DPS Tier List for The Burning Crusade Classic (Phase 1) - PvE Rankings

By Rokman Updated: 2026/03/25

Disclaimers About This Tier ListopinionsIn TBC Classic Anniversary Edition Tier Four Raids will be in their post-nerf state. This means that the rankings may change slightly post launch due to the speed of some fights. Phase 1 TBC Classic DPS Tier List for Karazhan, Magtheridon's Lair, and Gruul's LairDPS Rankings and Explanations for Phase 1 of TBC Classic

Arcane Mage (S Tier)

Destruction Warlock (S Tier)

Beast Mastery Hunter (S Tier

Fury Warrior (S Tier)

Enhancement Shaman (S Tier)

Survival Hunter (S tier)

Demonology Warlock (A Tier)

Fire Mage (A tier)

Affliction Warlock (A tier)

Elemental Shaman (A Tier)

Arms Warrior (A Tier)

Shadow Priest (B Tier)

Frost Mage (B Tier)

Retribution Paladin (B Tier)

Balance Druid (B Tier)

Combat Rogue (B Tier)

Feral Combat Druid (C Tier)

Marksmanship Hunter (D Tier)

Assassination Rogue (D Tier)

Subtlety Rogue (D Tier)

S-Tier SpecsOverall Rating: S

Overall, Warlocks in Burning Crusade Classic bring some of the top damage in the game for single-target as well as multi-target or AoE, as well as great utility. Warlocks bring curses, Master Healthstone, Ritual of Summoning, wipe prevention in the form of Master Soulstone, crowd control in the form of and .

In the Burning Crusade, Warlocks get Seed of Corruption, which has a high AoE cap, can crit (which forgoes the cap), has a 15-yard explosion range, and can be cast from a safe distance, making it one of, if not the best, AoE spells in the game.

Warlocks have a plethora of viable raiding specializations, each shining uniquely.

Destruction Warlocks
Shadow Destruction is the ol’ reliable specialization, closest to what we currently know from WoW Classic, providing solid single-target DPS as well as amazing AoE.

Got a mage friend or a mage that decides to go fire? is your new best friend. You can go Fire Destruction and, thanks to the Improved Scorch debuff, you will outshine -casting Warlocks. On top of that, you don’t even need a Soul Shard to get your buff!

Demonology Warlocks
Another option would be to go the path of a Demonologist—Felguard goes SMASH! Ever wanted to deal solid damage during movement or CC encounters? Whilst you are running around or incapacitated, your new best friend will still be chasing the boss and dealing damage.

Your Felguard takes 50% less damage from bosses' Area of Effect damage spells, and he positions himself behind targets, which results in increased survivability and greater DPS because bosses are not able to parry or block attacks from behind. On top of this, pets now scale with our stats. Demo will shine on plenty of fights, like on Magtheridon and Gruul in phase 1, where you personally cannot deal any damage, but your pet can happily keep smashing. However, you need to keep your pet alive, and if it does die, you will see a severe drop in your damage output until you have it back up.

Affliction Warlocks
Finally, Affliction is the utility bot. More DoTs! In Burning Crusade, the debuff cap moves up from 16 to 40, so Affliction Warlocks are allowed to use more of their damage-dealing debuffs. Affliction has the benefit of being able to “preload” their damage with dots, allowing for minimal DPS loss when incapacitated or moving.

and are other reasons an Affliction Warlock will be brought. These increase raid-wide DPS as well as giving the Tank more breathing room to gear offensively. Also, can be brought for the Tank.

Affliction also has a lot of fun on multi-targets as well, as you can load up all targets with your DoTs. Keeping track of which to refresh can be a fun challenge. Overall Rating: S

Hunters in TBC Classic have two specializations, both of which are top-tier in their own ways. The first is Beast Mastery, a chart-topping single-target DPS choice, thanks to new abilities, such as Steady Shot and Kill Command. The second specialization, Survival, arguably brings some of the best raid utility in the form of . Our only minor weakness would be consistent AoE damage, since we still only have and , which fall short compared to classes like Warlocks and Mages.

Beast Mastery hunters will be at the top of the damage meters throughout all of Phase 1, thanks to a few new abilities and talents. fills the downtime gap Hunters previously suffered in Classic. New talents, such as Ferocious Inspiration, The Beast Within, and Serpent's Swiftness, give us great boosts. Our pets now scale with a percentage of some of our stats, making using our pets and keeping them alive a high priority, since they now account for roughly 30% of our overall damage output. The next major contributor to the Beast Mastery damage is the Beast Lord Armor. This set's 4-piece bonus provides a 100% uptime of 600 Armor Penetration, giving a big DPS boost. The final factor making Beast Mastery's damage output S-tier is "melee-weaving." With TBC Classic, the dead zone is removed, and the melee swing timer is separate from our ranged swing timer. Therefore, we can easily move in and out for a quick Raptor Strike.

While the Survival specialization suffers from slightly lower damage output from not having the talents Ferocious Inspiration, The Beast Within, and Serpent's Swiftness, Survival Hunters make up for it in top tier raid utility by providing a boost to all Physical damage dealers in the raid, with . This talent should have an uptime of nearly 95%, making a Survival Hunter a valuable asset to all raid teams.

Hunters' damage output increases significantly in Burning Crusade Classic, and our utility and defensive properties remain important. We gain the new ability Misdirection, which is a great asset to pulling targets to designated Tanks and helping with initial threat. Freezing Trap and Frost Trap remain solid abilities for crowd control. Our signature aggro dump with Feign Death is still great to keep threat under control; however, you can no longer Feign Death to drop out of combat in boss fights to swap trinkets. Overall Rating: S
Elemental Shaman starts extremely strong in TBC Classic, as they obtain a massive amount of Spell Hit and Spell Crit from their talents. The extra hit allows them to reach the Spell Hit cap very early, without needing to go out of their way to acquire Spell Hit gear. They also bring the new Bloodlust / Heroism effect.

They are the best support for caster groups, bringing the caster equivalent of and , and , which increase the damage done and lower the Spell Hit required by their group. They also have a powerful DPS cooldown in Elemental Mastery, which can be combined with Chain Lightning to create massive burst damage on demand.

They also bring a lot of other situationally useful tools, including , , Tremor Totem, Earthbind Totem, and , as well as poison- and disease-removing totems that can automate the process in fights where these debuffs are consistently applied to your party.

The main weakness of Elemental is its low scaling with gear compared to the top DPS classes of Burning Crusade Classic. The cast time requirements on the main damage spells also hamper mobility and make Elemental vulnerable to interrupts and spell pushback. However, interrupts and spell pushback are of little concern in PvE. In Phase 1, the gear available is weak. Much, if not all, of the raiding progression will be done mostly in blues, making Elemental a powerhouse with few downsides.A Tier SpecsOverall Rating: A
In Burning Crusade Classic, Mages are among the most useful damage dealers to any group or raid, providing some of the highest DPS in the game while also having unique and powerful utility. When it comes to pure damage, Mages fall behind only the two strongest classes, Warlocks and Hunters. However, they are still able to hold their own, competing even with them. This is true for all phases.

In Phase 1, the best spec for Mages is Arcane, which provides the highest damage with the available gear. A standard raid group will always want at least one Mage thanks to the high damage and utility.

Mages provide some of the most useful utilities in the game, controlling mobs with Polymorph and , buffing Intelligence with Arcane Intellect, and supplying the raid with conjured food and water. Food and water become an all-in-one package in TBC, with . The expansion also gives Mages a fancy new trick in Spellsteal, which is even essential to the High King Maulgar fight in Gruul's Lair.

A Mage’s damage is incredibly high in both single-target and AoE fights. The damage output is strong throughout a fight, although Mages really shine in the ‘execute’ phase, when a target is below 20% health. This is thanks to , which increases damage by a whole 20%. When combined with other tools, like and Icy Veins, the burst can get quite ridiculous.

Mages also excel in AoE fights, thanks to a large AoE toolbox. Multiple strong spells already exist, like Flamestrike, Arcane Explosion, Blizzard, Cone of Cold, and Blastwave, with another very strong AoE spell, Dragon's Breath, being added in TBC Classic. If there’s a group of mobs, Mage is one of the best classes to take them down.

Additionally, Mages also have strong survival tools. The class is quite squishy by itself, but it does have some strong spells to help with staying alive, most notably Ice Block, which makes a Mage completely immune to damage (and is no longer limited to Frost). The new spell Invisibility can be used to get out of sticky situations. Of course, there are also options like , which is expensive but can still aid survivability. Overall Rating: A

The Enhancement Shaman gets a revamp in Burning Crusade Classic. These changes, along with the utility that Shamans bring in general, make the class desirable for all raid comps. Enhancement gets some notable improvements: Dual Wield allows Shamans to use two one-handed weapons, and Stormstrike has been adjusted to accommodate dual-wielding by striking with both weapons. comes in as our 41-point talent, providing much-needed mana regeneration.

Shaman is one of the most desirable classes (if not the most desirable class) in Burning Crusade Classic, regardless of spec. Every Shaman brings totems (, , , etc.) that can buff their party, and at level 70 every Shaman will now get Heroism/Bloodlust, a game-changing ability. Every party in every raid will want a Shaman to provide totems and Heroism/Bloodlust to unlock their group's full potential. In addition to this, Enhancement Shamans also provide to their party (which will most likely be other physical DPS).

Shamans in Burning Crusade Classic just have an overall amazing spell book: is an interrupt on a 6-second cooldown, prevents an enemy spellcast, Tremor Totem dispels fear effects from your party members, and and are a DPS and Defensive cooldown respectively. The sheer amount of utility that Shaman can bring to the raid makes all Shaman specs viable and puts Enhancement Shaman in a high tier.Overall Rating: A

DPS Warriors truly fall from grace from Classic, finding themselves in much lower demand in Burning Crusade Classic. You'll no longer see raids stacked with DPS Warriors; instead, your raid is likely only going to have room for one or two at most. Unlike Classic, you'll actually be able to use both DPS specs for raiding in Burning Crusade, but in Phase 1, they still don't have the proper gear scaling to allow them to conquer the damage meters.

Arms Warriors are going to be the most prevalent spec you'll see in raid groups because they actually bring a raid debuff in the form of , which increases the Physical damage done by your entire raid. Even though this debuff is very good, you only need one Warrior to keep the debuff applied to enemies, so there won't be an incentive to bring multiple Arms warriors. This means raid spots will be competitive. Arms Warriors are also somewhat forced to use two-handed swords because of their talent, so if you end up playing Arms in a raid, you are filling a pretty restricted role.

Fury Warriors are simply damage dealers who don't bring any raid debuffs or any sort of exceptional raid utility that would incentivize raids to bring them, which puts them in an undesirable position. Being the Fury Warrior is a pretty sweet gig if you manage to find a raid to bring you (which is entirely possible if your guild isn't min/maxed to the teeth), since you get to take full advantage of Blacksmithing for both PvE and PvP and will get to craft Dragonmaw and Deep Thunder in Phase 1.

Overall, in Phase 1, DPS Warriors simply aren't the same, overly desired class we've seen in the past couple of years of Classic. They deal solid damage, and Arms brings a nice debuff, but they won't be the stars of the show.B Tier SpecsOverall Rating: B

All three talent specializations of Rogue are focused on dealing damage, so that is all there is for Rogue players. Rogues are very gear dependent, needing powerful armor and weapons to deal a lot of damage. In Phase 1 of Burning Crusade Classic, equally skilled Rogues generally fall behind other damage-dealing classes, such as Hunters or Warlocks. In later phases, with more powerful equipment, Rogue damage output improves significantly and the class becomes a more desirable raid inclusion. There is still good reason to bring a Rogue to a raid in Phase 1, though: with the talent is a very powerful armor reduction debuff that most raids will want to have. This gives a good boost to the Physical damage output of all raid members!

While the damage output is mediocre and is the only raid-wide buff, Rogues have other meaningful advantages. They have a plethora of defensive and utility abilities, including , , , and the all-new (and totally amazing) Cloak of Shadows. Smart use of these abilities can help Rogues get more active time attacking enemies, avoid damaging raid mechanics and controlling their own threat when a situation gets out of hand. These utility abilities can make a skilled Rogue less of a healing or dispelling burden compared to other damage-dealing classes.

The Rogue's AoE damaging capabilities are almost nonexistent, only being able to hit two targets with the Blade Flurry ability for 15 seconds every two minutes. However, Rogues are very capable at dealing burst damage; using powerful abilities like Blade Flurry and Adrenaline Rush and replenishing themselves with Thistle Tea, they can deal a huge amount of damage in a short period of time.

All Combat Rogues will be able to get the new and immensely powerful . This talent easily puts Combat far ahead of Assassination or Subtlety; the talents in those trees simply cannot compete with . Unfortunately for fans of the dagger style, sword Rogues are the champs in Burning Crusade Classic—it isn't close, like it was in Classic. The old gets an important mechanical update, which makes it significantly stronger. In Classic, whenever triggered, it would interrupt your current auto attack and restart the swing timer. In Burning Crusade Classic, acts independently of your auto attack swing timer and does not interfere at all. This power boost really sets Combat Sword Rogues a good deal ahead of Combat Daggers.Overall Rating: B
In The Burning Crusade Classic, offers insane amount of mana regeneration for your entire party, including yourself. It scales based on your damage output, meaning that the further you get into Burning Crusade Classic content, the more effective it becomes. It never quite counterbalances the mana expenditure of chain-casting, but with other sustenance tools (including the brand-new Shadowfiend), mana issues are nowhere near as crippling as they were in Classic.

The talent tree revamp sees slightly nerfed, from 15% to 10%, but with , the debuff is back at 15% while also providing a 5% boost for all other magic schools. Vampiric Embrace still generates a lot of threat but, with no debuff cap, may be useful in Heroics and in later phases.

With superior scaling, Shadow Priests are among the meta specs in phase 1 PvP. Pairing up with a Warlock makes for a formidable 2v2 comp! If you prefer, you may play Shadow in PvE and freely respec for arena—Discipline is just as good a PvP spec and remains meta for entire expansion.

With both single-target and AoE damage falling behind as Mages and Warlocks get high-crit gear (not as beneficial to Shadow Priests), and with a limited AoE capacity, this spec falls somewhat short of being S tier. Bear in mind that, while Warlocks and Hunters are coveted for their DPS, Shadow Priests are mandatory for raids because of their utility and are thus guaranteed a spot. Granting 1200 Mp5 (assuming 1200 DPS, hence 60 mana per second for each of 4 Healers in raid) virtually makes for another Healer while still delivering solid DPS. If that were not enough, the terrific output boost (especially for Warlocks, but for all casters) warrants at least a single Shadow Priest in every 25-player group (and makes them a much-loved addition for Kara runs.)

Damage over Time's AoE output is capped by default. The limiting factor is cast time, blanketing only a certain number of targets, as well as long-ish ramp-up time. While AoE output is significant in long run, it is not quite as strong as that of other caster classes.Overall Rating: B

Retribution Paladins are very strong in Phase 1 and are a nearly mandatory raid spot for both Gruul's Lair and Magtheridon's Lair, thanks to and to having moderately high damage for a melee slot; however, they are sub-optimal for Karazhan. Retribution Paladins bring a plethora of buffs that help as you get more people, including another Blessing and the ability to keep another Paladin's judgements active on the boss. This allows Holy Paladins to continue pumping heals into the Main Tank. also allows extra damage during the Magtheridon's Lair fight. They also boost the damage of their party members by 2 % with , which is small but handy.

Retribution Paladins also have very strong defensive capabilities. They can escape much of the AoE damage that Gruul dishes out during his Ground Slam; avoids the damage component and Blessing of Freedom avoids the slow, and makes them immune to both. They are also able to assist with cleansing during the add phase of Magtheridon's Lair, stunning adds, fearing Infernals, and even tanking the first add that gets blown up, avoiding the need to bring another Tank.

This is where the strengths of a Retribution Paladin stop, compounded by the fact that over half of your raid tine in Phase 1 will be spent doing Karazhan. To be truly effective, the Retribution Paladin really needs to be in the Melee group, getting access to as well as the Attack Power buffs from both and . It's incredibly unlikely for you to have all three of these benefits in your Karazhan group. They do not have the effectiveness in a 10-player raid when compared to a Protection Paladin. At minimum, you will be relegated to performing Off-Tank duties, and while you will perform them outstandingly, you're just not on the same level as a Feral Druid for efficient multitasking.

Finally, there are just some general headaches of a Retribution Paladin. The group comp requirements were already stated, but they are just a Melee slot as is, and Melee in Phase 1 of Burning Crusade Classic will be behind Ranged for a variety of reasons. Melee do not get access to Tier 5-equivalent gear from a dungeon set/crafting, and Melee get abused by cleave attacks and other unfriendly mechanics, both of which really make Ranged favored over Melee during Phase 1. Their AoE damage is limited solely to , which costs an absurd amount of mana and does not scale with gear. Finally, you will never bring more than one Retribution Paladin to a raid. While they bring a lot of utility, a second would fill a slot that could go to a Melee that brings more utility to the other classes, which would mean having fewer important raid or Melee group buffs. Overall Rating: B

Balance ends up in a strange position in Burning Crusade Classic—what was once considered a meme spec in WoW Classic becomes coveted by raid teams as a key support class. While it doesn't realistically top the damage charts, it does bring a vast array of raid utility.

On top of the utility that any Druid brings to raid, such as Innervate and Rebirth, receives a sizeable upgrade deep in the Balance talent tree. When completely talented, increases the chance the target will be hit by melee or ranged attacks by 3%. This is a considerable raid-wide buff. Moonkin Form also gets a beefy upgrade, going from 3% spell crit to 5%, making Balance a great addition to the Warlock group.

The increase to buff and debuff caps means that Boomkins will also get to play with their other debuffs, and . This greatly improves the rotation, playstyle, and damage. However, Boomkins still struggle with mana, and maintaining these DoTs can quickly get out of hand. The damage output of Balance is arguably better than as seen in Classic, but it is not without its struggles. A good Boomkin who puts in the effort will be noticeably higher on the meters than one who is just filling in as a buff bot.C Tier SpecsOverall Rating: C

Feral druids are in an excellent place for tanking in Burning Crusade Classic, but as a DPS spec, Feral is lackluster. On the plus side, Feral DPS is significantly buffed relative to other Melee classes in Burning Crusade Classic and the gap in performance between Feral and a Warrior or Rogue drops from more than 30% in Classic to less than 10% in Burning Crusade Classic. This is due in large part to the absence of world buffs, which disproportionately benefited Warriors and Rogues in Classic because of to their superior scaling.

Additionally, Burning Crusade Classic adds to the Cat rotation, which provides a 30% buff to almost all yellow damage, including both (the primary Combo Point generator) and (the primary finishing move). On top of the raw DPS boost from Mangle, Burning Crusade Classic also solves the mana issues which Cats suffered from on longer fights in Classic. The greatly expanded debuff limit allows for regular use of in raids. The new talent enables mana regeneration while powershifting, and the introduction of Fel Mana Potion (the debuff is irrelevant for Cats) adds a much stronger consumable that makes mana a non-issue even on longer fights. Finally, Feral itemization in Burning Crusade Classic is significantly improved compared to Classic, with real tier sets and much stronger offset pieces.

Improvements aside, Feral DPS remains mediocre relative to "pure" DPS specs, such as Hunters, Warlocks, and Fury Warriors. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as several hybrid specs in TBC are expected to perform much worse than Ferals: Shadow Priests, Balance Druids, and Retribution Paladins, to name a few. However, these classes and specs all bring valuable raid and group utility which justifies their inclusion in competitive raid comps: and from Shadow Priests, from Moonkins, and and Blessings from Ret Paladins, etc. By comparison, from Feral Druids is a much weaker buff, as it benefits only a single party, and the Mangle debuff primarily benefits the Feral, with only a minor impact on Rogue and Warrior DPS. As a result, the absence of strong raid utility makes it difficult to justify bringing a pure DPS Feral in a competitive raid comp, given its middle-of-the-pack DPS output. In a speedrun setting, the difference between a Feral Druid and a DPS Warrior is further amplified, since Cats lack any form of cleave, crippling their multi-target output on trash (which constitutes the large majority of time in a speedrun).

Another issue with Ferals compared with other Melee DPS classes is the lack of tools to deal with raid mechanics, which are known to be particularly punishing for Melee in TBC. Cats lack defensive cooldowns like Cloak of Shadows, which can be used to negate certain mechanics, and also lack offensive cooldowns, like Recklessness and , which can compensate for reduced fight uptime by concentrating damage output into periods of uptime. Likewise, Rogues can pool energy when not attacking and expend it later to reduce the impact of moving out of melee range. By contrast, Cats expend energy at a constant rate while powershifting with Wolfshead Helm and , so there is no benefit to pooling energy when unable to attack, and reduced uptime is an irrecoverable DPS loss. However, Ferals can use Wild Charge and to get in and out of melee range quickly.

It should be noted that the above ranking pertains to Feral Druids as a pure DPS role in a raid. When used primarily as a Tank, Ferals have by far the highest DPS output of all Tank specs when not actively tanking, as Cat DPS massively outclasses Protection Warriors/Paladins. The absence of Cleave for Cats is also irrelevant when the Feral is used as a Tank rather than as a DPS on trash.Changelog

Comments

Comment by Zhov

You guys need new class writers if this is the content they are putting out, your classic content in general is very lacking in quality (your PvP page is completely devoid of any relevant links or meaningful information).

Feral and Warriors below rogues? The Arms debuff is a larger physical damage boost than imp expose and Feral brings an extremely powerful buff for your hunter group, how did you guys rate rogues above these two and on par with a boomkin or even ret?

Additionally, how is shaman not S tier? Easily the most important class in TBC as you really need 1 for every group because the totems are just that powerful.

Comment by absonom

This list is so cooked. Fire mage ranked an A while Ret paladin is a B? Fire mage is barely viable and you gotta run like 5-8 warlocks to make it worthwhile.

Comment by NorthCode

Great reminder to never use wowhead for anything like this or like it. Wowheads spec ''guides'' are also comically bad.

DPS Tier List for The Burning Crusade Classic (Phase 1) - PvE Rankings

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