This site makes extensive use of JavaScript.
Please enable JavaScript in your browser.
Classic Theme
Thottbot Theme
Analyzing Warcraft Logs Phase 2 - WotLK Classic
Wrath
Posted
2023/06/20 at 10:20 AM
by
Simonize
With Trial of the Crusader coming
June 22nd
, we can look back at class performance in the second phase of raiding in Wrath of the Lich King Classic utilizing data from Warcraft Logs. The top contenders from Phase 1 remain near the top in Phase 2 such as Unholy Death Knights, Warlocks and Rogues. Not everything is the same though, with access to improved equipment the Fire Mage has narrowly taken the top spot and is now a serious contender. While not a top DPS class, the Shadow Priest has moved up significantly compared to Phase 1.
For this analysis we have used data from
Warcraft Logs Statistics
page for Ulduar, accessed on 5/31/2023. We are interested in the maximum potential of each class, so we are looking at the 95th percentile of representatives of each class, or the top 5%. 19 out of 20 players will not produce this much raw damage output, but usually the relative power level of the classes does not shift very much when moving down to players closer to median performance.
Warcraft Logs Ulduar Statistics Page
Ulduar Boss DPS Rankings
Ulduar Boss Damage - Screenshot taken 6/20/2023
The top competitive classes from last phase are joined also by Mages now in Ulduar. Death Knights, Rogues, and Warlocks remain very strong but the changing landscape of the raid and the improved equipment have shaken things up a bit. Let's talk a little about each of those classes.
Unholy Death Knights
The Unholy Death Knight is a very well rounded and powerful melee damage dealer. They have access to strong scaling talents like
Necrosis
and
Blood-Caked Blade
that get better and better the more powerful your equipment is. They have a single-target rotation that has AoE damage built-in with
Wandering Plague
talent, the
Pestilence
spell, and
Death and Decay
. This means they typically sacrifice little or no single target damage and just get "free" AoE when it is needed. On top of all that, they have one of the most powerful burst damage cooldowns in the game with their 51 point talent,
Summon Gargoyle
. Seeing all of this, it should not be hard to understand how this specialization continues to dominate the raiding scene.
Unholy Death Knights hold the #1 boss damage spot at the 95th percentile on 7 of the 13 encounters in Ulduar and only two really bad encounters with Hodir and General Vezax coming in at #13 and #14 for those.
Affliction Warlocks
In Phase 1 Warlocks had two strong specialization options with both Demonology and Affliction. With the enhanced gear in Phase 2 and superior scaling of Affliction, this specialization has really taken the spotlight for Warlocks in Phase 2. Usually competitive raids will bring one Demonology warlock specifically for the powerful
Demonic Pact
buff for the raid and have the rest of their warlocks be Affliction for superior individual damage output.
While you won't often find Affliction Warlock at the very top of the meter, this is a very versatile DPS class that has no truly awful encounters in Ulduar. There is only one boss where Affliction takes the #1 spot when looking at the 95th percentile performances (Mimiron), but across all bosses the worst place Affliction takes is #6. This reliable output is a great strength of the Affliction Warlock in Ulduar.
Something that separates Affliction Warlocks from other classes and specializations is the absurd power boost they get when their target is low health thanks to
Death's Embrace
and
Drain Soul
. Affliction Warlocks have arguably the strongest "execute phase" DPS of any class in the game, making them exceptional on encounters like
Yogg-Saron
with zero keepers where the final phase is the most difficult.
Rogues
Rogues suffer an unfortunate fate in Ulduar, with a number of encounters being exceptionally unfriendly to melee damage dealers. You can find Rogues holding a dominant #1 or close #2 spot on 8 of the 13 encounters for individual bosses, but falling to 9th, 10th, or worse place on unfavorable encounters like Hodir, Freya, Yogg-Saron, and General Vezax. Viewing all bosses together, these weak performances on a few bosses really hurts Rogues' overall ranking. While rogues are very good in the situations that they are good in, they are not as versatile as other classes so their performance depends on the encounter.
Some of the encounters have Assassination Rogues on top of the rankings, whereas others have Combat Rogues on top. The main quality that makes a fight good for combat is having multiple targets to deal damage to at once. Assassination excels at single target damage, whereas Combat has a clear advantage as soon as you add a second target for a juicy
Blade Flurry
+
Adrenaline Rush
+
Killing Spree
combo.
The popularity of Assassination is due in part to the simplicity of performing well with that specialization. The rotation is remarkably simple and there are no complicated snapshots, convoluted mechanics, or precise cooldown timings that need to be mastered in order to perform well. A simple rotation allows you to focus more attention on making sure you are doing fight mechanics properly which is especially relevant in the difficult Ulduar encounters.
Combat on the other hand is a more tricky specialization to perform well with. It involves three very powerful cooldowns and juggling two or three different buffs and debuffs while managing random resource generation from
Combat Potency
and
Ruthlessness
. Due to the increased complexity, Combat often needs a more capable player to perform at it's maximum potential and is less forgiving for newer players.
Fire Mages
Fire Mages are a new addition to the top ranking DPS classes in Phase 2. This is a talent specialization that relies heavily on critical strikes due to talents like
Ignite
and
Hot Streak
. In Phase 1 the gear was just not available to get high enough critical strike chance for this specialization to really shine. Now with powerful hard mode loot in Ulduar the Fire Mage is really coming into form with access to significantly higher critical strike chance.
As it is with most classes, Fire Mages performance is encounter dependent. They really shine on the same encounters where the Rogues struggle - Hodir, Freya, Mimiron, General Vezax, and Yogg-Saron. Outside of those encounters, Fire Mages have a fairly average performance in Phase 2. The strong performances are usually so strong that they carry a lot of the "All Bosses" ranking covering up for the individual fights where Fire Mages are more average. I think it is fair to assume that with increased gear levels, Fire Mage will continue to move up the rankings in the future.
Speed Clears of Ulduar
The current world record for a full clear of Ulduar stands at 50 minutes and 56 seconds at the time of writing. This record is held by the unstoppable guild <none of the above> from Gehennas (EU). Close on their tails is <Progress>, also now on Gehennas (EU) with a 51 minute and 24 second clear. Aside from those two, 20 other guilds world wide have managed to clear Ulduar in under 1 hour.
Speed running is a very different way of pushing the limits of this game compared to focusing on boss damage. In speed running your damage to trash mobs is just as relevant as your damage to bosses. Your skill and coordination as a team are tested in efficiently routing the dungeon and movement is more important than ever. In Ulduar speed running, all the bosses are done on the hardest difficulty. Teams are issued a time penalty for doing any boss on a mode other than the hardest difficulty.
When you push everything to be as fast as possible, even the "easy" bosses like
Auriaya
can cause wipes. This makes it exciting to watch as well - you never quite know if the team will make it to the end without a tragic raid wipe. As always, the top teams have innovated a lot of ways to go faster in Ulduar. In many circumstances raids will pull multiple trash packs at once to allow more efficient use of AoE damage abilities, like the
Storm Tempered Keeper
s and
Dark Rune Ravager
s in front of
Thorim
. For some they will even pull trash packs into bosses and kill those bosses, in hard mode, while AoE'ing down the trash pack like on
General Vezax
.
If you want to see this insane speed in action, you can check out <none of the above>'s 50:56 run on YouTube from the perspective of a Holy Paladin:
<none of the above>'s 50:56 clear of Ulduar, Holypalaswez POV
Looking Forward to Trial of the Crusader
Trial of the Crusader is a raid unlike any we've had in Classic World of Warcraft up until this point. There are zero trash mobs and simply 5 bosses in a row, the players hardly have to even move to get from one boss to the next. For some, this is seen as a refreshing change of pace or a nice fun quick raid. For others, this raid is disliked since it is so far from what players come to expect from a raid in World of Warcraft.
About the Author
Simonize
is a long-time Rogue player from original Vanilla, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King. Primarily focused on PvE, he is the author of rogue gear comparison spreadsheets for Classic Vanilla, Burning Crusade, and Wrath of the Lich King. If you enjoy Simonize's work, you can join his
Discord
or follow him on
Twitch
and
Youtube
.
Get Wowhead
Premium
$2
A Month
Enjoy an ad-free experience, unlock premium features, & support the site!
Show 1 Comments
Hide 1 Comments
Sign In to Post a Comment
1
Comment by
Moltarr
on 2023-06-20T10:54:06-05:00
Need more filler articles while we wait for the maintenance to finish.
1
Post a Comment
You are not logged in. Please
log in
or
register an account
to add your comment.
Previous Post
Next Post
