Kethcup
Veteran
Level up your future level 19 to level 44, and grind BG/Dungeon gear there. 44's drop down to 19 which is the end of the 10-19 category.
Of classes that look the most "complete" at level 19, here's a list
DK: I'd guess ok but not great. No Chains of Ice or Death's Advance means it's likely that DK twinks will get kited hard.
- Blood Death Knight probably won't be "viable" as a twink, but it does have damage mitigation at that level.
- Frost also won't be super viable, but does have plenty of AOE damage (decent in BGs.).
- Unholy on the other hand looks great--between the fact that they get a DPS cooldown at 19 as well as new Mastery stacking from as earlier as 10 makes them a viable alternative to Survival Hunter.
DH: Seems pretty broken as a level 19 twink, both specs. You get a ton of baseline moves including a DPS cooldown and an AOE stun, and mastery stacking means you won't get super kited (combined with DHs plenty of mobility tools, most of which they get at level 1.)
- Havoc of course will be great. Blind Fury as a 15 talent makes DH good all by itself, that combined with Azerite will be the new top tier I predict.
- Vengence looks like a good guardian druid, but everything is dependent on scaling IMO.
Druid: If Wowhead is correct, all specs get Sunfire and Moonfire... or only get Moonfire. I'm not really sure. One thing is for sure and that's low level druids have much more utility in their other forms. Might be a buff, might be a nerf, impossible to really tell rn.
- Balance of course will be fine, it's currently one of the best specs in the twinking scene and I don't expect that to change. Eclipse mechanic is back so it might be slightly harder to ramp into the high damage output Boomkin twinks are known for.
- Feral has no Rip or Interrupt. Definitely won't improve.
- Guardian Druid has always been pretty trash in low level BGs.
- Resto, like Balance, will probably be fine. Ironbark being baseline is fantastic, and Swiftmend's change is arguably an improvment (need more input from Resto druid mains).
Hunter: Mostly seems like it's been dumpstered across the board, the new tools added to Hunter's kit seem mostly useless and a lot of baseline abilities have been nerfed/moved ahead.
- Beast Mastery can't tame exotic beasts, and benefit only a bit from Hunter's Mark. No beastial wrath. Probably the least changed hunter spec, since the only new tools you'll ever use are hunter's mark and steady shot in the rare circumstance you run out of focus.
- Marksmanship has no Precise Shots nor Rapid Fire. That's huge, but aimed shot is likely strong enough that the spec won't be hit too hard.
- Survival literally has no changes, and the additional tools are completely useless. Pass.
Mage: Some of these changes seem amazing, some of them seem pointless. Let me illustrate.
- Arcane Mage has two new "notable" additions, those being Arcane Gem (+10% mana potions for free, essentially mana version of lockrock) and Frostbolt. Gem is decent since Arcane is still missle spam (that essentially means +1 additional AM cast), while Frostbolt is useful since it's a snare. Something that hurts is that there's no evocation til 20. It's unclear if Arcane Mage has clearcasting, so can't really say if Arcane Mage has changed at all or not.
- OMG Fire Mage is back on the menu. Mastery means Ignite is active, with Pheonix Flames spreading it. Frostbolt snares, and Fire Blast crits. Good stuff, I imagine it'll be much better than current 19 Fire Mage.
- Frost Mage also got a huge addition--Arcane Explosion. Now during AOE, you can cast Frost Nova, Blizzard AND ARCANE EXPLOSION, which does HUGE damage. Frost Mage is gonna be top tier easily. Also Icicles.
Monk: Wait, are we in Pandaria? Oh dear, the Monks are evolving. Also all monks get Speak Hand Strike (interrupt), Mystic Touch (increased physical damage), AND Touch of Death (huge)
- Brewmaster has basically all of their important rotational moves. This is huge. Bremaster has access to AOE, Single Target, Shuffle, and Guard(!!). If their damage is at all okay, Brewmaster will likely be the best tank for twinks.
- Mistweaver looks great, but there's only two big additions that matter--Spear Hand Strike (a healer with an interrupt? IMPOSSIBRU!) and Essence Font. You heard that, Mistweavers have an BURST AOE HEAL. AT LEVEL 19.
- Windwalker also looks decent, the two biggest things they get though are a DPS cooldown (Storm Earth Fire :\ yaayy...) and the Mortal Strikes debuff on Sun Rising Kick. They'll be pretty strong too I'd guess.
Paladin: All specs got Holy Power, as well as Divine Shield and Lay on Hands, the latter two helping their viability immensely.
- Holy Paladin is probably the least effected by the changes. The only Holy Power spenders they get are an instant single target heal that heals about the same amount as Holy Light, as well as Shield of the Righteous, which if your willing to sacrifice some damage helps your survival immensely. You also get Divine Steed, so that's cool.
- Protection Paladin unfortunately dosen't seem great. Their only HP spenders are the same as Holy, only their heals are much lower and their damage is also lower. Blessed Hammer is also a must-pick since you don't get Hammer of the Righteous (your Crusader Strike replacement) til level 20.
- Ret basically has no changes, other than the ability to heal with Word of Glory.
Priest: Actually seems pretty strong, all baseline abilities added seem strong (Mind Blast is a strong single target spike, SWDeath is a great execute button, SWPain on Holy helps their damage output a bunch, etc). However, there are a few problems.
- Disc doesn't get atonement, and it doesn't get the free absorption on Smite (it getting moved to Mind Blast, a bigger amount of absorb but unfortunately tied to a mini-cooldown). That is a pretty big nerf.
- Holy seems to have improved the most though. Seems to have lots of damage moves (SWDeath + Holy Fire is a lot of sustain damage), great spot healing (Renew + PW:Shield is huge), great burst (Serenity), and access to Mastery helps out a bunch too.
- Shadow seems incomplete, since their only Madness spender is a 1.5 minute cooldown. You also don't get Vampiric Touch til 31, meaning you only have Fortress of the Mind for talents. I'd literally avoid this spec like the bane for now.
Rogue: Seems fine, Instant Poison is a good addition and things like baseline SnD and Ambush seem healthy overall.
- Assassination seems fine. No Kidney Shot or Garrote silence hurts, but it's ok. Also, no Crippling Poison hurts Asassination's ability to chase.
- Since Outlaw's [Roll the Bones] got reworked, Outlaw has acess to a DPS cooldown... of sorts. No gouge hurts though.
- SUBTLETY IS GOING TO BE BROKEN. Energetic Recovery (buffing SnD to increase Energy Regen by a significant amount) combined with Shadow Techniques (making Auto Attacks restore energy) means Sub Rogues will never run out of energy. Combine that with their Armor Pierce, Rupture, and Gloomblade, and we've got a new single target king.
Shaman: Pretty much all shaman got reworked, so I'm not sure how to broach the topic.
Warlock: Unending Resolve is baseline level 1! Well, sort of. It's just a 20% damage reduction. There are a lot of reasons Warlocks are going to be good in the 19 bracket though, including Succubus, Curse of Weakness dealing with the pesky Sub Rogues and DHs, and spec specific stuff.
- Affliction looks LIT this expansion. Inevitable Demise is a level 15 talent (which I'm sure will stack with Azerite lul), Maleific Rupture deals around a quarter of Chaos Bolt's damage (factoring in the crit) for each DOT on any target. You have access to both Seed of Corruption and the newly changed Unstable Affliction.
- Demonology looks kinda bad on the other hand. The only new tool they have is a casted version of Corruption, and they don't get either Demonic Core nor Implosion.
- Destrolocks got a lot of new tools. Havoc, Rain of Fire, as well as Succubus means there's way more cleave damage.
Warrior: Warrior is an interesting case. Let me explain in detail
- Arms looks like it's pretty much the same as normal, except they get Colossus Smash, and Deep Wounds was FINALLY made more proactive. Probably decent.
- Fury will play like normal. However, they no longer (at least level 19 twink Warriors) use Whirlwind as a GCD filler, which makes Fury strictly single target. Still, Fury has an interesting utility in being able to survive heavily due to Ignore Pain being baseline--this is pretty good especially for Fury since they generate Rage so quickly. I imagine Fury Warrior in BGs and Arena will be played like any of the tank specs due to this reason.
- Prot looks exactly the same as Prot does now in the 19 bracket. They do gain Execute which helps a bit but other than that, they seem poor.
Now, if you want to gear up a new 19, level the character to 44 and grind. I'm personally thinking of getting a Holy Priest and an Afflic Warlock.
Peace.
"Kethcup"
Post Mortem update: Why oh why do the classic priest acronyms create emojis
Of classes that look the most "complete" at level 19, here's a list
DK: I'd guess ok but not great. No Chains of Ice or Death's Advance means it's likely that DK twinks will get kited hard.
- Blood Death Knight probably won't be "viable" as a twink, but it does have damage mitigation at that level.
- Frost also won't be super viable, but does have plenty of AOE damage (decent in BGs.).
- Unholy on the other hand looks great--between the fact that they get a DPS cooldown at 19 as well as new Mastery stacking from as earlier as 10 makes them a viable alternative to Survival Hunter.
DH: Seems pretty broken as a level 19 twink, both specs. You get a ton of baseline moves including a DPS cooldown and an AOE stun, and mastery stacking means you won't get super kited (combined with DHs plenty of mobility tools, most of which they get at level 1.)
- Havoc of course will be great. Blind Fury as a 15 talent makes DH good all by itself, that combined with Azerite will be the new top tier I predict.
- Vengence looks like a good guardian druid, but everything is dependent on scaling IMO.
Druid: If Wowhead is correct, all specs get Sunfire and Moonfire... or only get Moonfire. I'm not really sure. One thing is for sure and that's low level druids have much more utility in their other forms. Might be a buff, might be a nerf, impossible to really tell rn.
- Balance of course will be fine, it's currently one of the best specs in the twinking scene and I don't expect that to change. Eclipse mechanic is back so it might be slightly harder to ramp into the high damage output Boomkin twinks are known for.
- Feral has no Rip or Interrupt. Definitely won't improve.
- Guardian Druid has always been pretty trash in low level BGs.
- Resto, like Balance, will probably be fine. Ironbark being baseline is fantastic, and Swiftmend's change is arguably an improvment (need more input from Resto druid mains).
Hunter: Mostly seems like it's been dumpstered across the board, the new tools added to Hunter's kit seem mostly useless and a lot of baseline abilities have been nerfed/moved ahead.
- Beast Mastery can't tame exotic beasts, and benefit only a bit from Hunter's Mark. No beastial wrath. Probably the least changed hunter spec, since the only new tools you'll ever use are hunter's mark and steady shot in the rare circumstance you run out of focus.
- Marksmanship has no Precise Shots nor Rapid Fire. That's huge, but aimed shot is likely strong enough that the spec won't be hit too hard.
- Survival literally has no changes, and the additional tools are completely useless. Pass.
Mage: Some of these changes seem amazing, some of them seem pointless. Let me illustrate.
- Arcane Mage has two new "notable" additions, those being Arcane Gem (+10% mana potions for free, essentially mana version of lockrock) and Frostbolt. Gem is decent since Arcane is still missle spam (that essentially means +1 additional AM cast), while Frostbolt is useful since it's a snare. Something that hurts is that there's no evocation til 20. It's unclear if Arcane Mage has clearcasting, so can't really say if Arcane Mage has changed at all or not.
- OMG Fire Mage is back on the menu. Mastery means Ignite is active, with Pheonix Flames spreading it. Frostbolt snares, and Fire Blast crits. Good stuff, I imagine it'll be much better than current 19 Fire Mage.
- Frost Mage also got a huge addition--Arcane Explosion. Now during AOE, you can cast Frost Nova, Blizzard AND ARCANE EXPLOSION, which does HUGE damage. Frost Mage is gonna be top tier easily. Also Icicles.
Monk: Wait, are we in Pandaria? Oh dear, the Monks are evolving. Also all monks get Speak Hand Strike (interrupt), Mystic Touch (increased physical damage), AND Touch of Death (huge)
- Brewmaster has basically all of their important rotational moves. This is huge. Bremaster has access to AOE, Single Target, Shuffle, and Guard(!!). If their damage is at all okay, Brewmaster will likely be the best tank for twinks.
- Mistweaver looks great, but there's only two big additions that matter--Spear Hand Strike (a healer with an interrupt? IMPOSSIBRU!) and Essence Font. You heard that, Mistweavers have an BURST AOE HEAL. AT LEVEL 19.
- Windwalker also looks decent, the two biggest things they get though are a DPS cooldown (Storm Earth Fire :\ yaayy...) and the Mortal Strikes debuff on Sun Rising Kick. They'll be pretty strong too I'd guess.
Paladin: All specs got Holy Power, as well as Divine Shield and Lay on Hands, the latter two helping their viability immensely.
- Holy Paladin is probably the least effected by the changes. The only Holy Power spenders they get are an instant single target heal that heals about the same amount as Holy Light, as well as Shield of the Righteous, which if your willing to sacrifice some damage helps your survival immensely. You also get Divine Steed, so that's cool.
- Protection Paladin unfortunately dosen't seem great. Their only HP spenders are the same as Holy, only their heals are much lower and their damage is also lower. Blessed Hammer is also a must-pick since you don't get Hammer of the Righteous (your Crusader Strike replacement) til level 20.
- Ret basically has no changes, other than the ability to heal with Word of Glory.
Priest: Actually seems pretty strong, all baseline abilities added seem strong (Mind Blast is a strong single target spike, SWDeath is a great execute button, SWPain on Holy helps their damage output a bunch, etc). However, there are a few problems.
- Disc doesn't get atonement, and it doesn't get the free absorption on Smite (it getting moved to Mind Blast, a bigger amount of absorb but unfortunately tied to a mini-cooldown). That is a pretty big nerf.
- Holy seems to have improved the most though. Seems to have lots of damage moves (SWDeath + Holy Fire is a lot of sustain damage), great spot healing (Renew + PW:Shield is huge), great burst (Serenity), and access to Mastery helps out a bunch too.
- Shadow seems incomplete, since their only Madness spender is a 1.5 minute cooldown. You also don't get Vampiric Touch til 31, meaning you only have Fortress of the Mind for talents. I'd literally avoid this spec like the bane for now.
Rogue: Seems fine, Instant Poison is a good addition and things like baseline SnD and Ambush seem healthy overall.
- Assassination seems fine. No Kidney Shot or Garrote silence hurts, but it's ok. Also, no Crippling Poison hurts Asassination's ability to chase.
- Since Outlaw's [Roll the Bones] got reworked, Outlaw has acess to a DPS cooldown... of sorts. No gouge hurts though.
- SUBTLETY IS GOING TO BE BROKEN. Energetic Recovery (buffing SnD to increase Energy Regen by a significant amount) combined with Shadow Techniques (making Auto Attacks restore energy) means Sub Rogues will never run out of energy. Combine that with their Armor Pierce, Rupture, and Gloomblade, and we've got a new single target king.
Shaman: Pretty much all shaman got reworked, so I'm not sure how to broach the topic.
Warlock: Unending Resolve is baseline level 1! Well, sort of. It's just a 20% damage reduction. There are a lot of reasons Warlocks are going to be good in the 19 bracket though, including Succubus, Curse of Weakness dealing with the pesky Sub Rogues and DHs, and spec specific stuff.
- Affliction looks LIT this expansion. Inevitable Demise is a level 15 talent (which I'm sure will stack with Azerite lul), Maleific Rupture deals around a quarter of Chaos Bolt's damage (factoring in the crit) for each DOT on any target. You have access to both Seed of Corruption and the newly changed Unstable Affliction.
- Demonology looks kinda bad on the other hand. The only new tool they have is a casted version of Corruption, and they don't get either Demonic Core nor Implosion.
- Destrolocks got a lot of new tools. Havoc, Rain of Fire, as well as Succubus means there's way more cleave damage.
Warrior: Warrior is an interesting case. Let me explain in detail
- Arms looks like it's pretty much the same as normal, except they get Colossus Smash, and Deep Wounds was FINALLY made more proactive. Probably decent.
- Fury will play like normal. However, they no longer (at least level 19 twink Warriors) use Whirlwind as a GCD filler, which makes Fury strictly single target. Still, Fury has an interesting utility in being able to survive heavily due to Ignore Pain being baseline--this is pretty good especially for Fury since they generate Rage so quickly. I imagine Fury Warrior in BGs and Arena will be played like any of the tank specs due to this reason.
- Prot looks exactly the same as Prot does now in the 19 bracket. They do gain Execute which helps a bit but other than that, they seem poor.
Now, if you want to gear up a new 19, level the character to 44 and grind. I'm personally thinking of getting a Holy Priest and an Afflic Warlock.
Peace.
"Kethcup"
Post Mortem update: Why oh why do the classic priest acronyms create emojis
