Since activity has screeched down to a halt in the guild and WoW in general, and me having burned out on organizing groups, focus for me has switched from m+ vault keys/RIO score and to testing a few classes with raiding next tier in mind. Have done keys and tested LFR and a couple of guild raids to see how various characters played. Done a fair bit of gearing along the way thanks to valor. But in the end, a lot will depend on what state the classes will be after Blizz is done with PTR so making that choice now is a bit moot. But some thoughts so far...
Stormlufser
Stormlufser is the character I've played the most the last I dunno, 2 months or so? Was gonna be a restoration/enhancement thing, but kinda stuck with elemental. Me doing healing never seems to a thing I can get done on the regular without pugging, as it means someone else offspec tanks to do it, which doesn't stick either. So the next time the people asking why I don't heal I can say I tried again, but it's their fault really.
Being valor capped I've done more than a fair share of keys, 9/10 heroic castle nathria as elemental. Done a couple of keys as Restoration, solo content and Torghast as Enhance. So done the most thorough testing on this one.
+Lack of Shamans in raid. We had what, 6 or so shamans on the list when Shadowlands released, but after 4 months none were left. In BFA they never lasted either.
+Can play resto or enhance in raid in a pinch if suddenly lacking, or there are gimmick fights like Sun King again. Or simply play other spec for variation which helps in long seasons.
+At the moment easier to do more single target damage than mage, and more aoe than destruction warlock. PTR tuning might change it all however.
+Elemental more fluid and feel like more to fiddle with in a fight than some of the others, helps draw to come to raid every week to improve on something.
-Sometimes very frustrating to play in dungeons. With the Great Sundering legendary, if you have a tank that is unable to keep mobs in place, either from having to kite mobs in an awkward fashion or just unable to stand still while facetanking, means your dps is gutted. So yeah, need to win lottery to get that sort of tank in a pug, even guild tanks have been awkward here.
-Not really any raid utility.
-Wildly inconsistent in fights with lots of mechanics. Get stuff with CDs used, same happy feeling like when using meta on DH. Having to do stuff like orbs on Artificer? Yeah happy times.
-Having to change covenant. Venthyr as elemental just won't do for single target, so Necrolord or something is needed. And right now switching covenant is not tempting, at all.
Right now feels more like a raiding main if I just go into 9.1 for a month or two, otherwise the main alt I play for a bit of fun on my own.
Esmënet
The one I told officers would be my main originally for Shadowlands. Started out as Necrolord Marksman that didn't work out too well. Enjoy life more as Night Fae Beast Master.
Almost valor capped and 5/10 heroic, so almost the same testing as the shaman at this point. Just worse gear since horrible vault luck.
+Very consistent. Have to almost try to get hit by mechanics. Lose very little dps when getting boss mechanics. Lose very little dps by getting assigned extra responsibility in raids. Which makes life easier for both me and raid leadership, I think.
+Has raid utility like turtling away a bunch of mechanics, bloodlust, misdirect and cc that doesn't really cut into dps.
+BM as always nice for solo grind stuff, perhaps not tank levels this expansion but still.
+Simple rotation. If raid will be the only thing that happens in guild next patch, raid logging this will be like riding a bike.
-Very consistent. Want something burst down in a window? Yeah good luck with that. Fight don't have any movement? Yeah hello last spot on meters most likely.
-Simple rotation. If raid does not require much movement or I get put on extra duties, it can get dull fast, especially if I get caught up on m+ for valor points and hit break points in the new ingame m+ scoring system for upgrading with those points.
Currently feels like a favorite if I intend to play 9.1 for a lengthy amount of time, like raid log mostly.
Serwa
Originally the idea was to level up a Mage on ED/Terenas and then gear it up and faff around. But the idea of redoing Torghast, covenant campaign and all that crap made me lose interest. So did testing on a character I hadn't played for a long while, looking at the damage meter.
I did a bunch of keys and some LFR on this as Frost, lacking proper Arcane and Fire testing.
+ Getting into groups as mage seemed pretty easy. Having bloodlust, food and being ranged helps I guess, on top of sorta being meta.
+ Odds of having at least one good raid dps spec for a dps only class is always high; and as someone that is willing to play any mage spec it seems like a safe pick.
- Would have to transfer the character, or level up something on ED/Terenas.
- Already have at least 2 mages in raid group, never seem to lack any. So not needed.
- Frost and fire are both kinda annoying to do keys as. It feels like tank managing to keep things in the aoe and well, facetank for prolonged periods of time is the most important dps component.
- Frost has this REALLY annoying bug; sometimes when wiping mobs seems to be bugging out and keep going after me if I am the last alive. They see through invisibility, shadowmeld and if I die I pull when respawning no matter how far away I am. Have checked if it was blizzard/orb/trinket that did it, but no. Played with another frost mage that just stood in mechanics if it looked like a wipe to avoid it, so guess I am not the only one who have this. If not wiping, it's fine, but the already hopeless groups on fortified weeks turns into trainwrecks. Which is not ideal.
Kinda doubt I'll main Mage in 9.1, unless the tuning roulette puts frost in the chair once the music stops.
Navarim
Warlock was a favorite to play after I fooled about in prepatch with the broken destruction warlock stuff. And the fact we NEVER have warlocks that last in raids. Obviously I got to 60 on this, the proceeded to plant my head on the desk on how it played, and didn't really touch it for almost half a year. But gave it a honest shot.
Played Destruction in some +2s and LFR, so not very robust testing.
+ Always lacking warlock in raids.
+ Never played warlock for any endgame content of any meaning ever, so something new.
-Destruction is back to just being clunky mage with no payoff in dungeons. The fact that I did 500-1000 less dps than any other dps spec Ive done the covenant campaign into a HoA +2 baptism run kinda says it all.
-I don't really play affliction or demo, so if destruction ends up being the black sheep spec I'll just repeat being a "bad" dps like I was in this tier again.
-Incredibly dull to play in solo content, no real speed and the clunky seems excessive.
-Lowest ilevel character of the four, so having a good "fundament" for the patch would require eeking out more of 9.0, which might be a struggle.
Unless destruction ends up in the chair when the tuning music stops, least likely raiding main in 9.1.
And what warlock actually looks like this? :)
Some thoughts about 9.1
*Torghast seems to have more generic (and annoying) mechanics without doing anything about the tedious nature of the place. The one new boss I've seen has a fear and a stomp, and summons some adds.
*The upgraded legendaries seems excessive; base items having inane mat requirements. Upgrade from 235 to 260 takes 4 weeks if you do max layer in torghast + some maw stuff every week, to get the cinders. While the 250 one seems to take one week. Wowhead claims you don't need ash if you have a rank 4 which seems reasonable, but saw some other vids claiming you needed 5150 for rank 5 and 6 both in addition to the cinders. But will have to wait and see who is right. But think just doing the 250 ilevel upgrade will have to do.
*The raid has the only "pull" on me as for content. m+ will have the same items, same reward for KSM, and the same dungeons. That was getting dull kinda early on. Bothering with setting up groups for that seems... pointless for the dungeon in itself, setting up group to play with the people is a different matter. But kinda afraid that if the raid is a dud, or the raid group has performance issues again it could be uninstall 1 month in for me for that patch.
Some thoughts about pugging
Why is the keyholder always melee, doing tank dps and then always salty if someone else doesn't perform?
How are people always broke so they can't pay their repairs in keys?
People leaving on second to last pull of dungeon, always a classic.
A "chill weekly no leaver want to complete not time", where keyholder asked it to be slow and steady no need to stress at the start. So of course the tank does triple pulls, pulls the shard over to other shard building little aggro on it and just being cranky and stressed from pull 1 until done with the place.
Asked for a venthyr holy pala, not happy he got a venthyr holy pala I guess.
Overall, pugs are ok for just getting *something* done, the little I've tried to bother with score and better vault rewards is not worth the hassle. How people bothered to pug to get KSM I will never understand, guess they must have wanted the achievement and mount a LOT more than I did.
The Freehold Solution seems to be on the cards for next season, considering how many people have burned out by now.
Right now though, question is if I should just take a full break from Shadowlands until 9.1 like nearly everyone else is in the guild, or do all the usual me stuff of fixing professions, build up gold and do the odd m+ for a bit of fun. Not playing would be rational, but in spite of it all I find doing pug keys a bit of fun, and the habit of just increasing character power by a tad every day is hard to break. Even if it's 5-10 minutes for a calling and that's it.
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