Most loved?

[Soln]

I'm newbly enjoying my way through some early levels, but haven't settled on a class.  Got a mage, warrior, hunter, all alliance, all near 20.  My time is limited etc. so I was wondering on informed opinions of which class seems to have the most interesting end game?  I've read some cool blogs of warriors/pallys with cool gear -- is there equivalent richness quest-wise and item-wise for other classes?  Not looking for a rant, just looking to settle on a class aside from personal play style that has cool stuff after lvl55.  All personal opinion, but wondering if there's any consensus.  Thx.

Edit: f13 needs a newb emoticon   

[kaid]

Skill wise from what I have seen once you hit 50 or so you have about every skill you are going to get aside from a couple odd ball ones. Most classes just get normal upgrades to existing skills/spells. The big gear heavy classes such as rogues and warriors tend to see the bigger improvements at the higher levels mainly because while skills are progressing in a normal fashion if you get some of the good gear your capabilities jump up alot.

For hunters if you enjoy them at level 40 you will enjoy them at level 60 as their play style stays consistant.

Mages and priests have some issues with craptastic high end caster itemization. They do great damage anyway but after a while their gear just dosn't really do anything special for them. It gives nowheres near the boost that the melee gear does.

Druids are pretty dang interesting but currently their DPS does not scale for weapons they have. This means the higher level you get the more and more lackluster your melee will be compared to just about everybody else. The changes in 1.7 are the dutch boy sticking his fingers in the dam short term solution that will not fix anything. Until their damage can scale in some way shape or form to their gear don't go druid unless you just want to go full restoration spec and heal.


kaid

[Hoax]

Well I can only comment towards pvp, but outside of an organized group setting warrior is not much fun in pvp.  In AV mage's can just rack up kills and contrib pts if they know what they are doing.  While in random tug of wars at HB/SS hunters are the win.

My information is all dated or second hand from buddies who still play when it comes to AV although I've watched movies of a friend just destroying with a mage in the valley.

[kaid]

Kamakazi mages are freaking silly in AV. When you have big herds of people running around being able to blink into the middle of them and start spamming improved arcane explosion can rack up some hilarious carnage. Its a play style that does not appeal to all though it really is a lemming like leap in hopes you can splash as many dead as you can before you get stunned, dazed, raped in the pooper by the ones you resisted your aoe.


Warriors are very good in warsong but in AV they have some issues mainly due to the long range artillery barrages of DOOOOOOOM that both sides are flinging around. 

Hunters in AV are a hoot as long as you have hawkeye chances are you are going to be raining down massive death from well outside peoples range to strike back. Also their damage spells are sometimes not easy to see in the massive shit storms so sometimes peoples first realization a hunter is killing them is when they flop dead and get a chance to look at their combat spam.

kaid

[Lantien]

Soln, the answer tends to vary on your definition of limited time, and what you do in the course of gaming.  Let's say the end game has 3-4 specific end games:

Instancing, MC-Level instancing, PVP, Farming. I'm going to leave out other things (like fishing contests, etc), that really don't factor in class abilities. It's up to you to decide which of these 4 things you really enjoy doing.

1. Mage (disclaimer, I don't have a mage)

With respect to instancing, Mages have it pretty good.  While they're on the hook to generally CC one opponent, after that it's pure AoE or Direct Damage. Usually all parties would like to have a mage, and a fairly deep population of mages can handle that pretty well.

"Short" instances in the end game include Stratholme (undead side), Most of Dire Maul, BRD in a pinch.

MC-Level Instancing: No need to comment, since you've already cited limited time.

PVP: Mages have it fairly good in PVP.  Smart Sheep targeting helps, and running in and AoEing can be pretty effective to at least hurt a tightly bunched pack. Blinking and (if you spec for it) Ice Barrier can be a godsend, if you trust your teammates. The biggest weakness is the need to drink. That plus a natural weakness to Rogues means if you've been targeted for assassination status, you're in for a frustrating night.

Farming: Most mages tend to say they farm pretty well. Against non-elites in particular, they can find a bunch and AoE farm them to great effect. However, expect some downtime, and to be a bit careful with your (limited) HP pool.

As a side note, the utility provided by a mage is huge. They can create food so you don't have to spend money on food when solo faming.  They can create water, same issue. And with the capital teleport, you can easily move from area to area. Compared to your other two choices, the mage wins hands down in the utility battle.  Should this factor into your decision?  Not really.
 
2. Hunter (disclaimer, I don't have a hunter)

With respect to instancing, Hunters have a bit of a mixed bag. They're pretty much a DPS class, but some of their DPS power is derived from Pets.  Since pets seem to have deplorable pathing issues (especially when you're trying to avoid mobs), some groups will request that pets aren't utilized. Hunters are generally asked to bring some trap proficiency to the table, with respect to freezing trap. After that, Hunters are thought of as ranged DPS. On my server, the Alliance "seemed" to have too many hunters, so you'd always have the raid group with 3 hunters in a 10 man group.

MC-Level Instancing: No need to comment, since you've already cited limited time.

PVP: While solid in Alterac Valley and large throng PVP, Hunters really can shine in WSG and small group PVP. Their ability to track enemies is invaluable, as well as their ability to do special attacks to beasts, which can mess up Ghost Wolves and certain beast forms for Druids (as I recall, anyways). Most savvy hunters I play against are laying freeze traps, getting range, and then unloading big damage shots. Hunters aren't necessarily taking down things the fastest (a good crit with Aimed shot notwithstanding), but in the right conditions in a small group environment, they are pretty underrated foes.

Farming: Are you kidding? Hunters are built to farm.

3. Warriors (disclaimer: whew, I have a warrior)

With respect to instancing, you'll have one of two roles. The most needed is that of a tank. As you get up higher and higher in level, you'll note that you'll need to carry around two sets of gear; one set for tanking, one set for general damage. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just something to keep in mind. For tank gear, you should be trying to find things that boost your Stamina, your Armor, and your Defense.

The second role is that of a hitter.  This role is more a luxury, when the party has multiple warriors. While the hitter role is more "easy", don't expect to tell groups "no, I'm DPS" and expect to stick around. For the hitter role, look for items that boost your Crit%, your Agility, and your Attack power.

Again, skipping MC-level Warrior game, since you're not going to have enough time.

In PVP, Warriors are an extremely mixed bag.  While you'll probably have the most HP, you also have to engage the enemy in a melee environment, and have no good way to self heal.  So in a large scale scrum, you'll need to rely on healers to heal you as you hit. Since you're in a melee environment, it will be very difficult to disengage neatly. As a result, in large scale fights, Warriors usually die fast. This can be very frustrating.  A less valorous way to go is to hang back with the casters, defending them, or waiting for a meleer to get stray too far, and to charge and start laying down damage

In smaller scale PVP, the same problems show up.  While there's fewer people hitting you, you're still going to have to worry about disengaging and healing yourself, or else you're relying on your group to heal you. While you probably have the most HP and armor, your armor won't help you mitigate any spells cast by Mages or Warlocks.

In a more positive note, Warriors tend to make good initial stoppers against flag runners in PVP with the ability to charge, and then swap stances and intercept. Throwing on hamstring is a good way to keep opponents from running. Warriors also tend to dominate the stock rogue, which is a pretty good feeling. I could probably go a few pages describing the various tricks and tips a warrior can do in small group PVP though, and I generally suck at it.

Farming: Warriors can farm pretty effectively, but they're tied extremely close to their gear.  A poorly geared warrior will take much longer to farm than a well geared warrior. However, a well geared warrior can farm Tyr's Hand pretty solidly. I figure that with my warrior, I can probably take around 2, 3 mobs before needing to eat to regain HP. Warriors tend to obliterate cloth-type mobs very quickly, while being a bit more plodding vs plate mobs due to damage mitigation. One minor bonus, a warrior only needs to deal with HP, whereas most other classes have to both eat and drink to regain HP and MP.

[Righ]

The only thing that needs to be said here is that the most itemized classes are the most played and least loved.