wow Final Castle Nathria 9.0.5 DPS Log Rankings and Analysis and a Look Back

[Starym 3,800]

 

It's time to take a look at the final week of Castle Nathria in patch 9.0.5, as tomorrow brings the huge class and other changes that will significantly change the rankings. We'll also be taking a big look back at the entire patch cycle overall with our guide writer Wordup, and a more detailed look at Shadow (since it ended up on top at the end) with the Shadow expert Publik. And to get a proper feel of the real standings, we'll also be taking one final look at the boss dame only charts, so it's going to be a good one!

Mythic Rankings

In the final week of 9.0.5 Shadow has managed to push to the top for the second time in a long while and Demonology continued it's big rise ending the patch in a very impressive 6th spot! Retribution pulled a last minute trick as well, jumping into the top 10 right behind Fury, as Frost Mage dropped a huge 8 places. The lowest end of the rankings remained the same as always, with some smaller shuffling between Subtlety, Survival, Arms and Beast Mastery, as Destruction fell a little to close out the bottom 5.

95th percentile Mythic data by Warcraft Logs.

In the generalist rankings Shadow also ended up on top, but we also see Assassination leap into 4th place, passing Fire and Arcane, which does another one of its big drops after a big rise, down 7 spots into 12th. Elemental and Fury paired up and also rose 2 spots, as the Shamans just missed out on the top 5. Unholy rose a few spots into 8th, surpassing Frost DK, and the bottom 5 are the same as in the higher percentiles.

All percentiles Mythic data by Warcraft Logs.

Shadow in the 9.0 Patch Cycle by Publik

Shadow Priest has performed quite well over the course of the first raid tier of Shadowlands. After a slower start, Shadow Priests started to obtain more gear and begin scaling quite well. This scaling paired with increased cooldown planning, as Night Fae has led to incredible single target damage with the spec. As fights naturally get outgeared, single target damage has kept Shadow as one of the top specs with the bosses being the primary focus. These strengths should continue into 9.1 with the spec still doing great single target damage, or even get better as Necrolord with the new Pallid Command legendary. Alternatively, many Priests will choose to swap or stay Night Fae for the better cooldown flexibility going into the unknowns of the next tier.

A Look Back at 9.0 to 9.1 by Wordup

With Nathria over, there's definitely a few things to look back on that caused some fluctuation in specs over the course f the patch. A mixture of Renown unlocks, specs finding their groove, and some intervention from Blizzard with buffs lead to more things changing each week than usual with an opening tier, and since it was such a long one there's a pretty long history to go off. The 4 big specs that will probably be remembered for Nathria are Fire, Marksmanship, Balance and Affliction - each for their own reasons. Fire was one that was a slow starter and didn't look that hot (pun intended) out the gate, but when more and more fights showed not just a desire but an absolute requirement for burst on cycles that only Fire could meet, they became a spec that could abuse specifically Nathria encounters more than anyone else. Marksmanship were the early winners that provided some of the burst AoE that covered flaws in raid comps, but as time went on they started to wane and with the bug fix in 9.0.5 to their legendary, their niche no longer being a requirement, and their baseline tuning, they fell to the wayside in a surprisingly quick fashion. Balance remained a tried and true excellent spec that could slot into a whole lot of fights without much issue, and the raw burst ofConvoke the Spirits + Celestial Alignment allowed them to cover holes in encounters without much issue, while also bringing unique wide range AoE with Starfall. Affliction rounds out the power 4 by having some incredible burst single-target DPS that Sludgefist put on show early on, as well as the final phase of Denathrius. That's not to mention some of the vital utility tools that certain classes brought that made or broke some strategies - especially Death Knight Anti-Magic Zone, something that managed to last a whole tier before getting nerfed. We also saw Windwalker fluctuate up and down constantly from tuning changes, but their breakout performance should be remembered given their previous struggles. And it wasn't just because they brought a raid buff - they provided extremely powerful AoE that couldn't be found anywhere else early in Nathria. As the tier settled, we saw some aura buff changes to some classes, Renown unlocks come in and legendary/Covenant tuning happened that brought some specs all the way up while hurting some others. Assassination and Shadow saw a huge rise which is probably a sign for the future, and Fury firmly outclassed Arms as the go-to Warrior pick. It also brought Elemental up from being a fairly awkward spec that suffered a lot from a lack of access to legendaries early, to one that is now a premier pick in any encounter type.

And here's a look at patch 9.0.5 and the way the specs rose and fell over a longer period:

95th percentile Mythic data by Warcraft Logs.

All percentile Mythic data by Warcraft Logs.

Boss Damage Only, Over the Last 2 Weeks

As usual, the boss damage rankings are pretty stable, but Affliction has managed to push Shadow out of its long-held No.1 spot, pushing it down to 2nd and Assassination into 3rd! Arcane is on one of its upswings here, as Feral dropped 4 spots from its high placement a couple of weeks ago.

All percentiles boss only Mythic data by Warcraft Logs.

Heroic Rankings, Overall Damage

And finally, we can take one last look at the 9.0.5 Heroic rankings as well, where the majority of the playerbase is active.

All percentiles Heroic data by Warcraft Logs.

We're not quite done with Nathria yet, however, as next week brings the big changes of patch 9.1, but doesn't bring in the new raid quite yet! So this is definitely goodbye to the 9.0 patch cycle, but we have one more week with Castle Nathria and Sire Denathrius to look forward to!

As always, if you want even more info on a spec, you can check out our class guides here, or for even more data, head on over to Warcraft Logs.