by Hotstreak - 8 years ago     show comments

With Legion literally right around the corner, I’ve found myself struggling to choose which classes and specs that I want to devote the most time to. This is made even harder by the fact that each spec gets their own artifact and quest line. Ideally I want to pick two classes to devote my time to, so I’ve narrowed my choices down to six specs consisting of three melee and three ranged and hopefully, with any luck, this will help you out too if you’re struggling as well. These are my personal favorites and I’m in no way claiming them to be the best. So let’s get into it starting with my top three melee specs.

Enhancement Shaman

I have always liked the fantasy of Enhancement, being a dual wielding badass of the elements was always something I clicked with. But over the past couple of expansions they were in sort of a weird place and I didn’t enjoy them as much, but my god did that changed with patch 7.0. This is by far my favorite iteration of enhancement as it has such a nice flow to it and with a lot of punch. Not to mention it may be the most visually impressive melee class that has highly benefited from the new melee animations, along with some cool lightning and lava effects for skills like Stormstrike and Lava Lash. There is nothing more satisfying than using Crash Lightning during an AoE pull in a dungeon, raid, or out in the world.

The talents choices are also pretty diverse and interesting, you can add more depth or make your rotation more simple. You can really tailor enhancement to suit your personal play style while still being viable. Which is something that has been kind of absent from the design of Shamans over the years as build flexibility hasn’t really been their thing. There’s also a very fast pace to this spec as you want to capitalize on your Stormbringer procs as much as possible, resulting in some really fun and satisfying gameplay.

Overall this spec just flat out feels good to play and when Legion goes live, you will be able to wield the one and only Doomhammer which almost just sells it by itself.

Fury Warrior

I was really hoping for some improvement in Legion when it came to Fury because I was really just not happy with it in WoD. It suffered from being way too spammy and your rotation was pretty much at the mercy of RNG. I started WoD out as fury and ended up dropping the class all together in favor of my Warlock. With Legion, Fury has been improved a lot in terms of gameplay, class fantasy, and fun factor. It still has some RNG elements to it in regards to enrage procs and Raging Blow but, you can minimize this via talents choices if you so choose.

For example, if you take the Inner Rage talent you no longer have to be enraged in order to use Raging Blow but it gains a four second cooldown. This talent in my opinion makes the whole rotation flow a lot better and also reduces the amount of times you have to use Furious Slash (please Blizzard just remove this skill entirely). Rampage has also been turned into an active ability that channels five brutal strikes and does a good amount of damage and let me tell you, this skill makes the spec for me especially because of it’s synergy with Execute. AoE damage is nothing to scoff at either, as they have great potential for it with Whirlwind, Meat Cleaver, and Bladestorm.

This spec has also hugely benefited from the new melee animations that really help to make you feel like the raging berserker that you’ve always wanted to be. Warriors are also getting a really awesome class hall so if you haven’t already, you should definitely give the Fury Warrior a shot. Overall, this spec feels incredibly satisfying and fun to play and this is one of my favorite iterations of it.

Vengeance Demon Hunter

I’ll be the first one to say that I’m not a huge fan of the Havoc spec but, I am a big shill for Vengeance. They brought all of the mobility and fast paced gameplay of the DH to the tank spec. So what you have here is an incredibly fast, dynamic, visually pleasing playstyle for tanking with. Vengeance feels like a DPS spec when you’re playing it and I actually prefer it for doing world content since there’s good self healing, damage output, and survivability thanks to skills like Demon Spikes and Immolation Aura. The talent choices are also very diverse and there are some pretty hard decisions in each tier, it wasn’t like this earlier on in Legion’s beta but they have done a good job with moving some of them around to prevent extreme cookie cutter builds.

On top of that, there are some really cool animations and visuals as you would expect with the DH. Metamorphosis is very cool looking and skills like Fel Devastation (you can see this in the picture above) are really satisfying to use. But I think that jumping around with Infernal Strike is the most fun since it’s basically Heroic Leap with two charges and a shorter cooldown. Sigils also add some depth to the spec as they offer more damage and utility options to your spell book. These are also AoE spells as they silence, do damage, and do a bit of crowd control. You can take a talent that causes Infernal Strike to drop a Sigil of Flame every time you land, which is a really fun talent and makes holding aggro a breeze.

Overall I would say that Vengeance for me is the most fun tank spec in the game and if you’re a little put off by the DH’s simplicity, I still highly recommend that you give Vengeance a try.

Balance Druid

I for the most part have really disliked Balance ever since Cataclysm. Balancing your solar resource with your lunar resource was just not fun and quite frankly it was a huge pain in the ass. If you messed up your rotation even a little bit it would just be game over from there and it resulted in more frustration for me than fun. But with Legion comes a much more streamlined and fun way to play boomkin by seeing an overhaul with it’s mechanics. Instead of balancing two resources you are now a builder-spender spec with a new resource called Astral Power. You gain AP by using Solar Wrath, Lunar Strike, Moonfire, and Sunfire while spending it on either Starfall or Starsurge.

Now it may sound boring but once I gave it a shot I was surprised by how well it flowed and how satisfying it was to play. It’s definitely not a complicated spec but it doesn’t need to be since it has suffered from being too complicated in the past so, it’s a nice and welcomed change of pace for me. It also has some talents that can make it a bit more complicated if that’s what you want to do and it also has some really fun ones. Not to mention, one of the huge reasons why I like this spec is because it’s visually appealing with spells like Starfall, Blessing of the Ancients, and even Glyph of the Stars.

Overall I could really recommend Balance to other players as it’s satisfying, fun, and easy to get into. No more worrying about juggling two resources at once.

Elemental Shaman

Shaman makes my list twice because it’s such a fun class in Legion and Elemental does nothing to change that. This spec had some issues in WoD namely it’s lack of sustain and a useful mastery stat. But with 7.0 came a new Ele Shaman, one that is actually fun to play, looks great, and sounds great. Their mastery is now actually useful as they are one of the only classes to keep multistrike as a mechanic. It has some real weight to it and the sound design for the spells is just fantastic, Lighting Bolt and Lava Burst have never sounded or felt better. One of my favorite things to do during a boss fight is use Bloodlust, Fire Elemental, Elemental Mastery, Feral Spirit, and Ascendance all at the same time for some bonkers burst damage.

Elemental also keeps with the theme of Shaman’s, in my opinion, being the most diverse and interesting when it comes to talents in Legion so don’t let the ability pruning turn you away. You can be a fire based spec, a lightning based spec, a hybrid, you name it. There’s just so much room for different playstyles and it’s a far cry from what it was in WoD. The new Maelstrom resource has really done good things for the flow of the two DPS specs and I seriously hope Blizzard doesn’t change too much about them.

I will definitely be spending some time with Elemental during Legion and would recommend this spec to anyone.

Fire Mage

Last but definitely not least is Fire, I have always wanted this spec to be good and Legion is finally it’s time to shine. I love fire based spell casters so I have mainly played Destruction to scratch that itch but since Destro is completely boring now and Fire is really fun, I will gladly make the switch. Fire right now is such a satisfying spec to play and it comes with a lot of different skills and utility spells to work with, making it the most complicated spec on this list. It’s fast, fun, extremely dynamic, and has some very cool visuals.

The playstyle revolves around utilizing your Hot Streak procs as much as humanely possible during Combustion. It sounds simple on paper but it will take some practice to really get good at executing the rotation. There’s a lot of build up and planning that you need to do in order to make the most of your combustion window, this will cause you to create and use a lot of spell combos in order to maximize your damage. The cool thing about Fire is, it’s still a really fun spec to play even when you’re out doing world content where there is less of an emphasis on the execution of your rotation. You can totally play this spec casually and still have a blast with it. It also has some cool talents like Meteor and Living Bomb along with improvements to the visuals of each fire spell, like Flame Strike for example.

Overall, Fire is an extremely fun and satisfying spec to play and if you love fire based ones then you will not be disappointed with it.

Honorable Mentions

I have enjoyed a lot more specs than just those six so here are a few honorable mentions. It was honestly really hard to leave some of these out and I would still recommend any of them!

Blood

This is a very fun tank spec and it fulfills it’s class fantasy very well. The change to the rune system has really helped the flow of blood as well as it’s pace.

Frost

I was so very close to putting this in my top six because I thoroughly enjoyed it. But what I will say is, it’s definitely in my top five melee specs. With the artifact weapons this is as close to being the Lich King as you will probably get.

Unholy

Once again, I can’t believe I didn’t put any of the DK specs on the list and it’s a real testament to how awesome the class is in Legion. Unholy is now the undead summoning monster that I’ve always wanted it to be and would also be in my top five melee.

Shadow Priest

Shadow got a massive redesign and it is now way more enjoyable and unique. It’s honestly a really fun spec and it was close to being in my top six but, it’s just a bit too frantic for me. I would still recommend this to anyone to try out though.

Brewmaster Monk

I’ve actually really enjoyed Brewmaster and think it’s a pretty damn fun tank spec but, I just think Vengeance is way more fun.

Protection Warrior

I really like Protection right now because it makes you feel like a big immovable piece of metal. Whenever I think about protection I imagine the Bulwark of Azzinoth.

Conclusion

My two choices for which classes I want to dedicate the most time to are Warrior and Shaman. The reason why comes down to a few things that I looked at when making my choices.

• Class Halls – Since we will be spending a good chunk of time in our class hall, I wanted to pick the ones I liked the most and identified with. I really like the Halls of Valor and the Heart of Azeroth.
• Artifact Weapons – I then looked at which artifact weapons have the most interesting effects on the class specs I’m interested in. I really liked what Doomhammer, Fist of Ra’den, and Warswords of the Valarjar are bringing to the specs.
• Gameplay – I then tested out how each spec played and felt and which ones I truly had the most fun with. As it turned out I had the most fun with Warrior and Shaman. With this combo I can tank, heal, be a melee dps, or a ranged dps while still really enjoying myself. Which will also make me very versatile to my guild for PvE content. But I will be maining Fury on my Warrior and Elemental on my Shaman.

This expansion has by far been the most difficult choosing a main for, I can’t believe how many specs there are that I really enjoyed playing. I hope this has helped you get at least a little closer to figuring out what you want to main in Legion and if it’s made it more difficult for you then…I’m so very sorry. There really isn’t any wrong answer though as you should just play based on what you find the most fun and not based on what other people tell you. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you at launch time!

What are your favorite specs so far? Do you really like any of the above? Or did you disagree with me entirely? Sound off in the comments below!