Welcome to Skill Capped’s Overview of the Easiest and Hardest Classes to Play in PvP in The War Within
All expansions and metas have classes that are a bit easier to pick up or make work, while others are more nuanced, especially in PvP. The War Within is no exception in that regard. In this article, we will go over the criteria and reasons why some classes are harder than the others, to give you a better understanding of what to expect from PvP in the new expansion. In order to understand both sides of the difficulty spectrum, we will go over the easiest and hardest classes to play in PvP in The War Within.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Before we begin, a quick disclaimer is in order. No class is guaranteed Gladiator just for existing, so you shouldn’t feel bad for playing a certain spec. It is also important to understand the difference between “easy” and “hard” classes, which comes down to “skill floor” and “skill ceiling”.
Skill floor represents the difficulty of learning the foundation of a spec or class. This is the minimum requirement to do well and is based on a few things. For melee DPS, it can mean the complexity of your rotation. Can you do most of your damage with 1 or 2 buttons? How many CC abilities do you have? Does precise timing of using them matter? These are just some of the things that determine the skill floor of a spec.
On the other hand, skill ceiling represents how far a class can be pushed to the absolute limit. Having a high skill-cap means being able to min-max endlessly due to subtle nuances in the spec’s toolkit.
And this is where some of the confusion comes in at times. Being easy to pick up doesn’t always make a spec easy to master. For example, if we look at Resto Druid, you could pick up a spec right now and get by with basic understanding of your healing priority. As long as you keep Lifebloom up and refresh Cenarion Ward with Swiftmend, you are already doing 50% of the work required to win most games. On the flip side, you could have your healing rotation on full auto-pilot, while stunning multiple targets and having perfectly timed Cyclone. In arena, this is a bit more difficult to do. This playstyle can be punished easily and generally requires more game knowledge.
DISCLAIMER: The following rankings reflect gameplay tailored for beginner-level players and may not accurately represent the performance of these specifications in highly competitive scenarios.
Melee
Very Easy
Fury Warrior
This specialization at its core settles for clear and defined playstyles that make it relatively simple to brute force wins with unrelenting pressure. The playstyle involves keeping your foot on the gas pedal almost all the time, and if you get low enough you have reactive cooldowns to sustain yourself. Enraged Regeneration as your primary defensive is quite convenient as you can use while in stuns, making it way easier to react to damage.
Fury Warriors like to lock on one target and stick on them throughout most of the match, although you can opt for some solid swaps if you cant keep up, and constantly alternate between building rage and spending that rage on Rampage.
This spec originally offered profound burst potential with a variety of cooldowns provided to them on such a short duration, however this has been tuned down and now fits itself rightfully in the middle of the pack of most melees.
Easy
Havoc Demon Hunter
This specialization has been always known as a beginner friendly spec, but actually becomes slightly more nuanced depending on the Hero tree you prefer to play as.
Our Aldrachi Reaver build requires us to focus on buff maintenance to maximize our Soul Fragment generation, as well as our Reaver’s Mark to further amplify its effects depending on how we choose to use our burst sequence after Reaver’s Glaive. This also means you have to make sure your coordinating your Reaver’s Glaive during your Metamorphosis burst windows to coordinate heavy damage.
On the other hand, Fel-Scarred grants us some free damage while catering to the same playstyle we’ve always known about from previous iterations of Demon Hunter.
What set apart Demon Hunters is their way of pre-emptively avoiding damage with their variety of defensive cooldowns, which raises the skill-ceiling of the spec slightly higher than a spec like Fury Warrior.
Retribution Paladin
Retribution Paladin has been known to have quite a simplistic builder and spender rotation that is difficult to mess up. Their setups are also intuitive with Hammer of Justice being thrown on healers in most cases, but can be used as cross Crowd Control on your kill target if your teammate CCs healers at the same time.
Also, managing your mobility isn’t too big of a deal as you can utilize your entire rotation from ranged thanks to Jurisdiction. Not to mention, your defensives are relatively straightforward especially with Divine Shield being your last resort cooldown after using Lay on Hands to save yourself, and can even be used on Forbearance due to our new talent, Light’s Revocation.
However, the primary struggle with Retribution is that it provides players with an excessive amount of utility have to get comfortable with in order to succeed in matches, which ranks it up slightly higher than our “Very Easy” ranking.
Moderate
Enhancement Shaman
We’ve noticed Enhancement in the new patch has received some quality of life improvements in their Hero talents and specialization trees that caused them to have a higher representation, but does that mean they are easier to play?
Well, Enhancement is still a support spec, meaning that they have to make use of their extensive list of utility in order to keep their teammates ahead and protected during crucial moments. However, they have a bit of an easier time spreading Flame Shock with Surging Totem thanks to Whirling Elements‘ Earth Mote, which helps us drastically with our cleave and Haste increase after using Primordial Wave.
Since they are in melee range for most of the fight, this can make it difficult for them to stay in and build pressure as their spec is relatively squishier than lets say a Fury Warrior for example.
Windwalker Monk
Windwalker Monk is intertwined with the bruiser and tactician approach, but is favored more-so as a bruiser. They have offensive cooldowns such as Serenity and Keefer’s Skyreach that help them consistently burst their opponents at ease. At times, Windwalkers can be somewhat reliant on their setups if they are playing strictly to set up burst windows, and can be forced to kite with how relatively squishy they are.
Additionally, this specialization has received some quality of life improvements with Storm, Earth, and Fire, as it can’t be peeled with Crowd Control or roots as it used to.
Assassination Rogue
All Rogue specializations have suffered the loss of Shadow Dance, but have been compensated with another Vanish and more Subterfuge duration. This greatly assists Assassination Rogue with their bleed management, especially with talents like Indiscriminate Carnage that help us passively cleave by maintaining uptime on a single target.
Since you are more inclined to stick on one target as Assassination compared to our other Rogue variants, this makes this spec more beginner friendly while maintaining all the intricacies and tools that Rogue offers.
Arms Warrior
Arms Warrior is slightly more methodical of a specialization in comparison to Fury as you become more cognizant of potential swaps, as well as having more methods of pressuring your opponents. The most influential ability that can make or break a game is Sharpen Blade, and when used on targets low enough, Arms Warriors can make it a nightmare for the opposing healer to recover.
They are also a pseudo support spec with PvP talents like War Banner and Duel that can keep their teammates in the fight for a longer duration. However, it’s important to know their damage is quite straightforward as can easily cleave with a simple Bladestorm press.
Hard
Frost Death Knight
Frost Death Knight has a simple damage rotation to manage, but the way this specialization secures wins is by focusing on its setups as opposed to its sustain damage. This spec plays around enemy cooldowns, and stacks up targets they want to burst with Death Grip and Blinding Sleet beforehand. Since this spec is more setup-oriented, you have to rely on your teammates to coordinate those win conditions with you, which is really difficult to handle in a bracket like Solo Shuffle.
Another reason why this specialization struggles is mainly due to how weak it is against other melees and even BM Hunters, which are super popular in the current meta. It relies on kiting with Chains of Ice and constant repositioning to avoid damage the best way possible.
Unholy Death Knight
Although this spec has received some improvements with their offensive cooldowns, mainly with Unholy Blight merging with Dark Transformation, it requires you to be attentive to disease maintenance in order to deal high damage. This involves paying attention to Sudden Doom procs for Death Coil, constant usage of Outbreak to keep diseases up, as well as popping Festering Wound stacks with Scourge Strike.
Not to mention, Unholy’s offensive cooldowns only complement high consistent pressure. In order to maintain that pressure, this involves juggling a variety of micro Crowd Control as opposed to using Crowd Control during burst windows. Another reason why this spec is difficult to perform well in the current meta is that you become susceptible to melees and BM Hunters, which are quite high in representation nowadays.
Very Hard
Feral Druid
Entering into our “Very Hard’ category we have Feral Druid, which used to focus on Wild Attunement to create any real pressure. Thankfully, this ability has been removed and now requires players to focus more on their bleed uptime as well as snapshotting.
Since players are constantly in Cat Form to deal damage and create pressure, they must juggle between spreading their bleeds or setting up single-target burst with Tiger’s Fury and Bloodtalons. Another reason why Feral increases in difficulty is due to the fact that you need to use Cyclone in order to build momentum, and requires you to determine situationally good moments that you can get it off without getting punished.
Lastly, this specialization requires you to know when to alternate between Cat and Bear Form, which makes them difficult to master defensively.
Survival Hunter
Next up we have Survival Hunter. This specialization only has a handful of players who can really master it in competitive play and for good reason. It requires you to understand concepts of when you can or can’t be in melee range, and how to properly use your utility.
Take for example Harpoon. Although it can be used as a gap closer to increase your uptime, you can use it to peel for your allies or even assist you in landing effective traps without having to solely rely on Intimidation or other stun effects. This spell on its own has a variety of uses that can benefit your team, which involve a lot of decision making.
Outlaw Rogue
Outlaw has always been known as an overwhelming specialization for most players, and is primarily due to its fast paced rotation and no clear cut win conditions. Additionally, the rotation is simply complex in practice, as you have to pay attention to your Crackshot windows and Roll the Bones uptime, which can be easier to manage via WeakAuras.
Another massive advantage of Outlaw is that they have an excessive amount of Crowd Control. In order to capitalize on that advantage, they have to rely on a specific set of compositions that can extend that Crowd Control chain while providing enough direct burst during those moments.
Overall, it’s quite RNG in terms of getting the correct roles with Roll the Bones, as well as the coin flipping from Fatebound, which results in this spec having too much risk than reward. However, their consistent throughput can be super strong especially coming out from some the most elite players.
Subtlety Rogue
For our last specialization in the “Very Hard” category, we have Subtlety Rogue. This spec constantly plays around Shadow Dance, which allows players to have more frequent access to stuns compared to any other Rogue specialization. Additionally, players naturally reduce its cooldown after using spenders and have an additional charge of it thanks to Double Dance. Due to this concept, players have to focus on Diminishing Returns constantly in order to burst effectively.
Instead of waiting around until you can burst your primary kill target again in stuns, you can keep your foot on the gas pedal similar to a brawler spec. This involves getting your targets low enough, and then bursting in stuns once Diminishing Returns is off. Depending on which Hero talent build you select, this may change your rotation slightly. Deathstalker involves more Rupture spreading thanks to Corrupt the Blood, Singular Focus, and Finality, but Trickster focuses more on Eviscerate, Coup de Grace, and Secret Technique in order to buff your next finisher with Flawless Form dramatically.
Lastly, players have known the iconic playstyle of Sub Rogue and are constantly trying to predict which target you want burst. If they predict correctly, it can be super difficult to secure kills, especially if they immediately react and peel you during your stuns.
Ranged
Very Easy
Beast Mastery Hunter
Commonly known as one of the easiest ranged specializations in the game, we have Beast Mastery Hunter. This specialization focuses down one target and consistently deals high damage with instant cast abilities. The reason why it’s more of a detriment to swap around as a BM Hunter is due to talents like Basilisk Collar, which make our pet damage more impactful when we single down one target.
Additionally, it’s quite difficult to shut down this spec compared to other ranged classes, and has multiple sources of defensive utility that can keep us aggressive and stable regardless of the matchup at hand.
Devastation Evoker
What makes this specialization relatively easy is due to their simplistic damage rotation and its easy to use defensive cooldowns. Not only does Obsidian Scales massively reduce any damage they take, but helps them deal damage thanks to its Aura Mastery effect, as long as Obsidian Mettle is selected. On the topic of defensives, they also have Rescue as their panic button, but it can be denied temporarily if they are in a Root effect. Additionally, they have multiple spell schools which allow them to continue dealing damage even if they get stopped on their Disintegrate casts.
Even with their 25 yard range on their primary abilities, they have Hover to enable their casting furthermore while avoiding damage simultaneously, and every 2 minutes they can burst relatively hard with Dragonrage. This becomes more significant in Solo Shuffle once it comes back a second time.
Easy
Marksmanship Hunter
Entering into our “Easy” category, the only spec we have here is Marksmanship Hunter. Although this specialization is massively weaker than its BM counterpart, it continues to have a simplistic damage rotation that is relatively straightforward in practice.
Marksmanship receives talents such as Streamline and In The Rhythm that make it easier to cast Aimed Shot after using Rapid Fire, and become even tankier now with multiple charges of Survival of the Fittest. Additionally, this spec receives a variety of control which can be used to assist us with kiting or can be used offensively to land traps on healers.
Moderate
Balance Druid
What places Balance Druid in the Moderate category is more on how difficult it can be to survive as opposed to its straightforward rotation. Although this spec requires players to constantly track DoTs on multiple targets in order to effectively swap around with Starsurge, this isn’t too much of a hassle to deal with. Thanks to 11.0.5, this spec can burst more often with two charges of Incarnation as well as more cooldown reduction with this cooldown in particular. This greatly helps us set up burst windows on a less scripted timer.
Focusing more on the concerns of the spec, you have to know how to bait or juke interrupts fairly well in order to follow up with Cyclone casts. Coming back to survivability, you need to learn how to maneuver around the map with Dash, Stampeding Roar, and Wild Charge to pre-emptively avoid massive pressure, which can be quite a challenge for beginners.
Affliction Warlock
Affliction Warlock is known as the stereotypical rot class, but instead of this spec solely focusing on cleave we strike down our primary targets with direct damage coming out of Shadow Bolt and Haunt. At times where we want to get our DoTs off, we don’t have to cast as much in order to apply them if we use Jinx as one of our PvP talents. Even Unstable Affliction and Haunt go off at a relatively fast cast time, making it difficult for players to immediately shut you down.
Furthermore, Malefic Rapture is on the Shadowflame school, meaning players can spam it if locked out on their primary Shadow school. Also, they aren’t too reliant on Crowd Control to create momentum, which can make the spec feel easier for beginner players.
What really places this specialization on the moderate category is how squishy they can be if they don’t use their defensive utility properly. This involves kiting well with Demonic Circle: Teleport and Demonic Gateway, and with the removal of Inevitable Demise we can’t solely sustain ourselves with Drain Life.
Destruction Warlock
Destruction Warlock continues to make use of their instant cast abilities, and becomes even easier thanks to Wither replacing Immolate as an instant cast version of itself. However, instant cast damage alone will not suffice with executing targets and requires us to set up with Fear and double Mortal Coil in order to land Chaos Bolts. Soul Fire on the other hand is super quick to cast when Decimation is procced, and isn’t as reliant on these windows to get off.
Additionally, they have 3 different schools they can choose from even if they get interrupted on one. These are Shadow, Fire, and Chaos, which make shutting down a Destruction Warlock difficult.
Similar to Affliction, Destruction is a squishy spec and requires players to use their defensive utility properly to keep themselves alive.
Elemental Shaman
Although Elemental Shaman is equivalent to Enhancement in terms of how global intensive the spec feels, they have so much more consistent pressure and stronger burst windows that can unexpectedly close games. The best part about it is that bursting doesn’t require you to ever cast, however it can be more of a slot machine during Ascendance if players are lucky enough to gain their Mastery proc.
However, the primary focus on why they are placed in the “Moderate” category is due to their variety of utility spells. These become necessary to use at concise windows to prevent you team from falling behind. Not to mention, their rotation is less scripted and requires them to make use of their procs on the fly, which results in far harder gameplay.
Frost Mage
Frost Mage has a natural mix of both instant cast and non-instant cast damage, but when Icy Veins is up it’s quite difficult for players to disrupt your damage. Players instead try to avoid it with Line of Sight or micro Crowd Control in most cases, since they have to use their interrupts to prevent Polymorph or Ring of Frost during times where it matters the most.
However, the biggest struggle with Frost Mage is the fundamentals of Mage itself and that is kiting and positioning. Making sure to match knockbacks with the enemy’s mobility, and even knowing when its best to Alter Time and when to go for Polymorph can be quite difficult to master even for the most competitive players.
Thankfully, this specialization isn’t too worried against other casters, as they can spam Frostfire Bolt to out-pressure them with damage alone. Even in Solo Shuffle it becomes more of a risk to Crowd Control healers with Polymorph with how likely it is to break from cleave damage.
Hard
Demonology Warlock
Comparative to most specs, Demonology requires a heavy amount of casting in order to get demons out, which is how this specialization mainly deals damage. Not only is casting a huge detriment to the spec itself, but pets can be easily countered with Root effects, and with WeakAuras so fundamental in everyone’s gameplay, players immediately react to Demonic Tyrant when summoned.
With so much Micro Crowd Control added into the mix, this makes Demonology a hassle to play. Thankfully in 11.0.5, this becomes less difficult now as they obtain some quality of life improvements for more instant cast Demonbolts coming out of Call Dreadstalkers.
Fire Mage
Fire Mage is slightly less squishy with some consistent damage buffs, and with a nerf to Glass Cannon we become less inclined to select it. Unfortunately, the damage this specialization possesses is still the lowest out of all three Mage specs.
What makes this specialization difficult in competitive play is that is inherently lacks finishing power while attempting to survive, kite, and land Crowd Control. The only strength of Fire is that the damage rotation is simple and has a lot of instant cast spells. Even when you get locked on Fire, this doesn’t affect your defensive play as you can still weave in and out with Shimmer or Blink.
Shadow Priest
If you aren’t too aware of Shadow Priest, a majority of your spells require you to cast to create pressure, and even some require you to channel. Take Void Torrent for example, which is required to use if you want to benefit off our Voidweaver build, but can easily be interrupted to disrupt your damage, and even prevent you from using Void Shift or Dispersion if you aren’t careful enough. Even their offensive cooldowns need to be casted, and with so much micro Crowd Control you can expect how difficult this can be for the average player.
This specialization also requires a lot of procs you have to pay attention to which naturally are provided to us as we play, mainly with Deathspeaker and Surge of Insanity, that can change our rotation on the fly.
Even though it can appear daunting to play, our redeeming quality comes focuses on our win conditions. These can be easily definable with our 45 second Silence and Psychic Horror combo.
Very Hard
Arcane Mage
As for our only specialization located in the “Very Hard’ category, this is Arcane Mage.
Not only is the damage rotation itself difficult to master, but a lot of modifiers we receive from our rotation benefit off of Arcane Blast. With how much micro Crowd Control there is nowadays, it can be a hassle to get Arcane Blast off when you need to.
Additionally, this specialization only has one magic school it plays around, which is the same school as their mobility. This means you have to know how to avoid getting locked out and juke interrupts super well in order to thrive.
Even their single-target burst can be difficult to manage, as it requires players to cast their damage on the target affected by Touch of the Magi in order to make its explosion bigger and more effective.
Healers
Easy
Holy Paladin
Starting off with our first healer specialization, we have Holy Paladin. Holy has a simplistic builder and spender system that is easy to manage, resulting in this spec catering a beginner friendly audience. Not to mention, they receive more consistent healing through Dawnlight after using Barrier of Faith, and even more impactful burst healing from Blessing of An’she that can occasionally proc with their HoTs.
Most of their utility is quite straightforward, and can be more reactive to negate enemy damage during their offensive burst. Even Divine Shield has an even easier access to most players if they select Light’s Revocation, allowing them to use it if they are already on Forbearance.
Holy Priest
Even though Holy Priest is the weakest healer out of the bunch, it qualifies perfectly as a spec with a low skill floor. This means it has strong instant reactive healing with Holy Word: Serenity, and its maintenance healing only requires you to worry about pressing Prayer of Mending on cooldown. Although its reactive cooldowns aren’t the best in the current meta, it has quite the passive playstyle with Angel Form, which will naturally be thrown out to not fall behind on healing.
As for more reactive healing, this spec provides players with Power Word: Life and even Surge of Light for some nice variety on their instant cast healing.
Moderate
Restoration Druid
As a spec that is the complete opposite of Holy Priest, we have Restoration Druid. The reason for this is that you aren’t focusing on reactive healing to keep your teammates up, but rather preparing for the damage that is bound to happen. The more HoTs you have active, the more Mastery you benefit off of for even more healing. This makes it crucial to predict which target you expect the enemy team to attack the most.
By letting HoTs fall you are essentially losing out on a lot of momentum, which can cause you to fall behind if you aren’t careful enough. Thankfully during your Incarnation windows, it’s super difficult for your teammates to die during these windows.
One big misconception is that you need to push in for Cyclone to win games. However, that isn’t quite the case nowadays as you can naturally win games by being more efficient with your single-target healing alone. The most elite players can effectively balance between the two, but requires a lot of situational game knowledge in order to make it a strategy worth doing.
Mistweaver Monk
Mistweaver Monk isn’t too reliant on channeling with Soothing Mists as they once were, as you can either go two distinct routes of healing. One is by using the Sith Lord Crackling Jade Lightning method, and the other is by using Bruce Lee’s AoE Rushing Wind Kick in order to counterpressure. All jokes aside, both can be effective for both damage and healing via Ancient Teachings.
Something that causes Mistweaver to struggle is how short of a duration Enveloping Mist lasts on targets. This makes Crowd Control more punishing since their HoTs are more likely to fall off, but thanks to their new methods of healing it becomes more forgiving even when they are falling behind on healing.
Lastly, Revival only dispels 3 debuffs and is significantly weaker against Affliction Warlocks or Elemental Shamans, which can make it somewhat of a struggle if Mistweaver players aren’t too confident with their healing rotation.
Discipline Priest
Entering into the realm of Discipline Priests, this specialization has seen high representation in the current meta, but does that mean it’s easier to play?
Well, this spec is a tempo-based healer, meaning you have to stay ahead with your throughput or you end up panicking to keep your team alive. Thankfully, Disc Priests received some solid throughput buffs which make it a lot more forgiving to players that are struggling to heal.
Most of the time you have to use your healing in a correct order, especially with Power Word: Radiance, Penance, and Power Word: Shield, in order to optimize Weal and Woe stacks as well as Harsh Discipline to get massively large shields. Even as Oracle, we receive 4 different Premonition abilities, to which Premonition of Insight tends to be the most versatile cooldown which raises the high skill-ceiling of the class itself.
Restoration Shaman
As for our last “Moderate” spec, we have Restoration Shaman. Although this spec has a lot of instant cast healing, this isn’t the only thing that keeps their team alive. Players have to become proficient multitaskers with utility and healing in order to stay ahead. This involves using knockbacks, Earthgrab Totem, Static Field Totem, or even a simple Wind Shear after using Riptide as an example.
They also have more quality of life improvements in terms of keeping themselves stable, especially with Stone Bulwark Totem, and even Spouting Spirits, if selected, to help us stabilize our team when Spirit Link Totem is dropped.
Hard
Preservation Evoker
Finally, as the last spec in our tier list we have Preservation Evoker. This spec requires a lot of maintenance and decision making, good Essence management, constantly keeping up Reversion, and knowing when or how to budget your empowered spells.
Since they are constantly forced in a limited range, and have to adapt to offensive and defensive play, this becomes difficult to know how to avoid Crowd Control and how to set up damage. For most experienced Healers, this can result in more backwards thinking since you have to stay in the fight to keep your team safe.
There also a lot of nuances to the spec itself, especially with how important Golden Hour is to min-max for optimal healing, and with Stasis having such a wide variety of uses aside from healing alone.
Final Thoughts
And there we have a complete picture of difficulty levels in each role. We put emphasis on skill floor instead of skill ceiling, focusing on how difficult classes are to pick up for newer players. There are quite a few options in all sections and roles depending on your preference. The overarching theme is how complex the rotation is and how many things you may need to focus on in arena. If the spec has a fairly linear rotation without requiring precise control, it is generally very forgiving for newer players. Having to balance offensive and defensive plays can be quite punishing, so you may need to avoid classes that require you to do so. Difficulty isn’t the only thing you should keep in mind when picking a main, but is still worth considering depending on your PvP goals in The War Within.