wow Shadowlands DPS Specs: Performance and Outlooks

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There are a whole lot of DPS specs to cover, so we've separated our guide writers opinions on their performance in the Shadowlands from our usual pre-patch DPS rankings, as there was just too much to cover in one place. Each of our writers will go over the general situation for their respective spec or specs in the Shadowlands, to give you a better idea of what the changes might do to them, so let's get started.

SL Tank Specs Overview

SL Healer Specs Overview

Pre-patch DPS  Raid Rankings

Or you can just head to the Shadowlands class guides themselves for a more comprehensive look!

Unholy and Frost Death Knight by Abyssalwave:

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Frost and Unholy Death Knights are looking like very strong melee options in Shadowlands. With the addition of Anti-Magic Zone, Death Knights have group and raid utility making them very valuable in some to most encounters. Unholy Death Knights did take a hit to their AoE damage with the AoE cap introduced in Shadowlands, however they still offer incredibly powerful AoE burst and sustained damage.

Frost Death Knights have 2 major builds going into Shadowlands, Obliteration and Breath of Sindragosa giving players an option of the play style that they prefer. Frost still offers amazing burst AoE and single-target damage while the Obliteration build offers great sustained damage. Overall Frost and Unholy Death Knights look like powerful options going into Shadowlands.

Havoc Demon Hunter by Wordup:

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Havoc is going to have a bit of a strange feeling transitioning to Shadowlands because not a whole lot changes, trading in Furious Gaze and Chaotic Transformation from Azerite for the passive effects during levelling just seems like maintaining the status quo. The toolkit that made it good in BfA is still there though, with good cooldowns and burst AoE, so all the reasons that made it appealing for the last two years are still going to be there. It also has some real stand out gains in Conduits with both Growing Inferno and Relentless Onslaught providing good improvements for different scenarios which are available to all of the Covenants.

The one question mark is how much the hits to defensives will actually hurt them in the long run. Taking out raw survival coupled with a shift in preferred talents away from things that gave free sustain might alter how durable they are especially come raid time. With all that being said, it is just a matter of where number tuning lands because the tools available are enough to let Havoc slot into any fight style quite well, and also has some great legendaries to specialize even further into one.

Feral Druid by Wordup:

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For Feral things are looking up, with the mix of uncapped AoE and solid sustained damage and the unlocking of Berserk Rank 2 to improve the strength of its burst window both in single-target and AoE, the flexibility here is really good. It also finally gets away from the extremely fast kill times of the pre-patch so that it can finally actually see returns on ability casts.

Getting a boost to survival as well is really nice to see given how important that is for raid situations. No extra meaningful utility was added though which could mean it may still run into the same issue of competing for melee spots that simply aren't available. It does however have some good Covenant & Conduit options to improve its toolkit and even specialize further to different damage profiles with a few stand out Legendary picks and the Sudden Ambush Potency slot that gives a more dynamic way to capitalize on all of the Steath boosts Feral has in combat.

Balance Druid by Bora:

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Balance is looking to be among the top ranged DPS classes going into Shadowlands. Balance Druid was one of the few classes that did not receive target capping nerfs, and Starfall is proving to be a powerful ability once more. In addition to this, the reworks to the Eclipse (Lunar) bonuses have made Starfire cleave relevant on multi-target. Starfire cleave can become a substantial chunk of our damage, especially when inside cooldowns allowing us to feed into the Eclipse buffs more easily. Single target was more middle of the pack up until the recent buffs to Night Fae's Convoke the Spirits, which could potentially put us in a high tier spot on both single and multi-target.

 Marksmanship Hunter by Azortharion:

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Marksmanship has been looking like the ideal Hunter spec since the beginning of Beta, and it looks like it will go live this way. BfA saw Hunters playing Beast Mastery having great consistent damage, but lacking in burst, at least when there was not 20 targets to deal with. Marksmanship is completely different, with a spiky, bursty damage profile that emphasizes flawless timing, execution, and never letting a cast go to waste.

Beast Master Hunter by Azortharion:

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Beast Mastery is currently in a pretty average position on the predicted single-target DPS of Castle Nathria, but as usual it is expected to make up for this with its completely unlimited mobility to some extent. It is one of the specs that has changed the least from BFA to Shadowlands in general, so if you enjoyed how it played and performed before, you likely won't be disappointed going into Shadowlands.

According to current simulations, it has been somewhat usurped by Marksmanship as the best of the Ranged Hunter Specs, being about 5-10% worse in terms of single-target DPS potential, and a bit worse for AoE situations like Mythic+ where Marksmanship's burst AoE puts it ahead.

Survival Hunter by Azortharion:

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Survival has only changed very little, the Haste-heavy spec still having a number of viable talent options for different playstyles. It is somewhat lacking in the DPS department however, although we think that it could be a bit of a sleeper choice for Mythic+, as I have seen it beat both BM and MM in AoE sims by a decent margin. Time will tell if this potential can be realized in the real world.

Arcane Mage by Dutchmagoz:

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Arcane is currently the top performing Mage spec in Ny'alotha. This has been caused by a combination of various pre-patch things coming together. A big reason is the fight lengths in Ny'alotha (during pre-patch), which are very short, or have downtime during which Arcane can regenerate mana, allowing Arcane to effectively only use Arcane Missiles without risk of running out of mana. This combined with the better knowledge gained by the playerbase on how to effectively play the Arcane Missiles build and the strength of the Azerite traitArcane Pummeling has made Arcane very strong.

In Shadowlands, the fights won't be this short (for a long time, at least) and the Arcane Pummeling trait will no longer exist, which means the Arcane Missiles only spam is most likely not going to be a thing in Shadowlands, even with conduits buffing an Arcane Missiles focused rotation.

Early simulations and raid testing suggest that Arcane is most likely still going to be the best Mage spec on pure single target, although Fire is getting very close in that department as well due to having access to a very strong legendary compared to Arcane. Where it falls off is going to be on cleave.

How exactly this will all end up working out still remains to be seen, but we are not expecting Arcane to be as ahead as it has been in the pre-patch.

Fire Mage by Dutchmagoz:

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Fire is currently the middle Masge spec in Ny'alotha. It ended up here after being the best Mage spec by a a lot, largely due to all the borrowed power it had in 8.3. With the removal of this borrowed power, and the removal of automatic Ignite spreading, Fire lost a lot of power in the pre-patch.

Although with Shadowlands launching, Fire will not get back the automatic Ignite spread, it is getting back some of the mechanics that made it so great in 8.3. The new conduit Infernal Cascade works similar to Blaster Master, in the sense that it greatly boosts your damage during Combustion. Additionally, there are various ways in which Fire will be able to reduce its cooldown of Combustion in Shadowlands, (Shifting Power, Kindling) allowing Fire Mages to get a very potent burst window, very often.

Due to these reasons, we are expecting Fire to be a very potent force in Shadowlands, and it is currently looking like one of the top ranged specs in Castla Nathria.

Frost Mage by Kuni:

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Frost going into Shadowlands will probably perform fairly well. Relative to Fire and Arcane, it's a bit behind unless you can double up on Focus Magic partners, at which point it's functionally balanced. Quite a shock to see all three specs so close together for single target, really. It's still the best cleaver of the three Mage specs, and the best priority damage in that scenario. You will very likely see a lot of Frost in both Mythic raiding and high M+. Absent accurate sim rankings or raid tests that both include recent changes and aren't filled with people running old gear for maximum gem slots, I cannot say how it performs relative to other classes, but I am sure that it will perform well enough, lest Mages are left behind as an entire class again.

That said, the changes made to the spec have been nothing short of atrocious. The only real change we got, the Winter's Chill (no tooltip available) change, did nothing to address the embarrassing amount of issues the spec has in terms of internal balance, or even the very issue that Blizzard quoted as reason for the change. All it did was tilt the spec even further towards an Ice Lance-centric gameplay loop. And yes, Ice Lance is one of the payoff spells in the kit, it is not the only one. This means that the talents are completely cemented; you take Lonely Winter, Chain Reaction, Splitting Ice, and Thermal Void because they either buff Ice Lance or they benefit from said Ice Lances. There is no room to argue these in non-Torghast forms of PVE.

Windwalker Monk by Babylonius:

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Windwalker should be reasonably decent in raids at the start of the expansion, probably upper middle of the pack. It suffers from no utility if you have a Brewmaster, but damage should be just fine. With the discovery of Invoker's Delight as the strongest legendary, combined with Xuen and the Kyrian covenant, Windwalkers will have very larger burst windows of 20-30 seconds every two minutes.

Being a melee continues to hurt WW, but anything will be better than where it is finishing BfA at. The position in BfA is largely due to absolutely awful scaling, which won’t be a problem at the start of Shadowlands. Historically Windwalker does quite well in the first tier then falls off later as gear improves, unless Blizzard buffs to compensate. This happened regularly in Legion, and almost not at all in BfA, which is what led to the current situation. It’s impossible to perfectly predict where Windwalker will be in Shadowlands, but most signs point to upper-middle of the pack.

Retribution Paladin by Urthearso

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In Shadowlands, Retribution will not suddenly rise to the top of the charts, but we certainly will at at least stay in the middle of the pack, with the new twist that we now have excellent single-target burst via talents and the Venthyr Covenant Ability Ashen Hallow in combination with our new top performing legendary The Mad Paragon. Compared to BFA, the increased utility thanks to Devotion Aura, Blessing of Sacrifice, and the Night Fae Covenant's Ability Blessing of the Seasons certainly will help.

While leveling from 50 to 60, we will again learn how to use Hammer of Wrath during Avenging Wrath, which brings us back to the gameplay we had in BfA while using the Hammer of Wrath talent. Retribution Paladins had always been made fun of due to their low mobility, but with Shadowlands, we are welcoming many new mobility options. First from Covenants, the Venthyr teleport Door of Shadows, and the Night Fae repeatable blink ability Soulshape. We also gain extra mobility in form of two finesse Conduits, the Light's Barding Conduit and the Echoing Blessings Conduit. Additionally, many of the Soulbinds have extra mobility traits that we can make use of. Some of these we even can pick while using potency Conduit oriented Soulbind routes.

Shadow Priest by Publik:

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Shadow Priest has excelled in the pre-patch environment in no small part due to the amazing synergy of the old Azerite Traits with the new Shadow Priest rework. As we head into Shadowlands you can expect some of these changes to have effects on talent diversity and overall options with the spec, as we are less reliant on an Azerite Traits to synergize our damage around.

Specifically, in Shadowlands we will have access to somewhat lackluster Covenant abilities, but more importantly we will get Power Infusion back as a 2 minute Haste cooldown. This will give Shadow Priests an amazing amount of burst damage for that first Voidform, especially if this lines up with Bloodlust where we can use Voidform, Shadowfiend, Power Infusion, our Covenant ability, and one of the many on-use Trinkets in Shadowlands for a large damage boost on the opener. Pair this with an incredibly diversified talent tree and we will have options for several common patterns of damage required to defeat bosses in Castle Nathria or Mythic+ dungeons.

Subtlety Rogue by Seliathan

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Subtlety Rogue has received a big rework going into Shadowlands and looks all the better for it. It is the highest-simming single-target DPS spec for Rogues, and a strong contender for Mythic+ as well. As it still retains its increased Combo Point generation when multiple targets are around, it remains to be seen if raids or Mythic+ groups will be able to utilize this unique damage profile by keeping mobs around a priority target for rogues funneling damage. For now it will most likely be the most-played rogue spec in Castle Nathria, and might even be able to topple Outlaw off its Mythic+ throne.

Outlaw Rogue by Seliathan

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Outlaw Rogue is looking strong going into Shadowlands, in particular in terms of its cleave and multi-target potential. It is likely that it will retain its spot as the go-to Mythic+ spec for Shadowlands. The biggest gain the spec has seen since BfA is in its single-target potential however, where even on pure single-target fights the spec has become very competitive. As Blade Flurry can be maintained with almost 100% uptime after the changes it received in the 9.0.1 pre-patch, it still excels in any cleave or AoE scenario, however. While it is target-capped to 5, it will still be a force to be reckoned with as we go into Shadowlands Mythic+ Season 1 - Prideful.

Assassination Rogue by Seliathan

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Assassination Rogue is the worst of the three Rogue specs unless it receives some major attention during a tuning pass before Castle Nathria releases. Both its single-target and AoE damage are behind by ~15% compared to the other two specs, let alone any of the other classes. While it does offer some unique damage profile for fights that benefit from heavy execute by utilizing Zoldyck Insignia and the talent Blindside, it is still too weak by comparison. Until some of the DPS tuning issues are remedied, there is no reason to bring an Assassination rogue to any fight or dungeon, especially since both Outlaw and Subtlety now cover all group-utility options as good or better than Assassination.

Enhancement Shaman by Wordup:

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Enhancement is looking quite good at the outset of Shadowlands. We finally gain access to an important passive in Chain Lightning Rank 2 to help our AoE, and shed some of the baggage from BfA systems that didn't do us many favours. With a lot of talent flexibility and good damage profiles for both single target and AoE, there's a lot of room for us to shine, but that all comes down to numbers. The one worry though still is survival, so we'll see how much of a problem that ends up being at endgame.

There's also some really good pickups from the endgame systems, particularly Legendaries, that round out the spec really well and add in some extra mechanical depth to our rotation in the form of either burst windows or a heavy switch-up to gameplay. Unfortunately, we do have to wait a while to gather the resources to craft them but once we can things are looking good.

Elemental Shaman by Stormy:

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Coming into Shadowlands, Elemental's place is looking to remain fairly close to what it was in the pre-patch. Elemental's newly acquired utility and mobility, especially combined with the Covenant signature abilities, allows it to close the gap with more universally strong specs, keeping its versatility and significantly bolstering its toolkit.

While it is unlikely to be top tier in raids, Elemental may well be very strong in a few select fights, and is unlikely to be bad in any situation. Elemental will be significantly stronger in solo play in Shadowlands, and although diminished from early beta, should be a formidable spec in Mythic+ and PvP. The ideal legendary powers might not be quick to acquire unfortunately, unless world bosses end up guaranteeing drops. As for Covenants, most are somewhat close in power and all are viable, although Blizzard's (sensible) decision to break the interaction between Echoing Shock and Chain Harvest likely made Venthyr go from a top choice to the worst covenant.

Affliction Warlock by Motoko:

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In the last week of BfA the situation has, to nobody surprise, solidified with Affliction being a top performer with a well rounded and versatile kit sporting no weaknesses, unlike Destruction which lacks single target and Demonology that has plenty of it but severely lacks spread multitarget capabilities.

So what can we expect from Shadowlands release? Essences going away means Affliction will lose a certain degree of burst, especially AoE on a 1.5 minutes timer with Blood of the Enemy. The new borrowed power system, Conduits, Soulbinds and Legedaries will not take over and augment the spec burst, but instead will provide the spec with increased execute potential, or stacked cleave depending on what the player will choose. In general the spec will turn its damage profile in a less burst oriented, higher sustained output variant, with a more balanced damage breakdown.

In Shadowlands, Affliction looks to be THE benchmark spec for all the casters, being able to tackle any kind of content competitively. It has a highly mobile toolkit that has no weakness, short of those situations like normal or heroic dungeons where targets outside of bosses will be dead before DoTs and Malefic Rapture can start outputting damage.

Demonology and Destruction Warlocks by Motoko:

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Transitioning into the Shadowlands, Demonology and Destruction Warlocks are 2 tellings of the same tale. There is the proud son, basking in the glory of Fel Fire, trading blows with its Affliction peer, competing for the top spots in any conceivable content, donning a majestic toolkit that turns heads and makes bitter Mages and melee together pout with envy. And then in the distance, struggling at every step, scorned by everyone, parents included, stumbles the shameful son. The one people often do not speak of, or treat with pity. The one that turns heads.. just in the other direction. Sadly.

In Shadowlands Demonology has received dozens of quality of life changes, making pets more responsive, enjoyable, snappy, and able to charge every 7 seconds too! Alas, that is not enough. When the numbers in your "supposed niche" are so low that not only fail to compensate for the lack of spread cleave or ability to funnel DPS, but ends up being underwhelming in the bigger stack, it just gets.. depressing. Sure, spec aura tuning has yet to come but the echoes of "We'd rather you not play Demonology" are scarily close, for the 2nd expansion in a row, if I may add.

Fury Warrior by Archimitros:

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Fury going into Shadowlands only looks to be about average in terms of competitive damage dealing, but it also happens to be one of the smoothest designed playstyles in the game. It's constantly active and very engaging, which made it one of the most popular specializations throughout Battle for Azeroth and promises to do the same in the latest expansion. Combined with strong throughput, good burst, strong defensive cooldowns, and above average self healing, it is a downright joy to play for those who want the feeling of "going fast".

One of the best things about Fury is that its Covenants are actually very well balanced, giving players a lot of choice without sacrifice, so that they can customize the way they want. While there is a clear winner in single target and another in multitarget, and so on, they all come with their own strengths and weaknesses, and are numerically close enough together that players will not feel shortchanged in any content.

Arms Warrior by Archimitros:

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Arms may not be the strongest spec going into Shadowlands, looking to be just on the edge of average, but it has a very strong and flexible toolkit, which allows it to handle virtually any damage deailng situation, whether it be single target, close-range cleave, sustained multitarget, or burst AoE. On top of that, it has several strong defensive cooldowns which can be used regularly to mitigate both physical and spell damage, as well as defensive group utility in Rallying Cry and Intervene backed by the Safeguard conduit.

One of the best things about Arms is that its Covenants are actually very well balanced, so that players can choose whichever they want. There are clear choices in single target, multitarget, and so on, but they come with their own ups and downs, and are are close enough in terms of numbers that no one should feel bad for making the "wrong" choice.

So there you have it, the overall state of the specs going into Shadowlands. You can read a lot more about all the changes and how each plays, as our guides have all been updated! As a very general recommendation we'd still say just play the spec you're most comfortable/have the most fun with, as tuning will affect things many times throughout the expansion.

You can also check out tank and healer spec overviews here and here and the final pre-patch DPS rankings.