you’ll have plenty of tradespeople…
According to opinion from the beta the Druid is under powered whereas the shaman is over powered. Take that with a grain of salt though as there may be rebalances as WoW moves forward. Also I don’t believe the druid has a res power.
A possible duo could be shaman/druid so both can heal, both have some offensive magic, and both can tank a little bit(especially druid in animal forms). You get druid buffs and shaman totems(AOE buffs/debuffs/damage/etc). The hubby could keep the wife alive in difficult spots with heals and vica versa of course.
The shaman also gets chain at 40.
Right now Shaman seem stronger than Druids, especially at lower levels. It’s not a huge deal really. Both can heal well if spec’d correctly with heal talents, both can solo well. I actually have an easier time soloing things a few levels higher than my 33 druid than I do soloing even level things with my 14 shaman, and I hear the shaman is better at lower levels than higher levels.
Either is a good choice. Both have versatility, both are good in groups.