[pasi]

Class balance is different horde/alliance wise and also changes from raid to raid, but here goes from an early vanilla (MC/BWL).

Warriors: With gear, kings of PvE DPS alliance side due to blessing of salvation. Horde side, they are capable of more damage with windfury (versus BoKings) They are also the only viable tank for raiding. Vanilla raids will require multiple tanks and the prot tree is garbage until mid BWL, so you can do a 31/5/15 spec and be happy in all aspects of the game.

PvP wise, they are the only class with a % based healing reduction (wound poison sucks), so they are by far the most important DPS class for group PvP. Intercept makes them the most mobile melee class in PvP as well. However, they are very gear dependent as the rage mechanic isn't scaled yet.

Rogues: PvE wise, they're probably the best DPS class since they don't require dick for gear to do good damage (unlike warriors). You can do very good DPS with a barman shanker from BRD. We no joke used 13 rogues for our first Ragnaros kill (early early on Ragnaros would bug out after the first sons phase, so you had to kill him before sons). They have multiple ways of dropping aggro which is very important for vanilla raiding.

PvP wise, they are very strong due to the amount of control they have between cheap shot, kidney shot, gouge, kick, sap, and blind. Their damage is pretty solid as well.

Mages: PvE wise, their damage is mediocre, but they are ranged which is a gigantic advantage in Vanilla. Like all caster DPS, they have mana issues unless you chug mana potions. There isn't a ton of +spellpower stuff early on to improve your damage either. Once raid gear gets re-itemized, they become a little better, but early on, itemization sucks. It doesn't help that fire is basically worthless in MC/BWL. They are also the defacto AE class.

PvP wise, they have the best burst in the game via AP/PoM and the best CC in the game via frost nova, polymorph, and counterspell being fucking 10 seconds. They are also the best class for breaking cloak of fire which would allow a mage with iceblock and ZG/ToEP to win 1v40. Frost mages are basically impossible to kill in world PvP and their combo of CC/burst makes them by far the best class for objective based PvP (BGs). Oh yeah, they also have the best ranged AoE for shit like AV/Southshore.

Warlocks: PvE wise, their curses (recklessness, elements, and shadows) imp, summoning, and soulstones are great utility. Shadow damage stuff is under-budgetted and way more available than spellpower. They're basically above mages if you have a shadowpriest and below mages if you don't. Like druids, even if they suck in PvE, you have to bring them for their unique CC (banish), brez (soulstone), and buff (imp). There are also a gimmick fight or two where warlocks make the best tanks due to their ability to mitigate spell damage.

PvP wise, there are significant differences between a horde lock and an alliance lock. In vanilla, you can expect around half the horde to be undead. Will of the Forsaken is 30 seconds of fear immunity every 2 minutes. WotF wrecks warlocks, and only alliance locks have to face it. Horde locks can roll Orc which enables them to get a ton of stun resistance (stuns also wreck locks). Horde locks also do not have to deal with Earth Shock (interrupt on a 5 second cooldown). Lastly, curse of tongues absolutely wrecks paladins (and priests to a lesser degree), but is only a minor nuisance to shaman who can dispel it. Alliance requires a druid (non-existent outside of FCs) or a mage to dispel it. Resists curses originally allowed players to have negative resists which amplified damage. This meant that you could often 1 shot people with some luck as a warlock. Thus, they're ridiculous horde side, but meh alliance side.

Hunters: PvE wise, they are the most desirable DPS class. They are a solid #3 behind rogues and warriors, but they are ranged and thus require little to no support. They have the best aggro dump in the game which also allowed them to rez and drink. In addition to being ranged, hunters require little gear relative to other classes. Weapon speed scaling made their best weapon a level 30 xbow until the chrommagus xbow.

PvP wise, frost trap is probably the most anti-melee ability in the game. However, fights are rarely stationary in vanilla since worthwhile PvP is basically BGs. It took until arena for people to realize how broken frost trap is. Hunters excel at controlling a midfield. Viper sting wrecks priests and mages, and their damage is incredible on cloth/leather. The ZG trinket which resets their cooldowns makes their burst very strong. Their damage and mana drain is very strong, but the class lacks good CC.

The rest to be continued.

Shit, saw it was 1.12 talents. A lot of this don't apply!