World of Warcraft Mist of Pandaria Classic is just around the corner, and with pre-patch landing the 1st of July, a lot of players ask themselves: what can I play? What’s the best class and specialization for me for this expansion? In this guide, we will try to answer those questions and give you a sneak peek to every class in the game so you can easily make your own choice.
Table of Content:
Quick Class Picking Guide in MoP Classic
To start off, we would like to present you a quick list of specs and classes that could match your play style and what content you plan on doing in Mist of Pandaria Classic. A deeper explanation will be provided for each class in the next sections of this guide.
Easy Time, Easy Life
Those specializations are best if you are looking for something rather easy to play, that can succeed in a lot of areas without asking you to invest a lot of time in their gameplay:
- Retribution Paladin, one of the easiest melee DPS to play while providing healing and utility to the team.
- Beast Mastery Hunter is pretty easy to play and should be one of the strongest specializations in the game going forward.
- If you want to play tanks, Guardian Druid - the new exclusive tank spec for Druid - or Protection Paladin are both excellent choices, with a rather easy play style while still being good tanks.
- Finally, for Healers, we would recommend Holy priests usually, but they tend to lack a lot of power in Mist of Pandaria, Restoration Shamans might be a better pick without being one of the most technical healers.
The Most OP Choices in Mist of Pandaria
If you are looking for the most broken classes in Mist of Pandaria and just want to play meta, trying to top the meter in every raid, here are a few choices you should consider:
- Warlocks are the best casters in the game. Destruction is quite strong in the first phase, and Affliction takes the wheel as the best DPS class in the game.
- Arms Warriors are very strong, and Warriors overall are an excellent melee class, scaling very well as Fury. If you want a safe, strong bet with a lot of options, pick Arm Warrior.
- Hunters are the Flavor of the Expansion, and if Beast Mastery is getting all the hype, don’t forget Marksmanship, receiving subtenstial buff in the rerelease and Survival being pretty strong early on.
- As a Healer, you should consider Discipline Priest or Restoration Shaman. These two are pretty great but have very different gameplay. Choose one of those two and will always find a place in any group.
- As a Tank, you have a lot of different options. Tanks in Mist of Pandaria are all good enough. If your goal is to play the best class, you might be better off with Blood Death Knights or Brewmaster Monks, but just play whatever you want.
Best Choices to Solo Mist of Pandaria Content
If you just want to have a nice day, soloing content, farming reputation, having your best life without depending on anyone, here are the class and spec you should consider:
- Guardian Druid. As Guardian, you will have enough base damage to do everything, you will be tanky as hell, and with your flight form gathering resources will be very easy. And later on, you can swap to Balance Druid to efficiently farm an insane number of mobs at once.
- Any Death Knight Specialization. Death Knight is very durable, with a lot of build in sustain and survivability. The biggest issue will be mobility.
- Beast Mastery Hunter. As a Hunter, you are very independent and can clear pretty much anything by yourself while never in danger.
In Depth Class Picking Guide for Mist of Pandaria Classic
In this part of the guide, we will go over each class and spec with a little description to better help you understand how they work, and if they fit your play style. We will also briefly give an idea of the rough power level of each specialization.
Death Knights
Death Knights are the same as the always have been in Mist of Pandaria: big juggernauts wearing plate. They use two resources, Runic Power and Runes, to deal damage. Entering MoP, you can expect a few changes: Plagues are easier to maintain, Horn of Winter Increases AP, a lot of abilities are not costing runic power anymore and other changes. Overall, if you’ve played Death Knight in Cataclysm, MoP DKs are pretty similar, just smoother to play.
Play a Death Knight if you like:
- Being the best sustain tank in the game. Blood DK has an insane sustain, and it’s very satisfying to play.
- A double resource and unique gameplay. Death Knights have a very unique play style, a re-imagination of the combo-energy gameplay from rogues but a bit slower.
- Necromancers. Unholy DKs are the closest things to Necromancers in WoW, with an undead army, gargoyles and big bad ghouls.
- Playing a fast-paced gameplay as a plate wielding class. While playing Frost, a lot of things happen, they have a lot of procs like Rime and Killing Machine, transforming Frost into a very reactive play style, a bit like playing a rhythm game.
- Always being viable. Blood DK is always a good tank, especially in Mists and you’ll always have at least one viable or strong DPS spec available.
Druids
Druids are receiving a few changes in Mist of Pandaria, the biggest being the separation between Feral Tank and Feral DPS. Other changes includes: easier use of Dash and Stampeding Roar (you don’t have to manually change forms) and the arrival of one of the most unique spells in WoW History: Symbiosis.
Play a Druid if you like:
- Roaming around the land freely. The Druid’s Fly Form is really helpful if you like resource gathering.
- Always having all the options in the game. Druid is the only class with 4 spec: Melee DPS, Caster DPS, Healer and Tank. If you are indecisive, it’s a great pick.
- Unique gameplays. Balance Druids and their eclipses offer a new way to use resources in the game, and Feral Druid are one of the trickiest melee to play in the game. If you like innovation, play Druid.
- Being a bear. Or an Owl. Or a Cat. Druid’s are known for their shapeshifting ability. If you dislike this part of the character, really like transmogrification, only Restoration and Balance can be themselves most of the time.
Hunters
Hunters are getting a lot of changes in Mist of Pandaria. Some of them are quite nice, like the change on range, making hunters able to use bows and ranged weapons in melee. Others are just to stop ninja looting, like removing the need for melee weapons. With this change, most melee abilities are gone, but you have new cooldowns and a better DPS profile. So much so that Hunters are the new divas of Mist of Pandaria.
Play Hunter if you like:
- Being one of the best classes in the game. The three Hunter specializations are strong, Beast Mastery being the star of the show for a good part of the expansion. But don’t sleep on Survival and Marksmanship.
- Being independent. Hunters can do a lot of content alone, due to their pet being able to tank every mob in existence and the amazing mobility they have for a range DPS.
- Learning how to play range in easy mode. Most of the spells you cast at range have little to no cast time or can be cast while moving (even Aimed Shot with Glyph of Aimed Shot).
- Pets, or if you don’t mind having to manage one. Pets are a big part of Hunter’s Gameplay and you might get tired of having to be mindful of what it does.
Mage
The basic caster class of World of Warcraft, Mages are going through some major changes in Mist of Pandaria. With Quality of Life changes, new amazing Cooldowns like Alter Time, modifying how you play around your other cooldowns. Mana should be less of a problem for every spec.
Play Mage if you like:
- Arcane but want a brand new gameplay. Arcane changes a lot with the introduction of Rune of Power. The “Burn Phase / Burst Phase” loop isn’t in the game anymore, but you have very restrictive movement.
- Having one of the most complete utility toolkits in the game. Mages have an answer to pretty much every situation with blink, controls, barriers, immunities, alter-time, heroism, raid buffs, mage table, slow fall… you will have everything.
- Changing specs throughout the expansion. Frost, Fire and Arcane have very different niches, and if you want to play in the most optimal way, you might have to switch specialization during the expansion. This can appeal to some players or scare others!
- Never being bad. Mages always have a strong spec, and can sometimes be the strongest casters in the game. Competition is strong with Warlocks, but this class is without a doubt one of the strongest coming into Mist of Pandaria.
Monk
Monk is the new class for Mist of Pandaria. They bring their own version of the Energy / Combo points mechanic with Chi and Energy. All Monk specs use Brews to enhance their combat power. As it is a very dynamic class, it isn’t for beginners, but it’s one of the most fun classes ever released by Blizzard.
Playing monk is also a great way of discovering the Pandaren Race
Play Monk if you like:
- Playing the most unique Heal and Tank in the game. Mistweaver and Brewmaster are very peculiar, very original and offer a gameplay never seen in World of Warcraft. If you are looking for innovation, this is a great choice.
- Fast paced gameplay. Every monk specialization asks you to play fast and make decisions on the go depending on procs, Chi and Energy. If you are more of a chill player, we wouldn’t recommend Monks.
- If you like playing a Melee Healer. Mistweaver can be played far away from the fight, but if you want to be one of the best you will have to play in melee just to optimize your gameplay. If this idea doesn’t suit you, you might want to avoid MW.
- Want to discover a new way of tanking. If you are a tank main, I would highly recommend leveling a Brewmaster just to discover this tank.
Priest
Priests didn’t change that much going into Mist of Pandaria. Discipline is still BiS everywhere, Holy struggles a lot and isn’t that interesting, and Shadow is still a great scaling option while never being bad. The addition of Spirit Shell makes Discipline even stronger, and Shadow now uses Devouring Plague as a spender.
Play Priest if you like:
- Making sure your team takes no damage. Discipline Priest is a peculiar healer, as their way to deal with damage is to prevent it rather than heal it. They still have good healing, but the most will be done with things like Spirit Shell, Barrier, and Power World: Shield.
- Want to play the strangest caster. Shadow Priest, along with Balance Druids, are the strangest casters in the game. With unique ressources, they offer a playstyle far away from mages and warlocks.
- Like being the best for the whole expansion. Discipline Priest is goated the whole expansion. From patch to patch and from set other healers like Restoration Shaman can offer you a challenge, but you are always at the top.
Rogue
If you liked Rogues before, you should still love Rogues in Mist of Pandaria Classic. A lot of signature offensive cooldowns are coming to the game like Shadow Blade or Crimson Tempest. You also have a little bit more group utility, with Smoke Bomb reducing damage taken by the raid. Finally, Poisons have been reworked and are way easier to use.
Play Rogues if you like:
- The new poisons. If carrying poisons was a pain for you and was the reason you didn’t play rogue, you should try again now that poison are just an extra ability you use on your weapons to “enchant” them.
- Rogue the previous expansions. If Rogue was already your main, you should play it in Mist of Pandaria. The quality of life changes, extra cooldown and extra group utility are amazing.
- Having the choice of easy or hard mode. Rogues specialization all play very differently and have different learning curves. While Combat Rogue can be pretty easy to learn, Subtlety and Assassination both offer unique and harder gameplay if you wish to have a bit more challenge.
- Playing specialistion with a very clear identity. Subtlety and Assassination have both a very clear identity, being the only full “stealth” specialisation in the game and one of the two only true melee DoT spec.
Shaman
Shamans are going through a lot of changes in Mist of Pandaria. Most of your totems are gone but you still get the usual group utility you had - most of it being passive now. The best Quality of Life change comes from Lighting Bolt: it can be casted while moving now, without any Glyphs!
Play Shaman if you like:
- Shaman in Cataclysm. Even if you lose some utility totems, you still have great raid buffs in Unleashed Rage, Burning Wrath and Grace of air. With a new cooldown called Ascendance, instant Ghost Wolf baseline and the new Lighting Bolt, you should have everything you need to be happy.
- Like having insane healing output. Restoration Shaman are quite strong, with unique utility like Spirit Link Totem. But their biggest strength this extension is their healing out put: Shamans can top a raid without any help.
- Being invited in every raid. With all the raid buffs mentioned earlier and raids coolodwn like Stormlash totem, you will always have a place in any raid. And if you play alliance, being a Draenei adds a nice hit rating buff that everyone loves.
- Having cool visuals. Elemental and Enhance have some of the best visual effects in the game. The rule of cool being the most important thing in World of Warcraft, it’s an important point to mention.
Warlock
Warlocks in Mist of Pandaria Classic are going to be very dominant. Every specialization received key changes to their resources, changing the way the play. Those changes plus the addition of Pandemic transforms Affliction into the best DPS of the game once it can reach key soft caps.
Play Warlock if you like:
- Being the best. Even if you probably won’t be top damage every time during the first phase, you should be the best DPS class going into Throne of Thunder and Siege of Orgrimmar, with Affliction dealing way too much damage.
- Playing an immobile turret. Warlocks don't have a lot of mobility. The addition of Demonic Gateway helps them quite a bit, but it’s probably one of the less mobile casters. But while you can’t move much, when you are immobile you can spam spells and make bosses disappear.
- Managing DoTs. Even if you play Demonology and Destruction, you still have DoTs to manage. Affliction is the worst offender if you don’t like this playstyle, but generally if DoTs aren’t your things you might want to pass on Warlocks.
- Being a Demon. Demonology Warlocks transform themselves into Demons to deal damage, which is very cool. If you like this idea, you should give Demonology a try.
Warrior
Finally, Warriors. Mist of Pandaria is literally the golden age of Warriors. This can seem strange as Warriors always scale very well and already were on the best melee DPS in Cataclysm, but in Mist of Pandarias, Warriors ascend. Vigilance, Banners, no more Inner Rage, full reworks of Fury and Arms gameplay making it very very smooth to play both DPS specs while staying one of the best melee in the game… MoP Classic will be Warrior Heaven.
Play Warrior if you like:
- Trying the best Warrior design in WoW’s History. Mist of Pandaria offers a little too much to Warriors this expansion. Banners, Shouts and the Talent tree gives so many options that Warriors are, even in PvE, one of the strongest classes in the game when it comes down to utility.
- Crits & Execution. Arms Warriors tend to accumulate insane amounts of Critical Strikes to deal damage, which can be very satisfying. If you like the dopamine rush of big crits & big Execution Damage, go Arms.
- Very dynamic tanks. Protection Warrior is pretty great, never bad (even if it struggles against magical damage) and scales well into the latter phases. It’s also very fun and dynamic to play. If you are a Guardian Druid or Blood DK enjoyer looking for something spicier, go Protection Warrior.
- Having the option to outscale everyone. Fury is a beast. Even if you don’t feel it right away, it becomes a beat in later phases.
