WoW: Good 2-Person Group?

My wife and I are planning on trying out WoW together on 10-day passes very soon, and I'm wondering what classes we should use.

I played WoW quite a bit with a Hunter (which I *loved*) but she doesn't play many games and gets frustrated very, very quickly when she fails or dies. She's crazy-smart but waaaaaay too hard on herself.

I'm more interested in making sure she's having a good time playing a class that's not overly complex to a MMORPG newbie and doesn't die too often than finding a "fun" class for myself. Optimally, I'd like to find a combination that would be desirable in groups later on if we stick with the game, and that can level fast enough early on (we'll have ~25 hours max with our work schedules) to get a good view of what the game's like.

Any ideas? I've thought about having her be a Paladin to get insane survivability, but it sounds like they can be kind of dull to play, slow to advance and aren't great groupers. Maybe Warrior/Priest or Mage?

If you want to make it easiest for her and make sure she survives, you should play a healing class. IMO she should play a warrior. Easy and fun to level, good class to play first in the game I think. That leaves druid/pally/priest. I assume Alliance side since you mentioned paladins, just keep in mind that only elves and be druids if you decide to go that way and that paladins use a lot of the same gear as warriors so you guys would be competing on drops. I would make sure you guys start in the same racial area (NE, human, dwarf/gnome).

I'm with Leaping - you should play a healing class. You've probably only got one shot at this, so let her be ANY race and class that she wants to, and then you pick a healing class from the same race. My main is a paladin, and I can attest that you'll have all the healing goodness you need to keep her going if she's a warrior (or whatever) and you're a pally. Obviously, you can also be a priest. I would just keep firmly in mind that you want *her* to have a good time, and that you can always bring in an alt of a different class later if you get her hooked, and you want to play something different.

And congrats - I'm trying to convince my GF to give it a shot. No luck so far. If she ever does, I too will start an alt with her and level side-by-side, probably never playing it without her. At least, not for the first 10-20 levels.

I'd actually say any two classes side by side are a great team. I've found that a warrior and rouge are a DPS nightmare for any mob. Sure you won't have healing but you won't really need it for a long time and with only 10 days you should be fine!

Although a rogue pally combo would be about the same.

Mage/priest also works well. Stuff is dead before the mage takes huge damage.

Mage/Mage also works extremely well. I don't think anything ever reaches the group before it drops

Warrior/Priest

Cant really go wrong with that combination..

I agree with a Warrior/healer. My brother and I duo'd a Warrior/Shaman combo to 60 and were pretty much unstoppable in PVE.

My wife and I are playing a Mage/Druid combo that is working out very well so far.

KillerTomato wrote:

My wife and I are planning on trying out WoW together on 10-day passes very soon, and I'm wondering what classes we should use.

I played WoW quite a bit with a Hunter (which I *loved*) but she doesn't play many games and gets frustrated very, very quickly when she fails or dies. She's crazy-smart but waaaaaay too hard on herself.

I'm more interested in making sure she's having a good time playing a class that's not overly complex to a MMORPG newbie and doesn't die too often than finding a "fun" class for myself. Optimally, I'd like to find a combination that would be desirable in groups later on if we stick with the game, and that can level fast enough early on (we'll have ~25 hours max with our work schedules) to get a good view of what the game's like.

Any ideas? I've thought about having her be a Paladin to get insane survivability, but it sounds like they can be kind of dull to play, slow to advance and aren't great groupers. Maybe Warrior/Priest or Mage?

You are planning on playing on Blackhand right?

Thanks for all the great advice, guys. Reminds me of why I liked our guild so much.

I think I'm actually going to take Fedaykin's advice and let her choose whatever class/race she wants, then pick a class that fits in well with her. Going by what I'm hearing from y'all, it sounds as if almost any combination of classes can be pretty synergistic, though a / combination is apparently still the gold standard.

painthappens wrote:

You are planning on playing on Blackhand right? :D

Pfft - like there are other servers?

Make sure you get a couple of us subscribers to send you trial keys. If you happen to make the accounts active, we'll get creditted for it.

I agree with Fed too. Just hope she doesn't play a mage. We're a pretty complicated class, and for someone who doesn't RPG much, it's a lot to keep up with... but in a group, we can kick some serious butt. The only problem is that we don't take much damage before we kick the bucket, and it's very easy to pull aggro.

Your best bet, in my opinion, is Paladin. You can tank, heal, and eventually resurrect her if/when she dies.

By the way, I don't really know much about Druids, but one choice that might be interesting if she chooses to play as a Night Elf would be for you to play a Druid and focus heavily on healing at first, while still having the option to re-spec later if you wish. Say, she gets hooked and then you can focus on being a shape-shifter, or whatnot.

That also may not come up during the trial period, seeing that you don't get into the talent trees until level 10. Side note: my paladin's talent points have gone exclusively into the Holy (healing, etc) tree so far because I wanted better heals both for myself and for others when I group.

Like I said, I know nothing about druids, such as at what level they get healing spells, but I thought this was an interesting option.

Fedaykin98 wrote:

Like I said, I know nothing about druids, such as at what level they get healing spells, but I thought this was an interesting option.

I thought about this too. If she goes NE, and you want a healing class, you can either go druid or priest. I like my druid, but I'm building him mainly to be a group healer. You get bear form at lvl 10, but there's a series of quests involved that took me about an hour and a half. Bear form is great for tanking, but only ok for DPS.

When you get in, let us know what type of characters you are, and their names. Between my characters, I can make you cloth or leather armor, as well as some low daggers and swords. I know there are plenty of others that can provide better.

Peec and I had a lot of fun with our Pally/Rogue combo, but it's probably not really "optimal".

PurEvil wrote:

When you get in, let us know what type of characters you are, and their names. Between my characters, I can make you cloth or leather armor, as well as some low daggers and swords. I know there are plenty of others that can provide better.

Hey...low daggers? Spare any for my lvl 10 rogue?

And as long as I'm on that topic, thanks to everyone who sent me bags yesterday, and ducki for a very nice 2-handed sword.

Fed, read my reply in your Rogue thread.

I would absolutely say she should play a druid.

Why? Because they are one of the safest classes and you get a taste of all the abilities of the other classes except pets.

Plus the shapeshifting forms are a crowd pleasing gimmick.

Also, bear form is less powerful but easier to play than a true warrior. (less gear dependant) And of course, for the same reasons, cat form is an easier to play yet less powerful rogue.

You get nukes, dots, heals, regens, thorns and buffs.

So absolutely have her play a druid and you can play whatever class you want. There are no bad combos with any class and especially no bad druid combos.

Also, a druid can play whichever role they prefer - healer, dps, tank, nuker.

Also, if you haven't seen the druid bearform dance, you're missing out.

duckilama wrote:

Also, if you haven't seen the druid bearform dance, you're missing out.

Hmm... I'll have to /dance with my druid before logging off tonight. I don't believe I've seen that yet.

They finally added one?

I was so jealous of my shammy that had a wolf form /dance for so long.

Finally, vindication!

I would also like to add that the druid may seem complicated with all of its abilities. However, they can be played very simply, (moonfire, melee, rejuv, repeat) and the shapeshifting actually helps focus the different playstyles.

If anything, bearform > EZ mode paladin. Not to say that its better, its not at all. Its just easier, less gear dependant and, contrary to our holy friends, you can change in and out of EZ mode on the fly.

PurEvil wrote:

When you get in, let us know what type of characters you are, and their names. Between my characters, I can make you cloth or leather armor, as well as some low daggers and swords. I know there are plenty of others that can provide better.

Actually you can't. You can't trade items or send emails with items to a 10 day account.

Shoot. I remebered the AH trade, but I thought you could trade P2P. Oh well...

If anything, bearform > EZ mode paladin. Not to say that its better, its not at all. Its just easier, less gear dependant and, contrary to our holy friends, you can change in and out of EZ mode on the fly.

odd.. never heard anyone say that any of the Druid forms (Bear or Cat) were anything BUT highly gear dependant.

Given her temperment you might want to concider a hunter/druid pairing. Just let her play the hunter. They are a straightforward class to play, especially on a PvE server. The pet and feign death are great bail-outs for encounters gone bad.

Having you as a druid gives you the healing and buff support (MotW best buff in game). You can heal yourself, the hunter, and the pet efficeintly - more mana efficiently than the hunter mend pet especially. Plus if either of you get low on mana pop up an innervate to reduce your downtime. I have a feral druid that I run with my hunter friend and our downtime is minimal and there is little we can't handle.

Druid gear isn't too bad until you start looking for end-game gear. There is plenty of end-game healing and caster gear out there for druids, but little hybrid or pure feral gear (I disagree for the most part but that is the common QQ in the WoW forums). But since that's away off for you two you should be fine quite a while. Other than that you might be competing for similiar gear if she goes feral since you'll both be in leather until the hunter gets mail armor at lvl 40 -- more so if you go feral specced.

I hope this helps. Good hunting and congrats on having a significant other that's willing to game with you.

odd.. never heard anyone say that any of the Druid forms (Bear or Cat) were anything BUT highly gear dependant.

If your trying to grind up an alt.

There are duoing so the dps can come from somewhere else. They also only have 10 day trials so they probably wont be hitting much past lvl 20.

I didnt heed the call of gear dependancy till at least 25 if not 30. And I mostly solo except for some instances with the GWJ crew. I wasnt feral spec'd and this was before the talent revamp and buff that made agi worth have as much attack power as strength.

Just let her play the hunter.

Pet management can seem complicated to an MMO newbie. You're essentially playing two characters.

Perhaps if she were walking into it solely I'd agree. Since he's played one and is familiar with its functions and nuances and she'd likely be playing along with him I think she'd be in good shape. The pet as a fighting companion that you can pick-out on your own from a large variety of creatures can also be a compelling draw for those new to the genre.

Also, the Hunter is dead easy once you get your pet. You have a built-in tank any time you want to do something.
Macros or add-ons like Clique make the pet-management a non-issue by combining things like Hunter's Mark with PetAttack(). But yes, it might be daunting.

I dont know. Pets can be a juggling act. Advanced players will use this to great advantage.

New players can get frustrated if the pet falls off a cliff or bridge and sends an army of insta death.

Having both the player and pet is almost like doubling the chances of aggroing an add. Those types of encounters are easy for the advanced hunter, and relished by them, but very frustrating for the newb.

Also, the Hunter is dead easy once you get your pet.

Ok, this is misleading. Hunters and their pets are a unique pairing. The assumption that it's easy to balance what a hunter does and what their pet is supposed to do is not. No matter what type of pet you have a hunter needs to focus on bringing the mob down as fast as possible before drawing aggro off the pet itself. The player needs to be able to get the pet to maintain aggro on however many number of mobs you're fighting, and learn to get the pet to aggro extra mobs if need be. If your pet dies, then you're also probably in for a corpse run and a while for some downtime. Pets in a group can also be a difficult skill to learn, as it sucks to break any stunning form (poly, root, etc) but at the same time, making sure your pet is being effective as an additional member.

Pets can actually be a hindrance to new players as well. Try taking a pet to an instance and helping to wipe out the whole group because you left a pet on aggressive or made a jump w/o dismissing. I've yet to meet a person playing with a pet class that hasn't caused some type of mishap that that hurt the group. And without the pet, a hunter needs to learn what skills can still keep them on top of the DPS charts.

Playing as a hunter myself, I know a lot of people assume that hunters are an "easy" class to play. IMHO whenever you add extra variables like a pet to the equation, you increase the chance of a bad situation. I've met plenty of people who assume they know how to play a good hunter... but when you see yourself stacked against the better or best hunters who can 2-3 shot an opposing PVPer or a high level mob, your ideas of what a good hunter drastically change.

I'm not going to suggest a class that's easy to play, it really depends on what you want to get from it and if I did say 1 class was easier than others I'd probably get a hundred differing opinions, just try as many classes as she wants until she falls into something she likes... then she'll have a good time.

BTW Dorfen Hunters FTW! 'nuff said.

BTW Dorfen Hunters FTW! 'nuff said.

Dorfen Female Hunters FTW you mean! =P

If you're a girl, then yes, you can play a girl.