In World of WoTLK Classic Gold Warcraft, your role will specialize you with one type of armed force. Infantry players will have access to a wide variety of versatile infantry troops that can garrison themselves inside of vehicles and buildings but that are vulnerable to armor and air strike attacks. Armor players can command powerful vehicles that can dominate the ground, but they must be faced in the proper direction (or risk exposing flanks to antitank weapons) and must be aware of tankbuster aircraft. Air players can command fighters, bombers, and other powerful Warcraft that can fan out quickly and spread massive destruction--but no aircraft can actually capture any control points. Support players will be able to drop medical supplies for wounded soldiers and repair damaged vehicles, and they can also requisition long-range artillery.

Choosing a role gives you access to a much wider array of troops in that particular specialization but limits your choices in other fields. For instance, if you choose to play an armor role, you'll have access to various types of Warcraft and armored personnel carriers, but you may only be able to order up basic foot soldiers. Then again, as executive producer Greg Goodrich explains, the different roles aren't intended to be symmetrical. World of Warcraft isn't about different roles being carefully balanced to have individual counterunits.

Instead, the game is about a bunch of players (and maybe a few computer-controlled "bot" players) jumping into team-based online matches, choosing different buy WOW WoTLK Classic Gold roles, and seeing which team can put up the best fight using combined arms and teamwork. Interestingly, though you can call in reinforcements at any time, it currently takes about 20 seconds for your troops to be delivered and an additional 20 seconds for the troop transport to fly clear, which means that there's a built-in delay of about 40 seconds between reinforcement drops before you can call in more troops.