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Table of Contents
Introduction
This guide was made in collaboration with multiple current Rank 1 Gladiators, but is designed to represent the entire arena ladder.
To help understand how these rankings work, we assume the following:
S tier specs are what currently defines the meta. These represent the absolute best in each category.
A tier specs are incredibly strong, but not one of the best. These are still highly competitive, but have a chance at getting slightly unfavorable lobbies.
B tier specs represent the “average” spec, and have an even distribution of good and bad lobbies, which can make them feel less consistent.
C tier specs are generally weak into the meta and are expected to have unfavorable lobbies the majority of the time.
A visual representation can be found here.
Other important notes:
This list is an ongoing project and will be updated periodically.
Melee
S Tier
Feral Druid
As for our first S tier melee, we have Feral Druid. Although they have received flat damage nerfs to Rip, Feral Druids are quite durable in the meta while having one of the strongest burst cooldowns in the game. What makes them even better is that they are capable of tearing apart their opponents without having to cast Cyclone to burst.
Windwalker Monk
Windwalker Monks can dish out some heavy upfront burst, allowing you to execute your opponents unexpectedly and secure wins. Another reason why this spec is ranked relatively high is due to their variety of defensive and utility abilities that can help them or their teammates escape danger as well as with securing setups. Their new Clash talent is a prime example of this, reacting as both a Roll and a Death Grip from Death Knight, giving this spec a ton of playmaking potential.
Additionally, Storm, Earth, and Fire images are now immune to roots and Crowd Control, making them more reliable to deal damage. Unfortunately, the downside of this spec is that their Paralysis is now 3 seconds in PvP, making it a bit more difficult to close out games, but with one-shot level damage this won’t be too difficult of a problem.
Havoc Demon Hunter
Demon Hunter is a solid pick for most beginners as their rotation is relatively simple and straightforward. What ranks this spec higher than previous seasons is mainly from their damage rework, providing them higher burst during Metamorphosis windows and new talents such as Screaming Brutality. This talent reacts identical to an older tier set and greatly helps with their consistent pressure.
Fury Warrior
Fury Warrior is now highly represented in the competitive scene not only for how simplistic it is to do high burst, but how easy it is to land unexpected kills on your opponents. This is mainly because their high damage output from Rampage, and with it applying the strongest consistent MS effect in the game their damage is difficult to recover from. Their pressure becomes even deadlier during their Recklessness and Avatar windows.
Retribution Paladin
Paladins still have a strong reliable toolkit after their recent class talent rework, and with recent buffs to Sun’s Avatar and Dawnlight they now have a lot of consistent pressure. This extra damage makes Retribution quite competitive as they have enough pressure to finally finish their target with ease. Although they lack a healing reduction effect, they have more utility thrown into their arsenal of spells that not only keep themselves safe but their allies as well.
Additionally, they have more Crowd Control uptime thanks to Light's Countenance if either Repentance or Blinding Light is played, helping them set up for their team more often and create more pressure.
A+ Tier
Subtlety Rogue
Subtlety Rogue can pack a punch during our stun windows thanks to new talents like Shadowcraft and Death Perception. They can also spam Eviscerate more frequently without having to worry about generating Combo Points at times when they would need it otherwise.
The downside of Subtlety is that it can be quite predictable in higher lobbies, and can easily become a nightmare if you have a teammate constantly DRing your stuns before your next setup
Assassination Rogue
Assassination Rogue is tuned down on the difficulty quite a bit, as opposed to Sub Rogue, and will continue creating AoE pressure by means of bleeds and poison effects. This spec is filled with solid quality of life buffs, keeping our rotation impactful, especially from Subterfuge and Serrated Bone Spikes applying from our Rupture.
With Retribution Paladins experiencing some hefty sustain damage buffs, this has reduced the representation of this spec in competitive play as they can easily be countered with Blessing of Sanctuary and Blessing of Protection.
Survival Hunter
Even after Survival‘s one-shot nerf to Flanking Strike, their Hero tree Pack Leader has been dramatically stronger as it currently stands. This enhances their consistent pressure and even burst if they proc the correct beast during offensive cooldowns.
Unfortunately Survival isn’t capable to preventing themselves from avoiding heavy fire compared to Marksmanship and BM, which makes this specialization require more positional awareness and optimization in order to succeed.
Arms Warrior
As for our last specialization in the ‘A+ tier’ category we have Arms Warrior. Even after recent buffs to their finishing power and burst, this specialization doesn’t provide enough pressure to be on an equal footing with Fury but can deliver some ridiculous Execute damage.
A Tier
Frost Death Knight
Entering into the ‘A Tier’ category we have Frost Death Knight. Even though this spec focuses on producing the same setup to secure wins, players have shifted to a 2 1-hander build in order to make burst more consistent. This deviates slightly from their gimmicky burst windows and gives them the capability to stay in the fight more often.
Unholy Death Knight
Unholy Death Knight continues to deal damage the way it’s always done, high disease damage and wound popping, but with some extra enhancements that buff what we already have.
However Unholy still lacks in survivability even with their most recent adjustment to Bloodforged Armor, which is only impactful when facing specific melees that deal physical damage.
Outlaw Rogue
Outlaw is notoriously known as a ‘dampener’ spec as it requires the game to extend for a prolonged period of time until your opponents fall behind. This is due to their excessive amounts of CC they can produce while keeping consistent damage in tact. With some slight nerfs to Restless Blades, it’s now slower to generate Vanish, therefore negatively impacting our control and burst.
The downside of Outlaw is that it requires a lot of high-APM and is quite difficult to deal damage as for a beginner player.
B Tier
Enhancement Shaman
Even though Enhancement Shaman has seen a lot of buffs to a variety of spells, most of them aren’t impactful and are completely offset by nerfs to Primordial Storm and Windfury Attack.
This spec can feel like a slot machine while bursting with Doom Winds and Primordial Wave, which is our only way of scoring kills. Unfortunately with the recent changes this has become noticeably weaker, drastically reducing the representation of this spec in competitive PvP.
Ranged
S Tier
Beast Mastery Hunter
Beast Mastery still remains a good option for all players regardless of rating, and is the most competitive spec out of all Hunter specs. Not to mention, BM has one of the highest win rates in the bracket, while also retaining one of the lowest death rates.
After the removal of Basilisk Collar, this enables potential swaps rather than being stuck to one target in order to maximize damage. Being more versatile and adaptable with target selection only enables the strengths that BM Hunter currently provides.
Marksmanship Hunter
Marksmanship Hunter continues to be a high threat with how spiky their consistent damage is. Although their offensive cooldowns have been toned down in recent patches, they can delete a HP bar with a simple Aimed Shot.
Additionally this spec has received some quality of life improvements to Dark Ranger that make its effects more impactful during the course of a game, as well as some buffs to Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire that offset the nerfs to Trueshot, Trick Shots, and Aspect of the Hydra.
Devastation Evoker
Devastation Evoker excels at lower ratings, up to 1800 rating, mainly due to their profound burst.
This spec can easily close out games relatively fast, and at lower ratings it becomes less likely that enemy players will counter their damage. They are also one of the tankiest casters in the game, especially with how much mobility they have to kite away from melees.
Even their change to Sleep Walk allows them to have way more control over a game. Also, this becomes less punishing to cast as its on a separate school from our primary damaging spells.
Frost Mage
Frost out of all three Mage specs still remains the strongest with their Icy Veins enrage timer even after some slight nerfs to their utility and throughput. These nerfs mainly focused on Icy Veins, Ice Wall, and Overpowered Barrier, as these were core spells that either made players immortal or capable of lethal win conditions.
Its convenience factor is from the amount of mobility this spec has, and the fact that you can do a lot of damage without needing to cast at all.
Elemental Shaman
Elemental Shaman has become quite competitive in the new season thanks to buffs to core damage spells and Primordial Wave’s burst damage. Even with added consistent damage from previous patches, this makes Elemental a force to be reckoned with.
Since Elemental Shaman in nature is played to not lose as opposed to playing to win, having more throughput greatly enhances their win condition.
A+ Tier
Arcane Mage
Arcane may be difficult for a beginner, this spec can deal some heavy burst damage. More modifiers have been added to talents they have gotten accustomed to, particularly in terms of Time Loop, which extend their Arcane Debilitation debuff on targets. Depending on how many stacks they have up, they can deal some explosive burst out of Arcane Barrage and Arcane Missiles.
However this spec has become slightly weaker in terms of mobility and burst than in previous patches, primarily targeting Arcane Surge‘s damage modifier as well as to nerf to Chrono Shift‘s movement speed bonus.
Affliction Warlock
Although Affliction retains its bursty profile, it is unfortunately more difficult to climb as due to the current meta. The reasoning to this is that Warlocks are constantly trained by melees, which are running rampant in Solo Shuffle, and with Holy Priests and Restoration Druids being the most common healer players come across they can easily dispel Unstable Affliction during their immunity forms.
Demonology Warlock
Demonology in its current state has become way easier to play with it becoming less reliant on hard casting to produce damage.
The only downside is fighting off the current meta specializations that make it difficult to get casts off when necessary, either for securing a kill with damage or Crowd Control.
Destruction Warlock
Destruction has been known to deliver high consistent pressure with their instant casts in order to secure kills, but now relies more-so on their double Mortal Coil and Chaos Bolt sequence in order to deal lethal burst.
This shift in Destruction has been mainly due to Chaos Bolt and Wither buffs with the tradeoff of less Soul Shard generation. Since this spec needs to cast at times to secure kills, this makes them struggle in high competitive lobbies where melees run rampant.
Augmentation Evoker
Augmentation‘s 15% buff to all spells is a dramatic enhancement to their one-shot gimmick sequence with Breath of Eons, making their win conditions way more lethal than it has been the entire season.
However the weakness of Augmentation is that it continues to struggle with generating any real pressure outside of this burst window.
Shadow Priest
Shadow Priest continues to deliver gnarly consistent damage, but only if they are free to cast. With some slight overall damage nerf to the spec, and with a rising popularity of Fury Warrior, Elemental Shaman, which will constantly shut Shadow Priests down, as well as Holy Priest holding down dispel on DoTs, players struggle with producing consistent results.
Additionally, Void Leech has been nerfed from previous patches, which is why this spec remains relatively squishy and a potential kill target in most lobbies.
A Tier
Balance Druid
Boomkin has retained its A tier ranking even after receiving some buffs to both consistent damage, burst coming out of Starsurge, and survivability with Frenzied Regeneration. Their 4 set can deliver some heavy Starsurge damage and only is complemented by recent buffs.
This spec continues to secure kills with double Incarnation: Chosen of Elune, which opens up less scripted windows on its second use where enemy defensive cooldowns are recharging.
However even with some survivability improvements this spec is still one of the squishiest casters and is quite susceptible to death due to how lethal Fury Warriors and Windwalker Monks are in the meta.
Fire Mage
Fire Mage‘s win conditions become slightly easier to execute on with buffs to Fireball, which becomes even stronger thanks to our Frostfire Hero tree, as well as increased Frostfire Bolt damage.
Although this spec has suffered with back to back nerfs, these buffs slightly revive the spec’s performance but not enough to be on equal footing with Frost and even Arcane.
Healers
S Tier
Holy Priest
Holy Priest has experienced some massive throughput buffs that make this specialization capable of healing any kind of burst damage at ease. Even after some needed nerfs to Prayer of Mending, Holy Fire, and Smite if Oracle is played, their throughput is still strong and their damage can easily assist in securing kills during setups or at high Dampening.
With extremely powerful healing and solid burst damage coming out of Holy Fire, these strengths help offset their weakness of Dampening and lack of defensive mitigation.
Restoration Druid
Despite Resto Druid being reliant on a slow paced meta, they are considerably powerful in the meta thanks to their 4 set tier bonus as well as their Ancient of Lore immunity form to counteract high burst.
Having another method of applying HoTs via Insurance procs from Lifebloom makes healing efficient and frees up additional globals that can be used for control. It almost becomes difficult to fall behind as this spec, and with most damage specs synergizing well with Resto’s toolkit it becomes successful in competitive lobbies.
A+ Tier
Holy Paladin
After experiencing some hard-hitting nerfs to utility and Lightsmith, this has made Holy Paladin slightly more difficult. Thankfully its healing rotation at its core remains relatively easy and straightforward for beginner players to grasp.
Holy Paladin is still a healer that requires solid cooldown management to keep your team aggressive, and with how powerful melees are Holy Paladin further enables their performance in competitive lobbies. Even using these cooldowns reactively is great in a meta that is quite fast and unpredictable, and even has Blessing of Spellwarding to temporarily negate caster burst, predominately Frost Mage.
Discipline Priest
Discipline Priest still continues to be a strong contender in most competitive lobbies as their external cooldowns serve a tremendous value to team survivability and has enormous damage potential.
Discipline Priest after recent tunings have reverted back to its original tempo-based playstyle as this spec has suffered from massive healing nerfs. This predominantly targeted their tier set and Evangelism, making it difficult to recover from pressure if you are already behind.
A Tier
Preservation Evoker
Although Preservation Evoker synergizes well with a bruiser heavy meta, the popularity of Frost Mage makes it difficult to sustain their opponents especially at the high end of the ladder.
Additionally this spec may be challenging for newer players, as it has quite an abysmal win rate up to Rival ratings. Unless you are already super experienced at healing and know your spec inside and out, Preservation Evoker can be quite overwhelming for most players.
Restoration Shaman
Restoration Shaman more or less struggles in a fast-paced meta, where it becomes difficult to throw out your utility in order to keep your team ahead. All in all, this spec tends to be outclassed by more of the higher ranked healers, simply due to their lack of sustain healing and the requirement for players to stay inside Earthen Wall Totem in order to recover.
Mistweaver Monk
Mistweaver has risen in popularity with how effective their AoE healing can be from Jade Empowerment, but suffers from the same issue as Preservation; Frost Mage.
Their single-target healing is even stronger now with some healing buffs thrown in, and can be a bit easier to climb at lower ratings since players are inclined to train one target from start to finish while ignoring their healer in the process.
Final Thoughts
Same as with all the other tier lists we’ve done, you have to realize that being lower on the list doesn’t make your class bad. There are a lot of things that go into making classes better than others. In Solo Shuffle specifically, lack of coordination is a big factor, but the level of chaos will change depending on your rating. The classes higher on the list will be easier to navigate due to their versatility and carry potential, and will be a safe choice going into Season 2 of The War Within.