Shadowlands DPS Tier List - Mythic Castle Nathria Rankings for Patch 9.0.5

Live Опубликовано 20.04.2021 в 08:00 Squishei

Disclaimers About This Tier ListГрязешмякStone Legion GeneralsСир ДенатрийPatch 9.0.5 Shadowlands DPS Tier List for Castle Nathria

S: You are valuable on every encounter in Mythic Castle Nathria, bringing strong throughput, exceptional survivability and universal utility.

A: You excel in most situations in Mythic Castle Nathria but have some weaknesses on one or two encounters with your throughput, survivability or utility.

B: You are a solid choice in Mythic Castle Nathria. You may have a niche on some encounters but lack throughput, survivability and/or utility.

C: You are viable in Mythic Castle Nathria but suffer from many weaknesses in your throughput, survivability and utility.

D: You are viable, but the spec suffers from many weaknesses and should only be brought if there isn't another option.

Ranking

Spec

Writer Comments

Unholy Death Knight

Comments by Bicepspump

Affliction Warlock

Comments by Xyronic

A+

Balance Druid

Comments by Tettles

Fire Mage

Comments by Preheat

Windwalker Monk

Comments by Babylonius

Frost Death Knight

Comments by Bicepspump

Shadow Priest

Comments by EllipsisPriest

Elemental Shaman

Comments by Gistwiki

A-

Marksmanship Hunter

Comments by Moofz

Retribution Paladin

Comments by Bolas

Assassination Rogue

Comments by Mystler

B+

Feral Druid

Frost Mage

Outlaw Rogue

Destruction Warlock

Fury Warrior

Comments by Archimtiros

Havoc Demon Hunter

Comments by Kib

Arcane Mage

Comments by Malon

Enhancement Shaman

Comments by Wordup

B-

Beast Mastery Hunter

Comments by Impakt

Demonology Warlock

Comments by Not

Survival Hunter

Comments by Gray_hound

Subtlety Rogue

Comments by Mystler

Arms Warrior

Comments by Archimtiros

Patch 9.0.5 Shadowlands DPS Rankings and ExplanationsS Tier SpecsOverall Rating: S

The Unholy Death Knight is a really strong pick in Castle Nathria, especially when compared to other melees. One could argue that no melee would end up as S, but Unholy stands out in my opinion.

Unholy brings a useful set of personal utility in the form of Антимагический панцирь and Поступь смерти. These two help a lot throughout the raid (pretty much all abilities on Изобретатель Зи'Мокс are completely negated by these two spells: Недолговечный дух, Грань Аннигиляции and Стазисная ловушка), but specifically so on the last two bosses. Поступь смерти is really nice against the winds (Идол штормов) on Stone Legion Generals, and the passive effect allows the Unholy Death Knight to ignore removing Бремя греха stacks in P1 Сир Денатрий. This is helpful since it allows the raid to more evenly split the stacks, thus negating damage taken. The active effect is also invaluable in the final phase to negate the knock-back on crucial points. Антимагический панцирь can be used to immune the application of Рана в сердце on Stone Legion Generals, something that was crucial for early progression. It's also good for Сир Денатрий with Кровавая цена in P1 and P3 (P3 being by far the most useful).

Unholy also brings an amazing raid cooldown: Зона антимагии. 20% magic DR on a melee dps spec is awesome. Unholy can use it effectively on Stone Legion Generals for the Подрыв кристалла soaks, and on multiple places in the Сир Денатрий fight (as well as multiple other fights in Castle Nathria).

These utilities wouldn't matter too much unless the Unholy Death Knight didn't also bring DPS. Luckily for Unholy, it does bring it, and in a very good form. Unholy's single target burst is amongst the highest of any class, making us scale exceptionally well with lusted execute phases (Сир Денатрий and Stone Legion Generals). The damage is also generally decoupled from uptime on the boss, making Unholy suffer relatively little from any downtime when dealing with mechanics. Unholy also has an execute in the form of Жнец душ, again helping with the tight execute phases of later bosses. Furthermore, Unholy has respectable short cleave and the ability to spec into a ranged primary attack in the form of Стискивающие тени. Putting this all together, Unholy brings great dps in a progression setting even when dealing with all kinds of mechanics.

When it comes to the negatives, I'd argue that they are few. Unholy does lack mobility, but generally not enough to become an actual problem. The relatively long cooldown on Войско мертвых (~4 minutes with Войско проклятых) can also cause problems as the timings of a specific fight might not fit it nicely. As early fights shorten, we also see a drop in the Unholy output as this second army is denied.

Summarising, Unholy brings great utility in Castle Nathria, both for personal use but also for the raid as a whole. The DPS is really strong, especially in lusted execute phases and it doesn't require constant uptime.
Overall Rating: S

Note about ranking: this diminishes slightly if you have more than one warlock in your raid, or if Придание сил is not available.

Affliction is by far the most versatile of all the dps specs specifically for raiding in Castle Nathria. While other specs may excel at one particular thing (Balance Druids rot AoE, Shadow Priests pure single target damage, etc.), Affliction remains top tier in virtually every aspect of the endgame. Not only is Affliction decently competitive on pure single target, but due to ridiculous scaling due to its Искусность: могущественное колдовство, Affliction is able to do very strong multiple target priority damage. In addition to this, Affliction has a strong case for being the best target for Priests' Придание сил, due to its lineup with Черная душа: страдание and the fact that haste gains increased value due to Affliction's stat priority. Пагубный восторг has made its case as one of the strongest additions to any classes' toolkit in recent mind - being able to have on demand burst based off of your DoTs has proved incredibly powerful for many different situations. Specific examples of this all coming together are shown on Грязешмяк and Сир Денатрий - being able to stack those cooldowns up for massive burst windows in Грязешмяк's damage amplification, or leaning into mastery's heavy mutlitarget scaling on top of the multiplicative haste scaling that Черная душа: страдание and Придание сил gain in phase 2 of Сир Денатрий are why you see affliction easily at the top of both charts.

Throughput alone is enough to cement Affliction as a top pick for raids, but the additional utility warlock brings is incredibly important for progression and general raiding. The only way to obtain Камень здоровья is with a warlock's Создание источника душ. The reintroduction of curses have been decently strong for certain applications as well. Проклятие слабости was quite strong for reducing tank damage on both Stone Legion Generals and Сир Денатрий, and Проклятие косноязычия could easily rear its head if an interrupt heavy encounter appears in the future. In Castle Nathria specifically, Демонические врата has shown its use in specific scenarios where you'll need to move the raid across a large distance quickly. Without gateway, dunking orbs on Stone Legion Generals would need to be a lot more precise - on Сир Денатрий, you'd need a large portion of your raid to swap to goblin to have a safe way to navigate across the chasm to deal with the lieutenants.

In terms of mobility, warlock received a huge get out of jail free card with the addition of the Night Fae covenant - Облик души has on its own alleviated the mobiilty problem that warlocks have notoriously suffered from in past expansions. Демонический круг: телепортация remains a strong option now that it's no longer a talent choice, giving warlocks another option to pre set up movement for specific mechanics, such as soaking on Stone Legion Generals. Although not a huge different from most classes, affliction does have the added benefit of being able to cast most of its DoTs on the move - while you do ideally want to refresh your DoTs within their pandemic range for max efficiency, its perfectly fine to recast DoTs while moving when you have nothing better to cast. Even better yet, you can plan your DoT refreshes ahead of time and move specifically when you are refreshing them.

Finally, Warlock's survivabilty has remained relatively strong to all but pure physical damage. You still have one of the best passive damage reductions in the game through Поглощение души, which can be amplified even further with Шкура демона. Твердая решимость's relatively long cooldown can be reduced pretty significantly with the new conduit, Непоколебимая преграда. And in a very scary scenario with multiple targets available to you, Гниение души + Похищение жизни in combination be a life saver.A+ Tier SpecsOverall Rating: A+

Balance Druid is one of the best Ranged DPS specializations in the game currently. The amount of priority damage provided with Созыв духов and Парад планет is the highest in the game. That coupled with the potential to use 2 on use trinkets during the Созыв духов window due to how Небесный снаряд works, allows you to double down on most of your damage coming within your cooldowns. This is very potent for Castle Nathria where cooldowns are typically pre-assigned and it allows you to be the primary damage source on some mobs such as Леди Синсир or Тень Кель'таса shields. Balance is also one of the tankiest DPS specs in the game with access to Дубовая кожа every minute + insane self healing from our Отточенные инстинкты conduit. Тревожный рев is pretty solid utility as a whole, but it is situational at best. Озарение is kind of a weird ability and the gain of this ability being added into the raid is inconsequentially small. All encounters are designed in a way that healers should and will not require external mana sources to be okay on their mana consumption, thus Озарение is not a very valuable cooldown.

The reason I placed Balance Druid in A+ and not S is due to a couple of reasons. Balance is certainly one of the best damage dealers in Castle Nathria, but it is not the best damage dealer on every fight and notably not great on a fight like Stone Legion Generals. This is due to the fact that Balance will primarily do boss damage on a fight which requires controlled add killing. Moonkin can do decent damage to the Диверсант из Каменного легиона shield, but only one at a time. This compared to something like Hunter or Mage and it is no question that those 2 classes are significantly better on Stone Legion Generals than Balance Druid. With that being said, you are also not valuable on every encounter in Castle Nathria since there is no truly universal utility that you do provide to the raid instance.

A lot of people will look at Warcraft Logs graphs and immediately assess that Balance Druid is OP because it is at the top of the list. While it is true that balance is exceptional damage throughput wise in a lot of instances, you have to also keep in mind that fights such as Council of Blood HEAVILY skew the data. Moonkin is exceptional on fights like Грязешмяк and Сир Денатрий. The things that make Moonkin good on Грязешмяк and Сир Денатрий is the tankiness for Цепной удар soaks, the burst 3 minute cooldowns for the pillar breaks or Леди Синсир, and the ability to slot into most situations in which it is needed with your cooldowns. This makes Balance Druid very strong but not exceptional enough to be an S tier.Overall Rating: A+

Fire Mage continues to trend upward since the expansion release as a strong pick in Patch 9.0.5 for Mythic Замок Нафрия. It might be hard to remember, but when it came to just damage Fire Mage was not very strong in the initial week of Mythic. You could say that the spec took a while to heat up. A lot of why Fire is so good now depends on small advancements from the Mage theorycrafting community and adjustments for its damage in the form of legendary buffs or conduit unlocks.

Fire Mage has always been a very strong defensive pick in raids due to its many proactive defensive abilities such as Пылающая преграда, Зеркальное изображение, Манипуляции со временем, and Ледяная глыба in addition to Прижигание as a cheat death. Often, Fire Mage is talked about as being unkillable due to all its defensive strengths, but one slight weakness for the spec is passive damage mitigation, as some of the other ranged specs have vastly superior damage reduction and require less healing generally. Castle Nathria has an abnormally high amount of passive physical damage, which is mitigated by armor. Because of this, classes with ranged specs like Druid, Hunter, and Warlock end up being targets that require less healing than a Fire Mage. Due to this and the lack of a strong off-heal to top yourself or allies, Fire Mage struggled in early progression where healing was extremely tight. Now that we are months into the raid release, this is no longer as much of an issue.

Fire Mages have exceptional mobility, but individual mobility as a niche isn't especially valuable unless there is a mechanic that demands it. Most mechanics that demand movement don't demand as much as Fire Mage can offer. On an individual basis, this feels great to Fire Mages since they can run laps around fights like Изобретатель Зи'Мокс. In the big picture, it isn't especially valuable as a strength unless you have a taunt. This is even more true now with Облик души and Врата теней being available to most ranged specs. In terms of utility, Fire Mage has the Чародейский интеллект and Искажение времени. This means that having one Mage is essentially a requirement. Adding additional Mages does not add to the utility, so even though one is required, two adds no real benefit.

Our weaknesses remain the same as always. Fire Mage has no spread cleave and no utility to bring if another Mage is already present in the raid, so you won't stack it unless it's the best ranged DPS for the job. Fire Mages, despite being hard to kill, take a lot of damage. Fire Mage damage outside of cooldowns is very low and the spec is very cooldown reliant. These weaknesses in a raid like Castle Nathria, are enough to knock it down a level, but the overall strength of Fire is very high in a raid where Fire performs very well on the final three encounters. Because in Patch 9.0.5 Fire, is a very strong choice for Castle Nathria, I give it an A+, but in a raid with more spread cleave and less boss cleave it could easily fall a couple letter grades. I think that generally speaking, Fire Mage is not as strong in raids as people talk it up to be. Part of this is due to people confusing how overpowered it is in Mythic+ or PvP with raiding. If anything, we as Fire Mages got lucky to have fights that were almost tailor-made for us in this raid (Uncapped AoE for Sun King's Salvation, one minute damage amps for Грязешмяк, and high burst and execute for Сир Денатрий). The next raid might not have encounters as opportune.Overall Ranking: A+

Windwalkers have been on a wild ride the past few weeks, and the roller coaster that is the spec's population and performance in raid. With the changes that came in Patch 9.0.5 which include fixing bugs that resulted in a loss of damage, the bug fixes a few days later that increased our damage, and the compensation buffs that came two weeks ago, Windwalker has seen more changes since Patch 9.0.5 than most classes combined. However, on the other side of all those changes, Windwalkers are in a very good place.

Overall, I rated Windwalkers in Castle Nathria as an A+, since the strength of the spec comes in sustained AOE situations, which are prevalent on the later bosses like Council of Blood, Stone Legion Generals, and Сир Денатрий. Both before the Patch 9.0.5 changes and after the compensation buffs, Windwalker has been in very strong place this tier. Windwalker excels in AOE situations where there are multiple targets to damage and to maintain stacks of Знак журавля, such as with Голиаф из Каменного Легиона/Налетчица из Каменного легиона on Stone Legion Generals, and Алый кабалист/Реморния on Сир Денатрий. While it does require more active attention now than it did before Patch 9.0.5, it puts Windwalker in a situation where the Windwalkers that are strong and capable of managing those stacks well are rewarded for their efforts with higher numbers than those who are not as strong at it.

The only thing that is keeping Windwalker from being solidly "S-Tier" is the mediocre single target damage on fights like Грязешмяк and Алчущий разрушитель. Although Windwalkers have certainly seen their single target damage be lower relative to other specs, the middling nature of single target damage is in stark contrast to the high level of AOE damage that Windwalkers can put out. A big part of Windwalker's overall success this tier is a combination of the strength of the Kyrian covenant, Радость заклинателя legendary, and Призыв Сюэня, Белого Тигра amplifying the two-minute burst abilities of the spec, in a raid that seems specifically made for those two-minute burst windows in many fights.

Windwalker has always struggled with providing utility and usefulness beyond the damage that it brings. Currently that is still, technically, the case as the utility that Windwalker provides isn't very useful in a raid environment, with no immunity or extra trick to use to make fights easier for everyone. However, the damage that Windwalkers provide plus the fact that Brewmaster isn't the dominant tanking force that it was in the past, means that many Windwalkers are getting a chance to bring Таинственное прикосновение and their top notch damage. Windwalker has long been an "S-Tier" spec when it comes to fun, so its very nice having the damage there to match the effort and the fun of the spec.A Tier SpecsOverall Rating: A

The Frost Death Knight is a strong pick in Castle Nathria. It brings good utility for both personal and raid use. However, it suffers from the fact the Unholy is really strong, as well as lacking a versatile damage profile.

Frost has, like the other two DK specs, both Антимагический панцирь and Поступь смерти to cheese mechanics with. You can dodge annoying knock-back effects and immune debuff applications. This truly shines on the Изобретатель Зи'Мокс fight where any DK feels like the fight essentially has no mechanics... Недолговечный дух, Грань Аннигиляции and Стазисная ловушка can all be dodged with either Антимагический панцирь or Поступь смерти. This personal utility also finds use elsewhere, most importantly on the final two fights in the tier. Поступь смерти can be used to avoid the knock-back effect from the winds (Идол штормов) on Stone Legion Generals, allowing you to more easily execute your rotation during these portions of the fight. Антимагический панцирь can be used as you're dispelled from Разрыватель сердец, completely blocking the application of the nasty Рана в сердце DoT (something which was really useful during early progress). For Сир Денатрий, Frost completely ignores the Бремя греха stacks in P1 since the passive effect of Поступь смерти allows us to walk into the middle with full stacks. Поступь смерти is also incredibly useful in P3 Mythic for specific knock-backs. Finally Антимагический панцирь is a great defensive in P3 Mythic for Кровавая цена!

Frost also bring an amazing raid cooldown: Зона антимагии. 20% magic DR on a melee dps spec is awesome. Frost can use it effectively on Stone Legion Generals for the Подрыв кристалла soaks, and on multiple places in the Сир Денатрий fight (as well as multiple other fights in Castle Nathria).

Now, unlike Unholy, Frost doesn't bring the same amount of dps. Specifically, Frost loses ground on pure single target where Frost simply can't output the same amount of damage. Furthermore, Frost doesn't have an execute which makes Frost slightly worse in the important execute phases. This is mostly applicable to Сир Денатрий since Stone Legion Generals is a nice cleave for the last portion of the fight. Frost does still deal respectable damage, and more importantly, it excels very well in its cleave niche. Overall, Frost does really well on both Stone Legion Generals and Сир Денатрий since it can leverage its great cleave toolkit (as well as multiple other bosses in Castle Nathria). One could even argue that it brings more to Stone Legion Generals than Unholy. For Сир Денатрий, it suffers from the final phase being execute and pure single target.

One important aspect to bring up with Frost DK's dps is that it's highly dependent on uptime. When running Дыхание Синдрагосы specifically, losing uptime results in significant DPS losses. This makes frost slightly less attractive for progress, since it doesn't deal well with mechanics. If you're unlucky, you can see a significant drawdown. Frost also suffers from the general DK problem of low mobility. However, I don't think it's that big of a deal in Castle Nathria.

Summarizing, the Frost Death Knight brings respectable damage, specifically for the last two bosses in the raid. Frost also has good personal utility and nice raid utility. However, Frost does suffer from Unholy being a more attractive spec and not bringing the same amount of execute-focused damage.Overall Rating: A

Shadow Priest earns a rating of A for its performance in Mythic Castle Nathria in patch 9.0.5, despite poor performance and representation within the world first race and early Mythic progression. Shadow earns this rating mostly from its phenomenal sustained and burst Single Target, which are useful on early bosses such as Визгунья and Алчущий разрушитель, but also exceptionally valuable for the final phase of Mythic Сир Денатрий. Shadow’s Single Target mostly comes from Облик Бездны, Придание сил, Подчинитель разума and the numerous positive interactions the spec has with secondary stats, most importantly Haste. The spec is able to play its cooldowns around roughly 1 minute, or more conventionally 2 minute windows, with lots of flexibility to adapt to the timings of individual encounters, such as Грязешмяк.

Shadow has two major legendaries it can use in Castle Nathria, which adds to its flexibility. One is Стратагема Талбадара, which provides strong single target sustain damage, as well as burn windows every 30~ seconds with Поток Бездны. The other, Призма пламени Тьмы, which was buffed out of obscurity in Patch 9.0.5, provides higher burst and similar overall, but less damage outside of cooldowns. Both options see play at the highest level on all encounters, though Призма пламени Тьмы is more commonly played by those of the Night Fae covenant. Shadow also has access to Близнецы жрицы Солнца, and the option to give away Придание сил as a saving grace on encounters it performs poorly.

Shadow’s utility, often a weak point for the spec in previous tiers, has surprisingly found a lot of use on the final three encounters of Castle Nathria. Сир Денатрий and Stone Legion Generals both often have assigned timings for Духовное рвение, as well as ample opportunity to make clutch game saving plays. SLG even has the opportunity for Массовое рассеивание to be used on Генерал Кааль’s Разрыватель сердец. Shadow's other major utility spell Объятия вампира, while generally mediocre, can be used exceptionally well on Грязешмяк and Сир Денатрий due to their increased damage taken mechanics.

Defensively Shadow is also very strong at the moment, despite not having access to a full immunity like Paladin, Mage, or Hunter. Shadow has a number of short defensive cooldowns, such as Слияние с Тьмой, Молитва отчаяния, and the Прозрачный образ conduit which work well for Грязешмяк pillars, as well as Кровавая цена and Пригвождение on Сир Денатрий. Shadow even has potent self healing, both active and passive, thanks to and Всепожирающая чума.

What Shadow lacks is the ability to deal spread or stacked AoE damage on encounters like Stone Legion Generals. What used to be one of Shadow’s greatest strengths has, in Shadowlands, become its biggest weakness due to the widespread neutering of Multi Dotting, and the cumbersome implementation of its replacement Иссушающий кошмар. There’s also the old Achilles heel of Shadow, its mobility. Though Castle Nathria has been relatively kind to less mobile specs, Shadow is still one of the worst at getting from A to B in a hurry.

Despite Shadow’s high rating. It’s not a spec that an average raid team is likely to want to field in multiples as part of a balanced roster. Shadow is a scalpel. A precision tool that is very good at its job, and not much else. Overall Rating: A

On the whole, Elemental is very powerful right now due to recent buffs in Patch 9.0.5. When it comes to throughput, we have very powerful single-target and AoE dps while we fall slightly behind on 2-3 target cleave and split priority targets. Our sustained single-target dps is among the best in the game, and Хранитель бурь lines up pretty well with a variety of damage windows (e.g. Pillars on Грязешмяк, and Диверсант из Каменного легиона's Нестабильная каменная оболочка AoE.) The sustained single target damage is useful on almost every fight in the raid, and is a consistent positive - especially on Сир Денатрий. In Phase 3 there, while we don't have an execute mechanic like many other specs, our high sustained single-target and our ability to maintain dps while on the move makes us one of the stronger performers there. Our primary weakness in Castle Nathria when it comes to dps is that we do not have powerful burst single-target damage, as Хранитель бурь is not nearly strong enough to keep up with what other specs offer on that front on things such as Pillars on Грязешмяк or individual add burns such as Леди Синсир on Сир Денатрий. In addition to this, Elemental has very little when it comes to utility. Our primary pieces of Utility are Жажда крови & Тотем ветряного порыва, both of which are covered by a variety of other specs.

When it comes to mobility, Elemental deals fairly well with the movement required within Castle Nathria and has a variety of options to deal with bursts of damage taken. Благосклонность предков, and for fights we use it on Ледяная ярость, allow us to continue dealing damage while on the move in most scenarios. The notable exception to this is Изобретатель Зи'Мокс, because while we have many options to deal damage on the move we do not have many options that move us from place to place - just Призрачный волк unless you're Venthyr for Врата теней or Night Fae for Облик души. However, Призрачный волк makes us one of the big winners in P1 Сир Денатрий as we don't need to drop Бремя греха stacks at all due to Призрачный волк allowing us to ignore the slow Burden of Sin gives during March of the Penitent.

On the survivability end of things we have many small cooldowns in Астральный сдвиг, Каменные доспехи, and if you're Necrolord Скульптор плоти to help mitigate the damage we take. In a raid like Castle Nathria, where there are few to no mechanics that require an immunity to soak it (and those few that do are largely covered by Благословение защиты) this is a boon and allows us to handle frequent periods of high damage on a variety of fights. For example, if you have Скульптор плоти we're able to have a cooldown for almost every Танцевальная чума on Council of Blood, for every pillar on Грязешмяк for all but 1 Раскатистый взрыв (depending on fight length this could be 2) on Stone Legion Generals, and Кровавая цена on Сир Денатрий. Without Скульптор плоти we have a bit less coverage, but at the worst we can still shift into Призрачный волк and take advantage of the damage reduction provided by Дух волка at the cost of a few seconds where we aren't casting.

A- Minus Tier Specs

NEW (Night Fae) When Wild Spirits hits fewer than 5 targets, there is a 35% chance for each target hit to be damaged by Wild Spirits a second time.
NEW (Kyrian) When your Resonating Arrow deals damage to a target, your party gains 10% increased critical strike chance for until canceled.
NEW (Necrolord) Up to 2 targets hit by your Death Chakram are also hit by Explosive Shot.
NEW Мешочек с осколками бритвы (Venthyr) Bonus Kill Shots from Flayed Shot cause 6 targets within 8 yds to bleed for 35% of the damage dealt by Kill Shot over 6 sec.

Мешочек с осколками бритвы (Venthyr)Выстрел свежевателяУбийственный выстрелУсиленный выстрелМешочек с осколками бритвыХитрость ловца змейМешочек с осколками бритвыВыстрел свежевателяОсколки древних рогов (Night Fae)Осколки древних роговДикие духиТопотДикие духиПитомецПакт ловцов душ (Kyrian)Пакт ловцов душХитрость ловца змейБуйные стрелыПакт ловцов душСумка с боеприпасами (Necrolord)Сумка с боеприпасамиРазрывной выстрелOverall Rating: A-

Retribution has been a quietly strong melee since Patch 9.0.5 thanks to some small but meaningful buffs. We excel at burst damage, combining Последний расчет, Смертный приговор, Божественный благовест, and often Гнев карателя that function together excellently as strong cooldowns on either single target or AoE. These cooldowns also line up extremely well for most fights in Castle Nathria - one minute cooldowns are obviously fantastic on Грязешмяк, and they're also great on the last two bosses for mechanics like the Диверсант из Каменного легиона's Нестабильная каменная оболочка or the adds in Phase 2 on Сир Денатрий. Retribution has decent defensives largely thanks to Божественный щит's ability to immune most mechanics, but nothing particularly standout after that.

Aside from its damage, Retribution's utility is currently at a high point in value. For example, Благословение защиты is excellent on all of the last three bosses, helping to sacrifice Цепной удар targets on Sludgefist, save players targeted by Голиаф из Каменного Легиона's Яростное пожирание on Stone Legion Generals, and prevent knockbacks during the Сокрушительная боль, Резня, and Разорение combo in Phase 3 of Sire Denathrius. Although obviously Holy and Protection can also provide the same utility, Protection Paladin is currently one of the less popular tanks, and if you don't have more than one Holy in your raid, you'll find Retribution's utility very useful, as you ideally want multiple Благословение защитыs on each of these fights. Additionally, Retribution is one of the few DPS specs with an external single target damage reduction ability in Жертвенное благословение, and if you happen to not have either a Holy or Protection Paladin in your raid it also provides a raidwide damage reduction buff with Аура благочестия. Combined with its strong off-healing package of Возложение рук and Торжество, which are also very useful on Sun King Salvation, Retribution currently has a clear and valuable niche with its utility options.

However, Retribution does tend to fall behind a bit when it comes to sustained single target damage. This has somewhat been mitigated since 9.0.5 thanks to the significant buff to Окончательный приговор, which now provides a 15% damage increase over the regular Вердикт храмовника, but it's still middle of the pack even after this buff. This isn't a huge deal on the last few bosses, but it does mean that Retribution will perform a bit worse earlier on in the raid. Historically we've also struggled with mobility, but this tier has been one of the most friendly to low-mobility melee in a long time - there's not many situations that you'll get stuck in that a Божественный скакун won't solve. Most raids now also have multiple Тревожный ревs that get used in situations where you need more mobility, which helps to bring Retribution up to speed with the rest of the raid. The biggest downside to Retribution at the moment is just that it's a melee spec - although it's one of the better melee, currently ranged specs as a whole are just significantly stronger than melee.Overall Rating: A-

Assassination is what I would call an A tier melee. After getting stronger from a combination of changes in 9.0.5, the spec is bringing excellent single target damage to the table. Any covenant is fine but Venthyr can be mentioned as the head of the pack and the rework of Флагелляция certainly contributed to the rise of the spec that we have seen. With Вендетта as the main driving damage cooldown, Assassination offers strong damage windows every two minutes. The shorter cooldown Отравляющий укол adds some smaller and more regular damage windows, allowing some flexibility with timings. Due to being centered around bleeds and poisons, it has solid cleave damage for bosses like Huntsman, accompanying the good single target damage. Another very noteworthy damage factor is execute damage via Знак семейства Золдик and Слепая зона. This is particularly handy for demanding burns like phase 3 of Сир Денатрий. While AoE damage is not too impressive and requires some build changes for the best case, I don't think AoE is important enough in the current raid and the reason you bring an Assassination Rogue anyway. This point can also be remedied by multi-speccing with Outlaw and is not something I would hold against the spec.

Something that all Rogue lack, compared to other classes, is raid-wide utility. There is no buff or raid cooldown to support the raid as a whole. The only "external cooldown" Rogues have is Маленькие хитрости, for what it's worth. Movement is good, thanks to Спринт, Шаг сквозь тень, and potentially covenant signature abilities, but not outstanding. Personal survivability is also fine, no impressive self-heal but solid defensive options through Ускользание, Плащ теней, and Уловка. Aside from being a personal immunity to help survive dangerous situations, Плащ теней is noteworthy for its usefulness in soaking/clearing things like Истребление on Алчущий разрушитель or Стазисная ловушка on Изобретатель Зи'Мокс, but is known for working on fewer raid mechanics than other immunities such as Mage's Ледяная глыба.

All in all, Assassination Rogues are in a place where their main quality in the raid boils down to damage. Castle Nathria is a raid that follows the trend of being somewhat favorable to ranged classes. Besides, when there is competition with other classes, raid-wide utility can be a deciding factor that Rogues do not provide well enough, at the moment. Nevertheless, Assassination is now in a spot where it can impress with its great single target and melee bleed cleave damage, which is valuable in almost every situation in the current raid.B+ Tier SpecsOverall Rating: B+

Feral Druid went into Castle Nathria severely underestimated with many thinking it would be a weak throughput spec. Fortunately for Feral Druids, those people were wrong. When it comes to pure throughput, Feral is a standout choice and if that was all that mattered for raid compositions it would be a shoe in for an A or S tier. Even now I think it's a solid contender for an A tier however I've chosen to put it a solid upper B tier. It has a top tier throughput kit, exceptionally strong defensive CDs (especially combined with Облик медведя and Defensive conduits like Отточенные инстинкты), and some of the best mobility in the game with it being baseline faster than some other specs mobility cooldowns (Облик кошки alone is 150% movement speed), with Порыв, and an option to talent into Стремительный рывок to add onto it's incredibly high base movement speed.

Feral's real downfall is it's position as a Melee spec with no utility. While it outperforms most melee specs on almost all of the fights in the instance on progress (exceptions being Council of Blood and Stone Legion Generals which will be discussed below) it also does not bring anything beyond that damage and fills an incredibly competitive spot. The specs that compete with Feral for the spot in the raid all bring at least a raid buff or raid cooldown. In a meta where you want to run as few melee as possible on most bosses that bumps feral down a solid tier. Feral does have one form of utility in Тревожный рев, however between Balance and Restoration druids gaining access to the same spell in Shadowlands, and all Shaman specs having access to Тотем ветряного порыва, and Guardian Druid having a baseline stronger version of this spell it's almost never valuable for a Feral to bring it, as you likely have at least 2 or 3 other sources of the same buff. It's kind of baffling that Feral's utility kit was diluted even further in Shadowlands but as a result Feral's only real form of situational utility is kind of over represented.

Feral also has 2 fights where it struggles in Stone Legion Generals and Council of Blood with one of those at least being a relevant progression fight. Feral's struggles on these fights are different however, for Stone Legion Generals the drawback is it's lack of burst AOE holding it back from performing on the difficult aspects of the fight. While in a perfect world it could perform with funneling damage into priority targets via a combination of Первобытный гнев and Жажда сверххищника, in reality this will most of the time hold your raid back and push adds to critical health too quickly. For Council of Blood the issue is very simple, Созыв духов hits any targets nearby, so when the fight is about hitting a single target with multiple targets around possible to hit then much of the time the damage is completely wasted. On some other fights Feral may appear to be weak if looking solely at the damage meters, but if you look into the valuable aspects of the fight Feral frequently excels, Sun King's Salvation and Denathrius being prime examples of this, with Feral bringing incredibly good offhealing for Sun King's Salvation. For Denathrius, while Feral appears to perform badly if looking at the overall damage, if you dig deeper into what's most important on that fight Feral performs exceptionally well: it has great burst for the important adds in phase 2, it' defensive cooldowns allow it to cheat the important overlaps in phase 3 by dancing in a ravage (relatively) safe from harm, and it has incredibly good sustained single target for the fight and phase 3 overall.

To conclude: Feral Druid is an exceptionally solid spec that's being heavily slept on. It has an excellent throughput kit and defensive kit. It struggles with isolating its cooldowns to hit only one target and with burst AOE. However when it can use its burst kit effectively, then it has exceptional burst single target.Overall Rating: B+

Just like Fire, Frost Mage continues to trend upward as well since the expansion release. Damage wise, Frost Mage was extremely strong at the end of Shadowlands Beta but was struck down by a barrage of nerfs right before beta closed. When Mythic Замок Нафрия released, Frost Mage was one of the lowest damage specs in the game, but a slew of buffs to the class more recently have brought it somewhat up to speed with Fire. Since Frost requires Venthyr to do full damage a lot of Fire Mages will avoid trying it out this tier. To me this is a shame, but the fault lies entirely with the current covenant system.

Frost Mage has an interesting damage profile due to its lack of a strong cooldown and high cooldown reduction with Ледяной порыв and Снежная буря if you're able to constantly hit a target. In the current meta of raiding, having a damage profile around cooldowns is much more effective than having flat consistent damage, assuming that the overall damage is the same. Most encounters are non-linear these days and having low burst is a bit of a problem. Because the spec lacks burst and requires constant casting to reduce cooldowns, it suffers greatly in fights where uptime is low. On Грязешмяк and Сир Денатрий the spec underperforms in logs, but a big part of this is the fact that most skilled players are going to be the best specialization for the boss. In Patch 9.0.5, Frost has strong cleave and even gains boss damage by adding targets. This is what is referred to as "Priority Cleave", and it's something that very few specializations still have currently. Frost has no spread cleave, but in Castle Nathria that isn't especially impactful. Frost Mage has low burst and will always seem to be performing lower than its peers with higher burst if you are wiping early in a fight. These weaknesses in a raid like Castle Nathria, where there is hardly any spread cleave, mean that the issues with Frost will continue to be a problem for the specialization in future raids.

Frost Mage has always been a very strong defensive pick in raids due to its many proactive defensive abilities such as Ледяная преграда, Зеркальное изображение, Манипуляции со временем, and Ледяная глыба. In fights where mechanics can be avoided with immunity, Холодная хватка gives the spec an advantage that most classes don't have. Like Fire, Frost Mages have exceptional mobility, but individual mobility as a niche isn't especially valuable unless there is a mechanic that demands it. In terms of utility, Frost Mage has the Чародейский интеллект and Искажение времени. This means that having one Mage is essentially a requirement. Adding additional Mages does not add to the utility, so even though one is required, two adds no real benefit. Since Fire Mage outshines Frost Mage in most encounters, Frost loses a ton of value by comparison.

I think that generally speaking, Frost mage isn't as far behind Fire as some think, and Fire is not as strong in raiding as people talk it up to be. Frost is already a bit behind Fire generally, but this is a pretty good Fire Mage raid tier with encounters that are almost designed for the spec. The next raid might not have encounters as opportune, so even though I'm giving Frost a B+ ranking, it could easily go up or down next tier depending on how the fights work.
Overall Rating: B+

Outlaw is in every way a solid Rogue spec in Castle Nathria. Its greatest benefit is bringing good single target damage and being able to easily switch over into Cleave and AoE damage on-demand with Шквал клинков. This makes it a considerable all-rounder Rogue spec that is good in every situation, even if not necessarily excelling in any of them. Where Assassination has well defined two minute cooldown windows and options for execute damage, Outlaw is a bit different. Outlaw's cooldowns, while strong, can also be somewhat unpredictable because the entire rotation is built around cooldown reduction via Не знающие устали клинки.

When it comes to factors other than damage, Outlaw is in the same spot as all Rogue specializations. It's not that what the spec has to offer is bad at all, it's just that for everything Outlaw can do, some other spec can probably do the same equally or better. They do not bring a buff or raid cooldown to support the raid as a whole, unless you want to count Маленькие хитрости as "external support". Спринт, Абордажный крюк, and some covenant signature abilities allow for good, but not outstanding, movement. While there is no strong self-heal, the spec has solid personal defensive options through Ускользание, Плащ теней, and Уловка. Плащ теней is noteworthy, aside from being a personal immunity to help survive dangerous situations, for its occasional use in soaking/clearing things like Истребление on Алчущий разрушитель or Стазисная ловушка on Изобретатель Зи'Мокс. However, it is also known for working on fewer raid mechanics than other immunities such as Mage's Ледяная глыба.

If your raid has open spots that are not locked by having to bring buffs or more ranged DPS players, then a good Outlaw is a solid choice, it may just not be the first choice on every boss. As for any Rogue spec, damage tuning is the main deciding factor currently and I would say Outlaw is very close to the A tier, just slightly behind Assassination which is why I decided to go with a solid B+.
Overall Rating: B+

Destruction has some slight throughput issues, mainly when it comes to its single target damage. This is due to how Хаос works. If we were to be buffed to the point where we would have very high single target, our Хаос cleave would get out of hand. This has been the identity of Destruction for a very long time and still is. This does however mean we're very good at two target cleave, again because of how Хаос works. We're able to store up large amounts of damage and unload that damage into a priority target.

A good example of this is on the Council of Blood encounter. On this fight, we're able to do very high amounts of damage to the attendant adds that spawn throughout the fight. This is the niche Destruction has always been able to fulfill and it's something the current meta spec Affliction does very poorly. This is the reason Destruction is placed in the upper part of the B tier. Destruction gets punished very hard on heavy movement fights as the only ability we're able to cast while moving is Поджигание. A good example of how this punishes us is on the Сир Денатрий encounter. Through both the second and third phase there is very heavy movement, and while we're able to make life easier for ourselves by utilizing Демонический круг, movement is still an issue and a heavy DPS loss.

Destruction used to be a very heavily cooldown-reliant spec that did the vast majority of its damage during the Призыв инфернала and Черная душа: нестабильность windows, but this doesn't seem to be the case as much anymore. While we still deal the most damage while these cooldowns are active, we now deal very steady damage outside of them as well. This is a result of how our Grimoire of Supremacy was changed to Ливень Хаоса. Defensively we're still very tanky with our mastery, Поглощение души and Твердая решимость. Our Mastery makes us slightly tankier than the other warlock specs, but it's not anything that affects our ranking. We offer heavy utility to our party or raid by supplying them with Камень здоровья, Камень души and Демонические врата. Overall Rating: B+

Patch 9.0.5 itself didn't changed much for Warriors, although more guilds clearing Castle Nathria has led to Fury definitively overtaking Arms as the primary raiding spec due to several buffs and better performance on the final two encounters. While few players have opted into the reworked Necrolord covenant, nearly half of all parses are now Night Fae, matching or even slightly exceeding Venthyr performance in raid at the expense of only a small hit to survivability. Although it's still commonly accepted that Venthyr is slightly better for progression, Night Fae is more than viable and enjoys a number of top parses, breathing new life into the spec.

Despite several buffs since the tier began, single target performance is still the worst part of playing Fury, lacking burst potential and struggling to keep up with even the middle of the pack on most encounters. Боевой крик has been one of the few reasons to bring a Warrior at all, with the raid benefit compensating for their low personal performance, which could be considered extension of the overall class balance, but it doesn't feel very rewarding, especially in groups which already have a Protection Warrior.

In the few AoE encounters though, Fury is much more competitive, often topping meters on Sun King's Salvation, Stone Legion Generals, and Сир Денатрий due to how well their Вихрь клинков and Безрассудство (with Управление гневом talented) cooldowns line up with frequent AoE, and you could easily make an argument for an A or even S ranking here, but Fury does suffer one fatal flaw - RNG. Much of their power this tier and in Mythic+ comes from the legendary Печатка истерзанных королей, but there is a pronounced performance difference between proccing extra Вихрь клинков and one of the other two cooldowns, resulting in a great deal more variance between pulls than other classes. On average, Fury Warriors will still perform very well on those fights, but results in a lot of variance from pull to pull, which can feel unreliable and unrewarding.

Warriors are also quite sturdy, enjoying a number of defensive abilities. Стойкость к боли doesn't see a lot of use, but Стойкий страж and the rank 2 of Безудержное восстановление result in a 1.5m cooldown and Отражение заклинаний trivializes a number of Mythic+ and raid mechanics - from Ловчий Альтимор's Искатель греха to Mythic Сир Денатрий Сокрушительная боль. Ободряющий клич is also one of the rare raid cooldowns brought by DPS, and one of the few which works against Сир Денатрий' Кровавая цена. About the only thing Warriors lack is a way of ensuring they survive through the execute phase in order to use the namesake ability, though Venthyr is still favored due to Порицание and Бесстрашный дуэлянт offering small defensive bonuses.

Overall, Fury Warriors still have some problems and can generally be considered an underpowered class from a single target perspective, but have become one of the best specs for finishing out the tier, thanks to the mix of multitarget cleave and lengthy execute phases on Stone Legion Generals and Сир Денатрий. This feels almost accidental though, and it will be interesting to see what 9.1 raid encounters look like, because that situation could be easily reversed if the final encounters of Sanctum of Domination don't play so well to its strengths.B Tier SpecsOverall Rating: B

Havoc Demon Hunter is a very average spec in its current state in Shadowlands. The spec has very decent cleave damage for encounters like Stone Legion Generals & Сир Денатрий (especially phase 2), but severely lacks single target damage, for fights like Алчущий разрушитель and Грязешмяк. This weakness is mostly felt in raid instances like Замок Нафрия where single target damage is extremely important to the success of a spec overall. While Метаморфоза is a very visually pleasing cooldown, it is very lacking in the power it provides, not only because of the extremely long cooldown but also the ability itself which is basically 30% stronger Удар Хаоса and Танец клинков with some haste rating tossed on top. Пронзающий взгляд + Демонизм allows us to have high Метаморфоза uptime further diminishing the impact of the 4 minute cooldown. As mentioned previously, the single target damage of the spec is extremely weak and despite many attempts by Blizzard to buff the spec nothing helps this very obvious weakness, as the decent cleave damage does not make up for how weak Havoc Demon Hunter's single target damage is, which is why you see a very large if not all high end progression guilds go with a Vengeance Demon Hunter to provide Печать хаоса to the raid.

Talking about Печать хаоса. Obviously as we all know this raid buff is extremely valuable to the point where it is basically mandatory for every raid group, but as mentioned above, Vengeance is in a way better position in the tank world than Havoc which makes them the preferred vehicle for this buff. Aside from Печать хаоса, Havoc brings Мрак to the raid, a decent cooldown but not something you can build a strategy on. It's a nice raid cooldown to have but it will generally be paired with another cooldown and often wont be noticeable at all.

Havoc does have powerful tools though, it's not all bad. Havoc mobility is one of, if not the best in the game, with frequent access to both charges of Рывок Скверны, Коварное отступление and to lesser extent our Искусность: демоническое присутствие providing us with movement speed. Havoc also has, despite being all nerfed in Shadowlands, very potent personal defensive cooldowns and the combination of Затуманивание, the talents Раздирание души or Путь Пустоты and the conduits Защитник Скверны and Вязкие чернила, Havoc is extremely durable and very hard to kill in raid encounters.

Overall the spec is a fine spec but the weakness of the single target damage and the strength of Vengeance Demon Hunter on the tanking side makes Havoc a spec that won't be brought to the highest ranking of raiding in Patch 9.0.5, but this doesn't mean that the spec is not viable for 10/10 Mythic. Let's not lie about it, we are not likely to see Havoc in the top world guilds progression roster but the spec is and will remain viable for all content of the game.
Overall Rating: B

Arcane is a silent contender in Castle Nathria. The spec requires skill but is still capable of outputting the high single target and AoE damage Mages are known for, especially with the extremely short cooldown-based style of play in Shadowlands. Касание мага and Руна мощи, combined with Дар тайной магии, means that no matter when a cooldown is needed, Arcane has it covered. This makes the spec incredibly well-suited for fights like Грязешмяк, which is probably our strongest in the raid. Staying with the later fights, the spec is also unexpectedly solid for Stone Legion Generals, bringing high execute damage using Чародейская бомбардировка - an extremely useful feature, considering the importance of execute damage in this fight. However, it falls behind against Сир Денатрий, which has high mobility requirements that Arcane cannot meet.

Like other Mage specs, Arcane's direct value for other players is low, but that doesn't mean the spec has no utility. Чародейский интеллект and Искажение времени are important group buffs, though not Arcane-specific and they do not stack, so it isn't a reason to bring more than one Mage. However, while we might not bring buffs like Благословение защиты or Мрак, Ледяная глыба allows groups to bypass dangerous mechanics like Отдающаяся эхом аннигиляция. We also have a variety of less impactful but still strong defensive spells, including Манипуляции со временем, Призматический барьер and Зеркальное изображение; using these well can dramatically lower the strain on your healers. Our spec-specific defensive is Великая невидимость, which is fantastic to negate large, telegraphed hits, although it doesn't enable us to solo-soak mechanics like Ледяная глыба does; and unlike Прижигание, doesn't do anything to solve the problem of unpredictable damage. Чарокрад has previously had excellent utility, but in Castle Nathria is largely relegated to use on trash packs.

As mentioned above, however, Arcane demands much more from its players than Fire and Frost for merely comparable damage. It must stand still and cast, with its only option for sustained mobile DPS, Воздушный поток, competing with the vastly more popular Мерцание. However, our long-range mobility, using Скачок/Мерцание and Манипуляции со временем, is fantastic. This really holds the spec back on fights with heavy movement requirements, like Изобретатель Зи'Мокс or the last phase of Mythic Сир Денатрий. Of the tools a modern DPS spec might boast - execute, cleave, burst, mobile damage, strong defensives and a cheat death - it only has two baseline, while Frost has four and Fire arguably has all six (admittedly one through a talent).Overall Rating: B

Enhancement's state in Nathria has been a mixed bag from launch, coming out of the gates really strong with some powerful opening tools, but slowly fell off largely due to the awful Conduit options and lack of powerful Soulbinds deeper in the tree that come from its dominant Covenant - that being Venthyr. It's also not helped by the main unique utility the specialization currently brings - that being Тотем неистовства ветра - doesn't have a massive impact on the currently dominant melee specs, compounded by the fact that most boss setups aim to use a skeleton crew of melee. That being said, there are some specs that have big gains if paired with it, and amounts to at a minimum a free extra few hundred DPS to even a poorly balanced melee group that isn't clearly visible on logs for free.

When it comes to performance in the raid however, the spec was fairly top heavy. Its ability to deal with many of the earlier more sustained single-target fights was profoundly average at best, but when it comes to the latter portion of the raid (Council of Blood through Sire Denathrius) the toolkit is a lot better suited to encounters that are built around fairly strict 1 minute timers that have required checks to be made, and Ветра рока has effectively carried the spec because of that. Our damage profile suits all 3 of the final encounters pretty well solely because Ветра рока can allow for a 1 minute burst in both single-target and AoE (especially in when paired with Цепная жатва) that the final encounters hinge on, and is probably our single strongest selling point in Nathria, unfortunately by the time you reach these encounters the weaker performance early on often seems to put people off to the point of not considering using them here.

Other utility such as relatively good survival now thanks to the Прирост жизненных сил Conduit paired with Астральный сдвиг, and solid off-healing both in emergencies with Исцеляющий всплеск or burst AoE group recovery with Цепная жатва / Волшебное переливание (though rarely used in that manner) are nice additions, and it's probably the first tier in a while that Enhancement hasn't suffered from being made of glass. We also bring Тотем ветряного порыва which has some good uses especially on Изобретатель Зи'Мокс and Stone Legion Generals, but given the ease of access to Тревожный рев now it no longer really has that unique boost to the group, and many of the other utility bonuses are nice but not encounter shattering. All of that compounded means that while there's often a reasonable argument on paper to bring Enhancement, limited melee spots in Nathria and nothing compelling enough that it "completes" a strategy means that it's mostly on the fringe of almost being worth it, but not quite.

Lastly, damage tuning has been rocky and the spec has been in flux in some cases on a whim depending on the week you check because of both in-built RNG and the nature of some fights, strats and kill timers. Patch 9.0.5 added some good changes that have improved alternative builds, especially the quality of Night Fae as a pick in both single-target and other content streams due to the synergy provided by some powerful Soulbinds like Первый удар. There's also now a strong sustained single-target alternative that competes well centred around Волчьи кости колдуна and paired talents, which shores up something we lacked early in Nathria. Unfortunately, these choices are locked to both Covenant and Legendary choices that are binary and force a commitment to a damage profile that Nathria doesn't always favour as much, especially on more difficult encounters.B- Tier SpecsOverall Rating: B-

In 9.0.5, Beast Mastery overall is in a much better state due to some aura buffs and some legendary buffs to Острые клыки охотника на рилаков and Ужасная команда. However, when it comes to the final bosses of Castle Nathria, Beast Mastery has some problems, specifically with the Сир Денатрий encounter.

In general, Beast Mastery's main source of strength is it's utility, defense, and mobility. Beast Mastery is still the only ranged specialization in the game capable of doing 100% of its rotation while moving. Hunters have a slew of defensive tools at their disposal as well, with the most notable one being Дух черепахи which is an immunity where you can freely move around. The main downside for Beast Mastery at the moment is damage. Beast Mastery is still just tuned to be a bit worse than the other top ranged DPS specializations at the moment, both on single target and on AoE. For Castle Nathria and the final 3 bosses specifically, this was felt as the final 3 encounters do not synergize well with Beast Mastery's damage patterns.

On Грязешмяк, Beast Mastery is a solid B-tier specialization that is mostly lacking when it comes to throughput compared to other ranged specializations. However, even just being a ranged DPS is enough to be B-tier on this encounter, as melee spots are incredibly limited. Being able to do 100% of your rotation while moving is quite valuable, and you actually have a solid arsenal of defensive tools to deal with the high damage output of the fight, with Живость, Дух черепахи, Выживает сильнейший, and the defensive conduits Преимущество стрелка and Стойкость охотника. The main issue here is Beast Mastery is on the lower end of burst damage output compared to most ranged specs, which means it is not able to make use of the core mechanic of the encounter as well as others. Beast Mastery is by no means poor here, but will not be topping meters. If you are playing a Hunter, make sure you are Night Fae for the burst that Дикий дух provides.

On Stone Legion Generals, Beast Mastery is actually very well suited for the encounter. The limitless mobility, defensive tools, and constant damage output are all extremely useful and exactly what you would want during a fight like this. Удар зверя and the legendary Угли из Кузни душ are great at constantly cleaving down the multiple targets that will be down for most of the encounter. The only issue is Beast Mastery's overall damage output, which is still tuned a bit low and is unfortunately just behind other specs, but it is still a solid B+ or A- specialization here.

Сир Денатрий is where the major issues arise. Beast Mastery's best tier 1 talent is Питомец, but unfortunately it is basically not usable on this encounter. Your Питомец pet basically cannot travel between the platforms without being dismissed and summoned, and it does not get pulled to Сир Денатрий when he uses Длань разрушения. This means you are forced to take Инстинкт убийцы instead. Pets are an issue during p2, and for optimal damage you need to time strategic pet dismisses and summons between platform jumps. Beast Mastery is not unplayable, but there are significant disadvantages compared to playing something like Marksmanship here. The only real upside is that you are decent during p3, but because of Beast Mastery's lackluster tuning, it is still not really anything special compared to other classes. Beast Mastery is a C-tier specialization for Sire, which drops the overall ranking here to a B-. Overall Ranking: B-

Even with some minor buffs, Demonology has been relegated to mostly a farm only, play once for a fun parse type spec. There is not really any particular strength we have outside of our mega health stacked Призыв демонического тирана which is really only available once, maybe twice for each fight.

One of the main reasons people play Demonology right now in Castle Nathria is to hyper stack health buffs like Ободряющий клич, Эмблема грешного гладиатора, Перенаправленная анима, etc in combination with Придание сил to further buff Призыв демонического тирана when talented into Демоническое поглощение. The reason you stack health buffs is because Призыв демонического тирана damage is amplified by a percentage of your demons health, the more health you have, the more health your demons have, the more damage can be done by Призыв демонического тирана.

Since most people play Demonology just for fun and farm and you play with Воспоминание о печати усиленного призыва Вилфреда for essentially a one minute cooldown you can do some good damage in particular on Sludgefist during the damage amplification phases since they line up almost perfectly with each other.

Outside of just damage, Demonology really just offers everything that any other Warlock can bring but with a little extra damage reduction as you gain the passive 20% damage reduction from Родство душ. We have no meaningful raid cooldown and our AoE damage is fairly basic and fully based on a radius around the primary mob you cast Имплозия on, which when compared to both Affliction and Destructions ability to spread cleave through DoTs and Хаос is extremely mediocre.

Since majority of people will be playing Night Fae you do offer a plethora of movement between Облик души, Демонические врата and Демонический круг: телепортация. Демонические врата is usable for all encounters but is only set once for the whole encounter so you have to know where to set it prior to the fight as replacing it is of course a DPS loss.

Overall Demonology is quite playable throughout the majority of Castle Nathria but really falls off when it comes to the final three bosses mostly due to the damage profile simply not meshing with what is required for those encounters. Looking at Mythic logs you can really see where we fall off most notably on the final two bosses where, at the time of writing, we have a grand total of 45 Demonology Warlock logs on Stone Legion Generals and a whopping 5 for Sire Denathrius.C Tier SpecsOverall Rating: C

Survival is currently one of the weakest specs in Patch 9.0.5 as a melee and overall. While it has received some buffs they're clearly not enough for the spec to be competitive on the majority of the fights. The only fight this tier where Survival does not drastically underperform is Mythic Stone Legion Generals which is basically the only reason this spec does not get a lower ranking. Outside of that Survival does struggle in pure ST fights (Визгунья, Алчущий разрушитель, Грязешмяк), and fights like Сир Денатрий (especially if you exclude p1 add damage), due to the melee limitation, lack of a strong execute and overall fairly low pure ST DPS (which is critical for last phase).

Now Survival does have some utility such as Дух черепахи, Связующий выстрел and Замораживающая ловушка, but it's still going to suffer from the fact that Beast Mastery and Marksmanship will have access to the same toolkit while still being Ranged. This historically has been a consistent issue for the spec, since raids generally have a much more limited number of raid spots available for melee, and most of them will be reserved for the required raid buffs - Печать хаоса from Demon Hunter, Таинственное прикосновение from Monk, and Боевой крик from Warrior thus leaving only a few slots available. I believe that if those raid buffs are removed from the game, Survival will have much more potential of being viable, especially due to technically having a good personal utility kit of things mentioned previously, combined with Дух орла and Гарпун, but I believe it will still need a stronger niche and a much stronger presence in said niche, in order to not be swapped out for a Ranged Hunter player in majority of min-max situations.

Furthermore, there will be fights where simply going a ranged spec will be significantly better for the raid, even if it did slightly hinder damage (such as Сир Денатрий or Грязешмяк), making specs such as Marksmanship look even more appealing. Not only that, but compared to some of the other melee specs, survival does lack strong defensives, and while it does have an Immunity, outside of it, it effectively only has a single defensive in Выживает сильнейший, on a fairly long cooldown.

Overall, Survival currently struggles a lot in the current raid tier, and still needs numerous buffs in order to be competitive, in the vast majority of situations, with passive cleave being the only area where it excels at, due to having a large part of its single target rotation passively cleave on-to nearby AoE enemies.

Overall Rating: C

As of 9.0.5, Subtlety Rogues have started a journey reminiscent of the not-too-distant past of Ny'alotha. The number of players and the ranking in the statistics are somewhat collapsing. This is pretty sad because Subtlety really is a fun spec and it's not necessarily bad either. It has fair single target damage and brings the niche of funnel focus damage on a priority target thanks to Шквал сюрикэнов generating combo points per target, which in turn allows a lot more finishers like Потрошение. While Subtlety Rogues also have the option of doing AoE damage with Черный порох, funnel damage is a more noteworthy part of the spec that we have seen taken advantage of (when it was even stronger) in the past for bosses like Зул in Uldir. The only issue with the funnel niche is that over the course of a whole raid, it usually matters too little.

Just as it is with the competing Rogue specs, there is no buff or raid cooldown to support the raid as a whole. You could count Маленькие хитрости as an external support, for what it's worth. With Спринт, two charges of Шаг сквозь тень, and possibly a movement-oriented covenant signature ability, movement options are good but not outstanding. In order to survive, the spec does not have impressive self-heal but solid personal defensive through Ускользание, Плащ теней, and Уловка. Плащ теней is worth mentioning for its usefulness in soaking/clearing things like Истребление on Алчущий разрушитель or Стазисная ловушка on Изобретатель Зи'Мокс. On the other hand, it is also working on fewer raid mechanics than other immunities such as Mage's Ледяная глыба.

In the end, Subtlety Rogue's strength is down to being a playball of tuning, of which, quite frankly, nothing has been done to Sub on a core level in years (other than borrowed power). The spec currently feels rather abandoned and both Outlaw and Assassination have surpassed it. Playing Subtlety in the Mythic raid, if you're having fun and are good at it, is still totally possible. It just comes with the problem that the two other specs are an arguably better choice if you are a min-maxer and fine with multi-speccing. The specs of classes will also usually be able to bring equal or better raid utility. Sub is fun but it lacks something it is distinctly good at, right now.
Overall Rating: C
Patch 9.0.5 didn't change much for Arms directly, although as more guilds push deeper into Castle Nathria, more players have switched to Fury due to several buffs and better performance on the final two encounters. Unlike Fury however, the vast majority of Arms players are still Venthyr, without much change to the performance or rotation since patch 9.0.1.

There is some small consolation in that Arms performs better in single target than Warcraft Logs statistics would suggest, but the majority of the community having switched to Fury results in fewer competitive players creating good Arms parses. Like Fury, Arms still struggles to keep up on single target, with Боевой крик being the main group contribution outside of execute phases which don't typically last long enough to bring the spec up out of the dirt, and although Stone Legion Generals and Сир Денатрий still have strong execute phases, Arms longer Вихрь клинков and Аватара cooldowns don't line up with their AoE phases nearly as well.

This would almost seem to be a fluke - Arms multitarget damage isn't bad by any means and the situation could have been easily reversed if those later encounters had AoE every 1.5 minutes instead of 1 minute, or if there were a greater abundance of two target cleave (more consistent Сир Денатрий and Реморния cleave without the additional cabalists) in later encounters, but despite having a very versatile toolkit, none of Arms tools fit perfectly into any of the encounters. The very early Ловчий Альтимор fight is the only one where Размашистые удары really shines, but even then Arms early dominance is falling to Fury, as more groups switch to AoEing down Тени Баргаста adds en masse.

Defensively, Arms at least enjoys the same advantages as Fury, also taking advantage of Стойкий страж and the rank 2 of Бой насмерть for a 1.5m cooldown, and Отражение заклинаний to trivialize a a number of Mythic+ and raid mechanics - from Ловчий Альтимор's Искатель грехаto Mythic Сир Денатрий' Сокрушительная боль. They also provide Ободряющий клич, which is one of the few raid cooldowns useful against Сир Денатрий' Кровавая цена. Arms version of Venthyr Порицание is even better in that it has no cooldown, alongside Бесстрашный дуэлянт to make Arms a little bit more tankier at the end of encounters.

Unfortunately, there's little reason to prioritize Arms at this point in the tier. Размашистые удары is the only tool that Fury lacks, but it's not prevalent enough in Castle Nathria to make up for Arms' lackluster performance and in other areas, Arms and Fury are so similar that the major deciding factor generally comes down to which one has gotten buffed the most recently. It will be interesting to see what the 9.1 Sanctum of Domination encounters look like, because Arms could easily be more favored if they feature more two-target cleave or 1.5m add phases. Ultimately though, the biggest strike against Warriors of both specs is simple tuning, with their single target performance desperately needing a major buff.

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