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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 our only spec in the S tier category, we have Feral Druid. Although they have received nerfs to Taste for Blood and Saber Jaws, Feral Druids remain extremely durable in the current season, as they are capable of tearing apart their opponents without having to cast Cyclone to burst.
Although Feral may be more susceptible to death due to their nerf to King of the Jungle, bringing their healing buff down to 9% instead of a maximum of 20%, they are still deadly as they can rip through targets every 2 minutes with Incarnation.
A+ Tier
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.
Outlaw Rogue
Outlaw has risen in popularity with the new patch, as we receive some nice buffs to our sustain damage. This spec does require a lot of high-APM and is quite difficult to deal damage as for a beginner player.
A Tier
Arms Warrior
Starting off at our A tier category, we have Arms Warrior. After recent changes, they have received some survivability changes that make them slightly more tanky if they choose to select the Colossal Hero tree. Although this spec is constantly struggling in terms of their survivability in the current meta, these changes suit a niche build that not many Arms Warriors currently play.
Fury Warrior
Fury Warrior has had some devastating blows over the recent couple patches that have been released, but it can still pack a punch with their offensive abilities, especially with Recklessness and Thunderous Roar. Even Bladestorm is relatively stronger than what it used to be as Slayer, compensating us with slightly higher throughput. Unfortunately, Fury struggles with the same problems as Arms, which is their survivability. This results in Fury being placed on the A category as well.
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 Holy Paladins experiencing some hefty nerfs to their sustain, this has risen the representation of this spec in competitive play.
Survival Hunter
Although Hunters experienced some defensive nerfs that make this spec quite challenging in competitive play, the rework to some talents make our throughput more impactful in a competitive setting. 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.
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.
Especially when it comes to our Rider of The Apocalypse Hero tree, we can summon four horsemen without much change to our gameplay. Our survivability against magic damage has also increased, as we receive Null Magic, Vestigial Shell, Unyielding Will, and Horsemen’s Aid, all making our Anti-Magic Shield way better.
Enhancement Shaman
Enhancement Shaman has seen a resurgence in play as both our Totemic and Stormbringer hero trees have received some changes that make our burst more fluid. This spec can feel like a slot machine while bursting with Doom Winds and Ascendance, but can provide some consistent AoE cleave when specced into Primordial Wave.
Retribution Paladin
Paladins have a stronger toolkit than they used to thanks to our 11.0.5. class tree rework. 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.
B Tier
Frost Death Knight
Although this spec is notoriously known as a gimmick due to their exact same win condition, most players at lower ratings may struggle with defensive cooldown trading against their win conditions. This gives Frost Death Knight quite the advantage during their burst windows.
This spec has also received some damage buffs coming out of their direct damaging spells, but doesn’t change how easy it is to react to their telegraphed setup. Overall, it still remains on the B tier after the most recent class tuning changes.
Havoc Demon Hunter
Demon Hunter is still a solid beginner specialization for most players to get into, but having more consistent damage isn’t what is needed in order for this spec to be competitive in arena. Since it lacks intimidating burst during their Metamorphosis windows, we will see this spec being quite low in representation until we notice more changes coming out of their direct damaging spells enhanced by Metamorphosis.
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.
However, this spec 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.
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 one of the lowest death rates.
Since this spec focuses on singling down one target all game with consistent damage, this is a strategy that best suits players at lower ratings. This becomes more efficient to climb without having to rely on coordinated burst or swaps to win the game.
A+ Tier
Elemental Shaman
Elemental Shaman is quite competitive in the new season, and has been tuned down slightly on its burst damage. To compensate for this change, they have also received more consistent damage, which may inherently be a buff since this spec. This is due to Elemental Shaman in nature being played to not lose as opposed to playing to win. Additionally, this spec can pick up Stormkeeper, which was not the case before in 11.0.2, allowing us to dish out some massive Lightning Bolt casts.
Not to mention, Elemental received an Ascendance rework, which buffs your Mastery: Elemental Overload damage while active and duplicates your spell an additional time if procced. This talent makes Elemental quite deadly if pressed, and provides them with enough finishing power to close out games unexpectedly if they are lucky.
Frost Mage
Frost out of all three Mage specs is the clear winner as it offers way more control and cleave damage. It’s even received numerous amounts of buffs to its Frostfire Hero tree, making Frostbolt way stronger in its current state.
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.
Affliction Warlock
Despite Affliction‘s popularity at higher ratings, this drastically changes at lower rankings. The reasoning to this is that Warlocks are constantly trained by melees, and if you have a difficult time juking interrupts for Precognition, you might not have the best time playing.
Even the newest changes don’t make Affliction any better, as Hellcaller is a Hero talent tree that’s drastically worse off comparative to Soul Harvester.
A Tier
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.
Shadow Priest
Shadow Priest still remains a deadly force to be reckoned with, but with some slight damage tunings coming out of our Voidweaver Hero tree, and some nerfs to our survivability, this spec has dropped half a tier than before in 11.0.2.
The biggest change targets Void Leech, which still helps a ton with keeping us alive. However, we receive nerfs to this talent in the new patch, causing us to become slightly squishier and a potential kill target. This was quite unlikely to be the case in the previous patch.
Balance Druid
Boomkin has risen from B tier in our original 11.0.2 ranking, and is solely due to their double Incarnation that can help them secure wins when enemy defensive cooldowns are recharging.
Another impactful change is their single target throughput, which focuses on buffing our Wrath and Starfire at the expense of slightly nerfing Starsurge and Sunseeker Mushroom. This means we may have to open up our cast bar to maximize our damage and keep the pressure rolling, which could be difficult to do with how high the consistent damage of other specs are currently.
Marksmanship Hunter
Marksmanship Hunter has suffered with some substantial nerfs to their throughput, mainly focusing on their Dark Ranger tree. Thankfully from our most recent patch, Blizzard has buffed Aimed Shot and Rapid Fire to offset the removal of talents that were originally provided before the Dark Ranger rework.
We predict this spec to make a promising return in the competitive scene, but with Beast Mastery only a click away we can definitely expect many players sticking with an easy spec to gain rating with.
Demonology Warlock
Demonology in its current state is looking quite promising, but may not be the best for a beginner. This is solely because Demonology must open their cast bar constantly to ramp up their damage.
However, Demonology has received massive buffs that target this weakness, specifically coming out of Dreadstalkers, which now guarantee you a Demonic Core once they are summoned. This change is a pretty big quality of life improvement, and with Felguard dealing more damage this spec feels relatively fluid and powerful in the current meta.
Destruction Warlock
Destruction is known to have a variety of instant cast spells to deal damage, but with our new 11.0.5 changes, we can expect this spec to have enough finishing power to execute their opponents and secure wins more frequently.
This is mainly due to some dramatic buffs that target our Chaos Bolt, Immolate, and Incinerate damage, and with Immolate being an instant cast spell from Wither if our Hellcaller Hero tree is played, our spread pressure and single target damage are massively higher from these changes.
We also receive some solid survivability changes from Zevrim’s Resilience in our Hellcaller tree thanks to our newest patch, which can motivate this spec to play more aggressively while their cooldowns are active.
Fire Mage
Fire Mage tends to feel way more playable overall, and is mainly due to this spec receiving a variety of buffs towards their core damaging spells. Aside from their Sunfury buffs, the most dramatic change is an increase in Pyroblast damage, which is core to their direct damage. Combined with the nerf to Glass Cannon, this becomes no longer required to deal damage, resulting in our survivability feeling quite nice as opposed to previous seasons in Dragonflight.
B Tier
Arcane Mage
Arcane may be difficult for a beginner, this spec can deal some outlandish 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.
The new patch has resulted in an increase of representation of this spec thanks to their consistent damage buffs at the expense of some mild burst nerfs coming out of their Arcane Barrage execute and Arcane Surge.
C Tier
Augmentation Evoker
Augmentation becomes difficult to rank on its own solely due to this spec being a support based spec.
Although this spec can be strong when paired with strong partners, it’s dependent on the lobby and who you get as your partners to actually take effect.
Healers
S Tier
Discipline Priest
Discipline Priest is still one of the best healers across all ratings, and is great if you want to solo carry. Their external cooldowns serve a tremendous value to team survivability and has enormous damage potential.
Discipline Priest in 11.0.5 has received some buffs to their healing throughput, mainly targeting Power Word: Radiance and Flash Heal. These changes are super helpful for a tempo-based healer, which make it easier to recover out of Crowd Control chains. However, you can fall behind if you aren’t proactive with your defensive cooldowns, which means you still have to be aware of incoming damage in order to stay ahead.
Holy Paladin
As a spec that’s relatively easy play, it is also the most dominant Healer up to Rival. Not only does this healer have the highest win-rate, but is the best healer to reach 1800 by a considerable margin.
Although Holy Paladin has received some nerfs to tune down their throughput, their new class tree changes give them even more utility to keep themselves safe as well as their allies. As a spec that has a lot of utility incorporated in their toolkit, using these cooldowns reactively is great in a meta that is quite fast and unpredictable.
Mistweaver Monk
Mistweaver has risen in popularity with how effective their AoE healing can be from Jade Empowerment, although this is receiving some slight nerfs to its throughput. Not to mention, Rushing Wind Kick will be more of a potential grab due to its hefty damage buffs, and can help you close out matchups.
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.
Preservation Evoker
Preservation Evoker still remains popular at higher rating, and has enough throughput for experienced players to handle the absurd pressure BM Hunters and Elemental Shamans currently deliver.
However, 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.
B Tier
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 healing.
Restoration Druid
Similar to Restoration Shaman, Resto Druid is a prime example of a class that relies on a slower paced meta. This spec typically excels when damage is slow enough for HoTs to carry.
Unfortunately, with some specs dealing some incredibly high cleave damage, it becomes difficult to keep up. Due to this, Resto Druids become less inclined to use their control with Cyclone as they have to spend almost every second of the game healing.
Holy Priest
Holy Priest has experienced some massive throughput buffs that have resulted in this spec rising up a tier in the newest class tuning changes. However, this specialization lacks additional pressure they can apply via damage, and has zero damage mitigation cooldowns that can help stabilize their team late dampening.
The longer a game goes, the harder it becomes for a Holy Priest to secure a win in any lobby.
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 1 of The War Within.