World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King is the second expansion for World of Warcraft, following The Burning Crusade. It launched on November 13, 2008 and sold 2.8 million copies within the first day, making it the fastest-selling computer game of all time released at that point. The expansion is one of the most popular WoW expansions of all time, as it’s still keeping the spirit of Vanilla WoW, combined with the legendary story of Arthas Menethil, which was loved by people since Warcraft III. And finally, we got the release date to be September 26, 2022. Blizzard has officially confirmed this on the WotLK Classic website.
Wrath of the Lich King changed WoW Classic from the core. No more did a one-button rotation exist such as with the Frost Mage in Vanilla or the Beast Mastery Hunter in the Burning Crusade. So choosing the right class is the most important decision you have to make in World of Warcraft. Your choice will impact how you experience and perceive the game for the countless hours to come. That’s why in this text we’ll go over the basics of every class in the Wrath of the Lich King expansion talking about the things that make them unique and fun to play. We hope, that in the end, you’ll feel comfortable and confident with your choice.
WotLK best class for beginners
If you have just started the incredible adventure throughout Azeroth and know nothing about the game and its mechanics, we would recommend trying one of the following classes: Druid or Paladin. The thing is, there are three roles in the game: Tanks, Healers, and Damage Dealers (DD). And only these two classes offer you an opportunity to test all of the roles. What’s more, only Druid inflicts damage both in the melee area and in range zones.
WotLK best solo class
In case you prefer completing outdated encounters, doing quests, collecting pets, mounts, achievements, etc, the best choice in Wrath Classic for you will be Hunters. Your Pets are perfect Tanks for the absolute majority of trivial foes, while you may stand aside and either shoot the enemies or complete some extremely difficult tasks.
WotLK best DPS specs
There are some options you can choose depending on the gameplay you want to experience:
- Fury Warrior – extremely powerful in PvE, especially after having a Shadowmourne;
- Fire Mage – at the beginning of expansion the Arcane Mage is more powerful, but from the 2nd Phase and especially 3rd Phase Fire Mage is the best pick in PvE;
- Combat Rogue – arguably the best PvE DPS spec, but at the beginning of the expansion, you’d better pick Assassination Rogue;
- Feral Druid – very solid pick both in PvE and PvP with arguably the hardest rotation in the game;
- Retribution Paladin – the best support DPS class, which can provide tons of healing. Ret Paladins shine after receiving a Shadowmourne;
- Unholy Death Knight – a very fun and powerful class to play in WotLK on all phases. Death Knights use the rune system which is made out of six runes that you spend on your spells such as the Frost rune for an Icy Touch.
WotLK best tank class
Protection Paladin – spec with tons of AoE, lots of useful auras, and passive ability, which heals you back in the fight every time you’re dying, but not more than once every two minutes. So that’s legit cheating for a tank.
WotLK best healer class
Holy Paladin – a lot of buffs and auras, best HPS, great utility. All of these make Lich King Classic Paladin arguably the best healer in the WotLK. However, while it’s the best healer for healing tanks, it’s not that good for healing the entire raid.
For such purposes, Resto Shaman will be the best pick. Every raid without any exception has to have at least one Resto Shaman, as it provides a lot of utility, has solid mass healing, and has the most important skill in the game for raids – Bloodlust.
Death Knight
The Death Knights were extremely overpowered. When they were first released in patch 3.0 most people even go so far as to say that no class ever in the game’s long 17-year-old history was more powerful than early WotLK DKs.
Death Knights were the first class not to start from level one, instead, they start from level 55 in their very own zone. Of course, you had to have a character that is already level 55 in order to make one, so if you’re planning to main a DK when WotLK classic gets released it’s probably smart to start leveling your character now.
The Death Knight’s starting zone is one of the best zones in the game. Blizzard did an incredible job of telling a story without almost any text just showing everything to you as you breeze through the quest line on an overpowered DK.
Death Knights use the rune system which is made out of six runes that you spend on your spells. Using runes then builds up runic power that can be used on other spells such as Death Coil. Mastering the system is the most important skill a DK can have. Even experienced players admit that they still have those insight moments when they figure something out with it.
Death Knights have three different specs, those being Blood, Frost, and Unholy.
- Blood is mostly a tank spec, although some people insist on playing them as DPS. Blood tanks are considered the strongest single target tanks as they have incredible defensive cooldowns and can build up aggro like no other class can by spamming Icy Touch;
- Frost is a mainly DPS pack played with two one-hand weapons and is probably one of the most badass specs in the game. It’s known for its high single target DPS;
- And last but not least is Unholy DK. The gameplay consists of spreading diseases. The spec is extremely fun to play. You can even summon a gargoyle!
So is the Death Knight a class for you? If you enjoy getting close and personal with the action, having an amazing PVP set and you love the death metal aesthetic, then surely we would recommend giving DKs a shot.
Paladin
In the spirit of contrast let’s go over Paladin next.
Paladins can truly do everything you want as they are incredible healers, tanks, and DPSs. What sets Paladins apart from other classes is their aura system. Powerful auras provide buffs to the entire raid, such as the Devotion Aura which increases the armor of everyone in range, and the Crusader Aura which increases your mounted speed.
They also have incredibly powerful abilities such as Hand of Protection, Sacrifice, Salvation, and Freedom.
Paladins have three different specs:
- Protection Paladin is considered one of the strongest off-tanks in the game;
- Holy Paladin is considered to be one of the strongest healers in the game;
- Retribution Paladin many people think is the strongest support DPS in the game. Also, Paladins have their judgments: Judgment of Light being one of the strongest spells in the Wrath of the Lich King apart from Heroism. Sometimes Retribution or Protection Paladin will have similar healing to an actual healer just by using this one spell.
In many ways, Paladins found their footing in WotLK and they truly are incredibly useful in each of the roles mentioned. If you enjoy the crusader aesthetic and/or if you have a Bible on your desk we really could recommend Paladin class for you.
Druid
We all know the expression “a jack of all trades is a master of none” but even though druids can do it all they can still do it incredibly well.
Druids are famous for their ability to shape-shift transforming into a number of different forms in accordance with their needs. Mastering this system is incredibly satisfying but when you add just how useful and versatile those specs are and their ability to resurrect people during the fight and restore mana to the healers with Innervate it becomes pretty hard not to play a Druid.
The specs you can play:
- Feral Druid can be both a tank with the bear being pretty solid in the entire expansion and a cat which is the most fun DPS spec to play in the game. The rotation is incredibly satisfying and difficult to pull off, but when you do it well it feels like nothing else in the world;
- Druids can also be healers with the Restoration spec, which focuses on healing over time effects. Healing as a tree is difficult to master as you’ll need to predict the damage in every fight so you can prepare your HOTs in front;
- And last but not least we have the Moonkin. Balance Druid becomes incredibly strong in WotLK, as that’s when they gain Starfall. They also get the Solar and Lunar eclipse proсs, which truly diversifies the class and makes it fun to play.
To sum it up, if you enjoy the versatility and being able to perform a variety of roles you really can’t go wrong with the Druid.
Warrior
It’s hard not to love playing a Warrior, as the fantasy of the class is beautiful. When you play a Warrior your Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Chuck Norris combined in the ultimate exodia of man.
You can choose from three specs when playing a Warrior:
- Fury is where you run around with two giant weapons, cleaving anything that comes close to you;
- Arms Warrior is where you become a spinny boy and beyblade everything in a mile radius;
- And Protection is where you don’t get invited to raids. Even though Prot Warriors were incredible tanks in both Classic and TBC, they’re usually frowned upon in WotLK, as a lot of the damage is magic and they specialize in mitigating physical damage. They of course can do everything in capable hands.
Playing a Warrior is incredibly satisfying, the rotation is really fun and they scale amazingly with gear. They might not hit the hardest in the first few raids, but when they get Shadowmourne they become unstoppable in both PvP as Arms and PvE as Fury. The equivalent of a barbarian in every video game. You really can’t go wrong with Warrior if you have the patience to grind out your gear.
Warlock
Warlocks are WoWs badass nihilists. They dress in black and purple and have conversations with their demon friends. You would almost fall in love with them if you didn’t see them torturing a squirrel in the Elven forest.
Warlocks like Hunters have pets, meaning they can level very quickly and without any downtime. They also provide incredible support to the raid with their stones and buffs such as Improved Shadow Bolt.
The three specs for locks are as follows:
- Demonology, where you can transform into a demon and become an unstoppable force for 30 seconds, while your pet (Felguard) follows you and cleaves down everything that even just looks at you;
- Affliction specializes in dotting up multiple targets and slowly burning them down while purging magic from them and yourself with another pet (Felhunter);
- And Destruction where you toss out huge Chaos Bolts with incredible short bursts of damage on your targets, while you have your pet (Imp) follow you around. Destruction unfortunately isn’t that strong in PvE but they really excel in arenas with a Shaman partner.
If you enjoy playing a caster and if you think that mages are for kids we recommend picking up a Warlock and destroying everything you see in front of you.
Rogue
Some would say that you should play a rogue if you enjoy crowd control and high burst damage, but we’d say play a Rogue if you’re feeling like playing Rogue. The class is just made to assassinate people.
There are three Rogue specs:
- Subtlety can keep you out of an arena fight for tens of seconds in the hands of a skilled Rogue;
- Assassination shines in the earlier raids;
- Combat has the highest burst potential in the game, and shines when you hit a hundred percent armor penetration.
Watching someone with thousands of hours on this class is like witnessing art. The class has an amazingly high skill ceiling and you can never say you mastered it completely. So if you enjoy torturing your enemies and small animals, I would recommend Rogue to you.
Mage
Mage is a purely DPS class so you have to do it well. You are thought of as glass cannons meaning you can do crazy damage from afar, however, if enemy will get close to mage while Blink is on cooldown, then you’re just dead.
You can choose from three specs when playing a Mage:
- In the early phases of Wrath of the Lich King Arcane pumps incredible damage and is known for its burst. The rotation is fairly simple but the challenge comes from keeping your mana on track;
- Frost is by far the best leveling and PvP Mage spec. Characters of this spec are excellent at controlling and slowing their enemies with abilities such as Shatter, Frost Nova, and Polymorph. They’re also incredible at AoE farming: you can finish a quest in only one pool if you bring that art to perfection;
- Fire is mostly preferred late game spec being famous for incredibly high crits and ignite.
What you can love about playing a mage is that you won’t have any responsibilities. Your only job in the raid will be dishing out as much damage as you can. So if you enjoy not being in the thick of things, focusing only on yourself and your damage, while being able to top the DPS charts from every fight, we would recommend mages highly.
Hunter
What really makes hunters unique is of course their pets. Starting from level 10 you get a furry meatball running with you at all times and really becomes an extension of you. Hunters are a pure DPS class but they become irreplaceable support with amazing spells such as Misdirection. They also have an incredibly high skill ceiling meaning that you can always improve with them no matter how much time you already have on the character.
There are three Hunter specs:
- Beast Master has the ability to tame exotic pets, such as the Devilsaur in the Un’goro crater;
- Survival is known for its traps;
- Marksmanship is mostly used in the late game, once you already get your armor penetration rating up.
When you raid with the Hunter you always have a lot of responsibilities: misdirect the boss and adds, dispel rage with Tranquilizing Shot, slowing down the mobs with Frost Trap. All of these points can horrify you, but if you’re a responsible person that loves animals, we recommend Hunter.
Shaman
Two things truly distinguish Shamans from the other classes and those are their totems and Heroism aka Bloodlust if you’re a Horde player. People that are usually drawn to Shamans are the same people who don’t enjoy the spotlight too much. People who are comfortable with helping the raid immensely but not showing up too much on the meters. We can’t avoid speaking of the power of Bloodlust as no other spell in the game has an impact on the raid like it. Lots of bosses like Anub’arak in the Trial of the Crusader would be straight up impossible while progressing without this lovely tool.
Shamans have three different specs:
- Elemental is a ranged caster that is extremely fun to play and straight up overpowered in the arena with a Warlock;
- Enhancement is extremely hard to master melee attacker;
- Restoration is the only spec you’ll get to play as no one will invite you to the raid otherwise. Even though a Shaman is absolutely necessary for your raid, you really only need one which means you’ll have a hard time finding a raid spot with Elemental, for example, as a Mage can just do more damage.
However, if you’re looking for a smooth leveling experience, extreme PvP power, and a guaranteed spot in the raid – Shaman is the right choice for you.
Priest
The only class in the game with two healing specs – Priests are an underrated class masterpiece.
Let’s see the spec’s options:
- Disciplines job is to keep everyone shielded and prevent damage from happening. This is extremely useful during various fights;
- Holy Priest can give you much fun with healing. The class has so many choices about what you can do with your globals. So it’s extremely difficult if not impossible to bring to perfection;
- Shadow Priests don’t really excel at anything except for PvP.
If you enjoy supporting your raid and being the unsung hero, or if you enjoy poisoning the minds of your opponents with shadow, we’d recommend Priests to you.
One thing we’d like to add is that you should never play what other people tell you to play. We just pointed out the basics but the choice is entirely yours. Learning the ins and outs of the class after deciding what you’re gonna play is a beautiful journey in itself. We truly wish you to enjoy and have fun!
Don’t forget that you can rate our article if this guide was helpful to you!
