Welcome to Skill Capped’s Tier List on the Easiest and Hardest Classes to Play in Wrath of the Lich King Classic
Classes in Wrath of the Lich King are a lot more nuanced than in retail, so you can’t just log in and expect to be good. That means that your choice of main will have a huge impact on your experience in Wrath. One of the biggest mistakes players can make is pick up a new class and be crushed by its very high skill cap. This list is intended to give you an idea about which classes are the easiest to pick up, and which require some more dedication to master in WotLK Classic.
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Table of Contents
Criteria
Before we begin, it’s important to cover the criteria for what makes specs “easy”. Generally speaking, it means having a low skill floor, i.e. being easy to pick up. Such specs allow you to do fairly well even without technical mastery or nuanced game knowledge. Obviously, it takes into consideration how strong the spec is at its core. If the spec is easy to pick up, but is incredibly bad, it means an increased level of difficulty to achieve the same level of performance.
And finally, when talking about the difficulty of each spec, it is also important to consider the strength of its abilities. Does every ability have impact? Does the spec have forgiving mechanics? Is it expected to multi-task or can it get away with doing one thing? These are all important questions in this context. So let’s start off with Melee specs in no particular order.
Melee
Easy
Enhancement Shaman
You might be thinking that being a hybrid spec, Enhancement has quite a lot to do and can’t be that easy. While its core mechanics like Grounding Totem and Wind Shear are important, their low cd makes them pretty difficult to mess up repeatedly, so it’s quite forgiving in that regard. Combine that with the fact that Enh is designed for short, bursty and front-loaded games in comps like Beastcleave, and it becomes more of a one-trick than anything else.
Frost Death Knight
The same is true for Frost DK. Most of their utility comes in the form of Hungering Cold and doing small 1-minute setups, while trying to maintain momentum or kite away in-between. This is definitely a spec with a single task in mind, which together with short instant-cast AoE CC and a relatively streamlined damage rotation makes Frost DK quite easy, despite being weaker than their Unholy counterpart.
Protection Warrior and Protection Paladin
The final representatives of this section are Prot Paladins and Warriors. You are likely to encounter both of these in the later seasons for a number of reasons. For one, they are really durable against physical damage, while having straight-forward utility spells.
Prot Warriors in particular can just stay in defensive stance, which gives them access to Intervene, Shield Bash and Concussion Blow the entire time without needing to stance-dance too often, which makes resource management much easier.
Prot Paladins, on the other hand, might have a slightly more involved utility role thanks to having Cleanse, but outside of this, it’s more or less the same story: they do well into melee, might struggle into casters, while having a relatively easy damage rotation and resource management.
Moderate
Unholy Death Knight
The obvious question is “how could Frost be that much easier than Unholy?”, and the answer is in how much effort needs to put in to maintain pressure outside of cooldowns. Summon Gargoyle is a very strong offensive cooldown, maybe one of the best in the entire game, but once it’s down, the ability to keep up the pressure sets good and bad DKs apart. They also have slightly more in terms of team-wide utility with Anti-Magic Zone being exclusive to Unholy. Without a Mortal Strike effect and with actual pet management, Unholy is considerably more difficult than Frost.
Retribution Paladin
Similar to Prot, the majority of Retribution’s difficulty is tied to utility, but unlike Prot, Rets are much squishier overall. One of the biggest adjustments when playing Paladin in general is getting the most value out of Avenging Wrath, which, unlike in later expansions, can actually be dispelled or spellstolen in PvP. Rets also have a slightly more involved role to play compared to Prot as they have Repentance on top of Hammer of Justice. And once again, Cleanse places additional responsibilities on Rets with the need to actively monitor debuffs on their team.
Arms Warrior
The same idea goes for the Arms Warrior. The biggest difference from Protection is stance-dancing. A lot of utility available to Arms, such as Intervene, Disarm, Berserker Rage or even Intercept and Pummel require you to be utilize all three stances quite regularly. Of course, you can make macros for a lot of these, but there is still a Rage penalty for swapping stances, making resource management for Arms a bit more complicated. And the final thing is Unrelenting Assault, which is a Spell Power and Healing reduction debut on enemy targets that is applied only when Overpower is used during casts. This means that Arms Warriors need to not only interrupt casts, but carefully time damage globals as well to make the most out of this spec.
Hard
Rogue
A surprising as it may sound to those coming from retail, Rogue in Wrath is relentlessly unforgiving, regardless of the spec you choose to play. First of all, they are one of the squishiest classes in the game, which forces you to be extra careful with how and when you use defensive cooldowns, especially Vanish, which will break on damage immediately. Resource system also demands additional attention with positional requirements, combo points being locked to a single target and the need to properly manage Energy to avoid dead globals. Blind also doesn’t remove DoTs when applied, making it more difficult to use in a game. Out of all three specs, Subtlety is probably the most forgiving defensively thanks to Preparation and Shadowstep, but the class as a whole is still quite punishing.
Feral Druid
Pretty much everything we mentioned for Rogue also applies to Feral. Combo points are tied to a single target, Energy and positioning are a huge part of avoiding dead globals, but in addition to that, you also need to manage Mana. Feral Druids need to keep that in mind as they need it to use Predatory Strikes procs and be able to shift out of slows.
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Ranged
Easy
Beast Mastery Hunter
Moving on to Ranged, we have Beast Mastery Hunters. It might be one of the strongest Ranged specs in Season 5 as players will have significantly less health and Resilience, making the damage of BM Hunters overtuned. Unlike its sister specs, BM is fairly one-dimensional. It isn’t really designed for setups since it lacks Scatter Shot and Wyvern Sting, and is instead more intended for pressing W and slamming Bestial Wrath, Rapid Fire and Aimed Shot while having CC immunity thanks to Beast Within. Altogether, BM is just well-suited for easy play. You aren’t really required to think hard about your decisions since your entire toolkit is designed to live fast and die young.
Destruction Warlock
This is definitely one of the meta giants of Wrath PvP. Going back to the criteria for “easy”, Destro perfectly fits the description of having all of your spells make a huge impact. Its bread and butter Chaos Bolt does enormous damage with a relatively short cast time given appropriate Haste values. Unlike Affliction, Destro has a much easier time setting up for damage thanks to Shadowfury. Aside from its well-rounded offensive toolkit, Destro Warlock’s defense is nothing short of amazing into other casters thanks to Nether Protection and Soul Link. Destruction is an amazing meta pick for an easy arena experience due to its fairly straight-forward playstyle.
Elemental Shaman
In many ways, the same strengths of Destro can apply to Ele as well. No matter which button you press on your action bar, it’s bound to do something useful. One of the biggest strengths of Elemental is that it has multiple damage spell schools with Lava Burst being its most threatening spell, which even has some talented dispel protection and its lockout does not affect off-heals and utility. Ele Shamans also have some passive bulkiness thanks to Astral Shift and efficient kiting tools with an instant Earthbind root. The biggest takeaway is that Elemental Shamans aren’t really bad at anything. Of course, with such an expansive toolkit they may have a relatively high skill cap, but this spec is definitely something you can pick up and expect to do well.
Moderate
Balance Druid
There is no nice way to say it: Boomkins kind of suck in Wrath. The spec is a true one-trick. It has decent pressure during Starfall and Force of Nature, and then falls off incredibly hard. It’s this quick burnout that gives Balance Druids a slot in this category. If they didn’t run out of steam so fast, they might actually have been a bit more complex. Outside of that, they are fairly easy to pick up. Doing damage with your CDs is relatively autopilot, but the sheer weakness of the spec is what harshly limits it from being a truly easy experience.
Shadow Priest
Shadow is actually quite interesting because it has all the makings of a high-tier wizard, but encounters a few difficulties early in the expansion. One of those is Mana. Shadow Priests, unlike some other casters, won’t truly flourish until Solace of the Fallen is available. Without it, the biggest challenge for Shadow is managing Mana. Overall, Shadow Priest functions similarly to Ret Paladins and needs to pay close attention to debuffs on their team since they have the ability to dispel offensively, adding some complexity to arena gameplay. Aside from that, however, they are a relatively straight-forward caster with some unique control options, making them perfect who wants a bit of a challenge in Wrath PvP.
Hard
Marksmanship and Survival Hunters
Unlike BM, which is designed for one thing, these two specs focus more on control, setting up kills with Scatter Shot, Freezing Arrow and Wyvern Sting. Additionally, Marks gets an additional difficulty curve since it is the only spec with Silencing Shot. But perhaps the biggest difficulty when playing any Hunter spec is that they simply die. Some might even argue that they are the squishiest Ranged class in the game with only a clunky Deterrence as their primary personal defensive, into which Rogues can conveniently Cheap Shot and Warriors can spam Overpower. All of this makes Hunters as a whole a true glass cannon, so if you are up for a challenge – Marksmanship or Survival might be for you.
Affliction Warlock
Affliction requires a bit more pet control than Destruction. Destro Locks can get away with playing Succubus, who can literally turn invisible and auto cast CC, but Affliction has to play almost exclusively with Felhunter, since they need to DoT multiple targets to open up kill windows. Felhunters are not easy pets to properly manage. Of course they have an interrupt, but the true skill is managing their defensive dispel Devour Magic. This makes them a huge asset for the team, all the while making pet management significantly more important, since Affliction Warlocks are essentially half of a player without a pet.
Mage
Mage might be the hardest class in the entire game. In Wrath, Mages are not tanky at all with limited shields, barely any passive damage mitigation and a single defensive cooldown. This means that you can’t just run on top of the enemy team for CC, you have to be much more tactical. This includes making sure you use Blink properly, since if you Blink at the wrong time or in the wrong direction, it usually means you will be stuck there for a while taking damage. Not to mention that Mages are one of the few classes with multiple DR categories due to having Polymorph, roots and stuns. And when you add a very limited Mana bar, Mages have a lot to deal with and are generally considered the hardest class in Wrath of the Lich King.
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Healer
Easy
Holy Paladin
Holy Paladins are widely considered the best Healer in Wrath of the Lich King, which intrinsically makes them easier. There have been multiple quality of life improvements to the spec between TBC and Wrath, most notably more instant healing. Paladins are also the healer most reflective of modern day expansions as one of the few healing classes with multiple defensive CDs. This means that they can rotate cooldowns, which practically no other Healer is capable of. Outside of this, though, they just have some insane passives be it something as simple as additional Spell Resistance or Sacred Cleansing.
Discipline Priest
Priests trail slightly behind because they are somewhat susceptible to getting trained, but since they usually play RMP, they automatically have some peeling tools at their disposal. As a saving grace, their healing is quite easy to do with Penance being arguable the strongest healing spell in the game. Shadow Word: Death does indeed require some skill to use right, but gone are the days when doing this was a rare sight.
Moderate
Restoration Druid
Resto Druid is the only Healer with actual mobility. Druids can avoid many issues that other Healers encounter, especially when it comes to getting trained or avoiding CC. Druid’s healing rotation is quite easy and for the most part revolves around instant-cast HoTs that carry hps. The true difficulty of Druids is tied to Cyclone, which might be one of the most complex spells to master. Resto Druid needs to be involved with their team and be offensive, especially with Cyclones. So an easy healing rotation combined with complex offensive and defensive play makes Resto Druids a great class for someone who appreciates being both challenged and powerful at the same time.
Hard
Restoration Shaman
Resto Shaman is the hardest Healer in Wrath, but that is mostly due to its power level. It is significantly weaker than other Healers, even with Bloodlust. This cooldown is the only time they are good. As soon as it fades or is dispelled, or even worse, spellstolen, Resto Shamans instantly become bad. This is mostly due to the fact that their healing is way weaker and revolves around casting a lot, causing them to quickly fall behind under pressure.
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Final Thoughts
As you can see, difficulty doesn’t determine whether a certain class or spec is considered good or has place in the meta. There is definitely enough variety in Wrath to satisfy everyone, whether you are looking for a challenge or want something with a more straight-forward playstyle.