Most powerful WOW character/class for solo-play?

[MongoJerry]

So, we have the following options for "Farmers":

- Gold Farmer (for auctions and second-tier, but not elite equipment because it's usually bind-on-pickup)
- Outdoor Item Farmer (for second-tier equipment, and some elite equipment that may not fit your class)
- Instance Farmer* (for first-class, elite equipment)

Basically, I'd combine the Gold Farmer and Outdoor Farmer like this:

• 
  <>
  
• Outdoor gold and resource node farmer (a cash, mining, and herbal node farmer)
  
  <>
  
• Instance farmer (for the best equipment)
  <>
  [st]
  
  Basically, my point was the pure "Outdoor Item Farmer" isn't a viable option at all.
  
  

  A question here: Does instance farming always yield (elite) equipment that fits your character class, and most important, how is loot distributed in an instance group? Does everyone get his fair share of the loot right into his inventory, or will there be the awful, greedy item grabbing we know from Diablo II?

  
  Ah, whew, this issue is worth a whole guide in itself. Maybe that should be my next writeup. There are several settings like "round-robin," "group loot," and "master loot." I'll skip the details of those settings here for brevity sake and say that in well functioning parties, the loot is divided by the principle of "need before greed." That is, if an item is good for one of the characters in the party and that character will use the item, then he or she gets the item. If more than one character can use the item, they roll for it via the command "/random 100" which rolls a random number between 1-100 that the whole party can see. If no one in the party needs the item, then people roll for "greed" -- or the right to sell it to a vendor for cash or to disenchant the item.
  
  There are of course jerks in WoW, but there are reasons why the situation tends to be better in WoW than in Diablo II. First, instance runs are typically on the order of three hours as opposed to the usual 30 second Baal run, and there are usually several minibosses in any instance run who drop decent loot. This means that if someone "ninja-loots" an item, they know they're going to get kicked out of the group and lose any chance of getting any further and possibly better loot down the line. Second, the individual WoW server community is smaller than that of DII. In D2, you were always mixed in with the huge D2 community at large and could remain largely anonymous. The WoW population, by contrast, will be broken down into smaller chunks. In this case, it is possible for black-listing to have a serious effect on someone's chances of getting into high level instance groups. There is a default "ignore" list where you can place people like that, and I understand that some UI mods like Cosmos are coming up with even stronger black-listing schemes. Word does spread and if you ninja loot too many times, you will find it almost impossible to group up in high level instance parties. Consider how raid parties make this even harder than before. If you ninja loot a couple of times, chances are that when you join a 40-man raid party, someone who saw you ninja loot will also be there and report it. Result: Immediate banning from the raid. I saw that happen to several people -- some of whom deleted their characters in frustration.
  
  

  Well, like MongoJerry, I'm going to play just sporadically.

  
  Whoops! I'm sorry, that was just a rhetorical thing I was doing that I gave up later. I should've edited that paragraph before posting. I was just saying that if the reason you want to solo was because of Reason #1, then... blah blah. I'm too addicted to the game to play for a small amount of time.
  
  

  I think it will be the Orc or Tauren "Shaman" for occasional WOW solo-gaming for both outdoor farming and instance farming. Does anyone have any arguments, or a beta-report, that could prevent me from playing a "Shaman"? :) How well is the "Shaman" class currently balanced, and does it make a difference which race you pick for the "Shaman": Orc, Tauren or Troll?

  
  I think it's a good choice. I've only played a shaman to the mid-20's, but I enjoyed it very much and that was before talents came along. They seem to be pretty popular, at least as far as I can tell from looking at the enemy. They make good PvPers as well, by the way. I haven't played horde in a long time, though, so I can't give you much more than that. I'll be playing Horde on release as well, though.