20s solo viability

Hey all,
I've played in the past expansion with a druid(20) and a mage(10).
Now I came back and was wondering if its how viable is doing solo dungeons on an f2p? Is 20 a good choice for it and what class is best?
I would think a tank is a must.

Welcome back. 20s are still viable, but not as strong as they used to be. If you have the SL healing gem you have more solo options, otherwise Rogues are notably more difficult. Most of the tank classes have good solo ability though. I use a DH, which is mobile but does rely more on those healing gems. The warr is good too, DK fall slightly behind only because of rune exhaustion, Pally is good but takes time to clear. Druid is a good option all around too. Specifc healers like Priest and Shaman especially are pretty potent, lookin' at you, Shaman.

At level 20 a lot of classes can pull off soloing dungeons. Tanks can do it, Healers can do it, and DPS with a pet can do it.

Which is to say Rogues and Mages have the hardest time soloing (if they can even pull it off at all).

Whatever class you use, if you can disengage from a boss and heal up back to full reliably; then it's a viable class.

I've found Warrior and Druid to be the easiest to solo with because they have the strongest self-sustain. I give the edge to Warrior though because they can disengage with heroic leap and kite so that Second Wind can heal them up to full without doing anything. A druid however will need to sprint and use a heal.

how are they compared to lower level chars with scaling? are the 20s still better?

Rahn said:

At level 20 a lot of classes can pull off soloing dungeons. Tanks can do it, Healers can do it, and DPS with a pet can do it.

Which is to say Rogues and Mages have the hardest time soloing (if they can even pull it off at all).

Whatever class you use, if you can disengage from a boss and heal up back to full reliably; then it's a viable class.

I've found Warrior and Druid to be the easiest to solo with because they have the strongest self-sustain. I give the edge to Warrior though because they can disengage with heroic leap and kite so that Second Wind can heal them up to full without doing anything. A druid however will need to sprint and use a heal.

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Prot pala is very strong as well. Lots of saves, so u just cannot die. He is not the fastest cleaner, but very safe.

Vestigial said:

how are they compared to lower level chars with scaling? are the 20s still better?

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10s/11s are stronger than 20s.

Remember, level 20 on a free-to-play account is the only level that can currently access Battlegrounds for free without XP gain. Peace and All Good!

how frequent are the 20s que?
also is there a way to use dungeon finder for solo, or i need to go to the dungeons myself?

Battlegrounds have been quite frequent lately, especially during peak hours—almost like raid times. I just queued and it showed 17 minutes, but it can vary from 10–30 minutes up to an hour depending on how many players are online. Interestingly, everyone gets scaled to level 29, which makes things feel more balanced, I think. Twinks at level 11 and even 10 can still be very strong for dungeons, despite the recent changes, but they still can't queue for BGs yet—not even level 19s xpoffed in f2p account, however they can xpoffedly in a payed account. I know this might be more of a PvE point, but I think it's worth highlighting here as well.

So a level 20 character with XP turned off can't queue for battlegrounds on a free account. However, a level 20 twink with XP disabled on a paid account—or one that naturally remains at level 20 on a free account without disabling XP—can queue for BGs. If you ever decide to upgrade to a paid account, make sure to disable XP before switching, so your level 20 twinks remain eligible for battlegrounds later in possible veteran account again, if God wants it. Then, if you want to return to a veteran account later, just make sure XP is disabled after your game time expires for possible queue again as twink level 20 remained in free-account-player again.

Having a level 29 twink could be a good option too if your account is subscribed. Twink characters are well-scaled and balanced across brackets, allowing each level range to be very competitive.

Peace and All Good!
It is very helpfull to know what means Plenary Indulgency!
Thank you very much to Copilot, Microsoft IA for helpping us!
Amen, Amen!

Vestigial said:

how are they compared to lower level chars with scaling? are the 20s still better?

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Not in PvE, at least until the scaling changes drastically enough for 20s to be competitive in that aspect.
That said : 20s are perfectly capable of soloing.

As a matter of fact, besides Rogues and Mages that rely heavily on SL gems and quite often fall short even with these, any class has at least one spec that can solo.

For small tips, firstly, if you want the safest class, go pally. Prot pally has enough tools to for all situations and while it might not be the absolute best in single-target the toolkit we get is so mandatory to the class it is very unlikely we'll lose the essentials (solid AoE, healing and damage mitigation with emergency buttons).
Right now Ret and Holy can work to solo as well, be careful to your health though, especially on Ret.

For DH : Manage your heals. If you do so, it's almost Paladin-like in the other aspects. DPS spec is nowhere near as good.

Druid : Same as DH, manage your heals / procs / mitigation and you're good. Cat invisibilty is an incredible tool and you have solid damage as Bear. Resto works as well, just a little less good overall in all aspects but healing.

DK : Unholy and Frost can work, you'll have a bad time compared to Blood though.
I can't chant the praises of this spec enough. Yes you won't always have runes and the rotatipn can feel a bit clunky at first but it's not impacting your survivability and it's nothing some haste and experience can't fix. Arguably (to me it is) the best AoE available at 20. I mean look : uncapped, hard-hitting, DoT-proccing and self-healing in a single button, some more AoE in Death and Decay / Cleaving Strikes, good mitigation with Bone Armor and a shitload of HP, good ST/self-healing with Death Strike and a load of solid damage mitigation. Oh and also the Death Coil / Lichborne combo for an easy full heal.
Only downside is mobility but hey, SL speed gems (you only need 8 or 9 if memory serves).
You can easily pull 3 packs of 4 mobs, even more with SL healing gems. You can pull way more than any other class can even dream of, burn them down faster than any other class do and you still have very solid single-target.

Stop sleeping on DK, they're one of the best classes at level 20 for this xpac (let's hope it continues in Midnight).

Warrior : Same as DK for dps specs, Prot is incredible is AoE, best damage mitigation and solid heals. To me it feels like a tankier but weaker DK. Don't waste your heals and keep IP up.

Monk : Very amusing. The tank spec is easy to learn and surprisingly tanky. I remember MW somewhat working for soloing (good ST damage) and WW being a terrible time against anything hitting harder than a 5 years-old but I only ever played BM so it's prolly just me.


Outside of Tank specs, Shamans eat the best.
All specs are excellent, Enhance is slower in packs due to lacking AoE but works anyways.
Pick earth shield and the double shield talent on DPS, just go nuts on damage with Resto.
Resto is tanky, hits way harder than it should, is also quitr tanky and has the best healing spell in the game (in my opinion haha) with Riptide. This and Earth Shield are enough, blast everything at all times.

Priest : All are solid.
Shadow has damage, Disc the bulk, Holy is an in-between. All are decently tanky.
Pick depending on the difficulty of the instance. Keep PW : S up and you're good.

Warlock : make sure you don't grab too much aggro, you have insane healing, insane damage and well, even without a pet I'm sure you could still solo.

Hunter : a fair bit squishier. Keep aggro off you at ALL TIMES, use FD or Misdirection to help (Misdirection is only that useful against taunt-immune bosses). Keep your pet healing up at all times, use Exhilaration when needed and pick Rejuvinating Winds and Wilderness Medecine to help with that. Aspect of the Turtle into revive pet if he dies.
All specs are very strong. When geared I tend to prefer Surv (as you also have insane weapon options) but BM is way safer. MM works if you pick the pet talent.

Evokers : prettt sure they're strong. I don't know shit about them sorry.

Yzerman said:

Prot pala is very strong as well. Lots of saves, so u just cannot die. He is not the fastest cleaner, but very safe.

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Personally I find Prot Paladin to be somewhat on the weaker side both in damage and survivability (and this is despite my level 20 paladin being probably my best geared of the 20s I have). Whenever I push the limits of what a level 20 can do, I find Paladins have a much rougher time of it: They can't AoE as much, their survivability while similar to other tank classes it falls off a cliff the moment you start to run out of mana. They have to stay in their own consecration to maintain maximum survivability, but other tanks have the freedom to keep moving while maintaining optimal damage reduction, on top of that they suffer higher damage spikes. Most of this stuff isn't noticeable for most content, but when I started poking at LWing Pandaria world bosses these issues started shaking out, which is unfortunate because my Paladin is the level 20 I focused most of my achievement collecting on.

I absolutely destroy dungeons on my 20 Druid. No deep thinking or challenge. I don’t even use SL gems in most cases.

The only thing that 11s truly might have an edge over 20s is TW dungeons.

11 warriors might feel stronger cleaving through trash but I would imagine clear times would be about the same overall, especially if you skip trash and mechanics on a 20.

TLDR don’t overthink it. If you want to play 20 you’re going to be more than fine running whatever content you want to.

Rahn said:

Personally I find Prot Paladin to be somewhat on the weaker side both in damage and survivability (and this is despite my level 20 paladin being probably my best geared of the 20s I have). Whenever I push the limits of what a level 20 can do, I find Paladins have a much rougher time of it: They can't AoE as much, their survivability while similar to other tank classes it falls off a cliff the moment you start to run out of mana. They have to stay in their own consecration to maintain maximum survivability, but other tanks have the freedom to keep moving while maintaining optimal damage reduction, on top of that they suffer higher damage spikes. Most of this stuff isn't noticeable for most content, but when I started poking at LWing Pandaria world bosses these issues started shaking out, which is unfortunate because my Paladin is the level 20 I focused most of my achievement collecting on.

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Well, I have a tank Dru and it is much stronger then Pala for sure.
But Pala is still viable. Damage is less, sadly. And compared to Prot War as well.
As for healing side, I use talent for free word of glory after 3 shields. And Crusader enchant helps a lot.
Anyway I play Pala mainly now for plate and weapons transmog. And it works well.

And I don't use any SL gems on my veteran characters, so only self sustain.

Are we talking f2p or xpoff? because a rogue with access to the healing gem can solo content, they have okay damage. Mine does around 400 dps on bosses as mut. The bonus to playing them is they can skip mob packs with stealth and just focus down bosses which is nice.