Dark Side of World of Warcraft's 10 Classes

by Tyler Edwards, December 9 2011

World of Warcraft is a game with a reputation for having a terrible community associated with it. And while there are plenty of decent people in among the mouth-breathers and griefers, there is, unfortunately, a lot of truth to this reputation. So much so, in fact, that each of the game's ten classes has developed their own stereotype encapsulating the kind of dimwits and trolls they attract.

10: The meathead (warrior):

Warrior is a class for those who want to be juggernauts of raw physical power, who want to smash their puny enemies without nothing but brute force. And if that's what you want, there's nothing wrong with that.

The problem arises when people become so caught up in their own brawn that they think they can just smash things at random, little bothering with things like "strategy" or "ability rotations" or "armor."

This is probably the least common of the types of goofballs you'll encounter in the World of Warcraft, but that makes them no less irritating when they do show up.

9: The underpowered (shaman):

Shamans aren't a class known for any special foolishness or incompetence. However, recently, they have gained a reputation for being underpowered in virtually all roles. Whether this reputation is deserved or not is up for debate, but the shamans do themselves no favors by perpetuating the rumor as they ask the developers to improve their class.

This is likely karmic punishment for the windfury one-shots of classic WoW's PvP scene, as well as all those pick-up raids that took an hour to form because the leader couldn't find a shaman to do bloodlust.

8: The life-gripper (priest):

In the Cataclysm expansion, priests were given a new spell, leap of faith, which allowed them to pull friendly players to their location. Because of its similarity to the death knight ability "death grip," this spell is often called "life grip."

It sounds like a useful tool, and it is, but there has been a massive outcry asking for the spell to be removed. Why? Because those grabby priests can't keep their magical hands to themselves.

Bored or mischievous priests use this spell to toss people around like soccer balls, pull players into fires or other dangerous places, and just generally cause trouble.

But in truth, all this does is hammer home one of WoW's most important lessons: be nice to the healer.

7: Jackass of all trades, master of dumb (druid):

Druids aren't a class affected by an unusually level of idiocy, but their versatility and their animal forms make them much more dangerous and insidious when a bad player gets behind the controls of one.

Most druids do their fighting in forms that don't show their gear, so while a warrior tank in cloth is an obvious fool, you might not realize your bear form tank is a newb until you wipe several times and think to inspect him, discovering he is specialized in healing and wearing nothing but a tuxedo shirt.

The fact that druids can fill any role in the game also means they can screw up any and all aspects of your group.

6: The newb (warlock):

What do a rogue and a newb have in common? They both pick locks.

It's an old joke, but sadly, there is some truth to it. Warlocks have become a very complex class, and those you meet in the end game are likely to be competent, but go into a low level dungeon, and it's a different story.

Maybe kids are attracted to the demons. Maybe newbies think a pet class means they don't have to try. Whatever the case, you end up with a naked Blood Elf /dancing in the background while his pet painstakingly chips away at enemies with its auto-attacks.

5: The failadin (paladin):

Unlike some other classes, paladin doesn't seem to have any special power to attract the less than stellar aspects of the community, but it is one of the most popular classes, so inevitably you're going to meet one that doesn't know his blessings from a whole in the ground.

Such "failadins" are usually specialized in the Retribution talent tree, which is designed for damage-dealing, but that won't stop them from attempting to tank. They will charge into the enemy with their agility polearms held aloft, only to suffer crippling damage in the first few seconds and activate their invincibility "bubble," thus making themselves untargetable and causing the brutal deaths of their party.

These foolhardy paladins became especially common during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion, where the large numbers of undead mobs made the class especially popular.

We won't even get in to the infamous "bubble hearth" tactic

4: The ganker (rogue):

You're out peacefully farming herbs on your PvP server, when your character suddenly drops dead. A rogue appears above your mangled corpse and begins /dancing, /laughing, and /spitting.

You have just fallen prey to the ganker.

Taking pleasure in causing trouble for its own sake, these mean-spirited rogues stalk the world in search of the most vulnerable players with the sole purpose of ruining their days. If you're not careful, they may even kill you again and again each time you resurrect, making it impossible to get anything done.

Luckily, God in his infinite wisdom gave us the option of joining guilds. One message to some friendly players and you can be the one /dancing on the rogue's broken body.

3: The faceroller (mage):

It's always a little demoralizing when you bring up your damage meter and see someone else in the party is crushing your DPS. What's even more demoralizing is when that person is an arcane-specialized mage who's beating you by doing nothing but press one button.

Of course, arcane mages aren't quite as simple to play as the stereotype says. You can't simply bind every key to arcane blast and roll your face across the keyboard. But the fact remains they are still one of the absolute simplest classes in the game and can outshine much more complex classes while putting out a fraction of the effort.

And then there the frost mages in PvP who dance around you, spamming ice lance and /laughing as you struggle in vain to break through their snare abilities.

Mages are one of the most resented classes in World of Warcraft, and while they may not be quite as basic as some claim, the immense power they wield with such little effort does somewhat justify all the jealousy and anger.

2: The death knoob (death knight):

The bane of level 60 dungeons especially, all fear the coming of the death knoob. They try to tank, but they can't hold threat. They try to DPS, but they grab too much threat. They use their death grip to pull enemies away from the rest of the party, to the frustration of tanks and melee DPS alike.

To be fair, it isn't entirely their fault. Death knights are the only class that doesn't begin at level one, and so they have very little time to learn how to play their class before being thrown into reasonably high-level content. Many death knoobs are actually intelligent players who simply need more practice.

Still, that's little comfort when you have to scrape your character's corpse off the floor of a dungeon because your death knight tank is the reincarnation of Leeroy Jenkins.

1: The huntard (hunter):

If you've played WoW for any length of time, you've encountered one of them: the hunters wearing mage robes, meleeing their enemies in total ignorance of their status as a ranged class, or randomly pulling any enemy in sight. The stereotype of the huntard did not arise from nothing.

At the beginning, they're mostly harmless and amusing. But as their levels rise and begin to outstrip their IQ points, the huntards become increasingly irritating. Their reckless pulls result in horrible deaths for your group. Their inability to fight effectively places greater strain on the other damage-dealers. They grab any and all gear drops regardless of whether or not the items would do a hunter any good. We're all familiar with the old "taht's a huntr wepon" jokes.

But perhaps the greatest tragedy of the huntards is the bad light they cast their own class in. Even those hunters who are good and competent players are often assumed to be children or morons based purely on their class.

The quintessential newbs, huntards earn the top spot on our list of lunkheads.