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Starym

WoW Classic Class DPS Rankings / Tier List Guide

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We've delved into some statistics and compiled a tier list for the Classic classes, to see which would perform best in a raid environment, minus any raid gear. The list presumes a character is equipped with all best-in-slot pre-raid items, as well as all the optimal consumables and, perhaps unsurprisingly, mages came out on top and are the only ones in the S tier!

You should definitely check out the full guide, as it goes into detail on each class and why they're in the spot they are, what specifics they excel at and more. But for now, let's just take a look at the list itself:

  1. KONFY3G21NRT1465340163602.pngMage (S-Tier)
  2. Y65BR5SJIAKM1465340163689.pngWarlock (A-Tier)
  3. Q21ASBT2SDXX1465340163697.pngWarrior (A-Tier) 
  4. 4K4NG17DH5OC1465340163651.pngRogue (A-Tier)
  5. 3AP8QPDFMH191465340163595.pngHunter (B-Tier)
  6. BIML5YS7P8XA1465340163522.pngFeral Druid (B-Tier)
  7. MMF2M70OD4PY1465340163646.pngShadow Priest (C-Tier)
  8. FTPZBBV8LWHM1465340163625.pngRetribution Paladin (C-Tier)
  9. TGVJ0Y6O051R1465340163670.pngEnhancement Shaman (D-Tier)
  10. BIML5YS7P8XA1465340163522.pngBalance Druid (D-Tier)
  11. TGVJ0Y6O051R1465340163670.pngElemental Shaman (D-Tier)

Those poor shamans!

And, an important note to finish, as noted by the guide's writer, Impakt:

Quote

It is important to note that, just because a DPS class is not "S tier", this does not make it unplayable; most classes in the game are viable if played well with the right consumables. This ranking is simply to showcase which is the true best of the best when played perfectly with top gear and consumables.

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Now this is A big diffrence between vanilla and classic. People learned to Play Wow. Black in 2004 everyone played classes of their interest. No FOTM untill naxx. Raids took months to progress. People were generally having fun. Now it's all bout numbers. 

Edited by Saeria
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On the plus side for Shamans, they are still heavily played and brought on Horde because those big boy Warriors and Rogues can't do nearly as much DPS without the Shaman totems ? and they are also great healers, so its not really needed that they bring the best DPS in order to be useful!

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5 hours ago, Starym said:

most classes in the game are viable if played well with the right consumables.

Can we just take a moment and discuss this whole "with the right consumables" issue? I feel like we are always assuming that a Mage or a Warrior wouldn't put in the same amount of effort. And surely, the extra DPS from a mage with the right consumables will completely outweight any DPS gain a Balance Druid could hope for.

I know it's not important for Classic, since raiding seems to be an absolute joke considering a bunch of green-geared 58s can kill Rag in under an hour. But I can't help to think that saying "if you put in three times the effort you can be as good as a Mage who doesn't care and AFKs half the fight" is just a really bad argument in favor of meme specs.

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4 minutes ago, jinsu2301 said:

Can we just take a moment and discuss this whole "with the right consumables" issue?

Can you just take a moment and actually read the whole post. 
You literally just repeated what they said.

5 hours ago, Starym said:

This ranking is simply to showcase which is the true best of the best when played perfectly with top gear and consumables.

 

 

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24 minutes ago, meatbag7 said:

Can you just take a moment and actually read the whole post. 
You literally just repeated what they said.

No, I didn't. My point was that just having consumables and the right gear doesn't magically transform a meme spec into a proper spec. But that is what the "with the right consumables" line always seems to suggest. It only works that way if you are the only one who puts in the extra effort. As soon as everyone else goes tryhard mode, you are back to where you started, which is why I find it pointless to even mention it in the first place.

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PSA

All classes and their dps specs do MUCH more than the required dps to kill a boss. To put it into perspective, a melee'ing mage does enough dps to kill these bosses (I exaggerate but you get the picture).

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8 hours ago, Saeria said:

Now this is A big diffrence between vanilla and classic. People learned to Play Wow. Black in 2004 everyone played classes of their interest. No FOTM untill naxx. Raids took months to progress. People were generally having fun. Now it's all bout numbers. 

Well said.

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2 hours ago, CaperfinWoW said:

Well said.

It's really not well said. People can play with whatever they want, and just because there's a list doesn't mean everyone is magically just going to play what's "best" especially since the game isn't all about raw numbers anyways. Also of course raids took months compared to now, people didn't know things about the game. Everything was new and unexplored. People know the fights now, they know how things work so of course that part is going to be different.

 

It's also bold of people to say that NO ONE in vanilla played something because it was superior to another class. you think every rogue only played it because it was the most interesting class? As well as the "People were generally having fun" as if people aren't having fun now"

Edited by Aegrotat

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Played a Resto shaman through all of Vanilla back in the day. Was fairly quick to realize a few weeks into 60 that enhancement and elemental was not going to fly. We didn't have numbers back then but the experienced players understood what sucked and what didnt, which was made especially easy with PvP servers and stats being universal.

If anyone is upset by Enhancement or Elemental not being viable at endgame...this isn't new. Good shaman went resto, dropped Windfury Totem, and let their warriors spam hamstring until they chained 6x WF procs.

Retadins were a joke, as were Druid and Shaman DPS classes. Most powerful tool in a Rets arsenal? bubble+hearth.

A big point that's being missed in this tier list is a team of 5 can easily wipe the floor with a random group of 15.

Edited by Abom

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8 hours ago, Abom said:

If anyone is upset by Enhancement or Elemental not being viable at endgame...this isn't new.

Enh and Ele shaman are viable though.

 

8 hours ago, Abom said:

Good shaman went resto, dropped Windfury Totem, and let their warriors spam hamstring until they chained 6x WF procs.

Yes perhaps in a guild going for world first or progression raiding but any other time this amount of min-max to the point of not allowing certain off meta specs is silly.

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Caperfin is absolutely right. Almost everything is viable at endgame because you can kill all the bosses with almost any raid comp as long as you played well. Obviously having lots of Mages and Warriors can make the raids easier, but that doesn't make specs like Enhancement and Elemental nonviable. There are very few guilds in all of classic that will use 100% of the available consumables for every single raid, which is why you can make non meta specs like Ret Paladin perform better than normal by going the extra mile and using full consumables even when the rest of your raid is not.

 

At the end of the day, this is just meant to showcase where the specs stand when put onto an even playing field. You can and should play whatever brings you the most enjoyment - if you care enough and want to be the best Enhancement shaman on your server, there is a guild somewhere with room for you to do that. Focusing too much on only play the most FOTM spec can detract from the game, but if that's what you want to do then go for it, nothing is stopping you. Personally I main a hunter, and even though it isn't topping meters, I enjoy being one of 2-3 hunters in a raid and not having to compete with 12 other mages for gear. It's nice.

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@ImpaktMy tier list: In this hypothetical all classes are BIS and everyone is getting tryhard buffs, ex: Dark Whisper, etc... and the highest dps ever recorded is displayed, give or take 15 - 25dps.

1. Mage 500dps
2. Shadow Priest (w/Winter Night, crit parsing & not on support) 450 dps 
3. Warrior 400dps (can be higher w/Bloodlust trick)
3. Rogue (w/fel strikers & shadow oil) 350dps
4. Warlock 350dps (can crit parse so ~400) and there are cases where MD/Ruin w/pet PI give a 15dps bump.
5. Feral Druid 325dps
5. Spelladin 325dps
6. Spellhencement (this still need to be tested on classic but its results on pserver in the worst case scenario is 310)
7. Melee Balance Druid (yup, its a thing and its good) 300dps
7. Melee Hunter (yup, its a thing and its good) 300dps

I live and breath this type of stuff where you push a class to its max potential, I play a Shaman Tank after all... But take this list with a grain of salt since DM gear is considered. It's just to showcase how some classes get thrown under the boss and underestimated, like shadow priest...

P.S. I didn't mention smite priest since their dps widely fluctuates on dif pservers (280 to 330dps)

Edited by CaperfinWoW

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"DONT HEAL HIM hes enhancement!"

On 9/13/2019 at 12:31 PM, Impakt said:

Caperfin is absolutely right. Almost everything is viable at endgame because you can kill all the bosses with almost any raid comp as long as you played well. Obviously having lots of Mages and Warriors can make the raids easier, but that doesn't make specs like Enhancement and Elemental nonviable. There are very few guilds in all of classic that will use 100% of the available consumables for every single raid, which is why you can make non meta specs like Ret Paladin perform better than normal by going the extra mile and using full consumables even when the rest of your raid is not.

 

At the end of the day, this is just meant to showcase where the specs stand when put onto an even playing field. You can and should play whatever brings you the most enjoyment - if you care enough and want to be the best Enhancement shaman on your server, there is a guild somewhere with room for you to do that. Focusing too much on only play the most FOTM spec can detract from the game, but if that's what you want to do then go for it, nothing is stopping you. Personally I main a hunter, and even though it isn't topping meters, I enjoy being one of 2-3 hunters in a raid and not having to compete with 12 other mages for gear. It's nice.

Whatever Tranq Bot. There's 2-3 hunters for when the other ones miss their Tranq.

Edited by Abom

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On 9/14/2019 at 7:57 AM, CaperfinWoW said:

@ImpaktMy tier list: In this hypothetical all classes are BIS and everyone is getting tryhard buffs, ex: Dark Whisper, etc... and the highest dps ever recorded is displayed, give or take 15 - 25dps.

1. Mage 500dps
2. Shadow Priest (w/Winter Night, crit parsing & not on support) 450 dps 
3. Warrior 400dps (can be higher w/Bloodlust trick)
3. Rogue (w/fel strikers & shadow oil) 350dps
4. Warlock 350dps (can crit parse so ~400) and there are cases where MD/Ruin w/pet PI give a 15dps bump.
5. Feral Druid 325dps
5. Spelladin 325dps
6. Spellhencement (this still need to be tested on classic but its results on pserver in the worst case scenario is 310)
7. Melee Balance Druid (yup, its a thing and its good) 300dps
7. Melee Hunter (yup, its a thing and its good) 300dps

I live and breath this type of stuff where you push a class to its max potential, I play a Shaman Tank after all... But take this list with a grain of salt since DM gear is considered. It's just to showcase how some classes get thrown under the boss and underestimated, like shadow priest...

P.S. I didn't mention smite priest since their dps widely fluctuates on dif pservers (280 to 330dps)

By Mage, are you talking Fire Mage?  I'm surprised I haven't seen any difference between all the specs.

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On 9/12/2019 at 11:20 AM, Saeria said:

Now this is A big diffrence between vanilla and classic. People learned to Play Wow. Black in 2004 everyone played classes of their interest. No FOTM untill naxx. Raids took months to progress. People were generally having fun. Now it's all bout numbers. 

Times change. People change. If everything in the world was to stay the same, we would still live in caves. I'm not saying I like the change when it comes to certain things, but hey, it's the way everything works. We have less attention span then ever before, thus things have to be about numbers and how-to-win-fastest and be-the-best. 

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I have to ask, you mentioned that you were evaluating all the classes based on their Max Potential. But then when I read Warlock (my class of choice) you started putting restrictions on how to play it. I understand the Melee-range AoE is a negative aspect, but you used the threat generated as a way to de-rank Warlock. Basically, from how I read it, if you don't have to worry about taking Agro, the Warlock will out DPS the Mage, but because they have to hold back, they will technically lose. Wouldn't that allow them to still be considered S-Class DPS?

I think it would only be fair to consider that each class playing to their max potential also includes not worrying about threat. Yes, it is a real end game issue, but the point of this was to look at things from their max potential.  

Edited by Smash

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On 9/14/2019 at 1:57 PM, CaperfinWoW said:

@ImpaktMy tier list: In this hypothetical all classes are BIS and everyone is getting tryhard buffs, ex: Dark Whisper, etc... and the highest dps ever recorded is displayed, give or take 15 - 25dps.

1. Mage 500dps
2. Shadow Priest (w/Winter Night, crit parsing & not on support) 450 dps 
3. Warrior 400dps (can be higher w/Bloodlust trick)
3. Rogue (w/fel strikers & shadow oil) 350dps
4. Warlock 350dps (can crit parse so ~400) and there are cases where MD/Ruin w/pet PI give a 15dps bump.
5. Feral Druid 325dps
5. Spelladin 325dps
6. Spellhencement (this still need to be tested on classic but its results on pserver in the worst case scenario is 310)
7. Melee Balance Druid (yup, its a thing and its good) 300dps
7. Melee Hunter (yup, its a thing and its good) 300dps

I live and breath this type of stuff where you push a class to its max potential, I play a Shaman Tank after all... But take this list with a grain of salt since DM gear is considered. It's just to showcase how some classes get thrown under the boss and underestimated, like shadow priest...

P.S. I didn't mention smite priest since their dps widely fluctuates on dif pservers (280 to 330dps)

What about elemental Shamans? ?

 

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