Analysis of Shadowlands DPS in Mythic Sanctum of Domination - Week of August 17th

Live Posted 2021/08/28 at 2:59 PM by Anshlun

Warcraft Logs Mythic Sanctum of Domination statisticsDisclaimers and SourceSanctum of Domination Statistics Page on Warcraft Logs

Specs that are considered underpowered are generally played less and tend to appear weaker than they actually are.

This happens as many performance-oriented players will tend to play the strongest spec or class, increasing even further the gap between top and bottom specs.

The balance between specs is very delicate and will likely change throughout Season 2, as player acquire more gear, different classes and specs tend to perform better with more secondaries.

DPS Rankings in Shadowlands Season 2 - Mythic Sanctum of Domination Week of August 17th

Position

Spec and Class

Population Size

Change from Last Week

Arms Warrior

18510

↑1

Feral Druid

1846

↑7

Windwalker Monk

6856

↑1

Outlaw Rogue

2289

↑2

Survival Hunter

380

↑9

Subtlety Rogue

6931

↑2

Demonology Warlock

8517

↓4

Affliction Warlock

1561

↓7

Elemental Shaman

6160

↑1

Frost Death Knight

2249

↓3

Havoc Demon Hunter

16188

Assassination Rogue

7050

↑1

Marksmanship Hunter

14412

↓1

Retribution Paladin

5934

↑1

Beast Mastery Hunter

11911

↑1

Arcane Mage

8149

↑3

Balance Druid

24042

Fury Warrior

2116

↓13

Shadow Priest

12260

↑1

Unholy Death Knight

10151

↓2

Fire Mage

5528

Destruction Warlock

13365

Enhancement Shaman

4681

↑1

Frost Mage

12258

↓1

Spec Analysis for Week of August 17thRetribution PaladinTwitterHammer of WrathRetribution has ended up pretty solidly middle of the pack now that the dust has settled. For the talent build that Ret uses, not a whole lot has changed since Castle Nathria - it's still the same one minute cooldowns, but the way fight design in Sanctum has panned out has meant that they haven't lined up this tier quite as well as they did last tier.

Burst AoE is the biggest thing that Ret brings to do the table currently. On a fight like Painsmith, a Ret will often be the highest damage on the Shadowsteel Horror adds. That said, outside of its burst windows Ret's AoE damage is pretty lackluster. Its single target outside of burst windows is also not great, but it's much more noticeably less in sustained cleave situations. A big part of this is the lack of passive cleave other than Final Reckoning, since you'll otherwise need to decide between doing more AoE with Divine Storm or priority damage with Templar's Verdict.

The real elephant in the room when it comes to Ret parses though is Retribution Aura procs. During prog, or shortly after, Ret's parses will naturally be inflated due to players being more likely to die during the fight than deep into farm, so it's normal to see Ret's damage drop compared to other classes a bit. Fortunately there's not a significant enough number of players that intentionally make their fellow raiders die to skew the numbers much past this.
Outlaw RogueSimulationCraftHeroDamageHeroRotationRavenholdtTwitterRegardless of what exact rank some specific view of the Warcraft Logs statistics show it at, Outlaw has established itself as a solid raid spec in the Sanctum of Domination. It does good damage in all kinds of situations and feels and plays very flexibly. The AoE-mechanic of Blade Flurry essentially causing the same rotation to switch from Single Target to AoE damage (while actually still maintaining decent priority target damage as well) can be seen as a strong point of the spec. It can be very convenient to play without changing the rotational mindset. Outlaw's fast pacing and additional gimmicks like the extended range from Acrobatic Strikes can also be considered fun.

Alongside solid damage, the toolkit of utility and defensive mostly overlaps with the other Rogue specs. While there are nuances, Rogues are ultimately brought for damage in a melee slot and Outlaw can certainly deliver on that. Its main downside might be that, within the class, it competes with Assassination and Subtlety, both of which are currently the slightly better and preferred Single Target damage specs. Regardless of that, the remaining Outlaw mains seem to show what it is capable of. It is (with statistical fluctuation) moving around in the middle to upper part of the spec statistics and even a good top spec contender for Boss damage alongside its sister specs. If you enjoy Outlaw and want to play it, just go for it!
Havoc Demon HunterKibStrawberry Puppy KissesFel Hammer Demon Hunter DiscordStreamNot much has changed for Havoc Demon Hunters since the launch of the Sanctum of Domination. The spec is still performing quite well overall and has great utility however when looking at WCL data we can see the spec slowly losing pace. This isn't a new occurence for Havoc Demon Hunters. The same pattern has been repeating for quite some time now where specs with better scaling and access to more short cooldown burst will pull ahead as kill time get shorter.

Some might view this as a weakness of the spec and others will look to the bright side of being stronger out of the gate for fresh progression but the fact remains that this is just a reality for Havoc Demon Hunters. Metamorphosis being a 4 minutes cooldown with a long duration gives us great sustained damage but when encounters become shorter Havoc DH quickly lose out on a full use of Metamorphosis and it obviously impact damage greatly.
Marksmanship Hunter

I'm Moofz. I main Hunter and do both Mythic+ and raiding at a high level. I write the Marksmanship Hunter guide and most Hunter-related content and news for Wowhead. I also have a Hunter Mythic+ website, stream raids and dungeons on Twitch, and do YouTube content. I've also commentated multiple Race to World First events over the past couple of years and organize community Mythic+ events with Keystone Masters. Feel free to message me via Twitter or find me in the Trueshot Lodge with any Hunter questions or inquiries.

After about 2 months into the tier, Marksmanship Hunter is performing as expected - average. In raid Marksmanship’s single target is about average. It’s main niche is of course it’s strong burst AoE. We’re seeing most Raid groups bring hunters to fights such as Soulrender, Painsmith, Fatescribe, Kelthuzad and Sylvanas. All of these fights have crucial burst AoE aspects that suit Marksmanship’s strengths well.

As far as covenants go, we’re actually seeing a slightly unexpected turn out. Most Hunters have chosen to stay Night Fae rather than swap to Kyrian, despite Kyrian simming and performing slightly better than Night Fae on single target. The reasoning for this boils down to how the fights of Sanctum of Domination were designed. As stated earlier, there’s only about 4-5 fights where you want a hunter. While both Night Fae and Kyrian have excellent burst AoE, the fights seem to favor 2 min cooldowns a bit more than 1 minutes, making Wild Spirits slightly better for SoD specifically. Additionally, the Night Fae covenant legendary Elder Antlers amplifies Night Fae burst when attacking less than 5 targets. It just so happens that both Kelthuzad and Sylvanas have crucial parts that require 3-4 target burst about every 2-3 min. Before the Painsmith nerf, having Soulshape as Night Fae also made it way easier to hop over the spike walls (a very important factor as to why many hunters stayed Night Fae). That being said, Kyrian is almost just as good, it just brings slightly different cooldown cadences.

Finally, I wanted to address Hunter survivability. By no ones surprise, not very many hunters were brought during prog unless they were needed for burst AoE. The primary reason for this is how squishy hunters are. Hunters have the worst survivability in the game, and it showed on fights such as Painsmith and Sylvanas. Heading into future patches, unless Hunters do above average damage or get another form of survivability, this trend will remain true. Let’s hope we see some help in the defensive department next tier!
For more information on specs in the Shadowlands Season 2, check out our Sanctum of Domination Class Guides!

Blood DKFrost DKUnholy DK

Havoc DHVengeance DH

Balance DruidFeral DruidGuardian DruidRestoration Druid

Beast Mastery HunterMarksmanship HunterSurvival Hunter

Arcane MageFire MageFrost Mage

Brewmaster MonkMistweaver MonkWindwalker Monk

Holy PaladinProtection PaladinRetribution Paladin

Discipline PriestHoly PriestShadow Priest

Assassination RogueOutlaw RogueSubtlety Rogue

Elemental ShamanEnhancement ShamanRestoration Shaman

Affliction WarlockDemonology WarlockDestruction Warlock

Arms WarriorFury WarriorProtection Warrior

Comment by GamerhcpI wonder how the rankings will change in 9.1.5 when people switch to whatever covenant they want without restrictions and use whatever conduits they want without dumb ass conduit energyComment by jakedp1Arms warrior 💪Comment by runicpowerand unholy falls further :*( ... i remember when this website said unholy was gonna be strong and indemand this teir ... 20 out of 24 ... super strong ... really in demand :*(Comment by redfinaleSurvival hunter harpooning in, giving the middle finger, and harpooning outComment by GradywhiteThis seems like a very weird data set to be posting. This includes Taragrue and the end bosses which have a very low sample size, and rewards damage padding. Maybe look by boss, cull specs with <100 parses, and average the overall dps & boss dps to get a more representative range. This almost feels like misinformation and kinda low-effort.Comment by didol123I think it's time to buff unholy , the spec is absolute garbage in PvP aswell.Comment by Fera1yWhy is this ranked by the 75th percentile? Wouldn't it be preferable to see how the classes perform when they are at their best? or max potential? Feral druid and Survival hunter are only so high because you generally have to be a good player to play those classes in a raid. This results in a high 75th percentile but very low high-end percentiles.Comment by RoxomusThanks Mr RevvezComment by SzkuubBuff balance druidComment by ToneMasaArms warrior 💪Comment by jackomackArms warrior 💪Comment by Greengrovegrannywhy never get a shadow priest to comment?

they were supposed to be god tier with buffed spread AOE via the dot buff to compensate for the ST nerf and instead they became complete dog**** for being a class that only has 1 dps spec and brings no useful raid utility that other priests don't bring (VE sucks in raid and is not even worth the global if you dont use it with voidform, which limits when you can actually use it to help out in an emergency)Comment by Sormorneand unholy falls further :*( ... i remember when this website said unholy was gonna be strong and indemand this teir ... 20 out of 24 ... super strong ... really in demand :*(Comment by kulmistYEAR OF THE SPEARComment by SaruyaHunter survivability has been a big issue for quite a while. They lack defensives and need more forms of self heal.Comment by IronymanArms warrior 💪Comment by GradywhiteQuick example of an alternative analysis that culls Tarragrue and specializations with < 100 parses and averages the overall damage with boss damage to get a composite that should more accurately represent DPS on the fight.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/14uxwj_FtqL99Vba7NY63vsGDOhN2ynRxHXiOR9AZuVU/edit?usp=sharingComment by IMWazoHunter survivability has been a big issue for quite a while. They lack defensives and need more forms of self heal.Comment by Dexstar09Dude who did Survival Hunter like that?, they know they should be man handled for getting those few folks hopes up, do anyone really see Surv Hunter in anything outside of folks memeing or few BG's but this is me asking honestly.Comment by azekArms warrior dominating everything PvE and PvP related :P