[Column] World of Warcraft: Bill's Least Favorite Classes to Level

SBFord

Every MMO has classes that are more difficult to play, that maybe require more micromanagement than others. In The WoW Factor today, we take a look at five classes that are annoying as hell level up, even if the game itself isn't all that hard. See if you agree and then leave your thoughts in the comments.

The Death Knight is out from the get go, being that he starts off at 55 and is an absolute powerhouse leveling to the cap. Playing the Monk in beta for Mists of Pandaria tells me that it too will be a very powerful early leveler. But let’s talk about five other classes that just can’t seem to compare to say, the Hunters, Mages and Death Knights of the world, no matter how hard they try. Yes, we’re well aware that all WoW classes are relatively easy to level with by nature of the game’s progression. But still, there are some that just don’t have the oomph of others, and these are them in order from “Best” to “God this is boring”.

Read more of Bill Murphy's The WoW Factor: Bill's Least Favorite Classes to Level.

orbitxo

when i played wow- leveling my shaman was so much fun and i was fortunate enough todo his side quests! later in game at higher level he was a heavy support class and worse yet you didnt get any respect if you werent a healer shammy.

 

that left such a bad taste in the game play style -like why would there be 3 different trees when one out weighted the other two.

 

that said -later on post lich king , he was respected again and useful with dps in 5man dungeons.

ledgend has it- that the shaman was a great tank in the vanilla era.

 

Tyratops

No they weren't great tanks.

 

With all due respect, it you're going to make an article on wow's leveling in 2012, keep it relevent and dont use your pre-tbc experience.  Also you really need to bear in mind diffferent specs as well,

Excession

Shaman was never a (great) tank, though there was a time when Blizzard claimed they were the only true hybrid class, and that they could tank.

I actually enjoyed levelling my priest as Holy, took it to level cap during vanilla, then each new cap of each expansion while staying Holy.

Kyleran

I dunno, seems like if you are going to write an article like this, you should have experience with the game as it currently is delivered.

I played a Warrior for the first time when I returned for Cata, and it was no challenge at all really.  When WOW first launched and there was still downtime between fights, sure, they were a pain, same for Priests, but I'd say as the game currently is, neither really is a problem.

I leveled a Pally as my first character back in 04/05, and it was a long boring slog, though I duo'd most of the time with my son's mage so I'd wade in and start swinging while he burned them down.

No idea really what classes are challenging these days, but the leveling experience is so quick (I got that warrior to 85 in a little over a month) I doubt anyone really finds it particularly annoying.

 

Kaynos1972

Boradin.  I leveled most classes to at least 60, the Paladin was the most boring by far.

Reizla

Leveling a warlock myself right now (level 82 atm), but didn't think her to be hard or squaihy at all. Only problem I had to 'stay alive' was at the levels right after I acquired the fellhunter pet. That one has a hard time keeping damage the first few levels after you get it. In general, I thought warlock is just a powerhouse...

 

karmath

Why write articles you have 0 clue on the current subject matter. I havnt played WoW in a comparable time as you, it would'nt cross my mind to write anything about WoW in a current tense, which this article seems to cross back and forth from.

 

0/10. 

mithoss

can agree only on warlock. i strongly dissagree on every other pick. paladin is extremely easy to lvl imho. selfheal, aoe etc. just pick protection and you can tank 5 mobs easily. warrior ist easy too, high dmg. Priest too, whats with the hate for self healing classes?

KenFisher

Last I played demonology warlocks were extremely survivable.  A bit slow on DPS but very easy soloing.  Pet, dot , dot, dead.  Never worried with gear.

 

Worst leveler I played was soloing a shaman.  Eventually deleted, it played like a gimped paladin, inferior at everything.  I think the nerf bat must have hit them hard at the time.  They were decent in BC.

Kaneth

I'm not sure what Bill is smoking, but I find many of his ascertations to be completely off base. Since he's speaking mostly of "fun" factor to leveling, it's all subjective. The only two classes I don't have level 85 toons is Priest and Mage because I find them both boring as hell to level.

Ironically, every other class on his list (priest being the exception), I found extremely fun to level. Calling Rogues and Warlocks squishy is laughable at best. Both classes are extremely durable if played properly.

Warrior is active and literally never has to stop, charge--->kill--->charge--->victory rush/kill and keep repeating. The fact that Bill admits his experience was Pre-TBC lends a little forgiveness, but good lord man, at least speak from a place of knowledge and not pure ignorance.

My previous comment also holds true for the Paladin, sure the Pally was boring to level, up until they completely revamped them towards the end of TBC. Again, it's a powerhouse of a class that literally never has to stop, leveling and Prot or Ret are both viable, although prot is slower.

Here's my suggestion to Bill. Next time you want to write one of these pieces, I suggest you go back and do some homework. You've admitted to not playing at least one of the classes for 6-7 years (warrior) and reference 5-6 year old comments about leveling the paladin.

Jaedor

I could never get a mage past level 27, bored to tears. And it took me four tries to level a druid (very squishy early as boomkin).

arcwest

my experience has been completely different. paladins and rogues were easy and fun, they always seemed so overpowered.

my worst experience was a tie between shammy and priest. i have yet to level a shammy past 50 ish (idk why but i just find the class unbearable) i only leveled a priest because i cheated with the scroll of resurrection and skipped levels 1-80. However the 5 levels i played in bg's were some of the "funnest" ive ever had just healing.

never been much for playing healy types.

Kaneth

For those commenting about the Shaman (I've mained a shaman for most of my wow career), what spec are you playing as? I have typically found leveling as Enhancement to be the most boring, because the spec is so passive in many regards to damage. Elemental has been my preferred spec since Shaman got dual-wield, especially with the Elemental Overload mechanic (love procing that with Chain Lightning).

Granted, Shaman seems to be a love it or hate it class, there really isn't an inbetween.

Harttz

Warriors are super easy to level now. They just shred enemies in only a couple of hits now. A whole lot of AoE and cleave abilities helps as well.

Rogues really depends on the spec. Combat is super easy because of being able to cleave everything but Mut or Sub can be tougher early on.

Locks are tough until you get a tanking pet, which I think is like somewhere around level 10-20 so they aren't really that hard.

I think the hardest and most boring now is the Priest. Shadow is really weak until you get to about level 45 (they have serious mana issues below that level, they don't do that much damage, and they are squishy until they get some of the auto-healing abilities). Discipline is better for leveling early on but because it is a healing spec it takes a while to kill anything and you have no AoE so you can't just pull everything and AoE it down like most classes.

Paladins are super easy but also pretty boring. So the article is spot on there.

solarine

In Cataclysm I leveled a Paladin. And a sword & board one at that. Extremely fast & easy leveling. You just have to remember to take on groups instead of single mobs. Next to no downtime.

Plus, if you're on a PVP server you have nothing to fear, can take a group of mobs plus an assailant at the same time. (You may actually bore at least one of them to a retreat! :P)

rygard49

I don't think any classes are difficult to level, but there the Mage I can't seem to get past 30. I'm just not into the playstyle.

TheLizardbones

The only classes I leveled to max level were a Priest and a Hunter. The Hunter was easy...even as Survival it was both fun and useful. The priest though was my first character. I remember being able to bubble, cast one smite and then having to beat stuff to death with my mace. I thought that was how you were supposed to do things. It got better with wands, but not by much. Once I got to a high enough level and figured out how a shadow priest worked, it was smooth sailing from that point on.

The only class I couldn't bring myself to play was the Rogue...just wasn't any fun. Sneaking around was great, the combat wasn't. Other classes I could have spent more time on, but I preferred my two mains and wasn't interested enough in the other classes to actually level them all the way to max level. They didn't seem too hard to level though.

BadSpock

I always found melee > ranged in WoW in terms of leveling, unless they had pets.

Warlock was a pain only because I don't like having to balance HP/MP.

Hunter is easy mode.

Leveling anything else as ranged (Priest, Shaman, Mage, Druid) was/is a pain IMO.

Enh shaman leveled in WOTLK/Cata - cake.

Ret Paly leveled WOTLK/Cata - cake (super easy in WOTLK actually)

Warrior leveled in Vanilla, only got easier and easier (Victory rush is SO OP for leveling)

I only "gave up" on leveling with Mage/Warlock/Hunter/Priest as the ranged playstyle, even with pets, was just so so boring.

Rogue was a lot of fun w/ Shadowstep spec whatever that was in Cata (get it at 10 now)

I never liked Druid because it was only "fun" to level as a Cat and I got really, really tired of looking the exact same the whole time because gear didn't show... as I was a cat 24/7.

 

Vrika

Warrior information is horribly outdated. Since Cataclysm changes warriors have had high burst dps, good self healing (victory rush) and good mobility (charge, intercept) making them one of the faster classes to level.

Paladin information is also a bit outdated. Leveling (assuming solo questing) a paladin requires the player to be as active if not more active than a ranged class would require.

Even if this article is a column, I think MMORPG.com quality control failed when this was released as official article. Releasing outdated information makes MMORPG.com look ridiculous.

Rockniss

Bill Murphy continues his attack on wow - that should have been the title here. I don't blame him though, I feel like all clothies suck to level, actually after you level a hunter its hard to level anything else.

Gajari

Originally posted by Vrika

Warrior information is horribly outdated. Since Cataclysm changes warriors have had high burst dps, good self healing (victory rush) and good mobility (charge, intercept) making them one of the faster classes to level.

Paladin information is also a bit outdated. Leveling (assuming solo questing) a paladin requires the player to be as active if not more active than a ranged class would require.

Even if this article is a column, I think MMORPG.com quality control failed when this was released as official article. Releasing outdated information makes MMORPG.com look ridiculous.

Thanks for giving that info on the Warrior. Can you believe the Warrior changed so radically in ONLY 7-8 YEARS? Gawd. lol

Bill doesn't believe it. 

AlBQuirky

For me, the rogue (aka rouge) was tough in world fights vs. groups of mobs. Sure, you could shadowstep and immobilize (sleep) a pack of mobs, but as you're doing that, then trying to kill each mob individually, the mobs had a tendency to start respawning before I could get through the original set. It made for some very interesting situations!

Rockniss

I think before you bash Bill, you do take into consideration as some of you are saying, the game is 8 years old. Did you play it 6,7,8 years ago? Or even before cata when they mixed up what level you get x spell? He does say in the second sentence of this article the word "are" instead of "were" he changes that one word and this is a legit article.

Asuran24

Originally posted by orbitxo

when i played wow- leveling my shaman was so much fun and i was fortunate enough todo his side quests! later in game at higher level he was a heavy support class and worse yet you didnt get any respect if you werent a healer shammy.

 

that left such a bad taste in the game play style -like why would there be 3 different trees when one out weighted the other two.

 

that said -later on post lich king , he was respected again and useful with dps in 5man dungeons.

ledgend has it- that the shaman was a great tank in the vanilla era.

 

Issue was more that well you had a huge disparity in population of healers to dps or even tanks back then, as such most classes that could heal were expected to heal by virtue of it made gettting groups for those that could not specc to heal. It is less to do with anyone designing the class's talent trees badly, an alot more of how people feel an exect thgins to go in th game regardless of what is intended by the devs. Yeah though a shammy was a pretty good tank overall prior to bc (somewhat even into bc parts.), an alot of classes got alot more respect an use out of more of the talent trees.  mean look at pallies in vinnila wow they were not able to really dps or tank (could not tank or dps at all really in anythign past 5-mans even though in truth they had very good damage output, just terrrible threat management tools making them hazards alot of the time.), and warriors which normally were expected to tank largely in most groups that they went into.

 

For me i found the rogue to mbe pretty bad to level yet not because it was hard leveling, but alot of the time it was very boring an tedious leveling him/her. also most of the healer classes (priest, druid to some extent, and shammy) were difficult to actually level at any reasonable speed unless you specced into their dps talent tree, and then respecced back n town prior to getting summoned to the instance (before dual speccing came in to the game.), they also had the slowest killing speed largely which just slowed progression.

BillMurphy

Do we really have to preface every COLUMN article with the notion that columns are editorially based and therefore opinion? To me, and still, this list is my most boring/annoying classes to level. You can have your own too, but neither of us will be "right".