Shadowlands DPS Tier List Predictions - Sanctum of Domination Predictions for Patch 9.1

Live Posted 2021/07/06 at 9:30 AM by Squishei

Sanctum of Domination Class Guides

Blood DKFrost DKUnholy DK

Havoc DHVengeance DH

Balance DruidFeral DruidGuardian DruidRestoration Druid

Beast Mastery HunterMarksmanship HunterSurvival Hunter

Arcane MageFire MageFrost Mage

Brewmaster MonkMistweaver MonkWindwalker Monk

Holy PaladinProtection PaladinRetribution Paladin

Discipline PriestHoly PriestShadow Priest

Assassination RogueOutlaw RogueSubtlety Rogue

Elemental ShamanEnhancement ShamanRestoration Shaman

Affliction WarlockDemonology WarlockDestruction Warlock

Arms WarriorFury WarriorProtection Warrior

Disclaimers About These Tier List Predictionspredictions Sanctum of DominationPatch 9.1 Shadowlands DPS Tier List Predictions for Sanctum of Domination

S: We predict that you are valuable on every encounter in Sanctum of Domination, bringing strong throughput, exceptional survivability and universal utility.

A: We predict that you excel in most situations in Sanctum of Domination but have some weaknesses on one or two encounters with your throughput, survivability or utility.

B: We predict that you are a solid choice in Sanctum of Domination. You may have a niche on some encounters but lack throughput, survivability and/or utility.

C: We predict that you are viable in Sanctum of Domination but suffer from many weaknesses in your throughput, survivability and utility.

D: We predict that you are viable, but the spec suffers from many weaknesses and should only be brought if there isn't another option.

Ranking

Spec

Writer Comments

A+

Balance Druid

Comments by Tettles

Shadow Priest

Comments by EllipsisPriest

Unholy Death Knight

Comments by Bicepspump

Havoc Demon Hunter

Frost Mage

Elemental Shaman

Destruction Warlock

A-

Arcane Mage

Comments by Malon

Windwalker Monk

Comments by Babylonius

Retribution Paladin

Comments by Bolas

Assassination Rogue

Comments by Mystler

Subtlety Rogue

Comments by Mystler

Fury Warrior

Comments by Archimtiros

B+

Frost Death Knight

Comments by Bicepspump

Demonology Warlock

Feral Druid

Marksmanship Hunter

Enhancement Shaman

Outlaw Rogue

B-

Beast Mastery Hunter

Comments by Impakt

C+

Survival Hunter

Comments by Celinamuna

Fire Mage

Comments by Preheat

Affliction Warlock

Comments by Xyronic

Arms Warrior

Comments by Archimtiros

Patch 9.1 Shadowlands DPS Ranking Predictions and ExplanationsA+ Tier Spec PredictionsOverall Rating: A+

Balance Druid is one of the top specs in Sanctum of Domination. Balance's burst DPS is some of the highest in the game and it will continue to stay that way due to Venthyr's Ravenous Frenzy. Burst DPS is the most desirable damage profile and it can be very useful in many situations even if it is gated behind a 3 minute cooldown. Balance also has the massive advantage of being one of the only specs in the game that has very strong spread AOE. This is incredibly useful for the Kel'Thuzad and Sylvanas Windrunner encounters where there are spread adds that need to be killed in a timely manner. On top of all of this, 8 out of 10 bosses have some form of multi-target damage priority with varying degrees of urgency to kill. This makes Balance's kit with and Starfall even more potent, as you can reliably get away with Venthyr's Ravenous Frenzy a lot more easily as you have the option to cast while on the move. Balance Druids also lose very little single target damage to play for AOE in the talent department, and the only major damage loss comes in the form of which abilities you are prioritizing - Starfall vs Starsurge. Balance is not a great spec at dealing with burst AOE damage, but assuming that waves of adds will live a few seconds, Moonkin is very competitive.

Balance Druid is also one of the tankiest DPS specs in the game with access to Barkskin every minute and insane self healing from our Well-Honed Instincts conduit. Stampeding Roar is pretty solid utility as a whole, but it is situational at best, and I am not sure where this ability fits into fights at this current time. Innervate is kind of a weird ability and the gain of this ability being added into the raid is inconsequentially small but not something that is hated.

Balance is currently placed in A+ and not S because they are not in the camp of reliably stackable for boss progression. You may see many of them being brought for the Race to World First, but that was something that is very specific to those two guilds in particular and I would actively advise not stacking moonkins for all situations. Balance is a strong spec and able to be brought to every single encounter, but it is not always the best option. Balance is notably bad for fights such as Soulrender Dormazain and Fatescribe Roh-Kalo due to things such as movement, burst AOE, and atypical fight timings. Additionally, Balance can be significantly punished by movement mechanics and variability when you need cooldowns or misplay Venthyr. Balance does insane burst damage and is very valuable, but is not always the best option for every situation. Overall, balance is one of the best ranged specs in the game, but it does have massive weaknesses and requires your raid to play around them in a specific way.Overall Rating: A-

Now that the dust has settled after the first week of Sanctum of Domination, Shadow Priest has earned itself a ranking of A-. Like Castle Nathria in 9.0.5, Shadow earns this rating mostly for its strong overall and burst Single Target damage. This Single Target is especially useful on Guardian of the First Ones and Painsmith Raznal, which have important burn phases and tight enrage checks. Some of the fights that do have additional targets are less like AoE fights, and more like ones where cleave and incidental damage will be enough to keep any adds at bay, in these situations Shadow continues to shine thanks to Twist of Fate. Shadow also has light multi-dotting capabilities, which is useful on fights like The Nine and Remnant of Ner'zhul. Shadow's Single Target comes from its numerous cooldowns (Voidform, Power Infusion, Mindbender) and the ways in which they benefit from eachother, as well as powerful stat buffs from soubind traits. It can take a bit of finesse to align these cooldowns consistently across a Raid encounter, and this has been one of the major criticisms of the spec throughout 9.0.5, but it doesn't detract from Shadow's overall power in Single Target.

Shadow has immense covenant flexibility yet again in Sanctum of Domination, arguably even more than it did in Castle Nathria. With Necrolords gaining a shiny new toy in the form of Pallid Command, this gives Shadow yet another strong cooldown, and could potentially be as strong as Night Fae when we have full soulbinds unlocked in a few weeks. The other two covenants are also still close, making Shadow an excellent choice for players who don't want to feel tied to a specific covenant, or require another for other specs or content.

Defensively, Shadow keeps its strengths from the previous tier. Powerful self healing from sustained Devouring Plagues, strong short cooldown defensives, and a handy defensive conduit (Translucent Image) that will only get stronger as item levels increase. The only negative is that Shadow does not have access to a full immunity, or any way to remove the numerous stacking debuffs throughout Sanctum of Domination such as Barbed Arrow from Sylvanas Windrunner, or Scorn and Ire on Mythic Eye of the Jailer.

Shadow's major weakness from Castle Nathria is still there, the spec lacks a coherent AoE rotation and a baseline way to deal with large numbers of stacked adds. This weakness comes back to bite it numerous times in the latter half of Sanctum, especially on Mythic, which explains the lack of Shadow Priests in the later stages of the World First Race. Shadow has also received some nerfs to its Single Target after heroic. These nerfs, though small, have also been exacerbated by the rise of other specs thanks to their new legendaries.

Shadow's utility looks a little less useful this time around, without any clear damage taken increases to abuse Vampiric Embrace, but there's still spots to manage debuffs with Mass Dispel and make game saving Leap of Faith plays, such as on Remnant of Ner'zhul.

In conclusion, Shadow's position is pretty much the same as it was in Castle Nathria, a strong Single Target ranged option, let down by its ability to deal meaningful damage to stacked adds. However, in Castle Nathria where Shadow was often able to make up for that lack of AoE by bringing execute burn damage with Twist of Fate, Sylvanas Windrunner doesn't have an execute phase. This key difference means Shadow is a much more questionable choice for the final boss of the tier, and will probably be eclipsed by other ranged dps options. A Tier Spec PredictionsOverall Rating: A-

Unholy only saw negative changes with 9.1 with the nerf to Anti-Magic Zone. The base duration was cut from 10 to 8 seconds and an absorption cap was introduced, soaking up to magic damage. The duration nerf isn't that impactful since the ability won't be limited by the duration anymore. The absorption cap is bad, but it's not like the raid cooldown is worthless now. A magic damage ability has to hit for roughly 40% of everyone's HP before the Anti-Magic Zone depletes. It's effectively a 2 minute ~70k raid heal whenever there's big magic damage. It's 100% useful and impactful.

When it comes to damage, Unholy unfortunately falls just short compared to some other melee specs. Even if the damage is very versatile when it comes to downtime, the throughput isn't quite there. This is quite a stark difference compared to Castle Nathria where Unholy had relatively higher throughput. I think a couple of things go into this. First of all, Unholy used to be the best Power Infusion target for bloodlust due to the great synergy with Army of the Dead. However, most people now use Power Infusion on Venthyr Boomkins which has a negative effect for us Unholy DKs. Furthermore, Unholy DKs don't scale that well with conduits. Picking up a third conduit really isn't great for us and we tend to choose soulbinds where there are strong alternative soulbind spells. Other classes that have better conduits simply scale better in that department. I do hope we'll see our damage pick up as we gain the domination set bonus. Unholy does benefit a lot from it!

Unfortunately, our execute damage with Soul Reaper took a big hit this tier since Sylvanas never drops below 35% hp. Luckily though, Unholy brings a ton of priority damage on the fight. On Mythic, Army of the Dead timings are perfect to bring a ton of single target damage on to Sylvanas.

Unholy will always have a great toolkit when it comes to avoiding boss mechanics and providing grip utility. Anti-Magic Shell can be used to pre-immune abilities and completely negate ground effects, Death's Advance has big value (especially on Remnant of Ner'zhul) with negating knockbacks or preventing heavy slows. We're also really tanky with a 10% stamina increase Veteran of the Third War and Death Strike to heal us. Death Grip and Abomination Limb are very useful in the raid as well (The Nine and Soulrender Dormazain both present good opportunities for grip control)! Finally, Anti-Magic Zone brings a defensive raid cooldown that is useful on multiple fights.

Other classes have received buffs and scale really well with multiple potency conduits (looking at you Rets). However, I still believe Unholy brings good single target priority damage with great burst. We unfortunately can't make use of our execute on the end boss but still can cheese lots of mechanics and do good damage.Overall Rating: A+

With patch 9.1 Havoc received some much needed buffs. The buffs to Demon's Bite / Demon Blades and Chaos Strike / Annihilation helped our Single Target damage immensely which is the most important damage type to have in Sanctum of Domination. Our cleave damage remains strong for taking care of adds. While not very present in Sanctum of Domination, adds like the Forces of the Maw in the second phase of the Sylvanas Windrunner or the Glacial Wrath if your decides to stack them in order to kill multiple at the same time from the Kel'Thuzad encounter are perfect examples where our strong cleave / AoE damage will shine.

As mentioned previously, our improved single target damage fixes our biggest weakness in regards to raiding in general. Sanctum of Domination is primarily Single Target focused and these buffs couldn't have come at a better time. The Guardian of the First Ones encounter is a perfect example, a pure single target fight without many mechanics to deal with -- the closest encounter to a "Patchwerk" type encounter in the Sanctum of Domination. Prior to the newly received buffs Havoc would've been less than desirable on this encounter but now the spec will be competitive, not necessarily topping the charts but Havoc's overall performance is above average.

Talking about utility wise, nothing significant has changed from 9.0 for Havoc. Chaos Brand remains Demon Hunter exclusive and a must have raid buff. The tank meta is somewhat shifting and while Vengeance Demon Hunter remains a strong tank spec, Havoc's buffs favor us to be the vehicle that brings Chaos Brand to the raid. Aside from Chaos Brand, Havoc also brings Darkness to the raid, a very desirable defensive cooldown even though it won't break the game.

While Havoc has always been a durable spec that's hard to die on, our defensive talent row got buffed in patch 9.1, making Havoc an even more durable spec.

Havoc's mobility is still one of, if not the best in the game, with frequent access to both charges of Fel Rush and Vengeful Retreat. Our mobility suffers a bit when using Momentum due to having to utilize our primary movement abilities to maximize the talent but this won't cause issues on any encounters assuming you keep your toes on the platforms and outside of fire.

Overall, after being a below average to average spec in Castle Nathria, the 9.1 tunign was really favorable to Havoc. The major weakness of the spec, single target damage, is now a strength and our cleave remain strong. Havoc is a very complete spec in patch 9.1 and as we saw in the race to world first, a top tier spec.

It's a good time to be a Havoc Demon Hunter.Overall Rating: A

Frost Mage is a very strong pick in Patch 9.1 for Mythic Sanctum of Domination. While Frost has mostly stayed out of the limelight so far this expansion, there are a lot of reasons why this spec is on an upward trend. Before we go any further we need to briefly address why mages are even looking for a new spec in 9.1: Fire, the default raiding spec for Mages, was significantly nerfed in 9.1. This was a nerf mostly aimed at AoE and Mythic+ that also affected Single Target. That being said, this is not the sole reason to consider Frost for raid, as Frost can stand on its own merit.

In 9.1 Frost has very strong single target, cleave, and consistently high AoE damage. It is also one of the few specs left with Priority Cleave. Priority Cleave is when adding additional targets increases your damage to the focus target while also increasing your overall damage. Frost is also currently enjoying the high end of tuning thanks to increased uptime of Icy Veins and solid scaling.

To expand on this: Frost has built in Cooldown Reduction, some of which increases with added targets. The potency of Icy Propulsion increases with new ranks of the conduit in 9.1, and this paired with Thermal Void means that Icy Veins will have almost permanent uptime. There is a downside to this design, however. Frost requires consistent uptime on the boss to sustain this cooldown, which means that phase transitions can be very disruptive. This also means Frost's damage profile is very flat, so your damage is very consistent and lacks burst. For this reason, your raid will have a bit of slack to pick up when high damage is called for in a small window. On most bosses this will not be an issue, but on Painsmith Raznal, Fatescribe Roh-Kalo, and Kel'Thuzad it could start affecting Icy Veins uptime depending on how you phase the boss. On Kel'Thuzad this will be overshadowed, though, due to Frost's high AoE cleave.

When it comes to utility, Frost is still the one most able to control large numbers of enemies. Spells like Blizzard, Cone of Cold and Frozen Orb make slowing large numbers a simple task, with more crowd control available in Frost Nova and Freeze. However, we do lack hard control like stuns or disorients. Mages also bring Arcane Intellect and Time Warp to the raid, but this is more of an artificial requirement to bring one Mage than actual utility. Mages are also extremely mobile and can easily get around mechanics others must avoid by moving with Blink/Shimmer and Alter Time. These abilities make the Spiked Balls and walls on Painsmith Raznal, or the Annihilating Glare of Eye of the Jailer a joke.

Mages have some of the best survivability and personal defensive cooldowns spells in the game. Ice Block is a hard immunity which is available twice with Cold Snap, Ice Barrier is a strong absorb on a short cooldown, Mirror Image is an agro drop with damage reduction built in, and Alter Time is potentially a full heal. The only downside with these spells is that they are mostly proactive, which means they have a learning curve. Ice Block so far has shown to work in most cases you would expect, including Barbed Arrow.

For these reasons Frost is a fantastic pick for raiding Mages, so long as they are able to consistently deal damage to keep Icy Veins rolling. It will also be important that the overall raid composition otherwise has sufficient burst for times it is needed, since Frost will not be able to contribute much at these times. Our weaknesses remain the same as always. Frost Mage has no spread cleave and no utility to bring if another Mage is already present in the raid, so you won't stack it unless it's one the best ranged DPS for the job. I’m very happy to report that Frost is looking like a strong pick to break the ice with in 9.1. Stay cool out there!
Overall Rating: B+

As we enter 9.1.5, Elemental stock has fallen to an extent. Traditionally, the farther into farm we get the weaker Elemental gets as it doesn't gain as much dps from shorter kill times as most other dps specs do. On the DPS throughput side of things, we continue to have strong sustained single target that handles movement quite well with Spiritwalker's Grace & Icefury, are able to provide strong burst AoE or priority target burst on a single target through Stormkeeper, and are able to do so with our highest single target dps talent build. Not needing to worry about sacrificing single-target to provide that AoE will serve us well on fights like Soulrender Dormazain or The Nine, and our powerful/mobile sustained single-target will keep us quite strong on fights like Sylvanas Windrunner. The primary hole in our damage profile, and what drives our stock down going into 9.1.5, is that our longer dps cooldown - Fire Elemental - is rather weak which limits our single-target burst. Single-target burst, centered around major dps cooldowns, is what tends to drive dps higher on lower kill times and having that hole hurts Elemental at this point in a raid.

For utility and mobility on the whole, once again Elemental is in the same place it has been all expansion. We deal extremely well with moving while maintaining dps through Spiritwalker's Grace & Icefury, a tool that will serve us well for bosses like Soulrender Dormazain or Guardian of the First Ones and throughout Sanctum of Domination. We still struggle a bit with moving swiftly from place to place, even with the assistance of the Thunderous Paws conduit, though this is mitigated for some Elemental Shaman by the rising stock of Night Fae in raiding. As we made it farther into farm in Nathria, Night Fae became more popular as it has higher highs when you're able to focus singularly on single-target or AoE. This mitigates our point to point mobility weakness noticeably through Soulshape. For utility our primary pieces are still Bloodlust & Wind Rush Totem, both of which are covered by a variety of other specs. That said, Wind Rush Totem does have opportunities to shine alone - such as on Painsmith Raznal where we're able to move back and forth through it multiple times.

Finally, for survivability we still possess many small damage reduction cooldowns with a variety of cooldowns in Astral Shift, Harden Skin, and if you're Necrolord Fleshcraft to help mitigate the damage we take. The variety of cooldowns we have available to us in this makes us fairly tanky to damage that gets frightening for others.Overall Rating: A

Going into The Sanctum of Domination raid Destruction received two large changes, one is a 10% buff to Chaos Bolt damage and the other is a change to Shadowburn making this talent much more attractive on fights such as Kel'Thuzad where you can cleave a lot of Shadowburn casts through Havoc utilizing the cooldown reset a lot.

The strength of the Destruction spec has always been being able to farm up Soul Shards to then deal large amounts of damage through Chaos Bolt, and then being able to duplicate this damage to yet another target through Havoc. This is very much still the case, but we have shifted slightly away from a cooldown-reliant burst heavy spec over to a more steady damage profile. This is both good and bad, it means we no longer deal just as large a % of our damage during this window, but we're no longer as cooldown reliant and this means we excel pretty well at almost everything. An example of this being the case is on Painsmith Raznal where you're able to farm up soul shards, apply Havoc to the boss and then cast Chaos Bolt onto the spiked balls dealing large amounts of damage on priority targets while still dealing damage to the boss.

There are also encounters that are exclusively single-target such as The Tarragrue and Guardian of the First Ones, and this has historically been Destruction's big weakness. We're a very "middle of the pack" spec on full single target and will definetely be able to do our part, but it's unlikely we will be the most desired spec on these fights. In general Destruction Warlock is a very tanky through Soul Leech and our mastery, while offering a lot of utility for our group with Create Soulwell, Demonic Gateway & Soulstone.

Something worth noting is, a lot of people have seen Demonology parse higher than Destruction and while that is the case on a lot of fights, Demonology more or less requires Power Infusion to do this. Destruction does not scale as well with this meaning the very upper percentile of parses are going to be shifted largely in Demonology's favor.
A- Tier Spec PredictionsOverall Rating: A
Arcane has long been overlooked in favour of the other Mage specs, often only getting a chance to be the meta pick for one fight in a tier. Despite that, it's a strong spec that rewards those who master its complex nature - especially in Sanctum of Domination.

Arcane Mages bring frequent massive burst in single-target and AoE with Touch of the Magi, Rune of Power and Arcane Power. These short cooldown spells mean that, no matter when burst is needed, we can exploit it - especially if there are adds present, thanks to Resonance. Handily, that applies to all of the final three bosses in the raid. For those fights specifically, I would rank Arcane as S-tier.

Adds don't need to be up for long for us to gain massive damage - just long enough to get Arcane Barrage off during Touch of the Magi. Basically all of the hard bosses (Fatescribe Roh-Kalo, Kel'Thuzad and Sylvanas Windrunner) have this situation. The only one that doesn't is Painsmith Raznal, but we still excel there due to being able to pre-stack Arcane Harmony to handle Spiked Balls.

Arcane also has excellent defensives with Prismatic Barrier, Alter Time, Greater Invisibility (also an instant threat drop), Mirror Image and Ice Block. In Sanctum of Domination, Ice Block can be used to soak mechanics like Arthura's Crushing Gaze (The Nine), Frost Blast (Kel'Thuzad) and Flameclasp Eruption (Painsmith Raznal).

While the vast majority of what you bring as an Arcane Mage is damage, we do have good utility. Arcane has several instant single-target and AoE snares (Slow, Chrono Shift) as well as more mana than other Mages to throw into offensive dispels with Spellsteal.

Finally, weaknesses. Mobility is often cited as Arcane's downfal, but this isn't really the case in Shadowlands. The most popular way to play, as Kyrian, generates lots of Clearcasting procs to exploit with Slipstream and means we can save Presence of Mind for movement. Our long-range mobility is also very strong with Blink/Shimmer and Alter Time (which we can use more frequently than other specs with Master of Time, though this is a niche pick). We can suffer on fights with periods of extended movement like Soulrender Dormazain and Fatescribe Roh-Kalo, though. Arcane Explosion also gives us extreme mobility in AoE, which is always useful when you need to be in melee to AoE like we do.

However, Arcane historically lives and dies by its cooldowns, and while our mobility is better than it's been in years, being forced to move during Rune of Power or Arcane Power is still terrible for our output; planning is essential. We also have weak cleave outside cooldowns, and on a simple mechanical level, managing all those cooldowns adds complexity that other Mage specs don't have to manage.
Overall Rating: A-

Windwalker has long been a spec of extremes, either extremely good like in Antorus, the Burning Throne and early Castle Nathria, or extremely bad, like in most of Battle for Azeroth. However, right now Windwalker is, overall, somewhere in between. Looking into Sanctum of Domination, Windwalkers are a strong pick for many fights, and less-than-ideal for others. While we didn't see Windwalker explode onto the RWF scene like it did in Castle Nathria, the exceptional performance of Trill in <Limit> and Meeres and Justwait in <Echo> put into the spotlight the continued power that Windwalkers can demonstrate on the right fight; mainly Soulrender Dormazain, Fatescribe Roh-Kalo, and Kel'Thuzad.

Windwalker's strength continues to come in top notch mobility and very strong AOE capabilities. Many fights, like Eye of the Jailer, Soulrender Dormazain, Fatescribe Roh-Kalo, and Kel'Thuzad are some of the fights in Sanctum of Domination that have a copious amount of additional targets to make use of AOE abilities and things like Touch of Death. These fights see Windwalkers shine like they did in Castle Nathria. Additionally, many fights benefit greatly from exceptional mobility that Windwalkers bring. Between Transcendence, Flying Serpent Kick, and Roll, if a fight requires movement, Windwalkers are more than prepared for it. The most important part of this is that in Sanctum of Domination there are fights like Fatescribe Roh-Kalo with the rotating dials, Soulrender Dormazain with Warmonger Shackles, and Remnant of Ner'zhul with Orb of Torment that are mechanics that Windwalkers can handle as well, if not better, than any other spec in the game. It is not a DPS focused job, but one that, when performed well, will mean the difference between a wipe and a kill.

Where Windwalker falls off, and the reason that even after seeing the performance of Windwalkers in RWF I still give it an overall A- instead of a higher rating, is the constant specter of mediocre, or lower, single target damage. While Sanctum of Domination has many fights with additional adds, raiding often comes down to the ability to deal single target damage to the boss. Fights like Guardian of the First Ones which has no additional adds, or Painsmith Raznal which has adds, but the emphasis is still on single target priority damage outside of small burst windows (which Windwalker excels at), highlight Windwalker's lackluster single target capabilities. Although Windwalkers are capable of very strong burst damage, even in single target, through Weapons of Order and Bonedust Brew, over the course of a fight Windwalkers will frequently find themselves in the bottom half, or the bottom third, of the meters, if all else is equal. Windwalker's utility falls into a similar category, of not being "bad", but not as strong as the classes that generally get more of the limelight when it comes to those things. This is the primary reason we saw many RWF teams that had strong Windwalkers, bench them on fights like Guardian of the First Ones and Guardian of the First Ones.

Overall Windwalkers should enjoy another strong tier of raiding, albeit unlikely to be as impressively powerful as we enjoyed in early Castle Nathria.Overall Rating: A-

With the first week of Mythic Sanctum of Domination well underway, we've got a better idea of how Retribution compares to other damage specs. Despite an unfortunate last minute nerf to Divine Resonance, it's looking like a very strong single target spec with good burst AoE, and is still a good choice for progression.

Fortunately, this tier looks to be pretty melee friendly. There aren't many mechanics that really limit the number of melee you can bring to a fight as there have been in previous tiers, for example Il'gynoth. Melee unfriendliness has historically really put Ret at a disadvantage, since it lacks a raid buff or raidwide damage mitigation cooldown like many of the more popular options, and once you filled up with Warriors and Demon Hunters there weren't many melee spots left. However, we've seen many guilds bringing 6-8 melee to most Mythic encounters so far, often also including a Ret.

As far as the utility Ret does bring is concerned, it's ended up being quite a bit more useful on a couple of fights than was previously expected. For example, Blessing of Protection is pretty useful on Mythic Painsmith Raznal to allow other players to walk through the solid walls during intermissions, and it also is valuable to remove Barbed Arrow in Phase 1 of Sylvanas Windrunner. Blessing of Freedom can be used to soak Fatescribe Roh-Kalo's Fate Fragment without taking damage, and most Mythic Guardian of the First Ones strategies involve using immunes to help soak Obliterate, which Ret is one of the few melee who are able to help with.

Overall, although the Divine Resonance nerf has made Ret slightly worse it's still a strong DPS spec, and its utility certainly has places where it's valuable, even considering that other Paladin specs also bring the same tools. I've kept its rating at A- since it's not quite so strong that you'd really want to bring multiple to most encounters, but it's certainly a spec you'd be happy to bring one of.
Overall Rating: A

Assassination is a good melee that I would place in the A tier. The spec is bringing excellent single target damage to the table, which will be invaluable for pure single target bosses like Guardian of the First Ones. Especially the Venthyr can be mentioned as the head of the pack with a strong covenant ability Flagellation, a strong covenant conduit Lashing Scars, and a strong covenant legendary Obedience. With Vendetta as the main driving damage cooldown, Assassination offers strong damage windows every two minutes. The shorter cooldown Shiv adds some smaller and more regular damage windows, allowing some flexibility with timings. Due to being centered around bleeds and poisons, it has solid cleave damage, accompanying the good single target damage. Assassination looks really strong on bosses like Eye of the Jailer. While AoE damage is not too impressive and requires some build changes for the best case, I don't think AoE is important enough and the reason you bring an Assassination Rogue anyway. This point can also be remedied by multi-speccing with Outlaw and is not something I would hold against the spec.

Something that all Rogue lack, compared to other classes, is raid-wide utility. There is no buff or raid cooldown to support the raid as a whole. The only "external cooldown" Rogues have is Tricks of the Trade, for what it's worth. There were some hints at Rogues getting something before 9.1 but nothing actually happened on that front. Movement is good, thanks to Sprint, Shadowstep, and potentially covenant signature abilities, but not outstanding. Personal survivability is also fine, no impressive self-heal but solid defensive options through Evasion, Cloak of Shadows, and Feint. Aside from being a personal immunity to help survive dangerous situations, Cloak of Shadows is noteworthy for its usefulness in soaking/clearing mechanics, but is known for working on fewer raid mechanics than other immunities such as Mage's Ice Block. That said it is useful for soloing some mechanics like the meteor on Kel'Thuzad.

All in all, Assassination Rogues are in a place where their main quality in the raid boils down to damage. Before, there has been a trend of raids being somewhat favorable to ranged classes. This raid seems to be more melee friendly again though, so we will have more melee spots that Rogues can compete for once raid cooldowns are covered. Assassination is now in a spot where it can impress with its great single target and melee bleed cleave damage, which is valuable in almost every situation in the current raid. Subtlety Rogue is a strong competitor but since Assassination is an old favorite of many and a good progression spec that often allows better buffers for downtimes as well as more brain capacity to focus on mechanics, I expect both specs to see a lot of play.Overall Rating: A

Subtlety is a pretty fun spec that has a history of ups and down, mostly simply because of tuning or lack of thereof. With 9.1, it seems to be seeing a rise again, being very competitive alongside Assassination. The patch saw Subtlety receive a bunch of targeted buffs to both AoE and single target. For Venthyr rogues, we also see a very powerful new covenant legendary, Obedience, that nudges its damage up further. It has great single target damage and, on top of that, brings the niche of funnel focus damage on a priority target thanks to Shuriken Storm generating combo points per target, which in turn allows a lot more finishers like Eviscerate. While Subtlety Rogues also have the option of doing AoE damage with Black Powder, funnel damage is a more noteworthy part of the spec that we have seen taken advantage of (when it was even stronger) in the past for bosses like Zul in Uldir. The only issue with the funnel niche is that over the course of a whole raid, it usually matters too little. In this raid, the funnel mechanic might come in useful on a boss with adds to funnel from like Soulrender Dormazain, Fatescribe Roh-Kalo, or when passing the balls on Painsmith Raznal. Single target damage will be valuable everywhere and there are pure single target bosses like Guardian of the First Ones, who almost seems to be made for the spec. The short cooldowns make it pretty good for quickly repeating situations like Phylactery damage on Kel'Thuzad as well.

Just as it is with the competing Rogue specs, there is no buff or raid cooldown to support the raid as a whole. You could count Tricks of the Trade as an external support, for what it's worth. With Sprint, two charges of Shadowstep, and possibly a movement-oriented covenant signature ability, movement options are good but not outstanding. In order to survive, the spec does not have impressive self-heal but solid personal defensive through Evasion, Cloak of Shadows, and Feint. Cloak of Shadows is worth mentioning for its usefulness in soaking/clearing some mechanics. On the other hand, it is also working on fewer raid mechanics than other immunities such as Mage's Ice Block. That said it is useful for soloing some mechanics like the meteor on Kel'Thuzad.

In the end, Subtlety Rogue's strength is down to being a playball of damage tuning. Fortunately for every Sub rogue, that aspect currently looks very solid. The damage looks to be on par or ahead of its sister spec Assassination. Both of these Rogue specs are really solid picks for remaining melee slots when all raid utilities and buffs are covered. Due to their different playstyles and pacings, I expect both to see a lot of play.
Overall Rating: A-

Fury Warriors have been slow to ramp up during the first weeks of Sanctum of Domination, benefitting from no direct changes throughout the Patch 9.1 PTR, though the covenant legendary, Sinful Surge has finally given Venthyr a strong single target advantage over other covenants. Other strong scaling factors which the spec benefits from, such as Fatal Flaw and duel wielding Jaithys, the Prison Blade, and the massive strength gain from upgrading the 3 Unholy Shard set bonus Chaos Bane will take time to kick in for most players. During that time, Fury is only middling, keeping up with or even surprassing Arms in multitarget situations, though slightly behind in single target, though Fury Warriors are still much more powerful than they were in Castle Nathria, while still bringing valuable raid buffs in the form of Battle Shout and Rallying Cry.

An oft overlooked Warrior strength is their surprising survivability. While one of the few remaining classes without any kind of cheat death or full immunity, Warriors have become much more tanky than previous expansions, despite the reduction of Fury's self healing, thanks to additional tools and reduced cooldowns in Shadowlands. Stalwart Guardian alone significantly increases Warrior defensive value, reducing the cooldown of Enraged Regeneration by more than a quarter, but the real champion is Spell Reflection. Capable of reflecting a number of boss mechanics, it doesn't work as well as an outright immunity, but can seriously contribute to survivability, as seen by reflecting Blood Price on Sire Denathrius or Fatescribe Roh-Kalo's Twist Fate in Sanctum of Domination. The best part though is that even if a spell is not reflected, the ability still retains a benefit - reducing all magic damage by 20% for the duration. This has proven immensely powerful time and time again, although the list of which spells can and cannot be reflected is sometimes maddeningly inconsistent.

That isn't to say Fury Warriors don't have weaknesses however. In addition to their long running issues with downtime, due to the inability to deal damage or regenerate meaningful resources while out of range, the lack of a cheat death or "true immunity" gives Warriors much less room for error than some other classes. Likewise, Enraged Regeneration is powerful but suffers a major flaw in that health can only be regenerated while actively hitting the target, which isn't always possible in high damage situations which take you off target, though Warriors don't have any particular issues with survivability. The biggest weakness though is the last minute revelation that Sylvanas Windrunner does not have an Execute phase, and while Condemn can still be used above 80%, the great amount of movement during her mechanics makes it hard to maintain single target damage. That said, the Mythic version of her encounter does have a great deal of multitarget emphasis thanks to Domination Chains spawning in clusters, Dark Sentinels spawned from Black Arrow, and a continued emphasis on adds in Phase 2 all mean that Fury can still actually do quite a bit of strong damage in the encounter, even if it's not single target damage needed to defeat her specifically.B+ Tier Spec PredictionsOverall Rating: B+

Frost in Patch 9.1 had only a single class-specific change: Anti-Magic Zone got hit with the nerf bat. To start off, I'm not too alarmed by this. Many people say it's now worthless but that's simply not true. The ability now has a cap to the amount of magic damage it can absorb. It's , something like 70-80k depending on your ilvl and versatility. This is an 80k heal every 2 minutes for a DPS, pretty good when it can be used fully, The duration was nerfed from 10 to 8 seconds, not impactful at all since the duration isn't a limiting factor for raiding (with the new absorption cap).

When it comes to damage, Frost does okay on single target with a great improvement when there is any sort of cleave. Breath of Sindragosa reigns supreme even with earlier predictions of Obliteration possibly gaining ground. You see the cleave niche in logs where Frost DKs to really well on fights like Soulrender Dormazain and The Nine. Overall though, Frost simply doesn't bring enough priority damage to be ranked A or higher.

When it comes to utility in the raid, the Frost Death Knight brings both a grip (which is really useful) as well as a great set of defensives. We can cheese multiple mechanics with Death's Advance including knockbacks and heavy slows (just look at the knockback of Remnant of Ner'zhul). Anti-Magic Shell can be used to both immune and soak multiple mechanics (Malevolence on Remnant of Ner'zhul can be pre-immuned and Hopeless Lethargy can be dodged on Eye of the Jailer) and we obviously still have Anti-Magic Zone! Death Grip is useful in this raid again on fights such as The Nine and Soulrender Dormazain. Finally, Veteran of the Third War for the 10% stamina, Permafrost for the passive shield and Death Strike for healing all come together to make Frost a very tanky DPS spec!

Frost hasn't received any damage buffs, but not any damage nerfs either. Our raid utility continues to be strong and we now have more competitive options for different fight styles. I don't think Frost is the best melee but definitely not the worst either. I would place Frost slightly below Unholy which is why I've allocated a B!
Overall Rating: A-

With no additional changes to really change the meta of Demonology in 9.1.5 (the change to Nether Portal is insignificant) you should be in relatively the same form as previous patches where the single target profile of Demonology to shines in Sanctum of Domination. During Mythic difficulty, you can easily find yourself playing Demonology on at minimum half the fights without issue. There are a handful of fights where you have to focus single target where the 1 minute damage profile really fits in, in particular fights like The Tarragrue, Guardian of the First Ones and The Nine.

We will still be using Wilfred's Sigil of Superior Summoning as our primary legendary while pumping as much damage into Soulbound Tyrant and as such still be one of the better options for Priests to use Power Infusion, if you can manage it. The difference of having Power Infusion given to you and not is fairly significant - essentially going from one of the strongest burst specializations to a mid-pack one if you have/don't have Power Infusion.

There are a good handful of encounters that Demonology are the go to spec for Warlocks simply due to it being stronger than the others in single target damage such as The Tarragrue, Soulrender Dormazain, Guardian of the First Ones and most recently Sylvanas Windrunner. There are also some considerations for possible upside on any of the encounters if your other raid members are able/sufficient for the required add cleave (which there is lots). Some of the fights that Demonology will have a tougher time on are Remnant of Ner'zhul, Painsmith Raznal, Fatescribe Roh-Kalo and Kel'Thuzad for example.

Where you will see a big downfall for Demonology is our ability to consistently (and reliably) two target cleave and is where Destruction is really going to overtake Demonology for a number of encounters, even if there is a portion of the encounter that is single target - the ability to have on demand, very strong, two target cleave is something that Demonology continues to struggle with.

Of course we are still a Warlock and bring better than average survivability and raid utility in the form of Curse of Weakness, Demonic Gateway and Create Soulwell. Within Demonology's toolkit for survivability we have the most passive damage reduction via Soul Link in addition to other tools available to all Warlocks; Unending Resolve, Soul Leech and can talent into a newly buffed Dark Pact.
B Tier Spec PredictionsOverall Rating: B+
With the release of 9.1.5, we're re-reviewing where in the rankings spec stands, with the adjustment to be able to swap covenants at will some specs gain a benefit from more flexibility. With our last update to this tier list, I moved feral up from B to B+ tier, with this update I won't be moving Feral up on the tier list. The reasons for the original rating and the updated rating still stand with none of the issues being addressed and no increase in flexibility due to covenant swapping.

The primary reasoning I had for adjusting feral up ever so slightly is the buffs to Celestial Spirits. For a long period of time Feral has been lacking in a legendary that competes with Draught of Deep Focus in general and that is usable on fights that aren't purely Single Target. While Draught of Deep Focus was a solid throughput legendary, it did have issues on fights that weren't exactly single target, leaving Feral a little inflexible. Celestial Spirits both solves that issue and also gives feral another strength in a strong 1 minute burst cooldown. A cooldown category that historically has been incredibly valuable on progression fights (I personally found it incredible on Eye of the Jailer). The secondary reasoning for my minor bump up is connected to these buffs as well. Many of the overperforming covenant legendries used by some of the specs above us got slight nerfs, narrowing the gap between specs.

Sanctum of Domination has a heavy emphasis on single target (with fights like: Fatescribe Roh-Kalo, Guardian of the First Ones, Soulrender Dormazain, and most noticeably Sylvanas Windrunner) which plays well into our strengths! Feral is extremely good at fights, topping the boss damage charts by a country mile. If Throughput was the only requirement for raid strengths then I'd be happy to put feral solidly into the A+ tier.

Unfortunately nothing has changed in regards to Feral's real downfall, utility. The specs that compete with Feral Druid for a spot in the raid still have their raid buffs, although Unholy DK has been rather neutered when it comes to their raid CD but this just causes a shift in the meta towards running more Havoc DHs and Warriors. However, Feral does still have Stampeding Roar.

I do think that Feral is still a very solid spec that's being slept on slightly. It continues to have a solid to exceptional throughput kit, though it continues to struggle on fights with an emphasis on burst AOE and a good defensive kit. If feral had Utility equivalent to some other melee specs, or if raid buffs didn't exist, I could easily see it being stacked on certain fights. As it is however, with Guardian and Balance sharing all of our utility (and balance bringing even more of their own), I think Feral will likely continue to be overlooked despite existing as a fairly solid spec.Overall Rating: B

Heading into patch 9.1.5, Marksmanship Hunters are a bit below average in raid. Hunters received some minor buffs to Necrolord and Venthyr covenants, but both have been underperforming. These buffs simply bring them more in line with Kyrian and Night Fae. In terms of single target performance, we're below average. Marksmanship's saving grace this tier has been our exceptional burst AoE damage, specifically due to Night Fae's Fragments of the Elder Antlers. Marksmanship AoE damage makes fights such as Soulrender Dormazain and Mythic Sylvanas Windrunner much easier.

Outside of our burst AoE niche, Marksmanship Hunters aren't really desired due to our lack of survivability and raid utility. Our lack of survivability is noticeable on fights such as Painsmith Raznal where ranged DPS take an insane amount of damage. The only real raid utility Hunters have is Binding Shot, which is useful on a few fights such as Kel'Thuzad and Sylvanas Windrunner. As we've seen in the past, unless Hunters are doing above average damage, there isn't much use for them in raid, especially considering our lack of survival and utility. In our current state, outside of our immunity Aspect of the Turtle, Binding Shot, and burst AoE, there really isn't a reason to bring Marksmanship Hunters to Sanctum of Domination. Let's hope we see some Hunter love in the near future.
Overall Rating: B+

Outlaw is still a solid Rogue spec in the Sanctum of Domination. Its greatest benefit is bringing good single target damage and being able to easily switch over into Cleave and AoE damage on-demand with Blade Flurry. This makes it a considerable all-rounder Rogue spec that is useful in every situation, even if not necessarily excelling in any of them. Where Assassination has well-defined two-minute cooldown windows and options for execute damage, Outlaw is a bit different. Outlaw's cooldowns, while strong, can also be somewhat unpredictable because the entire rotation is built around cooldown reduction via Restless Blades. The fact that both Subtlety and Assassination look to provide better single target damage causes it to receive a lower rating, but that does by no means mean the spec is unviable.

When it comes to factors other than damage, Outlaw is in the same spot as all Rogue specializations. It's not that what the spec has to offer is bad at all, it's just that for everything Outlaw can do, some other spec can probably do the same equally or better. They do not bring a buff or raid cooldown to support the raid as a whole unless you want to count Tricks of the Trade as "external support". Sprint, Grappling Hook, and some covenant signature abilities allow for good, but not outstanding, movement. While there is no strong self-heal, the spec has solid personal defensive options through Evasion, Cloak of Shadows, and Feint. Cloak of Shadows is noteworthy, aside from being a personal immunity to help survive dangerous situations, for its occasional use in soaking/clearing some mechanics. However, it is also known for working on fewer raid mechanics than other immunities such as Mage's Ice Block. That said it is useful for soloing some mechanics like the meteor on Kel'Thuzad.

If your raid has open spots that are not locked by having to bring buffs or more ranged DPS players, then a good Outlaw is a solid choice, it may just not be the first choice on every boss. As for any Rogue spec, damage tuning is the main deciding factor currently and I would say Outlaw is doing alright, just a bit behind the other two specs which is why I decided to go with a solid B+.
Overall Rating: B (A-*)

Note on A- grade: Enhancement is somewhat unique in Sanctum in that it relies on what OTHER classes you're playing with to determine how good it is - specifically due to Windfury Totem. Big winners are Rogues and Arms Warriors, and the amount of extra damage this can generate for your melee party can elevate you to raid buff level as indicated by this chart. However, it is something that you only want one Enhancement player for, extras aren't going to bring anything special on their own. Therefore, it sits at an A- rank if you can make use of this effect, but is relegated to a B rank if it has to stand on its own.

Enhancement comes with a lot of different builds and options to deal with various mechanics or fight styles, leaning heavily on the strength of two (potentially three) particular legendaries that effectively enable them. The situation for us means that often you will find some kind of flexibility, but often lean heavily into one damage profile while sacrificing others - Witch Doctor's Wolf Bones et al will provide the strongest sustained single target by a pretty firm margin while Doom Winds will slaughter said builds if there's any on demand burst or AoE requirements. Seeds of Rampant Growth sits in a strange spot in the middle where it's burst single target while being punished heavily by bad fight timers, but is showing promise within fights that give it room to use Fae Transfusion + Essential Extraction on cooldown for DPS check fights (Guardian of the First Ones as an example).

Our mobility isn't incredible, but it's extremely reliable thanks to Ghost Wolf and Spirit Walk (and even Feral Lunge) and you'll rarely find yourself unable to navigate a boss arena in Sanctum unless it explicitly requires displacement tools. Defense on the other hand comes with a lot of very strong tools on paper (Astral Shift and Vital Accretion especially), but they're attached to such long cooldowns that we can run into issues if a fights damage pattern is more frequent than we have tools to deal with. Sanctum however is fairly generous in allowing us to survive, especially with some of the extra tools granted from Domination Shards, and the rot damage present on certain fights can be counteracted by aggressively using Healing Surge.

Utility for Enhancement is somewhat lacking in a "this breaks a fight" kind of way, but the most obvious benefit is Windfury Totem referenced at the top which is quite literally free damage on top of your own output for your melee group - the thing is you need to be doing enough combined with that to justify the spot in your melee comp. Outside of that there's a lot of low priority utility like Capacitor Totem and a lower cooldown interrupt in Wind Shear, and we can also cover the raidwide mobility cooldown requirements some fights have with Wind Rush Totem. Given that at least half of the encounters within Sanctum have huge boss arenas, this is significantly more valuable than it ever has been to avoid telegraphed lethal mechanics, and is a factor if you can't get it elsewhere in your raid.B- Tier Spec PredictionsOverall Rating: B

In 9.1, Hunters were originally looking quite weak, but are performing slightly better after some decent buffs coming into the first Mythic week. However, Beast Mastery is still possibly the weakest of the Hunter specs in Sanctum of Domination, primarily due to tuning. Hunters received almost no core changes in 9.1, and the only noteworthy addition is the new legendary bow off of Sylvanas Windrunner, Rae'shalare, Death's Whisper. Even with our shiny new legendary weapon however, the damage is a bit lackluster compared to other classes and specs.

In general, Beast Mastery's main source of strength is its utility and mobility. Beast Mastery is still the only ranged specialization in the game capable of doing 100% of its rotation while moving. Hunters have a few defensive tools at their disposal as well, with the most notable one being Aspect of the Turtle which is an immunity where you can freely move around. This specifically is invaluable on fights like Painsmith Raznal, Fatescribe Roh-Kalo, and Sylvanas Windrunner where being able to immune while moving helps you tremendously with specific mechanics. However, outside of Aspect of the Turtle, Hunters are still one of the weakest specializations in the game for survivability, and are the most prone to dying during prolonged periods of damage.

The main downside for Beast Mastery at the moment is damage. Beast Mastery is still just tuned to be a bit worse than the other DPS specializations at the moment, both on single target and on AoE. The single target is mid-tier, while our burst damage is among the lowest out of any specialization. Cleave and AoE is where we really suffer though. Beast Cleave is our main source of AoE, and unfortunately it is just still quite weak even on 4-5 targets compared to what other classes can do. The range is not the best, the damage is mediocre, and most AoE in the raid is more burst oriented, which Beast Mastery is quite bad at. This is going to especially be felt on fights such as Guardian of the First Ones, which is a pure single target burn encounter in the middle of the raid. The major advantage for this mobility is on Painsmith Raznal, as there is a significant amount of movement in the fight, but damage is not really the limiting factor on the fight compared to just doing the mechanics properly.

While this all sounds extremely negative, Beast Mastery's ability to do consistent damage early on during new fights while moving is the main reason why it is still a B-tier specialization. Fatescribe Roh-Kalo is a fight where damage is not your main concern, but you will still want to optimize it later on in the encounter. Beast Mastery is one of the only specializations that can effectively do the main mechanic of the encounter without losing any damage while doing it. Kel'Thuzad is another fight where Beast Mastery will shine, as the intermission phases require almost constant movement for anyone inside the Phylactery. C+ Tier Spec PredictionsOverall Rating: B-

Survival has received another buff since the previous list was listed which helped it with going up the rankings. However, Marksmanship and Beast Mastery has received another set of buffs as well which keeps Survival in relatively same spot as it was, in relation to them.

Considering that Survival's best weapon drops off the 3rd boss in the raid, which is also fairly easy even on Mythic, it could be expected for it to be played a fair bit more often. However, we once again run into the same issue that has plagued Survival since it's rework - on one hand it generally needs to be significantly better than both Beast Mastery and Marksmanship Hunter in order to see raid play due to taking up melee slots, on another hand it still needs to compete with all the other melee for the same exact raid spots. This tier is particularly bad due to the prevalence of Rogues, Demon Hunters, and Warriors who easily take up more than half of melee raid spots. In addition to this, we also have a rise of Enhancement, not even for their own performance, but more so to buff the previously mentioned classes. As a result of this the remaining classes are left with a lot of competition for very few melee raid spots, and the primary competition are classes such as Monk and Death Knight, who not only are very competitive on damage, and end up being better than Survival in a lot of situations, but also have much stronger raid utility. Currently survival's strongest utility is the ability to easily counter every knockback on Remnant and Multiple ways it can get past the rolling balls on Painsmith.

Sadly I believe that until Survival gets some kind of strong raid utility, or just blatantly S+ tier damage potential, it will be left out of the meta (similar to what can be seen with Feral).
Overall Rating: B

As many of you already know, Fire Mage was significantly nerfed in Patch 9.1. This was a nerf mostly aimed at AoE and Mythic+ that also affected Single Target. As of 7/13/21 Fire received additional tuning to increase its single target damage. For a lot of Mages these changes came too late, as most had probably already swapped covenants and spec. The changes are listed below.

Patch 9.1:

Flamestrike damage reduced by 10%.
Flame Patch (Talent) damage reduced by 10%.
Kindling (Talent) cooldown reduction for Combustion reduced to 1 second (was 1.5 seconds).
Infernal Cascade (Conduit) Fire Damage bonus reduced by 20%.

7/13/21 buffs:

Fireball damage increased by 20%.
Fire Blast damage increased by 15%.
Pyroblast damage increased by 5%.

Fire Mage has always been a very strong defensive pick in raids due to its many proactive defensive abilities such as Blazing Barrier, Mirror Image, Alter Time, and Ice Block in addition to Cauterize as a cheat death. Often, Fire Mage is talked about as being unkillable due to all its defensive strengths, but one slight weakness for the spec is passive damage mitigation, as some of the other ranged specs have vastly superior damage reduction and require less healing generally.

Fire Mages have exceptional mobility, but individual mobility as a niche isn't especially valuable unless there is a mechanic that demands it. Most mechanics that demand movement don't demand as much as Fire Mage can offer. In terms of utility, Fire Mage has the Arcane Intellect and Time Warp. This means that having one Mage is essentially a requirement. Adding additional Mages does not add to the utility, so even though one is required, two adds no real benefit.

In 9.1 Fire still has decent single target and cleave but consistently high AoE damage. Fire Mage has very high and consistent burst with Combustion, but damage outside of cooldowns is very low and the spec is very cooldown reliant. Our weaknesses remain the same as always. Fire Mage has no spread cleave and no utility to bring if another Mage is already present in the raid, so you won't stack it unless it's the best ranged DPS for the job. Due to the nerfs and general tuning, the spec is looking like one to avoid if you care about having optimal damage in raid, especially for fights like Guardian of the First Ones and Kel'Thuzad where high single target or spread cleave occurs.

C Tier Spec PredictionsOverall Rating: B-

Affliction throughout Sanctum of Domination farm has become a slightly better than expected class to play for fun in the raid. While still not competitive on pure single target, the ability to change legendaries to Decaying Soul Satchel and spec into Sow the Seeds, you can become a pseudo Windwalker Monk for burst AoE damage on fights where it is relevant, such as Soulrender Dormazain, Painsmith Raznal, and Kel'Thuzad. Affliction still has some of the best baseline scaling among dps classes, so it has potential into later raid patches in the expansion, but unfortunately it remains relatively uncompetitive in priority damage at this point.

Even though the overall damage possibilities are lower, the utility remains an important part of any warlock's toolkit in a raid group. You're still the only class that brings Healthstone, and the only class that can easily supplement roster swaps with a Summon stone. Our curses - Curse of Weakness and Curse of Tongues remain useful for progression and there are very few alternatives that are raid viable. Finally, Demonic Gateway remains the most powerful tool in any raid's toolkit to move all 20 players from one position to another.

Our mobility remains strong with the Night Fae covenant - Soulshape continues to be the solution to mobility problems warlocks have notoriously suffered from in past expansions. Demonic Circle: Teleport remains a strong option now that it's no longer a talent choice, giving warlocks another option to pre set up movement for specific mechanics. Although not a huge difference from most classes, affliction does have the added benefit of being able to cast most of its DoTs on the move - while you do ideally want to refresh your DoTs within their pandemic range for max efficiency, its perfectly fine to recast DoTs while moving when you have nothing better to cast. Even better yet, you can plan your DoT refreshes ahead of time and move specifically when you are refreshing them.

Finally, Warlock's survivabilty has remained relatively strong to all but pure physical damage. You still have one of the best passive damage reductions in the game through Soul Leech, which can be amplified even further with Demon Skin. Unending Resolve's relatively long cooldown can be reduced pretty significantly with the new conduit, Resolute Barrier. And in a very scary scenario with multiple targets available to you, Soul Rot + Drain Life in combination be a life saver.

Unfortunately, in a hardcore progression scenario, Affliction's damage is extremely under par for the course. The only reason I haven't personally rated Affliction C- or lower is because it has the ability to swap to either Demonology or Destruction, both of which are easily A Tier or higher in Sanctum of Domination. Unless you're extremely deadset on playing Affliction, my current recommendation is to swap to either of those specs.Overall Rating: A-

Arms has proved better suited for Sanctum of Domination than originally predicted, owing partially to the revelation that Sylvanas Windrunner would have no execute phase, but also due to a bug fix which nearly doubled the value of Windfury Totem. Interestingly, most of the things Arms is doing well right now aren't single target though - they're AoE. Arms isn't even on the meters on Mythic Painsmith Raznal until adds come out following intermission, while early kills of Mythic Kel'Thuzad similarly revolve around bursting down grouped adds. Even Sylvanas Windrunner is better suited for Warrior cleave on Mythic than Normal or Heroic, thanks to how well grouped her Domination Chains are in Phase 1 and the increased add damage requirements in Phase 2.

The start of any tier is an interesting time for drawing comparisons, especially a tier with as much RNG as this one. The highest performing players are those with the best gear and upgraded Shard of Domination sets, though we've still not seen the full range of power progression - soulbinds have yet to be fully unlocked, special effect weapons need to be acquired, and Shards will continue to be upgraded up to rank 5 - all of these things will have an influence on performance that isn't shown in the early weeks of progression, by race guilds which don't have the time to wait for them.

Like all Warriors, Arms brings a number of other strong benefits to the raid as well - Battle Shout and Rallying Cry are staples of any raid team, and Spell Reflection can deflect a variety of mechanics or serve as a simple yet strong defensive cooldown. We've even seen Taunt/Challenging Shout used to effect in a few Mythic boss kills so far, such as having a Warrior sacrifice themselves to avoid the tank's Soul Fracture on Kel'Thuzad.

Overall, Arms is performing well right now, not because it got a 5% buff or because the Windfury (if you have it) bug fix can add another 5%, but because it doesn't have to wait for progression systems to kick in, and we finally have a Mythic raid tier with a good range of two target cleave and intermittent burst AoE encounters. Sylvanas' lack of an execute phase alone ensures that Arms will continue to have a place for performance minded Warriors taking part in early progression, though whether Arms continues to enjoy dominance remains to be seen.

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Comment by MetaAnderPure DPS class below hybrids... Seriously, fire the guys behind this.Comment by wilderzitobuff
hunters
plz :(Comment by lovs2buildAffliction locks now C? I highly doubt that, I main a affliction lock and I can't see much difference in killing stuff over 9.0. In fact my Ret pally who is like 2-3 ilvls higher than her has hard time with 2-3 mobs in Korthia where my lock can still pull 5-6 things and burn them down. Even hard mobs like the bears and others, lock can burn them 5-6 seconds faster than the Pally. We will see after raid comes out after first week.Comment by Opeth2v6https://www simulationcraft org/reports/T27_Raid.html nice predictionsComment by N1xernPure DPS class below hybrids... Seriously, fire the guys behind this.Comment by Jiimy8meincoming hammer for frost mage. we know they wont allow any mage to be strongest except for fireComment by ArkealQBlizzard are not very good at the whole "balancing" thing. Yeah this cycle has 3 wheels but the others have 2. You don't fix that by removing 2 wheels. Now the cycle has 1 while everyone else has 2.

Turning the "valve" on fire mage from being top tier, to lowest tier seems to be too much.Comment by KrunklockAffliction locks now C? I highly doubt that, I main a affliction lock and I can't see much difference in killing stuff over 9.0. In fact my Ret pally who is like 2-3 ilvls higher than her has hard time with 2-3 mobs in Korthia where my lock can still pull 5-6 things and burn them down. Even hard mobs like the bears and others, lock can burn them 5-6 seconds faster than the Pally. We will see after raid comes out after first week.Comment by lovs2buildAffliction locks now C? I highly doubt that, I main a affliction lock and I can't see much difference in killing stuff over 9.0. In fact my Ret pally who is like 2-3 ilvls higher than her has hard time with 2-3 mobs in Korthia where my lock can still pull 5-6 things and burn them down. Even hard mobs like the bears and others, lock can burn them 5-6 seconds faster than the Pally. We will see after raid comes out after first week.Comment by Kandall0516Pure DPS class below hybrids... Seriously, fire the guys behind this.Comment by Vacuummancer
The whole "hybrids should do less dps" hasn't been a thing in WoW for years, and frankly.. it's a weird argument. If a person is playing say spriest, then you're in your class' dps spec. The fact that you can off-heal doesn't mean you should be doing less damage than a different dps spec.Comment by EduacTedAt the top of the article aff lock is C tier but in the aff lock section at the bottom it says C+. Typo?Comment by Shirofune
The whole "hybrids should do less dps" hasn't been a thing in WoW for years, and frankly.. it's a weird argument. If a person is playing say spriest, then you're in your class' dps spec. The fact that you can off-heal doesn't mean you should be doing less damage than a different dps spec.Comment by Vacuummancer
Your DPS spec shouldn't be worse than a pure DPS spec just because you can go healer. They should be about equal. No spec should be inferior to another just because of some hybrid tag.Comment by Dichotomyhttps://www simulationcraft org/reports/T27_Raid.html nice predictionsYikesComment by JunpaMy favorite part about the Affliction Lock write up is that it didn't get a lower score because you can just not play it.... really?

Unfortunately, in a hardcore progression scenario, affliction's damage is extremely under par for the course. The only reason I haven't personally rated Affliction C- or lower is because it has the ability to swap to either Demonology or Destruction, both of which are easily A Tier or higher in Sanctum of Domination. Unless you're extremely deadset on playing affliction, my current recommendation is to swap to either of those specs.Comment by PecoceHunters really got the hammer this patch huhComment by LemistioMan I wish to see the rise of subtlety again removedComment by Monomin
Your DPS spec shouldn't be worse than a pure DPS spec just because you can go healer. They should be about equal. No spec should be inferior to another just because of some hybrid tag.Comment by KaverTettles doesn't place Boomie in S tier so it doesn't get nerfed xD

After him and Naguura have cried about Boomie ever since the nerfs were announced, Boomie is still an S tier spec.

The whining of the Boomkin community is getting out of hand.

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