Raiding Specs and Jobs

[Vandalia1998]

I heard in Vanillia each class only had one good spec for Raids

Does anyone know what they are and what each class/spec should do?

[Brion]

Check the individual class forums. They each have in depth guides for raiding specs, gear, etc.

[Saffron]

There's no easy or 100% right way of answering this. However, it's true that most people of a class would play the same spec for raids. There were off spec raiders for various reasons, but generally, if you want to get into a guild for a trial, you may be best off using these...

Druid - Restoration. A very good raid healer who provides other utilities such as rebirth and innervate. I've seen both Feral and Balance druids in vanilla, but at the most one of each/either in a raid.
Hunter - Marksmanship. Because it provides the highest individual DPS for a hunter. Pets are not very useful in raids.
Mage - Fire or Frost. Depending on the resistance types you have in your raids. I have not seen Arcane mages in raids before TBC.
Paladin - Holy. Very good raid healers and providers of buffs. Not a pro on these since I played horde, but I think maybe some guilds ran with one Retribution paladin. I think Prot paladins had awful mana issues.
Priest - Holy. Excellent tank healers. One of the raid priests should be specced into Prayer of Spirit. Shadow priests did exist, but no more than one in a raid, and only after debuff slots were extended.
Rogues - Combat was most common. Depends on what kind of weapons you want to use.
Shaman - Restoration. Outstanding group healers.
Warlock - Destruction, at least until debuff slots are extended.
Warrior - Protection. Warriors are undoubtedly the main tanking class of vanilla. However, you got away with being Arms or Fury if you had some tanking gear in your bags. For encounters where you need a lot of tanks (Garr, Sulfuron, the fire adds on Rag etc) it was better to have a couple of DPS warriors who could make themselves useful on other encounters while still being able to tank mini bosses.

Basically, if your chosen class has a healing spec, you're expected to play it most of the time.

[Nagrim]

some fixes:
Shaman: There may be guilds running with one Enhancer. We did this before TBC.
Warlock: It's not entirely Destruction. Most Locks run DS/Ruin (7/21/23), some may be SM/Ruin (30/0/21). That's for the time with 8 debuff slots.

[Droom91]

There's no easy or 100% right way of answering this. However, it's true that most people of a class would play the same spec for raids. There were off spec raiders for various reasons, but generally, if you want to get into a guild for a trial, you may be best off using these...

Druid - Restoration. A very good raid healer who provides other utilities such as rebirth and innervate. I've seen both Feral and Balance druids in vanilla, but at the most one of each/either in a raid.
Hunter - Marksmanship. Because it provides the highest individual DPS for a hunter. Pets are not very useful in raids.
Mage - Fire or Frost. Depending on the resistance types you have in your raids. I have not seen Arcane mages in raids before TBC.
Paladin - Holy. Very good raid healers and providers of buffs. Not a pro on these since I played horde, but I think maybe some guilds ran with one Retribution paladin. I think Prot paladins had awful mana issues.
Priest - Holy. Excellent tank healers. One of the raid priests should be specced into Prayer of Spirit. Shadow priests did exist, but no more than one in a raid, and only after debuff slots were extended.
Rogues - Combat was most common. Depends on what kind of weapons you want to use.
Shaman - Restoration. Outstanding group healers.
Warlock - Destruction, at least until debuff slots are extended.
Warrior - Protection. Warriors are undoubtedly the main tanking class of vanilla. However, you got away with being Arms or Fury if you had some tanking gear in your bags. For encounters where you need a lot of tanks (Garr, Sulfuron, the fire adds on Rag etc) it was better to have a couple of DPS warriors who could make themselves useful on other encounters while still being able to tank mini bosses.

Basically, if your chosen class has a healing spec, you're expected to play it most of the time.

+1

raids should definetly only have a boomkin in group when AQ releases and after that.
due to the fact gear is kinda non-existant for Boomkin until AQ.

[Xethra]

There's no easy or 100% right way of answering this. However, it's true that most people of a class would play the same spec for raids. There were off spec raiders for various reasons, but generally, if you want to get into a guild for a trial, you may be best off using these...

Paladin - Holy. Very good raid healers and providers of buffs. Not a pro on these since I played horde, but I think maybe some guilds ran with one Retribution paladin. I think Prot paladins had awful mana issues.

Shaman - Restoration. Outstanding group healers.


Basically, if your chosen class has a healing spec, you're expected to play it most of the time.

Just going to add on to what Saffron said...


Holy Paladins are the best healers in terms of mana efficiency. You can literally spam Flash of Light for days.

Retribution paladins were usually brought to keep up a judgement on the target while using Nightfall (crafted weapon that does +15% spell damage taken debuff). Are they really worth bringing over a primary DPS like a rogue or warrior, no. Holy Paladins can keep judgements up and you can have an offtank use Nightfall when they aren't tanking an add and get the same results while getting an overall damage increase because retribution paladin DPS is sub-par until Naxxramas when Exorcism can be added into the rotation. People will probably argue and link stats of high dps retribution paladins, but there is usually a gear disparity involved. A BIS raid gear ret paladin will out dps a blue geared rogue or warrior. At even gear levels though, the paladin will always be behind.

Protection paladins... where do I start. This fascination of protection paladins came about from BC onward and has been assumed they can do the same in Vanilla. In Vanilla, they DO NOT HAVE TAUNT. Simply put, if they lose threat, you're screwed. They do not have any cooldowns other than Lay on Hands, which is an hour cooldown and makes them lose all there mana (which is how they generate threat). On Nostalrius, mobs that are CC'ed with sheeps and what not still have a threat generation table. Healers will always be on top of the threat meters for bosses such as Majordomo. With the lack of taunt, protection paladins are absolutely worthless other than tanking the first mob that gets killed, since Majordomo drops threat as well. When it comes down to it, can protection paladins tank? Yes. Can feral druids and warriors tank better? Absolutely.

Restoration Shamans... simply put the best raid healers on Horde side. Chain heal is so powerful. Not much else to be said about them, they are an absolute necessity.

Enhancement Shamans are similar to Retribution Paladins in the aspect they bring utility to a melee group as well as function as the Nightfall debuffer (15% spell damage debuff). Once again, like Retribution Paladins, their dps is sub-par and it's better to bring a rogue or warrior and have the off-tank(s) use Nightfall. Can you use them? Yes. Once again though you have to ask yourself, is it worth it to bring one over a rogue or warrior? Not really.

Elemental Shamans, simply put they have no raid utility and their damage will always be pretty low. They just weren't designed correctly for PVE until Burning Crusade. For instance, on Garr, they literally cannot damage anything because Earth Elementals are immune to Nature damage (Lightning Bolt + Chain Lightning). Worth bringing? No.

[Crysthal]

Well the difficulty of the first classic raids is comparable to lfr on retail. So ask yourself one question
"have you ever seen an optimized raid for lfr on retail ?"

But then the common problem arises that people nowadays want to clear MC in less than one hour and thus play classes some of them do not favor.

You can clear most of the raids with any raidsetup but people got this one mindset of how it is done.

No I'm not a desperate ret pally just adding some other facts.

In the end every guild has the right to chose how they raid but sometimes I'm sad because this is just a simple game maxed out by some elitists who make a majority roll dps warriors who then fail to bring the required "skill" and are weaker than the subpar enhancer/whatever.

But maybe you can find a guild that lets you roll for your offspec and be happy

Don't want to hate elitists who try to max their dps

[Mandosz]

There's no easy or 100% right way of answering this. However, it's true that most people of a class would play the same spec for raids. There were off spec raiders for various reasons, but generally, if you want to get into a guild for a trial, you may be best off using these...

Druid - Restoration. A very good raid healer who provides other utilities such as rebirth and innervate. I've seen both Feral and Balance druids in vanilla, but at the most one of each/either in a raid.
Hunter - Marksmanship. Because it provides the highest individual DPS for a hunter. Pets are not very useful in raids.
Mage - Fire or Frost. Depending on the resistance types you have in your raids. I have not seen Arcane mages in raids before TBC.
Paladin - Holy. Very good raid healers and providers of buffs. Not a pro on these since I played horde, but I think maybe some guilds ran with one Retribution paladin. I think Prot paladins had awful mana issues.
Priest - Holy. Excellent tank healers. One of the raid priests should be specced into Prayer of Spirit. Shadow priests did exist, but no more than one in a raid, and only after debuff slots were extended.
Rogues - Combat was most common. Depends on what kind of weapons you want to use.
Shaman - Restoration. Outstanding group healers.
Warlock - Destruction, at least until debuff slots are extended.
Warrior - Protection. Warriors are undoubtedly the main tanking class of vanilla. However, you got away with being Arms or Fury if you had some tanking gear in your bags. For encounters where you need a lot of tanks (Garr, Sulfuron, the fire adds on Rag etc) it was better to have a couple of DPS warriors who could make themselves useful on other encounters while still being able to tank mini bosses.

Basically, if your chosen class has a healing spec, you're expected to play it most of the time.

Druids - Are actually not a very good class in general, they can be good healers but their HoTs overwrite each other meaning 1 druid healer per target, Max 1-2 for an optimal raid comp. Feral Tanks are quite useful in many situations with feral DPS being lackluster untill AQ40 gear, even then its pretty meh. Boomkins are just outright bad, even with the caster buff they bring for a group. Innervate and Brez are the only true value they bring to a raid.

Hunters - MM is used specifically BECAUSE hunters dps is quite low compared to most other classes, you need some for tranq shot so the ones you bring should be MM to provide trueshot aura to the melee. Once a hunter is reaching 500~ agility Survival becomes the best spec, providing more dps through personal gains vs the damage gained from giving a group trueshot. Pets are actually VERY useful with variations of 20/0/30 and 20/31/0 bringing max dps in live vanilla however on Nostalrius in peticular the one pet that made this work is currently bugged and doesnt provide the dps to make this option viable.

Priests - As mentioned above however atleast one priest specced far enough into disc for power infusion is viable, power infusion can be incredibly powerful when used on the right caster DPS

some minor edits

[XJ9]

Rogues - Stab shit, keep up slice and dice.

Combat Swords Rogues - Spam Sinister Strike, keep up SnD. There will be points where you are able to eviscerate at 5 combo points while still being able to run another cycle and get a few more points for SnD. Just know that if you get off a 5 pt SnD, your next finisher is guaranteed to be a 5 point eviscerate in the time window. Unless something completely random happens to upset the balance. Though in most Patchwerk-esque fights you'll always 5pt Eviscerate following 5pt SnD.

Combat Dagger Rogues - Spam Backstab, keep up SnD. Unlike Combat Swords, you're not given many windows to eviscerate while maintaining a good SnD cycle. This is offset by Backstab having higher damage due to the fact it requires 60 energy, not 40. So you can generally keep up if not compete with swords rogues without getting nearly as many eviscerates. (Or else it wouldn't be an allowed raid spec and daggers would be strictly pvp focused) That should stand as a testament to how strong rogue AAs are.

Seal Fate Daggers - Really only becomes viable post BWL-AQ40 era. Which is a shame, it's honestly my spec of preference. This spec goes I think 31/15/5 (Been a while since I've actually played the spec) and it functions much like Combat Daggers except for a few differences:

a) You have no cooldowns aside from baseline CDs and the only talented CD you will have is Cold Blood, which basically guarantees you a critical hit on backstab or eviscerate.

b) The reason this spec works at the post BWL gear level is because by then you have enough acquired critical strike chance from gear to make the investment into Seal Fate worthwhile. This directly benefits your 25 point tier talent called "Seal Fate" (Hence name) where 5/5 gives you a 100% chance to generate an additional combo point on generators if that generator was to crit. So obviously, higher gear = more crit = more combo points = more opportunity to eviscerate = more damage output.

Given SF spec has no Adrenaline Rush, it's all primarily sustained damage. Combat specs have a little burst window with AR which SF does not have sadly. The only real "burst" SF has is Cold Blood Eviscerates which really are just guaranteed eviscerate crits, one every THREE minutes.

[XJ9]

Well the difficulty of the first classic raids is comparable to lfr on retail.

I would disagree having been one of the unfortunate many stupid enough to try LFR Molten Core at 100 for WoW's 10 year Anniversary. Though yes, the lack of mechanics makes it very akin to LFR as far as MC goes given Blizzard even admitted it was made by three people in like three days with one designing bosses, one designing environment, the other designing trash packs.

Though yeah, I still am in disbelief at how badly LFR MC went, it was basically a pack of chimps saying "Lol vanilla wow was easy this will be a joke." who then follow the pattern of dying to the ONE key mechanic on every boss fight. Actually had a tank who "tanked for Death and Taxes back in the day" insist that you did Golemagg by cleaving his adds down and him. Evidently Golemagg became the tiger boss from ZG when I wasn't looking.