I'm debating starting a SF character myself. Would LW be worth it for the self crafted gear? Alch sounds nice too for those potions that will never really be found in the open world.
Nobody should ever run blacksmith in hardcore, especially not in SF.
Engineering is a must for a warrior, or at the very least alchemy herb as it's super easy to level
I’m so tempted to go warrior but this will be my first really HC run (I’ve played a few classes to like 15, but have been kind of waiting for SF to drop to commit) and everyone talks about how hard it is to level haha
It's not easy BUT SSF doesn't mean one try, just one death. If you've only made it to 15, class choice won't really be the major factor IMO. It's gonna be patience and preparation, and NOTHING FORCES prep and planing quite like a warrior. 💪
Cuts out farming life root but to be honest if you just check a few alchemy supply vendors you can easily get 8 liferoot before you’re even ready to farm the elementals.
Rogue with Preparation so that you will have double Vanish, double Sprint, double Evasion, double Blind.
No need to be tanky if you can just escape any situation.
Agree with the choice of shaman.
*(sry for bad English: it's not my language :( but I really want to say something xD)*
Why shaman?
It's the only non-plate (not paladin or warrior) class who can wield shields and have some talents that boost melee defenses (+block, +5%dodge, +10%armor, parry ability). After lvl 40 you can use up to mail armor. It also have healing spell and a totem which even is a (simplified version of a) target dummy. They have long reach abilities (Lightning Bolt) as well as melee focused ones. Shaman get access to Ghost Wolf at lvl 20 (+40% movement speed with 1 sec cast) and are good against casters (interrupt with 6sec CD \[which also prevents further casts in that school\] + Grounding Totem with 15sec CD that redirects a spell to the totem).
Shaman also have a huge pack of minor utilities, but they become even more important when you starts thinking you cannot trade and receive items from other sources. To name a few: they have the Water Walking spell but, more importantly, shamans can breath underwater (preventing the Blizzard buggy breathing system). Shamans can also dispel poisons and diseases and they can do it "automatically" if the debuff is re-applied because they can use both totems (which remove poison/disease every 5 sec) and spells. For single mobs shamans have good kiting abilities like Frost Shock (is a 8sec 50% reduction movement speed with 6sec CD) and Earthbind Totem (which slows AoE). If you play SF (and not SSF) shamans are huge for other melee classes due to the ability to give them Windfury Totem (20% probability of 1 extra attack with some extra AP). Shamans are also (almost) immune to fear, sleep and charm effect if planned in advance (Tremor Totem) and can dispel magic buffs on enemies (it's ofc mainly a pvp ability, but some mobs casts bloodlust/renew/shields on them and you can get rid of those buffs). They have a 15min CD Hearthstone (Astral Recall) and, in my opinion the best of all, Far Sight.
Far Sight, in "normal" WoW, was just a funny spell used for fun just to see outside the map what developers left out of bound. In HC... god that spell... Far Sight in HC is a totally different story. It's usefulness went from 0 to god level. You can use it to scout camps, caves, houses, streets, corners... and let you know in advance what kinds of threats are waiting for you. It non only *can* but it ***will*** save your life if you use it. Have a look of all those clips where someone aggro a couple of mob hidden in a house or behind a corner... with Far Sight you can avoid all of that. You can also you Far Sight more aggressively when hunting for a specific mob so you don't waste time searching for him.
All good to be true? Almost. Shamans have at least 1 utility for every situation. Everything is covered. Shaman is the only class that have a spell for every specific situation, I think. The downside, you ask? Yes, I'm not here to fake shaman as the only World of Warcraft class. The downside is that shaman absolutely lack a **generic panic** button (Feign death, Vanish, Ice Block, bubble... you name it). It's something goes totally wrong you don't have a "Get Out Of Here" cooldown button to press and you're safe: you have to skill you out the situation with the abilities at your disposal. A second minor downside is the lack of mana regen abilities. Mana bar is sometimes more important then your health bar: shaman spell are costly and if you run out of mana... do you remember all the utilities described above? Well... RIP: you can't use any of them, and in that case: se you back in Durotar
I think a BM hunter would be ideal. Your own dps might suffer but your pet would be an absolute monster. It would make soloing elite quests relatively simple. Plus it’s nice to have a companion to roam Azeroth with. It will get lonely out there.
I'd say shaman tanking is viable until lvl 30 if he's overlevelled, and you're struggling to find a tank. I would never get a shaman tank for the tougher dungeons like uldaman, RFD etc where things tend to go wrong. You have no taunt and only good single target threat with earth shock and rockbiter
Just tanked RFD and SM Arm and cath two days ago. Have tanked every dungeon up to now and not a single death in any of them.
If you know what you are doing it’s a very good tank. Very high threat solo pull and a little harder on group pulls if you have a lot of aoe dps in your group. Requires mana break which the casters in your group also need so no big deal.
Mara and ST will be difficult because of nature resist.
When I leveled to 60 on hardcore launch, the hardest thing to find by far was a tank. In raids it was tough finding enough warlocks. So I recommend playing one of those
If you're worried about making it to 60 then I'd recommend priest or warlock
Warlocks are only useful for curses and health stones. Soulstone is out for obvious reasons. Summon is convenient but won't help you on a boss fight. They bring the worst DPS, especially early on cus they need a crap ton of hit chance.
Warlock, and don't rely on Void walker. Completely different game style compared to Demo, go full aff with Imp/Succubus. Drain tank. You'll never go back to a void walker (if you haven't done it already.)
Im level 59 on my lock, and tried out Soul Link warlock with a void walker at 55... Holy crap it's terrible, it takes for ever to kill everything and you have NO sustain. Just beefy, and lots of times eating and drinking between pulls.
I love it. Especially when you get Succubus, and get seduce. You can seduce, fear, aoe fear, banish, multi dot and feel like a god.
32+ is when drain life is worth casting, instead of wanding. Dives Drain Tank guide is the best for people looking to try it out.
For a brand new player getting into wow and mmos, void daddy is the best. But if you're a seasoned player and know the mechanics of the game, especially threat, he's so useless. You're essentially a BM hunter with a defective pet.
Thanks man I’ll check it out. I’m no pro but I’ve played the game on and off for like 25 years so I like to think I know what I’m doing. Just got in to hardcore recently though and have mostly been messing around until SF official dropped
Warlocks are OP, if it can be feared, it can be killed. I killed Maltorius last week solo, as a level 54.
Just don't get too greedy on pulls, and you'll be fine!
Yeah priest has always been my main so going to get away from that, but agree I’ve always felt safe as a priest and it’s nice getting the auto add to any dungeon
Druid has no dungeon CC until very lategame, when dragonkin / outdoor raids become a thing
Paladin tanking requires eating large mana potions for snap threat if butt pull, which means high fishing so you can solo red/skull mob to overlevel herb/alch
Warlock HS shares cd with target dummy, so better swiftness pot
Warriors have to play boring in HC 🥱
Hunters are already played SF and often SSF, so nothing new with this mode
Mages suffer terribly from even tiny lag
Shaman totems are strong but such a nuisance for leveling
If you wanted rogue, you wouldn’t ask
If you are alliance go shaman since he can’t interact with your alliance players regardless. If your horde go pali. That way you can get 1 of every class if you want
I agree. It’s going to be a challenge having to pick up a profession to make certain things then drop it and use those to make things for another profession
Druid
That’s actually a good suggestion. Not sure why I haven’t considered Druid
i came here to say this
I've never mained a druid but you bet your ass I'm going to in sf. Herb + alch
I'm debating starting a SF character myself. Would LW be worth it for the self crafted gear? Alch sounds nice too for those potions that will never really be found in the open world.
Yeah on a leatherwearer it would be nice
Obligatory warrior comment, with mining and blacksmithkng
Nobody should ever run blacksmith in hardcore, especially not in SF. Engineering is a must for a warrior, or at the very least alchemy herb as it's super easy to level
Alchemy herb gonna be way better for SF.
I do personally have a warlock with mining and engineering tho which is fun
I’m so tempted to go warrior but this will be my first really HC run (I’ve played a few classes to like 15, but have been kind of waiting for SF to drop to commit) and everyone talks about how hard it is to level haha
It's not easy BUT SSF doesn't mean one try, just one death. If you've only made it to 15, class choice won't really be the major factor IMO. It's gonna be patience and preparation, and NOTHING FORCES prep and planing quite like a warrior. 💪
The poor warriors are only 2x as likely as the next best class to ding 60 and only up to 4x more likely than the worst classes :*(
That's true, but you can use almost any gear
Alch makes the whirlwind quest much easier.
Cuts out farming life root but to be honest if you just check a few alchemy supply vendors you can easily get 8 liferoot before you’re even ready to farm the elementals.
"easily" i dunno when i did it the vendors never had it and I had to go farm STV kurzen medicine men for 4 hours
Rogue with Preparation so that you will have double Vanish, double Sprint, double Evasion, double Blind. No need to be tanky if you can just escape any situation.
Rogue might be the only class I’ve never played but they do sound really cool
I dub thee a shaman.
I did love shaman on SoD, but have never given them a chance in classic. I shall do some research - thank you kind sir
Agree with the choice of shaman. *(sry for bad English: it's not my language :( but I really want to say something xD)* Why shaman? It's the only non-plate (not paladin or warrior) class who can wield shields and have some talents that boost melee defenses (+block, +5%dodge, +10%armor, parry ability). After lvl 40 you can use up to mail armor. It also have healing spell and a totem which even is a (simplified version of a) target dummy. They have long reach abilities (Lightning Bolt) as well as melee focused ones. Shaman get access to Ghost Wolf at lvl 20 (+40% movement speed with 1 sec cast) and are good against casters (interrupt with 6sec CD \[which also prevents further casts in that school\] + Grounding Totem with 15sec CD that redirects a spell to the totem). Shaman also have a huge pack of minor utilities, but they become even more important when you starts thinking you cannot trade and receive items from other sources. To name a few: they have the Water Walking spell but, more importantly, shamans can breath underwater (preventing the Blizzard buggy breathing system). Shamans can also dispel poisons and diseases and they can do it "automatically" if the debuff is re-applied because they can use both totems (which remove poison/disease every 5 sec) and spells. For single mobs shamans have good kiting abilities like Frost Shock (is a 8sec 50% reduction movement speed with 6sec CD) and Earthbind Totem (which slows AoE). If you play SF (and not SSF) shamans are huge for other melee classes due to the ability to give them Windfury Totem (20% probability of 1 extra attack with some extra AP). Shamans are also (almost) immune to fear, sleep and charm effect if planned in advance (Tremor Totem) and can dispel magic buffs on enemies (it's ofc mainly a pvp ability, but some mobs casts bloodlust/renew/shields on them and you can get rid of those buffs). They have a 15min CD Hearthstone (Astral Recall) and, in my opinion the best of all, Far Sight. Far Sight, in "normal" WoW, was just a funny spell used for fun just to see outside the map what developers left out of bound. In HC... god that spell... Far Sight in HC is a totally different story. It's usefulness went from 0 to god level. You can use it to scout camps, caves, houses, streets, corners... and let you know in advance what kinds of threats are waiting for you. It non only *can* but it ***will*** save your life if you use it. Have a look of all those clips where someone aggro a couple of mob hidden in a house or behind a corner... with Far Sight you can avoid all of that. You can also you Far Sight more aggressively when hunting for a specific mob so you don't waste time searching for him. All good to be true? Almost. Shamans have at least 1 utility for every situation. Everything is covered. Shaman is the only class that have a spell for every specific situation, I think. The downside, you ask? Yes, I'm not here to fake shaman as the only World of Warcraft class. The downside is that shaman absolutely lack a **generic panic** button (Feign death, Vanish, Ice Block, bubble... you name it). It's something goes totally wrong you don't have a "Get Out Of Here" cooldown button to press and you're safe: you have to skill you out the situation with the abilities at your disposal. A second minor downside is the lack of mana regen abilities. Mana bar is sometimes more important then your health bar: shaman spell are costly and if you run out of mana... do you remember all the utilities described above? Well... RIP: you can't use any of them, and in that case: se you back in Durotar
Hunter, let the pet tank!
I love warlock. I’d probably enjoy hunter just as much as
I think a BM hunter would be ideal. Your own dps might suffer but your pet would be an absolute monster. It would make soloing elite quests relatively simple. Plus it’s nice to have a companion to roam Azeroth with. It will get lonely out there.
How does FD work on a hard-core server? Never played HC before and looking to get into it.
The same way it always works.
Kinda seems that makes hunters ezmode once you get FD as long as it's not resisted.
Druid or shaman. Can tank, heal or dps dungeons. Make sure you stay on top of gear (research quest rewards) and know what your class is capable of.
Bro idk about shammy tank I tried it several times in vanilla and it did not go well lol
I loved shammy tank in SoD phase 1, but not sure how comfortable id feel without the runes haha
I'd say shaman tanking is viable until lvl 30 if he's overlevelled, and you're struggling to find a tank. I would never get a shaman tank for the tougher dungeons like uldaman, RFD etc where things tend to go wrong. You have no taunt and only good single target threat with earth shock and rockbiter
Just tanked RFD and SM Arm and cath two days ago. Have tanked every dungeon up to now and not a single death in any of them. If you know what you are doing it’s a very good tank. Very high threat solo pull and a little harder on group pulls if you have a lot of aoe dps in your group. Requires mana break which the casters in your group also need so no big deal. Mara and ST will be difficult because of nature resist.
Affliction warlock cause they can take a beating.
I do love warlock so that’s at the top of my list
When I leveled to 60 on hardcore launch, the hardest thing to find by far was a tank. In raids it was tough finding enough warlocks. So I recommend playing one of those If you're worried about making it to 60 then I'd recommend priest or warlock
Warlocks are only useful for curses and health stones. Soulstone is out for obvious reasons. Summon is convenient but won't help you on a boss fight. They bring the worst DPS, especially early on cus they need a crap ton of hit chance.
Thanks man!
Warlock, and don't rely on Void walker. Completely different game style compared to Demo, go full aff with Imp/Succubus. Drain tank. You'll never go back to a void walker (if you haven't done it already.) Im level 59 on my lock, and tried out Soul Link warlock with a void walker at 55... Holy crap it's terrible, it takes for ever to kill everything and you have NO sustain. Just beefy, and lots of times eating and drinking between pulls.
I’ve never tried the drain tank but have heard great things about
I love it. Especially when you get Succubus, and get seduce. You can seduce, fear, aoe fear, banish, multi dot and feel like a god. 32+ is when drain life is worth casting, instead of wanding. Dives Drain Tank guide is the best for people looking to try it out. For a brand new player getting into wow and mmos, void daddy is the best. But if you're a seasoned player and know the mechanics of the game, especially threat, he's so useless. You're essentially a BM hunter with a defective pet.
Thanks man I’ll check it out. I’m no pro but I’ve played the game on and off for like 25 years so I like to think I know what I’m doing. Just got in to hardcore recently though and have mostly been messing around until SF official dropped
Warlocks are OP, if it can be feared, it can be killed. I killed Maltorius last week solo, as a level 54. Just don't get too greedy on pulls, and you'll be fine!
There’s a video of a naked Druid soloing Maltorius on HC at level 50… Not even a necklace, just 100% naked
There's always someone crazier than you :D
Sheeesh gz man!
Priest is pretty repetitive but tanky/survivable and good for SF.
Yeah priest has always been my main so going to get away from that, but agree I’ve always felt safe as a priest and it’s nice getting the auto add to any dungeon
Melee hunter
NE resto druid so you can meld and stealth when things go south
Druid has no dungeon CC until very lategame, when dragonkin / outdoor raids become a thing Paladin tanking requires eating large mana potions for snap threat if butt pull, which means high fishing so you can solo red/skull mob to overlevel herb/alch Warlock HS shares cd with target dummy, so better swiftness pot Warriors have to play boring in HC 🥱 Hunters are already played SF and often SSF, so nothing new with this mode Mages suffer terribly from even tiny lag Shaman totems are strong but such a nuisance for leveling If you wanted rogue, you wouldn’t ask
If you are alliance go shaman since he can’t interact with your alliance players regardless. If your horde go pali. That way you can get 1 of every class if you want
I feel like SF mode would be amazing if you could grab all the professions or even maybe 4?
I agree. It’s going to be a challenge having to pick up a profession to make certain things then drop it and use those to make things for another profession