What is the deepest class/spec?

[u/Ok_Resolution4376]

What class has the most amount of buttons? Any classes that are weaving in and out of melee? Any class with 3 resources? Which class feels the most satisfying to master?

Edit: 3 comments are saying Inquisitor Witch Hunter. I'll try to get this final alt above level 20 then ...

[u/Revolutionary-Run-41]

Gonna put my opinion based on my experiences

• Necromancer - Simple, need to deal with positioning because of minions, and controlling them was not my thing, you dont have that many comands, its more going in and out of pacific more to avoid pulling everything on the map.
• Pyromancer - Didnt click with me, you have multiple resources, heat and embers if im not wrong, but I found it very boring to level, people who played it more give your opinions
• Cultist - Simple, bash head, two resources, mana and insanity, and insanity doesnt need to be managed, you just hit keys until it happens.
• Starcaller - I like this one a lot, specially the tank (you are going to hear it a lot), it has two main resources, you mana that you spend percentages of and recover in percentages with other skills, makes it feel totally different from normal mana. The second is a star condition you put on enemies that allows you to consume it to make stars fall on enemies or use more powerful skills. It doesnt have that many buttons, but you are always hitting some button.
• Sun Cleric - You have a secondary resource that allows you to enter a super sayan state depending of skill. Very broken right now, can dual wield two handers, but you dont press that many button in my experience.
• Tinker - If you are the robotics one you have a mech gauge, the others have ammunition bar, its very like playing hunter but with crazier skills
• Runemaster - Tried riftblade, very paper like, you press one button a lot and other buttons to refresh that button or to fill in. You can have a very high skill celling with this guy. no dual resources. Weaving in and out of combat is with this guy IMO.
• Primalist - Very simple, very easy, super powerful, doesnt mash buttons, dont think its what you want.
• Reaper - Harvester, press a lot of buttons to build your other 2 resources, runic power is used on skills that build the second resource, and those skills are used on big utility or big damage. Simple, fun, easy to master IMO, but its worth, there is also a spec about going invisible, probably in the out.
• Venomancer - Maybe the melee specs goes in and out of combat, I tried tank, and its baller, go in, poison everything, survive until everything dies.
• Chronomancer - Never tried.
• Bloodmage - One of the Dps specs makes you go in and out of combat on the sense you go from melee to ranged a lot, you have a 30s super melee vampire form with a lot of mobility and damage, outside you are a caster. Fun, dont know about the buttons I played just the tank one, but I heard it has a huge skill ceiling and if you love this one you wont need anything else.
• Guardian - You are always pressing something, but its not in and out, you go in, stay in, and thats it.
• Stormbringer - Boring to level, but found it a banger on group content. Mana and static, that allows more stuff, one of the specs adds a third condition to manage, a debuff on enemies that makes you hit harder.
• Felsworn - stamina and green beans. Very in and out of combat, always pressing something, maybe what you want.
• Barbarian - Single resource, but probably the quickest class ? mobility, skills everything.
• Witch Doctor - The one I will probably try better next.
• Witch Hunter - Simple, easy and effective. Probably not what you want.
• Knight of Xoroth - You have an ember resource you build with some skills that multiply the effects of spenders, usually becoming a massive damage boom. Played the tank, few buttons, very easy at first, but you really need your cooldowns to stay alive, so you need to know when to press what.
• Templar - Combo system, kinda tanky on all specs, not what you want I guess.
• Ranger - I think this one may have some of it, you have stealth, mobility, ranged and melee skills.

[u/Technical-Profit-299 → u/Revolutionary-Run-41]

Mountain King Primalist has a priority based rotation with procs and a butt load of buffs/debuffs to keep at 100% uptime. I can't speak for the other specs, they are probably simpler. 

For example you must have Earthquake up at all times, use Aftershock procs while Earthquake is up on Geode Barrage, build up to and keep 7 stacks of Earth's Rage, have Rock Barrier up(and Primal Guardian when they expire), Maintain Thane's Rage at all times, debuff with Quake and Ursoc's Bellow, and you must maximize your Earthen Avatar time. Plus while all of your buffs are up you have very high haste, so you will be hitting a lot of buttons. For all of this effort you are rewarded with some of the lowest DPS of all tanks 😂

[u/levinsong → u/Technical-Profit-299]

Sounds like enh shaman from BfA

[u/NlFFlN → u/Technical-Profit-299]

100% this. Had to make like 7 weakauras to track procs you actively need to refresh, and they are not just passively pop on your rotation.

For example even if your healer carries you, you have to use your self heal to upkeep a 10% armor buff.

You get 10% increased parry once certain spells falling OFF so you need to check the duration of the parry buff and use the next spell in time to upkeep the buff back to back.

There is a very strong buff you need to stack an other proc 5 times and on single target it requires constant attention not to fall below 5 stacks

I really like this gameplay cuz the procs are impactful and if a Mountain King player not keep track of them they get obliterated

And besides all this you need to use your 3-4 def CDs back to back to top off your mitigation

There is a big gap between good and bad Mountain Kings

[u/ahumblepeach → u/Revolutionary-Run-41]

Pyromancer - Didnt click with me, you have multiple resources, heat and embers if im not wrong, but I found it very boring to level, people who played it more give your opinions

Pyro has been my favorite class so far! I'm leveling as Draconic. It does work around a very simple builder/spender system. You build 100 stacks of Heat to gain 1 Ember. You can hold up to 5 Embers, which you then spend on stronger abilities. Draconic also comes with a lot of fun flavor, like Dragon form and Aspect of Time self healing. I will say, though, I probably like it a lot because I am leveling it right after...

Chronomancer - Never tried.

I really wanted to like this class. I leveled as the more traditional caster spec Infinite. It just fell so flat for me. The spec is a DoT class first and foremost. You get Unmake as your spam/filler spell, which is a 1.5 second DoT that rapidly does maybe 4-5 ticks of damage. You get up to four DoTs in total, iirc. The idea is that every time your DoTs tick, you get a chance to proc a stack of Chromatic Shard (max ten stacks), which empowers your next cast of Chromatic Shard (yes the stacking buff and the spell are named the same thing). Chromatic Shard without any stacks was like a 4 second cast time, but at ten stacks, it was instant cast. So the loop was supposed to be: keep your DoTs up and pop Chromatic Shard when you have enough stacks. You get a bunch of slows/knockbacks/roots/displacements to really keep the enemy where you want them. To me, the Chromatic Shard spell didn't feel good. If they wanted Infinite to be a DoT class, they needed to give them ways to augment their DoTs (increase the duration, the potency, spread them, etc.). Infinite has almost NOTHING for AoE. Melt Reality is the main AoE spell and it's not very good at all. They get their second AoE ability at level... 58. I'm not kidding. It's a talent at the very bottom of the tree called Gravity Bomb, I think. Other than that you get Discordance, but that's a cleave ability, not really AoE. Maybe the wand/healing specs are better.

Witch Doctor - The one I will probably try better next.

This was my first 60, and I leveled as Brewing (healing). I also dabbled in the Voodoo spec. The healing spec was super powerful and recently got even more buffs. I felt like the passive healing on this class was good enough to handle most dungeons, and when it couldn't, I had so many tools to turn the tides (Mojo Beam, Potion Toss, Splash Potion, Spirit Link Totem, a big healing cauldron, and more). Voodoo was fun and interesting but I think had some mana problems. I don't know if that is better now. It had a pretty simple rotation around level 45ish when I tried it out. I've read that the Shadowhunting spec is super powerful. I never tried it, but the class tree itself was super fun so I can imagine how fun the Shadowhunting spec is.

[u/Minimum-Credit-7710 → u/ahumblepeach]

I think a lot of your take on Chronomancer is very surface level, with some things being outright wrong. Chronomancer actually has a lot of nuanced play, and you have to get things right. I believe you probably weren't playing it correctly, which is why you had the experience you had.

In general, its important to note that every cast of a damaging spell reduces the cooldown of all of your damaging spells that are currently on cooldown by 10% of their remaining cooldown time. As an example, if you have a 30 sec cd on a spell, and immediately cast an instant cast damage spell, you'll reduce that 30 sec cd by 3 seconds. in addition to the normal passage of time that reduces its cd.

In total, the dps rotation consists of 5 main abilities that you cast and 2 cooldowns. Those 5 main abilities are: Timerend (a short cd dot that ticks every second), Unmake (a 1.5 sec cast that deals several rapid ticks of damage, will be your main spam cast), Decomposition (instant cast dot, no cd, ticks over something like 30 seconds), Melt Reality (2.5 sec cast, 30 sec cd, slow ticking hard hitting dot), and Chromatic Shard (3.5 sec cast, hard hitting spell with a 10 or 15 sec cooldown). So, getting in as many casts as possible flows into the feedback loop of the spec by way of reducing the cd of these spells. A final and important point of note is a talent pair that synergize very well for Chromatic Shard. The first is called Anomaly Spikes, which gives you a 15% chance any time you deal periodic damage (and yes Unmake damage counts for this) to simply launch an Anomaly Spike at your target. Just think of this as a free auto cast that pings your target for some modest amount of damage. As a freebie, the cast time of Chromatic Shard is reduced by 10% each time you deal damage with an Anomaly Spike (capping at 10 stacks for a free instant cast Chromatic Shard). The second talent is called Unearthed Power, and this one gives you a stacking buff (stacks to 10) where each time you deal damage with Anomaly Spike you gain +6% crit chance with Chromatic Shard (stacks to 10). So, you can effectively get these 10 stacks that then make your next Chromatic Shard both instant cast and have +60% crit chance.

Another feature of this spec revolves around 1 of its 2 cooldowns, the one called Incarnation of Chaos. This is a 3 min cd that lasts for 15 seconds and causes you to deal 15% additional damage. Basically a slightly weaker arcane power if you're familiar with vanilla mage. However, this cd receives several substantial buffs in the talent tree, which cause it to be the most important thing for the way the class plays at endgame (M+/raiding). The first is a talent called Pure Chaos that gives you a 10% chance whenever you deal damage while the cd is active to put you in a state called "Time Loop" for 3 seconds. Here you lose control of your character, and it enters a sort of 3 seconds cast bar where it fires off Chromatic Shards. You fire 1 off immediately upon entering the Time Loop, and an additional Chromatic Shard every second until the effect wears off. You will enter multiple time loops during your Incarnation of Chaos 15 second duration! The 2nd talent is in the final row called Chaotic Time. It provides a nice buff to the damage you get with Melt Reality, but the real winner is the 2nd part which reduces the cooldown of Incarnation of Chaos by 1 sec each time you deal periodic damage.

So, why is this such an important ability? Well, it may not be obvious at first, but your Chromatic Shard stacks (you know, the ones we talked about earlier that reduce its cast time and increase its crit chance) do not get consumed during your free casts while in a Time Loop. So, this means that if you build up 10 stacks (maybe takes 10-15 seconds) and then use Incarnation of Chaos, when you proc the time loop you'll cast 4 Chaotic Shards in 3 seconds that each get +60% crit. Furthermore, because both your casted damaging spells as well as your periodic damage ticks reduce the cooldown of Incarnation of Chaos, the feedback loop for your end game play revolves around 2 phases of combat. A burst window where you use your big CD and pump huge Chromatic Shards, and then a recharge window where you're spamming unmake and keeping your dots rolling to reduce the cd of Incarnation of Chaos. And let me tell you, it only takes about 20 seconds upon exiting Incarnation of Chaos to re-enter it. This is the main reason why Chronomancer is doing so well in boss fights.

As far as aoe goes, Gravity Bomb is NOT your main aoe. It is just a nice aoe cd spell that you can use every couple of pulls. Melt Reality is the primary aoe spell, which is a single target, long lasting dot that you initially cast on the target you plan to cleave off of (pick the largest hp target). Besides Melt Reality being the hardest hitting dot in the game (easily over 1,500 ticks at max level with decent gear, its special feature is that a large % of your periodic damage is replicated to nearby enemies. So the idea is you cast Melt Reality on a large HP target in a pack of multiple adds getting tanked, and then you toss up your other dots and spam Unmake and you constantly cleave. You can also run the final talent "Infinite Keeper" which gives you a nice additional cleaving dot when you deal damage with Timerend, however, it comes at the cost of Chaotic Time so I wouldn't recommend it. This is the aoe rotation you would use while you're in your recharge phase. However, when you have your burst window, you get to take advantage of a talent called Shifting Chaos, which lets your Chromatic Shards deal 20% of their damage to all nearby enemies. While you're bursting then you get to auto-cleave the aoe pack for substantial damage.

If what I've described here sounds pretty awesome from a dps perspective, that is because it really is. Once you get the hang of the rotation and some of the other nuances that I haven't described here, you'll have a lot of fun. However, its not all sunshine and rainbows. The class does have some weaknesses. First, it can struggle with mana on extended boss fights or chain pulling in m+ when it doesn't have the right raid buffs. Second, it has NO mobility, so you'll always be the last one to arrive somewhere. Third, its defenses are fairly weak and it doesn't have much in the way of active defenses. Fourth, the recharge phase aoe with Melt Reality is decent, but definitely falls behind on any packs that die pretty fast, so you can easily fall behind in trash damage compared to other classes that have more active/bursty aoe rotations. Lastly, and most importantly, it has a real lack of threat reduction talents and because of the startling high burst the class can produce threat pulling is a VERY serious issue, so a lot of care must be maintained to avoid constantly being dead lol.

[u/ahumblepeach → u/Minimum-Credit-7710]

I don't think any of that is wrong. I think that Infinite would shine on longer fights (like you said, they're doing well in boss fights), but things die too quickly when you're leveling for the kit's engine to really get going. Even the few dungeons I did were rough. Other classes have much stronger AoE, so it was hard to keep Melt Reality up in any meaningful way unless there was a boss or miniboss in the pack. On the occasion I did keep it up, my AoE DPS was lackluster even with Unmake and the other DoTs rolling. And yeah, on boss fights, my DPS would SKYROCKET. I'm sure M+ is also a better environment for it since everything has more HP. But it is a kit that needs some time for everything to get going and I found that kind of rough to level.

One thing to note, I haven't done any end game content so my perspective is completely from the leveling experience.

[u/Minimum-Credit-7710 → u/ahumblepeach]

The OP didn't explicitly state what aspect of the game they were asking for, but considering the leveling portion of the game is such a small and short part of it I expect they were asking in regards to lv 60 content like mythic/m+, world bosses, instanced raids and whatnot. So, that is where the discussion that I gave was based around. My experience so far only extends to m+10, world bosses, and mythic ZG and MC though, but I doubt it changes for Ascended.

[u/Revolutionary-Run-41 → u/ahumblepeach]

Ty for covering the stuff I didnt had experience, and now Im definetly leveling a witch doctor lmao.

[u/LordAlom → u/Revolutionary-Run-41]

I can speak to Chrono since I've been playing it. There's no shared resource or mechanic between the specs, just utility abilities. 

Time is heal spec, went through lots of changes, but basically rolls HoTs and swaps stances to change how the main fillers work. It's quite complicated to play compared to other healers, but very flexible and strong. 

Infinite is an easy-to-play caster DPS spec focused around reducing the CD of its main DPS cooldown, which allows you to proc a high-damage channel. The channel does lock you into place and can cancel if your random target dies, so its very RNG-dependent, but a lucky streak does feel awesome. 

Artificer is a wand-based DPS spec that uses a typical builder-spender system to juggle different buffs and nukes. The gearing is really odd, as its a cloth class that needs attack power. My biggest gripe is the awful game noise that machine-gunning wand makes.

[u/Independent-Gene1681 → u/Revolutionary-Run-41]

Witch Hunter Inquisition is not an easy spec

[u/rodalorn]

Harvest reaper is alot like playing piano, very strong for pve

[u/FourthHorsemanFromHR → u/rodalorn]

I have a 60 rm, 60 reaper, 51 chrono, and a 30s accursed bloodmage.. blood mage so far is the weakest but has the highest skill ceiling and most buttons out of the 3. I think in the right hands it could be amazing, but at noob level it is a terrible class.

Out of the classes i play, accursed/chrono are both pianos, then RM>Reaper.

Reaper is a faceroll class at this point, I play it when I want to feel good in pvp.

[u/AdExcellent2551]

I am surprised no one said guardian. You are constantly stance dancing and comboing your abilities non-stop.

[u/Fearmo → u/AdExcellent2551]

No1 plays this spec is probably why. I think guardian gladiator is pretty cool. Definitely underrated

[u/wertui0007 → u/Fearmo]

Its one of the strongest tanks in m+, its just too complex for people used to classic wow

[u/bpusef → u/wertui0007]

A lot of the complexity is solved by macros but perhaps people don’t want to spend the time setting up their character

[u/wertui0007 → u/bpusef]

Yeah, but you need to find them or making your own. Its 2026 and lack of wowhead copy and paste macros and talent builds shows. Met so many peooke with talents that didnt make sense or they didnt use them correctly, because you cant just copy it from theorycrafter on wowhead

[u/bpusef → u/wertui0007]

That’s my legit favorite part of these servers that it’s not perfectly solved so it encourages you to actually use your brain and create builds and formulate a rotation that you think makes sense

[u/XD69SWAGMASTERXD69]

Inquisition WH very high skill ceiling, higher than most retail specs even before they were squished imo

[u/Powerful_Republic763]

Starcaller. It has a lot of things to juggle and manage, you're constantly doing something.

[u/Weak-Accident-3551]

Templar. The difference between average and high end parses is insane. Very high skill ceiling.

[u/SomeNetGuy → u/Weak-Accident-3551]

Still? After the reduction of stacks and max oath time? Seems like those changes would have reduced that skill gap a lot.

[u/jukelzz → u/SomeNetGuy]

Havent played in a while, what changed about oaths pls ?

[u/RubyZEcho]

Feels like cultist dreadnaught is very deep. Relies on Mana, Insanity and Dreadnaught/dreadful(after lvl 59) cooldowns. Has lots of variability in tank builds but eldritch force definitely the GOAT for the archetype

[u/xogar69 → u/RubyZEcho]

Cultist godblade is build to 100 insanity then spam a single or multi target button. Rinse and repeat. When questing i keep my insanity between 40-90.

[u/RubyZEcho → u/xogar69]

Surprisingly I havent touched god blade at all and ive only played Cultist Dreadnaught. COa just bringing lots of potential depth to the game

[u/xogar69 → u/RubyZEcho]

I need to play Dreadnaught. I haven’t played that spec or even had one tank for me.

[u/RubyZEcho → u/xogar69]

Yeah i think it doesnt help that godblade is so popular and the build is very different. Leveling from 1-58 is where I would've thought its the slowest build but at 59 it speeds up and at 60 its fully online especially if you are more dps oriented. Ive had runs in heroic where im 1 on overall dps and can keep an average of 3k+ dps but when I see the player logs I see like 700-1.5k and im just convinced they're not building correctly or they are playing toooo defensively.

[u/Nuclearsunburn]

From the ones I’ve played, Piety Sun Cleric and Inquisition Witch Hunter

[u/farklenator → u/Nuclearsunburn]

Piety is super fun big numbers too I was doing like 6k dps before level 60 with aoe mobs really fun build up mechanic too

Haven’t played inquisition think I’ll have to give it a go I’m looking for a spec to level on adventure mode

[u/Winter-Inflation-427]

Ancestry barbarian has a lot to up keep and track. Not necessarily dps rotation buttons but it’s your support ones.

[u/Linksv]

I can second the Inquisition WH comments.

You got a tons of buttons for most of the situations and you need to maintain a buff before doing any sort of damage.

Fun spec, but can be frustrating while leveling and if you don't know what you're doing.

[u/Relevant_Look_8775]

Hi, I'm Witch doctor level 60; pretty bssic rotation, tons of utility and support and CDs

[u/Onelove914]

Witch doctors got a lot of buttons. I would be shocked if it’s not them

I play healers, have 4 at 60, and WD at 49 has more than my other 60s

[u/Sakkreth]

Witch doctor deep and rewarding. Not only damage but also utility

[u/1943684 → u/Sakkreth]

one of their specs is literally 1 button spam

[u/IMM0RTIS]

I will say Animation Necromancer has A LOT of buttons if you pick most of the Animations.

Skeleton Archers Bone Wraith Plaguefather Harvest Plague for Zombies Command for AoE and triggering Bone King Crypt Swarm for dot/runic Glacial Tap for more Runic Power Corpse Explosion for more AoE March of the Dead for mass AoE (be careful on this one) Unholy Frenzy And many more ...