DPS Raid Rankings for Midnight Season 1 - Best Specs

By Dratnos Updated: 2026/03/21

Disclaimers About This Tier ListOn Raid BuffsMystic TouchDevotion AuraPower Word: FortitudeMark of the WilddoesPatch 12.0 Midnight DPS Tier List for Season 1 RaidsHow We Ranked the Specs

S: * Specs that we expect to dominate the compositions and the damage meters of raid compositions. The average number of copies of specs in this tier is expected to be two or higher, as they bring tremendous amounts of damage, with useful damage profiles and often other helpful pieces of utility or defensive options.

A: Great specs that can work well in multiples. We’d be surprised to see raid compositions that are missing at least one copy of these, unless there are other specs of the same class at this tier or higher. High single-target damage output is almost always a characteristic of these specs, though many also have several other areas where they excel. Sought-after utility effects are also very common among these specs.

B: Good specs that will be in many but not all of the top-performing raid compositions. We expect these to be slightly behind in either damage or utility when compared to the A-tier specs but to still be very frequent choices.

C: Solid specs that would be unsurprising to see a copy of in some raid compositions, but we don’t expect them to be stacked and we wouldn’t be surprised to see them missing from many compositions either. Sometimes these are specs with situational damage profiles that will have value on specific types of fights, and they may be incredibly valuable if the important fights of the tier have those damage profiles.

D: Specs with serious issues that are apparent when trying to use them in a raid setting. These may work well in very niche circumstances that rarely appear in raid, but single-target damage is typically a big challenge for specs in this tier.

F: *A spec with horrifying weaknesses in need of immediate developer attention, which we’d be surprised to see played in many raid compositions at all.

*There are currently no DPS specs in this tier.

Patch 12.0 Midnight DPS Rankings and Explanations

Unholy Death Knight (A Tier)

Devourer Demon Hunter (A Tier)

Devastation Evoker (A Tier)

Frost Mage (A Tier)

Retribution Paladin (A Tier)

Feral Druid (A Tier)

Destruction Warlock (A Tier)

Havoc Demon Hunter (A Tier)

Marksmanship Hunter (A Tier)

Augmentation Evoker (A Tier)

Demonology Warlock (B Tier)

Arcane Mage (B Tier)

Windwalker Monk (B Tier)

Shadow Priest (B Tier)

Elemental Shaman (B Tier)

Fury Warrior (B Tier)

Assassination Rogue (B Tier)

Fire Mage (B Tier)

Survival Hunter (B Tier)

Subtlety Rogue (B Tier)

Beast Mastery Hunter (C Tier)

Balance Druid (C Tier)

Frost Death Knight (C Tier)

Enhancement Shaman (C Tier)

Outlaw Rogue (C Tier)

Affliction Warlock (C Tier)

Arms Warrior (D Tier)

A-Tier Specs for Midnight Season 1 Raids

Unholy spent much of the Beta cycle in an overtuned state, and has taken some nerfs as Midnight's release approached, but its single target DPS continues to look extremely strong compared to the rest of the field. This spec has been heavily reworked for Midnight, featuring the removal of the old Festering Wounds and the introduction of new pet-based and disease-based playstyles. The Death Knight utility suite is quite hit or miss depending on the tier - if Death Grip is valuable then of course one or even many Death Knights might be required, but beyond that they don't offer any irreplaceable raid utility. Anti-Magic Zone is a powerful piece of raid defensive utility to bring as a DPS spec, but Death Knight lacks a true raid buff that would guarantee one in every composition, meaning they are heavily reliant on tuning to see play.

Unholy has experienced a tuning rollercoaster before the season even truly began, with multiple swings over 10% in both directions over the first few weeks of Midnight. They've come out the other side unscathed and

Unholy Death Knights are quite durable, with the combination of plate armor, passive tankiness from effects like Veteran of the Third War, and very strong active survivability tools like Anti-Magic Shell or even Death Strike, though that is a DPS loss to use.

Devourer DH is the new kid on the block and therefore has the most unanswered questions about how it fits into the metagame. Its power has fluctuated over the course of Beta, and it got adjusted quickly after prepatch went live to alleviate some playstyle feel issues that players had as they were picking it up. It suffers from the DPS Evoker mid-range DPS spec problem which has sometimes caused problems, depending largely on fight design, but the reason it's in our A Tier is that its damage looks solid and it's never been wise to bet against the newest spec. There is a long history of those specs being quite strong or being quickly buffed if they are not.

Like Havoc and Vengeance, Devourer does bring Chaos Brand, a raid buff strong enough that you will always want at least one Demon Hunter in every raid.

Note that as the newest spec in the game, nobody has yet built up muscle memory on this spec, which means its performance will likely vary quite a bit based on how quickly its pilot is able to learn how it operates. This is part of the reason it's likely to be overtuned for high level play - but it does mean that some players on this spec might perform much less well, at least for a while as they're learning it. Devourer does have some strengths defensively, through self-sustain and access to the low-cooldown defensive Blur, but depending on the build it may be jumping in and out of melee which can mean you're in harm's way much more than the average Ranged DPS spec.

Devastation is another high-damage spec, offering very solid damage in a variety of situations. In particular, they excel at two-target cleave and hitting newly spawned adds as they join the fight. The Devastation cooldown profile has changed quite a bit coming into Midnight, as Dragonrage and new Apex Talent effect, Rising Fury, now create a much longer cooldown window. Flameshaper has also undergone a complete rework which should make it a bit more approachable but will also require re-learning for any veterans of The War Within's version of the hero talent. Devastation is also quite durable relative to the average spec - in the Midnight defensive pruning it did get Renewing Blaze removed as a standalone button and wrapped into Obsidian Scales, but this cooldown now compares quite favorably on power and cooldown to the main defensive of other specs, and the baseline tankiness of the spec is quite high. This is counterbalanced somewhat by the need to play at 25 yard range, which can be very painful depending on the design of the fight.

Though they lack a real raid buff (Blessing of the Bronze does not count, no matter how much a demon hunter might try to convince you otherwise), each Evoker in the raid brings an additional copy of one of two very powerful raid movement effects, Time Spiral and Spatial Paradox. If either or both of these are valuable, this can sometimes create pressure to play multiple extra Evokers, though in most fights extra dragons will quickly run into diminishing returns.

Frost is a strong mage spec that underwent a full rework coming into Midnight. The spec is now built around Shatter, with some spells applying it and some consuming it, and with some guaranteed and some proc-based presses of their most powerful buttons. The spec now has Ray of Frost as a major cooldown, which leaves it open to getting its damage cratered by a mechanic forcing you to move after you've started channeling, which is more of a risk on some of the more hectic fights. It retains a two-target niche through Splitting Ice, but it's lost the claim it used to have to be one of the tankiest specs in the game, as all three Mage specs saw a massive pruning of the defensive power of their kit.

Like the other two Mages, it brings the powerful Arcane Intellect buff which guarantees at least one mage will be played in all but the strangest circumstances (last seen in Mythic Lords of Dread) in high-end Mythic Progression.

Ret Paladin hasn't changed as much as some other specs coming into Midnight, and will likely remain a crowd favorite for its simple and satisfying rotation. Its damage looks a little on the low end, and though it does have a fairly high skill floor, it also has a pretty low skill ceiling which limits its potential in high end raid content. Other specs have certainly moved in this direction going into Midnight, but it remains especially true for Ret.

This spec also has a tremendous amount of utility, and like the other Paladin specs, it brings Devotion Aura, which guarantees a Paladin raid spot - just not necessarily a Ret Paladin one. Unfortunately for Ret, if it's considered mostly based on its damage, it looks to be around the low end of the middle of the pack going into Midnight.

Ret will overperform in early progression and in less coordinated groups, as its rotation doesn’t require a huge amount of planning for the fight, and your friends dying gives you a few extra seconds of wings, so don’t be surprised to see it doing really well in the data of the first few weeks.

Feral has historically been passed over in many raid tiers, due to being a Melee DPS spec in a class that can instead be brought as Ranged, a Healer, or even a Tank. The spec was simplified going into Midnight, and then massively buffed the week before the season began, putting it at or near the top of several sims! Because of Feral's structural weaknesses such as lack of an immunity, lack of spread cleave, and lack of real raid utility beyond a raid buff they share with three other specs, we've still decided to start it off in A rather than S Tier but expect this to change if the sims turn into reality!

Defensively, Feral Druids are in an interesting situation this expansion. They lost much less defensively than many specs, but they started from a relatively squishy place, and some of their defenses are concentrated in one Hero Talent tree - Druid of the Claw.

Destruction has the Warlock advantages of tankiness and unique utility, like Demonic Gateway, Ritual of Summoning, and Create Soulwell. Lots of little passives and talents changed going into Midnight, but the core abilities of the spec should be very familiar to long-time Destro players. Though pure single target looks like a bit of a weakness for Destro, the good news is that pretty much all of the fights this tier have some sort of AoE or Cleave component, which makes Destro look like a very appealing choice given how well its kit handles changing numbers of targets during a fight.

Havoc DH is one of now three spec options to bring Chaos Brand, a mandatory raid buff even after being nerfed from 5 to 3 percent at the start of last expansion. The addition of Devourer, however, is bad news for Havoc, as historically whenever there's a raid buff that can be brought by a class with multiple roles, if one of those roles is Ranged DPS it tends to become the default option.

Havoc’s single-target damage and AoE damage look fine but not great. Last expansion, Havoc developed a niche for priority damage when enemies are stacked up, thanks to Wounded Quarry in the Aldrachi Reaver hero talent tree, and this niche has been last-minute buffed to once again be strong going into Midnight Season 1, which may be extremely valuable on several fights this tier.

Havoc also offers Darkness, a moderately powerful raid cooldown that competes with effects like Anti-Magic Zone and Rallying Cry and is often the best of the three. It also has solid survivability, though it did lose its immunity coming into Midnight. Compared to other specs it's still got more strengths than weaknesses defensively, as it has lots of passive self-healing and damage reduction, especially against incoming magic damage, though the high mobility can be a blessing or a curse depending on the skill of the pilot.

Marksmanship got most of its Midnight rework in advance back in 11.1, allowing them to play fully without pets and still get all of their utility. The Midnight changes largely served to square some circles in the Hero Talent trees, and a redesign of Hunter's Mark which dramatically increased its power level and removed the high-health condition, which removes some of the edge cases where it could lose value in high-end raid progression. In fact, with this design it might well be worth bringing multiple hunters to apply Hunter's Mark to multiple targets in two target or council fights.

Marksmanship's overall damage looks solid, and their Burst AoE in particular looks strong, but if the fight doesn't offer a reward for that type of damage they may be swapping specs. Marksmanship is also fairly mobile, though Aimed Shot's cast time has gone up in Midnight with the removal of Streamline. Compared to most Ranged specs, however, Marksmanship is still quite mobile - the problem is that compared to Beast Mastery it is not, so if there's a fight that calls for one or two Ranged players to run around the room doing mechanics, the Hunters may be obligated to swap over.

Defensively, Hunter has been quietly gaining in power throughout the past decade, going from the squishiest class to now being one of the tankiest. This trend has continued in Midnight, as other classes lost ground and hunters actually gained in passive tankiness, though some of that was through the conversion of Fortitude of the Bear to a passive. They are now one of the most passively tanky classes, and they have an immunity, leaving only a small weakness of low sustained self-healing.

Augmentation has been massively changed for Raid in Midnight - you no longer have to worry about targeting specific players with Ebon Might, as it now affects all DPS players in the raid. There is still skill in the spec around timing and Prescience targeting, but it's a lot more similar to how it plays in Mythic Plus, with a very approachable rotation. Most of your damage is based on how your allies play, which creates some interesting niche incentives for raid composition - for instance, the more people who are in their cooldowns simultaneously, the more powerful Breath of Eons will be, so if there are fights with burst windows then Augmentation might be an exciting option to combine with several other DPS players bursting in those windows. On the other hand, you previously only needed 4 DPS that were bursting into a damage amp to be getting full value from an Aug, now you can benefit from more, but each player in the raid that isn't bursting will reduce their effectiveness. How this all shakes out for the spec's real world performance remains to be seen - we're starting with a conservative tiering for Aug but this is one of the specs most likely to move many tiers.

While Evokers lack a real raid buff (besides technically Blessing of the Bronze), each Evoker in the raid brings an additional copy of one of two very powerful raid movement effects, Time Spiral and Spatial Paradox. If either or both of these are valuable, this can sometimes create pressure to play multiple extra Evokers, though in most fights extra dragons will quickly run into diminishing returns. Aug in particular has many moments in its rotation where it does not lose much damage to focus on raid mechanics or helping other players, and Bestow Weyrnstone can sometimes be massively powerful.

B-Tier Specs for Midnight Season 1 Raids

Demonology Warlock is another class that has been on the nerf list in recent balance patches, but still remains ahead of the pack in damage on paper. In Midnight, it underwent streamlining that took a few iterations but has landed in a place where there is substantially less maintenance than previous expansions' versions of the spec. This means it's a bit easier to play and requires less tracking via addons, but crucially for its performance in high end raiding situations, it also means that the required amount of globals to launch its full damage cooldown window has been substantially lowered. This is very important for the spec's usefulness in the real world - historically even when Demonology simmed well, this had been the spec's Achilles Heel.

Even though its damage remains strong on the sims and in early statistics, we've lowered it to B Tier after the 4% Aura nerf in anticipation of some underperformance in Mythic difficulty as more fights seem to favor damage profiles like Destruction's and punish ones like Demonology's.

All classes were hit with defensive pruning in Midnight, but Demonology and the other Warlock specs had been getting pruned defensively for several patches already, so relative to other specs Demo actually gained some ground back and is once again fairly tanky, though it does lack an Immunity effect.

Arcane has been an all-star spec throughout the Beta cycle, especially in Mythic Plus, but the single target potential has also been quite strong. Unfortunately this put a bit of a target on the spec that led to a massive set of nerfs in the February 17th tuning pass, which shifted this spec down from the S Tier it would have otherwise launched at. It remains solid and has pretty great damage profiles in both AoE and Priorty situations.

Mage as a class was nerfed defensively perhaps the most of any class, though it did arguably have the most to lose. Arcane is now in a state where it's vulnerable both to burst and sustained damage, with very little self-sustain or passive tankiness, and with far fewer active defense buttons than before. Prismatic Barrier is arguably the strongest of the Barriers, but there is no escaping the fact that you will feel vulnerable to death in a way that Mages historically haven't, and you'll have to ration your defensives much more carefully and rely much more on external healing to survive difficult raid encounters.

Windwalker hasn't changed too much since The War Within, which should make the spec feel quite familiar to those who have played it in the past. Storm, Earth, and Fire has been replaced with Zenith, ending the long reign of the buggiest major cooldown in the game. The defensive pruning that hit all specs also hit Windwalker, with Diffuse Magic becoming a Fortifying Brew enhancement rather than an extra defensive. Relative to most other specs, Windwalker probably gained slightly in the tankiness department, though the fact that a lot of its survivability relies on well timed defensive presses and use of mobility rather than passive effects or any get-out-of-jail-free immunities means that the survivability of any individual Windwalker is highly skill-dependent.

Mystic Touch is the Monk raid buff, and it is powerful enough to justify always bringing one, but both Brewmaster and Mistweaver also bring this effect, which makes the value of the Windwalker, in many ways, dependent on the strength of those two specs. The good news is that right now it looks like the overall damage tuning of Windwalker is quite high, especially in raid where its Single Target and Priority damage strengths can shine. Interestingly, AoE, which had long been a Windwalker niche, is no longer the spec's strongest suit, but their damage does remain as bursty as ever.

Shadow excels in fights with multiple targets, particularly when the targets live for at least a while and ideally when there is a primary target for them to focus on rather than pure AoE. The good news is that this describes several of the raid fights this tier, but the bad news is that in many real world situations there's some amount of forced movement, which is much harder for this iteration of Shadow priest than in previous expansions. Most Ranged DPS lost some mobility going into Midnight, but for Shadow it's especially true, so if there are fights where lots of movement is unavoidable or ones where adds die too quickly, Shadow might really fall off.

Shadow has a fairly strong defensive kit, especially with how much tuning has hit its competitors, and they bring Power Word: Fortitude, which is a powerful and effectively mandatory raid buff, though healing Priests are often present and also bring this buff.

Elemental was massively pruned going into Midnight, losing a ton of the various medium power / medium cooldown buttons that had defined the spec for years. For some, this represents a loss of depth, but for many other players this was a pain point that is now gone, and Ele's core rotation remains deeply satisfying and worth trying out if you have any interest in hurling molten lava from range. The spec has many different talent and hero talent combinations, though it's largely lost the priority damage interactions it used to have, which makes it likely best in AoE situations and fine in Single Target.

All shaman specs bring Skyfury, and Elemental is likely the easiest spec to slot into many raid compositions as the Ranged DPS option.

Elemental is another spec that greatly rewards skilled play, as it does have limited defensive options which require planning ahead. It’s also important to plan ahead for movement or risk being caught standing in the bad or losing a lot of damage to quickly relocate, though this is mitigated somewhat if you have a few Evokers in your raid, as their Time Spiral gives you free Spiritwalker's Grace.

Fury is a very cozy Melee to play in raid, with solid sustained damage that can sometimes suffer in common real-world situations in hard raid fights involving any forced downtime. It was changed less than most specs going into Midnight, with only a few notable prunings such as Thunderous Roar.

Warriors bring Battle Shout, which is valuable, and Rallying Cry, which was nerfed substantially back in Dragonflight and is much less of a consideration than it used to be. Fury, in particular, is quite strong defensively, with some passive self-healing and a large effective health pool.

The bad news for Fury is that its damage numbers in most situations look to be middle of the pack, but the good (?) news is that Arms looks worse and for some reason keeps catching nerfs.

Assassination has been simplified going into Midnight, with some abilities pruned and the overall energy economy of the spec being adjusted to make it more slow-paced. This has the benefit of meaning the spec is fairly resilient to downtime, as long as it isn't during cooldowns. Though Assassination can be seen doing solid AoE and Priority damage in Mythic Plus, the raid builds do sacrifice much of this potential, and the ramp-up associated with getting your bleeds and poisons on a new target means that when adds spawn, unless they'll live for a while, you'll be ignoring them while the rest of the raid blows them up.

All three Rogue specs bring Atrophic Poison, which is valuable enough that at least one Rogue will usually be present in top compositions.

Fire has been reworked going into Midnight, with power being shifted back into the Combustion window at the cost of lower uptime. This is typically good news, as it means that more of Fire's damage can once again be aimed at burn windows or opportune moments with little forced movement - and it remains a relatively mobile spec, especially compared to the other two Mage specs. Like the other Mages, it's lost a great deal defensively going into this expansion, though it does retain the uniquely powerful Cauterize.

We've tiered Fire a little below the other two Mage specs though it really does look quite close and well within the margin where slight tuning changes, the texture of fights, and improved theorycraft might change that order. In particular, Fire suffers from Arcane looking great at most AoE situations and Frost looking great at one and two targets, leaving it without a home unless the higher mobility of the spec is especially valuable.

Survival is doing quite well in beta, and its damage looks quite good in a lot of different target counts. Based solely on this, it would be reasonable to tier Survival higher than B, but we're keeping it here for now due to historical precedent of the spec underperforming these type of expectations, as it is often finds itself competing directly with two Ranged specs in the same class for raid spots, and it needs to be doing substantially more damage to win that fight. Even with that caveat, there's a good chance that this could be the tier where Survival's dreams come true - we'll just have to see it to believe it!

Being a Melee spec does inherently cause more danger for Survival than the other two Hunter specs, but it does actually gain some nice defensive perks such as flat damage reduction from its Mastery: Spirit Bond which can help keep it alive, combined with the now high baseline Hunter survivability. Midnight also brings a redesign of Hunter's Mark which dramatically increased its power level and removed the high-health condition, which removes some of the edge cases where it could lose value in high-end raid progression. In fact, with this design it might well be worth bringing multiple hunters to apply Hunter's Mark to multiple targets in two target or council fights.

Subtlety is a very bursty spec but has been reworked to no longer revolve around as frequent Symbols of Death windows - indeed, Symbols has been removed in the rework! This has shifted it to a 90-second burst window rather than a strange hybrid 30-second thing. Trickster has also been reworked for Midnight, though Deathstalker looks likely to be the main Raid Hero Talent, and its playstyle is more similar to The War Within's iteration, though both Subtlety Hero Talents are much simpler to play than ever before.

Defensively, Subtlety rogue is a little ahead of the other Rogue specs, through effects like Fade to Nothing, but mostly it relies on the same powerful tools like Cheat Death and Cloak of Shadows as the other Rogue specs. All three Rogue specs bring Atrophic Poison, which is valuable enough that at least one Rogue will typically always be present in top compositions, though on some fights where the damage is sourced from the environment rather than the boss, or from far away adds, they may consider dropping one.

C-Tier Specs for Midnight Season 1 Raids

Beast Mastery Hunter retains its historic niche of full-mobility ranged DPS going into Midnight, and the gap has widened relative to most other Ranged Specs as in addition to the Midnight changes reducing many specs' mobility, it's also the start of the expansion, with lower haste values meaning longer cast times. It changed less than most specs going into Midnight, with the removal of Call of the Wild likely being the largest change players will feel. Beast Mastery's overall damage looks fine, though its lack of cooldowns or ability to AoE targets that aren't tightly stacked means that many real world situations will advantage other specs relative to it. In order for it to be super valuable, it'll need to really be rewarded for its mobility.

Midnight also brings a redesign of Hunter's Mark which dramatically increased its power level and removed the high-health condition, which removes some of the edge cases where it could lose value in high-end raid progression. In fact, with this design it might well be worth bringing multiple hunters to apply Hunter's Mark to multiple targets in two target or council fights.

Defensively, Hunter has been quietly gaining in power throughout the past decade, going from the squishiest class to now being one of the tankiest. This trend has continued in Midnight, as other classes lost ground and hunters actually gained in passive tankiness, though some of that was through the conversion of Fortitude of the Bear to a passive. They are now one of the most passively tanky classes, and they have an immunity, leaving only a small weakness of low sustained self-healing.

Balance Druid competes for the guaranteed Druid raid spot due to Mark of the Wild, but despite being a Ranged DPS it's actually not been the spec of choice in many of the last two expansions' raids. The playstyle of the spec was reworked in Midnight, potentially offering new tuning knobs that will allow it to be simultaneously good in Raid and M+ without being OP in either, and the playstyle changes have been well received by many Balance players, but unfortunately as it stands right now the age old tale of having anemic single target looks like it's once again happening for this spec. In multi-dotting and AoE situations it can shine, though it does lose single target to configure its damage for these situations.

Defensively, Balance Druid escaped the Midnight pruning relatively unscathed, though it didn't have much to lose and remains one of the squishier specs if you're unwilling to enter Bear Form (which most Balance Druids are). Balance has access to a long range and a powerful suite of situational utility, and the relative value of Innervate may have gone up depending on how effectively Blizzard has made mana relevant for more healer specs.

Frost DK changed a lot less than most specs going into Midnight, as it was already the subject of a recent rework midway through The War Within. It does best outside of pure single target, when it can cleave extra targets largely for free, but it has been outshone in Single Target by many other specs, including Unholy, which also does well in the AoE situations that could otherwise be Frost's niche. Frost will likely benefit in the data from its builds being all relatively similar to play and also similar to last expansion, which should mean the community is already close to the skill ceiling, but we're starting off with it in a lower tier due to what looks like a large gap between it and Unholy that might cannibalize all Frost DK raid spots among high-end guilds.

Frost Death Knights are quite durable, with the combination of plate armor, passive tankiness from effects like Veteran of the Third War, and very strong active survivability tools like Anti-Magic Shell or even Death Strike, though that is a DPS loss to use.

Enhancement was massively reworked moving into Midnight, despite having already been the target of a series of updates over the past few years. Though the new gameplay should be recognizable to long-time Enhancement players, it will certainly require some practice to re-learn everything. Enhancement has two very different damage profiles depending on Hero Talent build - Totemic turns it into a 1-minute spec with a bunch of free AoE, while Stormbringer instead makes it a 2 minute spec, though the AoE burst it offers comes with a much larger Single Target sacrifice. Aside from specific fights, this large of a single target sacrifice is often a deal-breaker.

Defensively, Enhancement is one of the squishier melee DPS specs - it had already been weaker than most, but Midnight's defensive pruning kicked it while it was down, removing Stone Bulwark Totem and reducing the power of Earth Elemental. Skyfury remains a compelling reason to play a Shaman, but Enhancement isn't the only Shaman spec, and it looks like it'll be the highest skill ceiling of the three, and many guilds will likely opt for the easier ways to get that buff.

Outlaw was moderately reworked going into Midnight, with the core gameplay surviving but a few specific removals that will require relearning - Underhanded Upper Hand and Crackshot chief among them. Its damage profile is very flat - there's not much power in its cooldowns, which often doesn't matter but when it does it's typically bad, as it means the spec can't exploit burst damage windows or burn phases like the other two Rogue specs can. Its sustained Single Target and cleave damage both look solid though, but it remains tough to answer the question "why would I play this over Assassination or Subtlety?"

Cheat Death and Cloak of Shadows are just some of the massive defensive powerhouses that Rogues have access to, and all three Rogue specs bring Atrophic Poison, which is valuable enough that at least one Rogue will likely always be present in top compositions.

Affliction Lock is a solid Warlock spec, offering pretty good damage and strong cooldowns. In particular, Affliction’s cooldowns can be incredible if they line up with add spawns, especially if those adds are somewhat spread out, which would both improve their damage compared to Demonology but also relative to other DPS classes. The spec was reworked going into Midnight, reintroducing a Unstable Affliction based playstyle with the removal of Malefic Rapture. Though its AoE and spread cleave look strong, its Single Target requires long ramp up times, sacrifice of AoE, and the reward may still be less than it needs to earn a raid spot in high end raids.

Like all Warlock specs, Affliction is inherently tanky and unlikely to require much Healer attention, and it is another option to bring summons, healthstones, and Demonic Gateway.

D-Tier Specs for Midnight Season 1 Raids

Arms does pretty well in stacked two-target situations, thanks to Sweeping Strikes, but this season it’s not even looking incredible there, and that niche has also been given to more other specs. Arms' single-target looks fine but not great. Another problem with the spec is that it deals no AoE damage without heavy investment that requires sacrificing a lot of single-target. It was changed less than most specs for Midnight, so the playstyle should remain very familiar for veterans of the spec.

Arms was in a tough situation where it needed to get buffed, but then it got nerfed instead, but then it did get buffed, but we still think it's going to struggle and needs more buffs - even in its optimal damage profile situations it looks quite weak.

Warriors do bring Battle Shout, which is valuable, and Rallying Cry, which was nerfed substantially back in Dragonflight and is much less of a consideration than it used to be.

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Comments

Comment by Kelskore

I can't see the D tier.

Comment by PentagonX1

Assassination resilient to downtime? XD

Comment by Peesneeze

"In raid, as in most content, Ret Paladins will likely opt for Templar over Herald of the Sun when picking their Hero Talents, as it does more damage in almost all cases"

This isn't true.

Comment by Rushhourz

Putting Ret in D Tier despite it's utitlity sounds like a skill issue to me.
I could agree if it was ONLY dps output, but even then i feel like ret isn't really that far behind.
With the upcoming big buffs to ret paladins passive raid heal you could probably play the raid completely without healers if you just put enough ret paladins into the raid.
Of course big raid cooldowns are a thing (i.e. Aura Mastery).

But makes me wonder how well a raid with 23 ret paladins and 2 tanks would perform

I estimate Ret Paladin HPS to be ~100k-200k HPS after the patch depending how much you spec into it.
Currently our strongest passive offheal is the divine storm heal, which i think gives me around 50k HPS. This gets buffed from 2% to 3% next patch. Additionaly i think that the heal on autoattacks, automatic sacrifice and spreading 10% of the heal that the paladin gets will get us to around 200k HPS, which is not calculated, but a rough estimation.
Currently when i run heroics i can easily achieve over 100k hps as a ret paladin. At the same time I do around 1M-2M dps on AoE and i think around 500-700k dps single target. I think im currently on 584 ilvl.

And remember even when ret had dog#$%^ damage, good people would still bring a ret, just because of its insane utility. Even if it was just to give you 5 seconds more in an enrage timer, because paladin could bubble+taunt+sac. Not to mention WoG, which was always able to 0-100 anyone in pretty much every expansion in emergency situations. Also not to forget BoP and Freedom.
Also i think ret will still have its strengths in AoE and Burst damage.
Combining all of that i would personally put ret on A or B Tier.
If it was just damage, then more C or D Tier. I feel he is especially lacking in consistent single target damage.

Comment by archangel6902

This is the list from Icy Veins. It's close but not exactly. I would like to know where exactly are you guys getting your information from?

Arcane Mage (S+Tier)
Augmentation Evoker (S-Tier)
Enhancement Shaman (S-Tier)
Havoc Demon Hunter (S-Tier)
Devastation Evoker (A-Tier)
Arms Warrior (A-Tier)
Beast Mastery Hunter (A-Tier)
Windwalker Monk (A-Tier)
Frost Death Knight (A-Tier)
Fury Warrior (A-Tier)
Assassination Rogue (A-Tier)
Outlaw Rogue (A-Tier)
Marksmanship Hunter (A-Tier)
Frost Mage (A-Tier)
Elemental Shaman (A-Tier)
Affliction Warlock (B-Tier)
Unholy Death Knight (B-Tier)
Demonology Warlock (B-Tier)
Survival Hunter (B-Tier)
Subtlety Rogue (B-Tier)
Fire Mage (B-Tier)
Shadow Priest (C-Tier)
Retribution Paladin (C-Tier)
Destruction Warlock (C-Tier)
Feral Druid (C-Tier)
Balance Druid (D-Tier)

Comment by romansamurai

Updated Tier list from Icy Veins as of October 14th 2024:

Arcane Mage (S-Tier)
Fire Mage (S-Tier)
Enhancement Shaman (S-Tier)
Frost Death Knight (S-Tier)
Beast Mastery Hunter (S-Tier)
Retribution Paladin (A-Tier)
Arms Warrior (A-Tier)
Fury Warrior (A-Tier)
Assassination Rogue (A-Tier)
Unholy Death Knight (A-Tier)
Devastation Evoker (A-Tier)
Elemental Shaman (A-Tier)
Marksmanship Hunter (A-Tier)
Balance Druid (B-Tier)
Frost Mage (B-Tier)
Havoc Demon Hunter (B-Tier)
Affliction Warlock (B-Tier)
Augmentation Evoker (B-Tier)
Demonology Warlock (B-Tier)
Shadow Priest (B-Tier)
Outlaw Rogue (B-Tier)
Destruction Warlock (B-Tier)
Subtlety Rogue (B-Tier)
Survival Hunter (B-Tier)
Windwalker Monk (C-Tier)
Feral Druid (C-Tier)

https://www.icy-veins.com/wow/dps-rankings-tier-list

Comment by Blodwenne

I think it's a serious problem when a pure DPS class like hunter, has all three specs on the bottom tier. This is an all time low for hunters, at least since I started playing in early BC.

Comment by XardasLoyalist

Just bring back pre legion version of survival hunters and make another spec or class for melee hunters.

Comment by feikhal

That's a really weird rating, it doesn't match up with realism.

Comment by rvan2711

it's just someone prefering these and don't like these specs..., just make me laught that guy who creating these list have to find better or atleast other job... its absolutelly not reflect nothing.. just came to spread hate to these lists

Comment by fiendrlz

A-tier sub, yeah, right

Comment by dlbert2000

"Balance Druid has often claimed one spot in many seasons"

what lmao they're literally never brought to RWF

Comment by Annomaander

only using 2 tiers basically defeats the entire purpose of a tier list.

Comment by pineappleSuplex

I can't help but chuckle at this..."DPS Death Knights had their tankiness nerfed, but they are still the tankiest damage dealers in a lot of cases"... Where is this is true for frost dk, Unholy is quite literally the squishiest plate by #$%^ing miles. We have two defensives, ams as unholy effectively blocks a single meh attack. A strong cast rips to shreds as if it never was even their to begin with. And icebound feels like it doesn't give the proper DR as it should. Says 30,feels more like 15 in unholy. And before someone brings up lichborne, it's only real benefit in DPS is the fear/charm removal

Comment by datgrl

Where's the Beast Master Overview in the rankings?

Comment by songoded

who is making those tier lists ? ai ?

Comment by RomLich

Shadow Priests are by FAR the winner and should be S tier 1st slot. They will be number 1 on every raid team and no.1 in RWF can guarantee it.

Comment by Schattensang

It's always kinda funky how outdated these tier lists are with the release of a new expansion, because they were written several weeks before, and there are always last minute changes. Like Devastation Evoker talking about the different playstyle of Flameshaper, when it is not recommended anywhere to even use it.

Comment by TheMattastrophe

Devourer Demon Hunters... "the DPS Evoker mid-range DPS spec problem which has sometimes caused problems".

Maybe "the mid-range DPS experience, known to sometimes cause problems for Evokers", or something, would have been a little better?

Comment by Hammerdeep

Arms warrior probably needs to go to D or F tier. Damage profile is so bad tanks and heals are beating it in pure single target. ST is horrendously bad and AOE is ok. Arms caught a lot of unnecessary nerfs when we were already lower middle of the pack. Not to mention warrior in general has more keybinds than probably any other class as the pruning just didnt go through for warrior very well. we lost 4 buttons and gained 2 of them back. Arms needs a serious rework, it has almost no spec identity anymore.

Comment by Marsonis

Flat out Feral is F-tier right now. They are doing less damage than the tank specs and most ferals have been having to level through the Midnight leveling process as guardian druids. The only time they have been worse than they currently are was at the start of BFA. Blizzard has no business introducing new specs when they can't even balance the ones they currently have.

Comment by Chetrokio

Also you can add, classic player (no matter the class) F tier

Comment by Blyzern

I’m not sure I agree with the current rankings putting Frost below Arcane. After testing both, Frost feels significantly stronger, especially in AOE situations. Plus, the rotation is way smoother; Arcane feels clunky by comparison. Is anyone else seeing better real-world results with Frost?

Comment by Ilanara

Might want to update the tier explanations. Theyre from prior to midnight launch >.>

DPS Raid Rankings for Midnight Season 1 - Best Specs

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