Ufff this one is a really hard one.

I love playing melee DPS but in PvP games they mostly suck. In PvE the Range DPS are mostly boring to play.
As a tank you only have around 3 slots in you Guild. Healer is doomed to play heal forever (tanks can switch on Raid farm).

In Vanilla i played mostly Melee DPS(Pala), later then some Range DPS(Hunter) for PvP. In TBC i played Mostly Hunter. In WotLK i played Tank(Warrior). Cata i have never played on retail, Mop was Tank again (DK) with Hunter for PvP, WOD was Heal (Priest, Shaman), Legion was chaos because that stupid fucking Legendary drop rate, started Tank (warrior) then got a legendary on my Mage and on 3 other (Hunter, Priest, Pala) so it was just chaos) i think i played mostly Heal Shaman because it was easy to PuG raids, BFA was then all Ret pala (3 of them to be exactly)

I mean i like all roles but sometimes only one roll can be boring/hard.

I always like these threads because it's fun to read the journey others have experienced, as I find it parallels a lot with my own.

I've played all roles in this game, but I didn't find my true calling until I started healing in Wrath. A group in my guild would WPVP all the time and they needed a reliable player to heal them. I played Enhance at the time and was scared to heal because I didn't think I could cut it. That group really took me under their wing and it turns out that I was a damn good Shaman healer, especially in PVP. While I no longer play shaman, I still heal as my main to this day and enjoy every minute of it.

I mainly do DPS just because my favorite classes are pure DPS. I really enjoy tanking and healing, but I find those classes less fun outside of dungeons. Because of that, only my pure DPS characters ever get to a high level.

As for range vs melee... I'm pretty neutral. I think melee combat feels more exciting than casting, but lately I've been leaning towards ranged because classes like mage and warlock have some really cool utility and spells to work with.

For me it doeant really matter. The only role I don't particularly enjoy is healer.

I really enjoy being a tank. Being the one that can soak up all of the damage ia an idea that really appeals to me. The only downside is all of the knowledge that is required.

So instead I usually go ranged or melee dps. Which I still really enjoy. They have their own difficulties, but I personally dont feel as overwhelmed playing those roles.

Not to mention each class is so different., I never really care what the role is, just what makes the class unique.

I think the biggest mistake I made in Vanilla was rolling a healer as my first character. Having no idea how boss mechanics/threat/and midigation worked I was admittedly pretty trash until Wotlk. I'd have been better off learning as a dps and going from there.

Through the private server experience I've been playing a mixture of hunters and rogues and getting a real fight for their mechanics so that I'm ready to tank come Classic.

I am an absolute glutton for punishment, I love healing and I have a max toon on "release" of each one. (almost all the tanks too...) I fell in love with prolonging the inevitable as an Undead Priest back in 04, especially when out doing world PVP with Cletus except, most, of, that, was, on, my, warrior... but I digress... I do love helping someone stay in the fight as long as I can. It's a challenge and its a lot of fun to me!

I am really torn with Classic though, I ~was~ planning on revamping the UD warrior role, but I have since settled 110% on UD priest. However, I am not exactly sure on Disc/Holy/Shadow... I loved how dominant Shadow could be in world PVP, but being a really solid disc priest (I was / still am) is a major ego trip going 2v3-4-5-6... too much fun, but my first love will always be Healing as the Bad-Bad-Dolamite!

Healer, because you can save a bad tank from wiping the group. Or bad dps who aggro things that would otherwise wipe a group. But a good tank can rarely save a bad healer or bad dps.

Healer has always been my role, it's what I enjoy doing and it just feels great to be the one saving lives when things go wrong. I tried shaman on Elysium and priest on Light's Hope. For Classic I am excited to go back to druid though, that's still my favorite, same as I played way back then.

I play as a healer in most games because a lot of people suck at it and I do a good job at maintaining an overview of the field while reacting to danger how I see is the best manner possible. I suck at keeping a stable rotation while managing danger, cooldowns, number of targets, trinkets etc. so I almost never played as damage.

Will be playing as a Warlock because I don't want to rely on anyone summoning the raid for me. If I want to show up 30 minutes early to summon a raid I can do it without having to beg anyone to show up early. Rotation is also simple so I don't have to worry about being overwhelmed.

I've always been either a healer or DPS. More recently I have started to hate healing so, if I can be a DPS as a Druid... That would rock :)

I enjoy playing ranged DPS, but fell in love with healing in TBC. Going to level a mage initially in Classic and then maybe make a healer alt. Gonna be totally honest though, while all classes intrigue me I am feeling nervous about playing anything other than a damage dealer in classic.

Running solo as a warlock you get to do all three! But more seriously, I have played all three roles on various toons and I like all of them equally.

Healer, because you can save a bad tank from wiping the group. Or bad dps who aggro things that would otherwise wipe a group. But a good tank can rarely save a bad healer or bad dps.

Oh I have been saving groups from bad healers. I always bring potions and keep my cool downs at the ready!

Back in retail I played range dps, tried healing and tanking on pservers. Did not like healing, but loved tanking!
Looking forward to casually play as a tank in classic!

I've always been either a healer or DPS. More recently I have started to hate healing so, if I can be a DPS as a Druid... That would rock :)

Were feral and balance druid common in vanilla raiding? I can't remember many druid dps players and barely heard much about them, though, that might just be me.

Were feral and balance druid common in vanilla raiding?

Absolutely not, but they have become more prevalent in the private server community once they 'figured them out'. Feral DPS is viable through powershifting, its a clunky setup and hard to perfect the method, but it works. Moonkin less useful, other than their party buff. Very incredibly hard to manage their mana.

Were feral and balance druid common in vanilla raiding?

Absolutely not, but they have become more prevalent in the private server community once they 'figured them out'. Feral DPS is viable through powershifting, its a clunky setup and hard to perfect the method, but it works. Moonkin less useful, other than their party buff. Very incredibly hard to manage their mana.

That's great to hear. I have always enjoyed the druid class as a whole and it being a class with so many abilities and tools it kinda feels wrong having them do just one thing, I hope to see more dps druids around. The fact that there is a lot to the rotation for ferals creates a skill cap between those who invest thier time to perfect it and those who don't, which I view as a good thing.

I used to think it was Tanking because when I couldn't get groups as a DPS in TBC, I saw that Paladin AoE tanking w/ a shield spike was CRAZY fast experience so I did that and started tanking as a paladin and it was so gratifying. I got groups easy and ended up tanking almost entirely from TBC through Patch 8.1.

That said... I took time to main as a DPS once 8.1 hit and found I'm loving that as well. So.... I don't have a favorite. I just fucking love this game.