WotLK PvP DPS Tier List / Rankings

Welcome to the World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King PvP DPS tier list! We will be ranking each DPS spec available for the expansion, as well as explaining each spec’s position on the tier list.

Overall Performance: How strong the spec is individually.
Synergy: How strong the spec is when combined with other popular specs.
Adaptability: How adaptable the spec is, meaning how many different types of arena teams it fits well into, how many top tier comps it can play in, etc.

Note that this Tier List covers classes and specs in their patch 3.3.5 state. This works just like in previous Classic expansions: although we’re doing content starting with the very first phase, our spells, talents, and equipment are already in their finalized states, which has great implications on the metagame. We will be discussing this in more detail in the sections below.

Furthermore, this tier list ranks all the DPS specs for their overall performance through the expansion’s duration — we do not rank them for 1 specific phase. Additionally, we will consider both the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets in these rankings, as Blizzard has announced that the 2v2 bracket will also award Gladiator titles & rewards in WotLK Classic.

Arms Warrior (S-Tier)
Destruction Warlock (S-Tier)
Affliction Warlock (S-Tier)
Elemental Shaman (S-Tier)
Frost Mage (A-Tier)
Shadow Priest (A-Tier)
Unholy Death Knight (A-Tier)
Subtlety Rogue (A-Tier)
Marksmanship Hunter (B-Tier)
Retribution Paladin (B-Tier)
Preg Paladin (B-Tier)
Feral Druid (B-Tier)
Enhancement Shaman (B-Tier)
Protection Warrior (C-Tier)
Beast Mastery Hunter (C-Tier)
Protection Paladin (C-Tier)
Balance Druid (C-Tier)
Frost Death Knight (C-Tier)
Fire Mage (D-Tier)
Arcane Mage (D-Tier)
Combat Rogue (D-Tier)
Survival Hunter (D-Tier)
Assassination Rogue (D-Tier)
Demonology Warlock (F-Tier)
Blood Death Knight (F-Tier)
Fury Warrior (F-Tier)

S-Tier

The S-Tier represents the most powerful classes in the current meta – those with the best damage and synergy. You will find these specializations extremely often, because they’re very strong and fit into many different teams.

Arms Warrior

Arms Warriors have dominated PvP since the beginning of World of Warcraft, and continue to do so in WotLK, being one of (if not THE) strongest spec in the game in both the 2v2 and 3v3 arena brackets. There is no other tier they could possibly be in, but the S-tier.

Things don’t change massively for Arms in WotLK, we just get a whole lot of buffs. Sweeping Strikes gets moved to the Arms tree again, a great boon in 3v3 and for cleaving Warlock pets — we now eat Warlocks up for breakfast. Juggernaut gives us a significant mobility boost, making us one of the most mobile melee DPS around. Unrelenting Assault allows us to occasionally shut down casters and healers, giving us a 75% healing reduction against the latter when paired with Mortal Strike. But of course this all pales when compared with Bladestorm, our incredibly overpowered 51-point talent which absolutely shreds everything (and Warlocks in particular) and gives us CC immunity for 6 seconds. This ability was so overpowered that Blizzard had to nerf it by making it stop when you get disarmed, but many specs in the game don’t have that ability and thus get ran over by it like roadkill.

We’re absolute damage powerhouses in Wrath, capable of deleting squishy clothies in a matter of seconds, and we apply so much pressure on enemy healers that they struggle to do anything besides heal our target when we connect — a task that’s made significantly easier by our excellent mobility, particularly when we’re paired with a Holy Paladin. One of our few weaknesses is that we struggle to put out pressure when we’re forced into Defensive Stance, so teams that can crowd control your healer and put pressure on you (like Rogue / Shadow Priest in 2v2) will give you a tough time, but that’s not a game-ending weakness by any means. Furthermore, we only really become damage monsters when we’re stacked with armor penetration gear obtained in PvE (boosted even further by the overpowered Shadowmourne), which we unfortunately only get access to in latter seasons, so for seasons 5 & 6, we’ll generally be unable to reach our full potential.

Arms Warriors are great in both melee cleave and balanced (melee-ranged-healer) type teams in the 3v3 bracket. We don’t really have control tools, so we aren’t great in double DPS type teams in the 2v2 bracket, typically relying on a healer. And where healers are concerned, you nearly always want to be playing with a Holy Paladin if you can help it, as they have several tools that can allow you to stay in the fight and unlock your maximum potential.

Best 2v2 comps

Arms Warrior / Holy Paladin (Best, S-tier comp)

Best 3v3 comps

Arms Warrior / Unholy DK / Holy Paladin (S-tier comp)
Arms Warrior / Elemental Shaman / Holy Paladin (S-tier comp)
Arms Warrior / Enhancement Shaman / Holy Paladin
Arms Warrior / Feral Druid / Holy Paladin

Destruction Warlock

In a bizarre twist, Destruction Warlocks go from an S-tier spec in TBC to a C-tier spec in WotLK when it comes to PvE, and from a C-tier spec in TBC to an S-tier in WotLK when it comes to PvP. Truly a roller-coaster of a spec! People will debate endlessly if Destruction or Affliction is overall the superior Warlock spec, but the truth is, both are S-tier specs with unique strengths and weaknesses.

The reason for this cataclysmic rise is very simple: Soul Link, our class-defining PvP talent, gets moved from the 7th row, up to just the 3rd row in WotLK. This means that Warlocks of any spec can now pick it up and become monsters of tankiness — you aren’t forced into being a Demonology hybrid anymore. The buffs don’t end there however: our survivability is a lot better with the new talent Molten Skin & particularly against casters with the reworked Nether Protection. Our mobility (and thus also survivability!) is massively improved with the new level 80 Warlock spell, Demonic Circle: Teleport. Our crowd control is also buffed, with Shadowfury now being instant cast and the new level 75 Warlock spell, Shadowflame, giving us a very effective slow when boosted by the Glyph of Shadowflame. Furthermore, the improved Improved Succubus talent (heh heh) gives us the powerful ability to easily hold 2 people in 8 second crowd-control at the same time — an incredibly annoying trait to face off against in the 2v2 arena bracket.

However, none of this is what Destruction Warlocks are known for: it is our raw damage that has made us a feared spec to run into in WotLK arena. Our new capstone talent, Chaos Bolt, does an absolutely insane amount of damage, allowing us to easily take away as much as 50-60% of someone’s health pool when combo’d with a Conflagrate. It is still not very easy to keep Immolate on the target, as it lacks dispel protection, but thankfully we can now Conflagrate off the Shadowflame DoT if needed, with the Backdraft talent further providing us with some spell haste to get casts off more easily.

Destruction Warlocks are a force to be reckoned with. We’re incredibly powerful early on, when people have lower resilience amounts, and though in later seasons we fall off slightly due to the rise of Arms Warriors, our natural counter, we remain very strong as spell haste, one of our most desired stats, starts becoming more and more abundant, allowing us to cast so fast that it becomes hard to interrupt us. Our incredible damage and control makes us exceptional in caster-cleave type teams, where we can coordinate our damage with our partner in a combo, frequently killing players during Shadowfury‘s 2 second stun.

Our most glaring weakness is that despite all of these survivability buffs, we’re still not as tanky as our Affliction brothers; we’re still a squishy clothie in the end of the day, so physical DPS classes like the aforementioned Arms Warriors will hurt us in ways that not even psychotherapy can help us deal with. Furthermore, nearly all of our major spells (including Fear) have a cast time, so it will be very common for teams (particularly melee-centric ones) to focus you down in order to prevent you from casting. Unfortunately, these 2 weaknesses are pretty severe: the 2v2 ladder will be very rough for us, as it’s filled with Arms Warrior / Holy Paladin teams that counter you. The 3v3 ladder can also be incredibly painful, as Arms Warrior / Unholy DK / Holy Paladin is one of the strongest comps in the game and they’re an absolute nightmare for you to fight, along with many other melee cleave teams. However, don’t let this daunt you: we are extremely good against everything else, and particularly against caster cleave teams.

Best 2v2 comps

Destruction Warlock / Resto Shaman (Best, S-tier comp)
Destruction Warlock / Resto Druid (Significantly weaker)

Best 3v3 comps

Destruction Warlock / Elemental Shaman / Resto Druid (Best, S-tier comp) OR Disc Priest OR Holy Paladin (Slightly weaker)
Destruction Warlock / Frost Mage / Resto Shaman (Best) OR Resto Druid (Significantly weaker)

Affliction Warlock

The Affliction/Demonology hybrid “SL/SL” spec was one of strongest arena specs in TBC, slowly but surely rotting people down with its heavy & consistent damage-over-time. It is thus no coincidence that pure Affliction is still a top spec, being unshackled from the Demonology spec. People will debate endlessly if Destruction or Affliction is overall the superior Warlock spec, but the truth is, both are S-tier specs with unique strengths and weaknesses.

As mentioned before, the class-defining Soul Link goes from being a 7th row Demonology talent, to the 3rd row in WotLK. This allows us to finally commit to the Affliction tree all the way, without having to go that deep in Demonology in order to become tanky monsters. This gives us access to the previously-unreachable talents like Unstable Affliction, offering some much-needed dispel protection for our DoTs, as well as Improved Howl of Terror, for some instant CC. Other general buffs to Affliction damage, like Pandemic and Eradication, boost our damage further, but none as much as our new capstone talent, Haunt. New Warlock spells Demonic Circle: Teleport & Shadowflame (boosted by Glyph of Shadowflame) help improve our already solid survivability & control even further. Finally, the reworked Drain Soul (boosted further by Death’s Embrace) gives us a terrifying execute ability — start draining someone at low HP, and watch them panic, futilely trying to stay alive.

It’s difficult to understate just how high Affliction’s damage is, paired with some incredible control. Destruction has a small edge in damage in the early seasons as they can 2-shot players, but we close that gap as we get more and more spell haste & spell crit thanks to our incredible scaling, with our execute damage becoming scarier over time. Furthermore, we’re far tankier than Destruction, thanks to Siphon Life and Drain Life helping us heal ourselves while necessary. Moreover, most of our DoTs are instant-cast, meaning we aren’t susceptible to being focused down as Destruction is, though we’re still clothies — meaning we absolutely share their weakness to physical DPS, and Arms Warriors in particular, who can kill your Felhunter faster than you can say “WTF?”

Thankfully, this combination of strengths and weaknesses makes us a little less slanted in terms of what teams we can play in, compared to Destruction at least. Affliction can work just fine in caster cleave and balanced (melee-ranged-healer) type comps, and it works particularly well in teams focused around dealing damage over time, aka rotting people down.

Best 2v2 comps

Affliction Warlock / Resto Shaman (Best, S-tier comp)
Affliction Warlock / Resto Druid (Significantly weaker)

Best 3v3 comps

Affliction Warlock / Elemental Shaman / Resto Druid (Best, S-tier comp) OR Disc Priest OR Holy Paladin (Slightly weaker)
Affliction Warlock / Shadow Priest / Resto Shaman
Affliction Warlock / Unholy DK / Resto Shaman

Elemental Shaman

Elemental Shamans have had a bumpy ride over the various patches and expansions, ranging from pretty overpowered to slightly underpowered over their lifespan. It quickly became apparent that Elemental Shamans would be on the overpowered end of that spectrum once more in WotLK, and thus they find their way to the S-tier.

It’s not so hard to see why Ele Shamans are so good, with just how many buffs we got in WotLK, patching up some of our bigger weaknesses. Survivability is significantly improved, with Astral Shift, Elemental Warding, Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem and Thunderstorm all doing their part. Lava Flows gives enemies a strong dis-incentive to dispelling our Flame Shock. The new Shaman spell Hex paired with our interrupt ability being moved to the off-GCD Wind Shear are massive control buffs, on top of Storm, Earth and Fire giving us a very powerful instant cast AoE root. However, nothing compares with the new star of the show, Lava Burst, with its jaw-dropping damage, or with the reworked Elemental Mastery, giving us an instant-cast spell as opposed to a guaranteed crit.

As a result of all of these changes, Elemental becomes a fairly resilient spec, with absolutely phenomenal damage. A Lava Burst -> Elemental Mastery -> Chain Lightning will take a 50-60% chunk off someone’s health pool, which puts them at a point where our team mate can easily finish them off. This makes us a great partner for other classes with high burst damage (like a Destruction Warlock, where we can kill players within Shadowfury‘s 2 second stun), and particularly with a healing reduction effect (like an Arms Warrior).

We do have a fairly significant weakness however: all of our big nuke spells have cast times, which makes us pretty susceptible to being focused down (particularly by melee DPS) and locked out of casting. Arms Warriors and Unholy DKs are particular sore point for us, as they can stick on us like glue and make our life hell. However, some absolute genius out there had a brilliant idea: what if we played in a team that had another player that is also weak to being focused down and interrupted, like, say, a Destruction Warlock?! No team can fully lock down 2 players, after all, so they’re forced to pick one of us, and the other will be able to cast! And so caster cleaves were born, with LSD (Lock / Shaman / Druid) in particular being one of the most formidable comps in the game. While we’re pretty weak in the 2v2 bracket, our synergy with other casters (and surprisingly, Arms Warriors) makes us one of the strongest specs in the 3v3 bracket.

Best 2v2 comps

Elemental Shaman / Destruction Warlock (Best)
Elemental Shaman / Disc Priest

Best 3v3 comps

Elemental Shaman / (Destro / Affli) Warlock / Resto Druid (Best, S-tier comp) OR Disc Priest OR Holy Paladin (Slightly weaker)
Elemental Shaman / Arms Warrior / Holy Paladin (S-tier comp)

A-Tier

The A-Tier represents strong DPS specializations that have great damage and/or crowd control abilities. You will see one of these specs in most of your games, though they won’t be quite as ubiquitous as S-tier specs.

Frost Mage

Similar to Arms Warriors, Frost Mages have been a dominant force in WoW PvP since the very beginning. While they’re still extremely strong, particularly on the CC side, Warriors get more mobility in Wrath which makes them harder to control, and the meta includes several specs (Warlocks, Elemental Shamans, Disc Priests) that give us trouble. As a result, Frost Mages occupy the top spot of the A-tier.

Frost Mage gameplay is pretty much unchanged: control enemies with Polymorph & Counterspell, and look for a kill with a Shatter combo. Brain Freeze makes that a bit easier by giving us some instant damage and Invisibility makes our openers harder to react to, but by far the biggest change is Deep Freeze – an honest-to-god, on-demand stun ability for Mages. Paired with Fingers of Frost, which allows us to occasionally treat targets as if they were frozen for a bigger Shatter combo, and we are one lethal force with some additional CC.

Thanks to our exceptional control and burst damage, we still pair very well with other classes with control tools, and particularly other casters, like Warlocks and Shadow Priests. We’re strong in both the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets, and the 3v3 bracket in particular is very good for us as we work very well in a lot of different team comps. We do have a weakness: as clothies, the abundance of the armor penetration stat makes us very squishy targets for physical DPS classes, mostly Feral Druids, 7 and Arms Warriors, who can all murder us instantly if our Ice Barrier gets dispelled. We’re a very high-risk, high-reward spec to play; you have to be very careful as a Mage in Wrath.

Best 2v2 comps

Frost Mage / Shadow Priest
Frost Mage / Disc Priest

Best 3v3 comps

Frost Mage / Shadow Priest / Resto Shaman (Best, S-tier comp) OR Resto Druid (Slightly weaker)
Frost Mage / Destro Warlock / Resto Shaman OR Resto Druid (Significantly weaker)
Frost Mage / Subtlety Rogue / Disc Priest

Shadow Priest

Shadow Priests weren’t an incredible powerhouse in TBC arena, but they were decent. WotLK meanwhile treats us very kindly — a number of damage, survivability and crowd control buffs propel us to the top of the A-tier, with multiple top-tier comps relying heavily on our strengths.

Dispersion is of course the star of the show, giving us a massive on-demand defensive cooldown and some much-needed mana regeneration, on a fairly low cooldown thanks to Glyph of Dispersion; you can never truly run out of mana in arena as a Shadow Priest. Devouring Plague becomes available to Priests of all races, which helps out non-Undead SPs a lot, while the newly buffed Shadowform causes us to deal some truly scary damage-over-time. Vampiric Touch finally gets a dispel disincentive, as it now deals instant damage when dispelled, patching up a major weakness of ours. Finally, we get Psychic Horror as an tool in our already sizeable crowd-control arsenal, which is a massive buff in the fast-paced WotLK landscape, particularly as it allows us to counter an Arms Warrior’s Bladestorm.

As Shadow Priests, we synergize extremely well with other casters, as well as classes that also deal damage-over-time, such as Affli Warlocks and Unholy DKs. We’re great in both the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets, with a lot of potential comps we could play in — and this is in part thanks to our unparalleled ability to counter Holy Paladins by Silenceing them and Mass Dispeling their Divine Shield. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows however; most of our best spells have cast times, which makes us particularly prone to being focused down and interrupted repeatedly, leaving us unable to cast. Arms Warriors and Unholy DKs (frequently paired together) are particularly annoying in that regard, as they can break out of our Psychic Scream and keep “training” us.

Best 2v2 comps

Shadow Priest / Subtlety Rogue (S-tier comp)
Shadow Priest / Frost Mage

Best 3v3 comps

Shadow Priest / Frost Mage / Resto Shaman (Best, S-tier comp) OR Resto Druid (Slightly weaker)
Shadow Priest / Affli Warlock / Resto Shaman
Shadow Priest / Unholy DK / Holy Paladin

Unholy Death Knight

Death Knights are the “new kid on the block” in WotLK, and anyone who played during the first few seasons back then might have PTSD from facing Death Knights, as they were initially extremely overpowered, to the point where perhaps up to 75% of the ladder was Death Knights, and double DK / Holy Paladin teams dominated the 3v3 ladder. It took them 2 seasons, but Blizzard finally managed to nerf the class to a point where they’re strong without being completely overpowered, with Unholy becoming the prominent DK spec, finding itself in the A-tier.

Unholy has a whole lot going on for it. Death Grip is quite possibly the strongest ability in the game when it comes to PvP, allowing you to pull anyone into the open and swap to them or crowd control them on a mere 25 second cooldown. We effectively have access to a spammable root with Chains of Ice, which gives us excellent control when paired with Desecration‘s persistent slow zone Strangulate. Anti-Magic Zone gives us a way to save team-mates in trouble, while Summon Gargoyle makes people flee in terror with its insane damage — though unfortunately, it is fairly easy to counter with line-of-sight. By far our scariest trait though, is our unique ability to become immune to different types of crowd control for a very long time, with abilities like Anti-Magic Shell, Lichborne and Icebound Fortitude — pair up with a Holy Paladin for Hand of Freedom, and you will become an unstoppable killing machine.

All of these traits make us exceptional at “training” healers, who find that they are unable to keep up with our constant pressure, particularly when we finally get the overpowered Shadowmourne. Disc Priests and Resto Shamans are particularly weak against us, as they lack a reliable way to keep us away. As we lack a healing reduction effect, we naturally pair up excellently with Arms Warriors and MM Hunters, making for an absolutely terrifying 3v3 setup. However, we do have some pretty serious flaws: for one, that lack of a healing reduction effects means we’re pretty easy to handle in 2v2, particularly when facing Holy Paladin teams — the 2v2 bracket is very rough for us in general.

Furthermore, our mobility is very weak as we lack a Charge or Sprint type ability, which results in us getting “stuck”, unable to move, pretty often. Our survivability isn’t much better either, as Icebound Fortitude only reduces incoming damage by 40%, so many teams can crowd control our healer and straight up kill us at any point. These weaknesses mean that as a Death Knight you must play very aggressively and keep the initiative in the game, using all of your CC-immunity cooldowns to stay mobile and apply pressure to the enemy team. The moment these cooldowns expire and your target escapes you, you are very likely to run out of steam and perhaps lose, which makes for some very high-adrenaline games — not ideal for people with heart conditions.

Best 2v2 comps

Unholy DK / Holy Paladin
Unholy DK / Disc Priest

Best 3v3 comps

Unholy DK / Arms Warrior / Holy Paladin (S-tier comp)
Unholy DK / MM Hunter / Holy Paladin
Unholy DK / Affli Warlock / Holy Paladin
Unholy DK / Shadow Priest / Holy Paladin

Subtlety Rogue

Sub Rogues were one of the 3 top dogs of TBC arena, alongside SL/SL Warlocks and Arms Warriors. Gameplay-wise, things haven’t changed drastically for us in WotLK, but a series of nerfs intended to bring our power down to the level of other specs has limited us to the A-tier. Some would argue that due to a lack of top-tier comps, Sub Rogues belong in the B-tier instead, but we would argue that the comps they do have access to are plenty strong.

As mentioned previously, we take a few minor nerfs: Wound Poison VII now reduces healing taken on the target by 50% but no longer stacks, making it easier to dispel. Blind is now on the Fear diminishing return category, due to how overpowered our synergy with Priests & their Psychic Scream was. We get compensated pretty handsomely for these nerfs however: newly-added Tricks of the Trade boosts 1 of our team-mate’s damage by 15% for 6 second, making it perfect for setting up kills. We also get a disarm ability in Dismantle — but unlike other Disarms, ours also removes ranged weapons and shields, allowing us to counter Hunters and Arms Warriors, preventing the latter from even activating their biggest defensive cooldown, Shield Wall — an extremely potent ability.

On the front of gameplay changes, there’s some minor talents that change how we work slightly, like Honor Among Thieves, which feeds us combo points. But of course everyone’s here for the star of the show, Shadow Dance— this incredibly powerful talent, which allows us to use our stealth abilities even when not stealthed, has come to define the Subtlety spec. Sub Rogues now use daggers exclusively, spamming Ambush for massive damage on a stunned target. Shadow Dance is such a massive part of our kit, that Sub Rogue gameplay essentially boils down to using it to force defensive cooldowns and PvP trinkets on the enemy team, and then waiting 50 seconds for your next Shadow Dance.

As a result of these changes, we have incredible control and burst damage, which makes us highly lethal when combined with another spec that also has control and damage, such as Shadow Priest or Frost Mage. We’re exceptionally strong in 2v2, where our ability to prevent Arms Warriors from using Shield Wall allows us to get some very cheap & easy kills. On the flipside, we unfortunately struggle slightly in the 3v3 bracket, as we are slightly squishy and prone to getting focused down, and it is easier for enemy teams to crowd-control us during our Shadow Dance, thus shutting our damage down. We’re not bad in either bracket by all means, but the 2v2 bracket will be generally significantly easier for us than 3v3, where we have to be far more cautious and precise.

Best 2v2 comps

Subtlety Rogue / Shadow Priest (S-tier comp)
Subtlety Rogue / Disc Priest
Subtlety Rogue / Ret OR Preg Paladin
Subtlety Rogue / Feral Druid

Best 3v3 comps

Subtlety Rogue / Frost Mage / Disc Priest (Best)
Subtlety Rogue / Shadow Priest / Resto Druid (Best healer) OR Resto Shaman (Slightly weaker)
Subtlety Rogue / MM Hunter / Disc Priest

B-Tier

The B-Tier represents average damage specializations. You will typically see these specializations pretty often, as they have a few strong comps and occasionally have good match-ups against meta comps. However, they are just average — they lack the overwhelming strength of the specs in the tiers above, and they occasionally have minor weaknesses that make playing them pretty challenging.

Marksmanship Hunter

Marksmanship sees a pretty drastic rework in WotLK. Where it once was an odd-ball spec that enemies hated facing due to their extremely annoying mana drain nature in TBC, WotLK sees Viper Sting nerfed to the point of irrelevance, and the spec change into an absolute burst damage machine, landing it the top spot of the B-tier. It could very easily be argued that MM is actually A-tier, on par with the likes of Unholy DKs, but we feel that a couple of very specific weaknesses hold the spec back slightly.

The biggest change here is of course Aimed Shot being instant cast. Where before MM Hunters struggled to find a chance to cast it due to its 2.5 sec cast time, they are now the best class in the game when it comes to applying the healing reduction debuff. Paired with newcomers Chimera Shot and Kill Shot, Hunters are now one of the scariest classes to face with their insane burst damage, particularly for clothies, who get absolutely slaughtered. But the good news don’t end there: Readiness gets moved to the MM tree, which is massive; we get Freezing Arrow, allowing us to trap an enemy without having to be right next to them; Deterrence becomes available as a defensive cooldown for all Hunters; we get a host of useful pet-related abilities, like a mini-freedom in Master’s Call, a second defensive in Roar of Sacrifice, and a mini-root in Pin; Aspect of the Hawk and Aspect of the Monkey get combined into Aspect of the Dragonhawk, a very nice quality of life improvement.

By all means, MM Hunters should be in a really good state — however, a few key issues prevent them from attaining greatness. First of all, the deadzone is still a thing: when enemies stay at a distance between 5 and 8 yards away from you, and you can’t melee attack them or shoot them with your ranged weapon, completely disabling you. Even if you aren’t being dead-zoned however, the lack of a reliable, spammable slow like Crippling Poison or Hamstring makes it very easy for enemies to line-of-sight you, particularly in maps like Dalaran Sewers which are absolutely awful for Hunters. Moreover, our major defensive cooldown, Deterrence, cannot be used while we’re disarmed, with many classes now being able to disarm and kill us without us being able to do anything about it. Finally, we have extremely frustrating mana issues; even though Aspect of the Viper has been buffed to restore mana a lot faster than it did in TBC, it still leaves us useless while it’s up, and we use up a lot of mana in general — running out of mana just as you get a chance to kill someone is unfortunately far more common than it should with this really awkward mana regen gimmick.

Finally, Freezing Arrow may just be the most unreliable CC in the game, as it’s plagued by so many issues and it can be countered in so many ways. It’s very easy for enemies to soak it by standing on top of the trap location, by using Grounding Totem, or preventing it altogether by CCing or silencing you. Aiming it is awkward as enemies affected by Scatter Shot move around randomly, and Paladins (the most popular class in WotLK) with the Unyielding Faith talent stay disoriented just barely long enough for you to trap them, so if you get CCed even for a split second, you’ve failed. Finally, the trap has a spell hit chance of its own and can be resisted due to the Frost Resistance stat (Frost Resistance Aura, Mark of the Wild, many class talents), so a lot of the time your trap will just randomly whiff, with you being completely unable to do anything about it.

All of these issues can make MM very challenging to play, specially against enemies that know our weaknesses and how to exploit them. As a result we’re generally better in the 2v2 bracket (with 2 S-tier 2v2 comps, even!) where enemies can’t just disarm us and blow us up as easily, though we have plenty of good 3v3 comps as well. It’s a fun spec, but it can be a really frustrating experience, with occasions where you do all the right things but lose due to a randomly resisted trap or because you died in the duration of a disarm, with 0 chances to react. MM Hunters just have to put in a lot more effort than other classes in order to succeed (for example, where other classes can just disarm with 1 button press, you have to Scorpid Sting, wait for a global cooldown praying it doesn’t get dispelled, then Chimera Shot) — but if you enjoy the playstyle and are committed to the class, it can also feel very rewarding to play.

Best 2v2 comps

MM Hunter / Disc Priest (S-tier comp)
MM Hunter / Ret OR Preg Paladin (S-tier comp)

Best 3v3 comps

MM Hunter / Ret OR Preg Paladin / Disc Priest (Best)
MM Hunter / Unholy DK / Holy Paladin OR Disc Priest (Best)
MM Hunter / Feral Druid / Disc Priest OR Holy Paladin
MM Hunter / Protection Warrior / Holy Paladin

Retribution Paladin

Retribution Paladins used to be a below-average spec in OG TBC, though they faired a lot better in TBC Classic. Intending to bring them up to par, Blizzard reworked them dramatically in WotLK, with a whole host of buffs to the spec. For a short period after WotLK’s launch, Ret was wildly overpowered. Blizzard quickly brought the nerf-hammer upon us as a result, but we’re certainly better than where we were before, finding ourselves near the top of the B-tier — and some could argue we may even belong in the lower echelons of the A-tier.

Rets have always been about 1 thing: burst damage. The addition of Divine Storm, buffs to our damage in general, and new talents like the lethal Sanctified Wrath with its super overpowered damage reduction bypass effect all solidify that this is what we firmly are about; blowing someone up before they can even react. But we’ve been buffed in many other areas, patching up some of our weaknesses: Judgements of the Wise means we can no longer be mana burnt and ignored; Sheath of Light, along with Art of War and Sacred Shield give us some good spot-healing support; the new Divine Sacrifice allows us to protect our team further, or avoid CC when necessary; Divine Purpose gives us the incredibly powerful ability to remove stuns off our allies.

Things are good for Ret Paladins in WotLK, and they get even better when we finally get the legendary Shadowmourne, during the last phase of the game, which propels our burst damage to really scary levels. However, we still have some of the major issues we’ve always had: for one, we’re extremely predictable, which gives players familiar with our gameplay an easy time countering us. The way to do it is simple, after all: we lack reliable CC breaks (particularly Fear, with Warriors, Warlocks and Priests running rampant in WotLK) so a single CC during our cooldowns can shut us down. Furthermore, casters are everywhere in WotLK, and they all happen to ignore our main defensive asset, our plate armor; we don’t really have anything similar to Defensive Stance, so teams can just focus us down and kill us. Priest teams in particular are extremely scary, as they can Mass Dispel our Divine Shield, our only reliable defensive ability, and straight up kill us.

To sum it up, Ret is plenty strong in WotLK, but we have a significant weakness to casters and crowd control, in an expansion ruled by casters with powerful crowd control. As a result, our team comp options are slightly limited; we prefer playing with classes that do well against casters, and ideally in comps that can end the game quickly, so we don’t give the enemy the chance to kill us twice, so to speak. As a Ret, you can have decent success in both the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets, with viable comps in both, but you should be prepared for some very high adrenaline games, where you’ll need to play very well, as a single mistake can spell your death.

Best 2v2 comps

Ret Paladin / MM Hunter (S-tier comp)
Ret Paladin / Enh Shaman

Best 3v3 comps

Ret Paladin / MM Hunter / Disc Priest (Best)
Ret Paladin / Unholy DK / Disc Priest (Best)
Ret Paladin / Enh Shaman / Disc Priest

Preg Paladin

A lot of you probably scrolled down here thinking “Wait, what the hell is a Preg Paladin?” and I cannot fault you for being confused. Named after private server Ret player “Preghiera”, the Preg build is a very interesting Paladin DPS build that became incredibly popular on private servers. It uses a spell power focused 1-handed weapon & shield, aiming to get a lot of spell power (with the Sheath of Light talent) and then maximize your crit chance. 1-handed weapons attack fast, so paired with a high crit chance you get a lot of Art of War procs, which you turn into instant Flash of Lights, healing your allies for a ridiculous amount, over and over. It is not rare to see a Preg Paladin being close to his healer’s healing done near the end of an arena game.

A typical Preg Paladin build looks like this, though you can change a few talents around, such as skipping a point in One-Handed Weapon Specialization for Crusader Strike, giving you an extra chance of procing Art of War. Preg doesn’t have the insane burst that pure Ret does, but it has incredible sustained damage, thanks to a massively boosted Judgement of Justice and Exorcism and an incredibly high critical hit chance. The burst trade-off is very much worth it when you see just how strong Preg’s healing is. On the flipside however, it’s as easy to shut down as Ret, as you can’t proc Art of War if you’re not attacking due to being CCed. Furthermore, it’s a very gear reliant spec — most Paladins will typically not switch to Preg until they have Season 7 / Trial of the Crusader gear and beyond, as you really need a high crit chance for Art of War to proc constantly, and thus make this build work.

Preg plays pretty similarly to Ret, so naturally it has most of the same strengths and weaknesses, and works in the same arena comps. Preg became significantly more popular than pure Ret over time on private servers, but as it has not established itself in Classic yet, players will debate endlessly if it’s viable, if it’s better than pure Ret etc. We put it next to pure Ret out of caution, but in truth, only time will tell. If it does prove to be a viable, or even stronger, version of Ret, it’ll be good news for us Rets, as it is a very interesting way to play our class!

Best 2v2 comps

Ret Paladin / MM Hunter (S-tier comp)
Ret Paladin / Enh Shaman

Best 3v3 comps

Ret Paladin / MM Hunter / Disc Priest (Best)
Ret Paladin / Unholy DK / Disc Priest
Ret Paladin / Enh Shaman / Disc Priest

Feral Druid

Feral Druids experience a massive playstyle shift in WotLK. Thankfully, that shift is of the very kind variety, as many of our major weakneses from TBC are fixed, reducing the jankiness of our spec. This causes Feral Druids to finally gain a spot in the B-tier, and some argue that they may even belong in the lower levels of the A-tier!

Powershifting is gone, to the dismay of players that enjoyed it, so now energy management is practically identical to that of Rogues. We get a LOT of goodies to make up for it, however. With Barkskin now usable in all forms, Frenzied Regeneration now healing for a significantly higher amount, and a brand-new defensive cooldown in Survival Instincts, our survivability is actually pretty strong — most teams won’t want to target us. We’re still kings of mobility thanks to our ability to shapeshift out of slows & roots at will, but we now get a slow in Infected Wounds, which helps up stick on our targets like glue. Our new capstone talent, Berserk, makes that a scary prospect as it increases our damage significantly, while also making us immune to fear — through we shrug off fear effects in general thanks to our new Primal Tenacity, making us harder to control while also increasing our survivability.

The biggest and most welcome change we get however comes in the form of Predatory Strikes, which gives our finishing moves a 20% chance per combo point to make our next Nature spell instant cast. Feral becomes an absolutely terrifying spec with this talent; our Ferocious Bites deal some absolutely ridiculous damage, and we can now follow them up with an instant Cyclone on a key target as well. Gone are the days of trying to hard-cast Cyclone and getting interrupted — Feral legitimately has some of the best CC of any melee DPS class now. The only issue is that it’s still somewhat janky crowd control, as we have to awkwardly leave form in other to cast Cyclone, even though it’s instant cast, and we lose all of the benefits afforded to us while in Cat Form for that 1.5 second of global cooldown.

Jank in general is unfortunately still our biggest issue in WotLK. For instance, where Rogues can interrupt at any time with Kick, we have to awkwardly move away and shapeshift into Dire Bear Form in order to interrupt with Feral Charge due to its 8 yard minimum range requirement, which causes our damage to practically stop for a few seconds. Moreover, we still lack a healing reduction effect, which unfortunately makes it practically mandatory that we team up with a Hunter or Arms Warrior in 3v3. This in turn greatly limits the comps we fit into, and means that Ferals have to try a lot harder than some other specs, like Arms Warriors, in order to perform at the same level. None of this is to say that Feral isn’t a good spec however; we have an S-tier 2v2 comp and several very solid 3v3 comps. You should just know that patience and dedication are required in order to succeed as a Feral Druid in WotLK arena.

Best 2v2 comps

Feral Druid / Disc Priest (S-tier comp)
Feral Druid / Subtlety Rogue

Best 3v3 comps

Feral Druid / MM Hunter / Disc Priest (Best)
Feral Druid / Arms Warrior / Holy Paladin
Feral Druid / Frost Mage / Disc Priest

Enhancement Shaman

Enhancement is in a very similar to Feral Druid; a large gameplay rework patches up a lot of the spec’s weaknesses in WotLK, and as a result, Enhancement finds a spot in the lower levels of the B-tier.

Enhancement had terrible mobility in TBC; this has thankfully changed in WotLK, with our new capstone talent, Feral Spirit, summoning 2 Wolves that give us a huge movement speed boost and dispel all slows & roots with their Spirit Walk. Earthen Power, a new talent, makes slows & roots a thing of the past in general, dispeling them from us AND our team, which makes Enhancement an amazing partner for other melee DPS. We finally have some CC with the new Shaman spell Hex, which we can turn into an instant cast thanks to Maelstrom Weapon. Even better, our wolves give us an instant cast on-demand stun effect with their Bash, while our interrupt ability has been moved to the off-GCD Wind Shear, giving us some fantastic control overall. Finally, to round things up, our survivability is also improved; Shamanistic Rage can now be cast while stunned, the excellent Glyph of Stoneclaw Totem gives us a pretty strong shield that we can use when things are dire, and we can also heal for a very solid amount thanks to Maelstrom Weapon‘s instant cast Healing Waves.

Our biggest weakness is that unfortunately we are very reliant on our Feral Spirit wolves. Spirit Walk on its own makes a massive difference, but our damage in general isn’t as impressive without our wolves. Coupled with a lack of healing reduction effect, and our options for team-mates become limited somewhat; as Enh you need to play either with a spec that has a healing reduction effect ( Hunter or Arms Warrior), or a spec that has so much burst damage that you can kill someone before they have a chance to get healed ( BM Hunter, Ret / Preg Paladin, etc).

Enh isn’t the best spec around, but it’s certainly a very solid spec. We don’t have any S-tier comps, but we have a couple of very solid comps in both the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets. You’ll have to try harder than some of the previously listed specs in order to succeed as Enh, but it can feel very rewarding to get those wins and climb the ladder as something of an underdog spec.

Best 2v2 comps

Enh Shaman / Ret OR Preg Paladin (Best)
Enh Shaman / MM OR BM Hunter

Best 3v3 comps

Enh Shaman / BM Hunter / Holy Paladin (Best) OR Disc Priest (Slightly weaker)
Enh Shaman / Arms Warrior / Holy Paladin
Enh Shaman / Ret OR Preg Paladin / Disc Priest

C-Tier

The specializations that make up the C-Tier are on the weaker side of the spectrum. They can still be considered viable, having some decent comps, and can be very fun to play. However, you likely won’t run into them very often, as a few major weaknesses prevent mean you have to try a lot harder than specs listed in the higher tiers in order to get a win. Most people likely don’t want the hastle, and so finding team-mates might be rough.

Protection Warrior

No, you’re not reading this wrong. This does indeed say Protection Warrior, and that spec is indeed listed above a whole bunch of other specs, hilariously enough including Fury. Simply put, Protection Warriors have some ridiculous damage and crowd control, making them very strong despite their lack of Mortal Strike. As a result, they take up the top spot of the C-tier, though it could be argued that they may even belong in the B-tier.

Protection Warriors have an absolutely ridiculous amount of control, with FOUR stuns: Concussion Blow, Shockwave, Intercept & Charge. The latter 2 are both usable while in combat and in any stance thanks to Warbringer, which also buffs Intervene, making it a crazy mobility tool as well. Protection Warriors can lock out casters in specific from playing the game almost completely due to extremely annoying talents like Gag Order and Improved Spell Reflection, but melee DPS don’t get off scot-free either, as a Prot Warrior’s Disarm has a mere 40 second cooldown due to Improved Disarm, which also increases damage taken by the target by 10%. What’s more, Protection Warriors have some insane damage as well when they’re stacked with armor penetration, thanks to Shield Slam‘s (which also dispels a magic effect??) surprisingly high damage, buffed by Sword and Board and other talents like Improved Defensive Stance, which isn’t a particularly defensive talent to be honest!

If this description makes it sound like I’m salty, that’s because I am. There are simply no words to describe how annoying Protection Warriors are to face, particularly as a healer or caster; it is not uncommon for there to be ~20 second periods where you simply can’t play the game, even though you’re being attacked. Thankfully, they have some very big weaknesses. First of, they lack Arms’ Mortal Strike, so if you manage to survive their ridiculous crowd control, it’s trivially easy for a healer to top you off — unless of course they’re playing with a spec that does have a healing reduction effect, like an MM Hunter. Secondly, they only do the ridiculous damage they’re known for when they’re using an almost full set of PvE gear with armor penetration, most notably from the Heroic Icecrown Citadel raid. This means that they’re only really dangerous in the last 2 arena seasons, and even then, they have barely any resilience at all, so they can be blown up very easily when their defensive cooldowns (Shield Wall & Last Stand) are used up, particularly by magic damage — though this will always be somewhat dangerous due to their Spell Reflection.

Protection Warrior is an extremely peculiar spec that is honestly somewhat hard to place on a tier list. There’s barely any comps it really can fit into, in both the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets. They don’t have conventional strengths and weaknesses, they’re just extremely annoying to fight. Back in the day, a team featuring a Protection Warrior famously was rank 1 on the ladder for many seasons in a row, though very few people have really managed to take the spec that far since then. We generally don’t recommend that you play Protection, as it’s a very awkward spec and most people won’t want to take that chance. And if you do manage to find team-mates willing to play with you and get higher rated, prepare to get flamed a lot by people, particularly Destruction Warlocks and Elemental Shamans, who are extremely vulnerable to your crowd control. Honestly, you kinda deserve it!

Best 2v2 comps

Protection Warrior / Disc Priest (Best)
Protection Warrior / Holy Paladin

Best 3v3 comps

Protection Warrior / MM Hunter / Holy Paladin (Best)
Protection Warrior / Enh Shaman / Holy Paladin

Beast Mastery Hunter

Beast Mastery has never been a particularly strong PvP spec, as it lacks the control tools that the other 2 specs have, restricting its usefulness. The thing it shines at is doing damage — it deals a pretty ridiculous amount of it, in fact, but damage alone is unfortunately not enough to take it higher than the C-tier.

Blizzard were not very kind to Beast Mastery in WotLK. We get some of the same goodies that other Hunter specs do, like Aimed Shot becoming instant cast, Deterrence as a spec-agnostic defensive cooldown, Aspect of the Dragonhawk for a minor survivability buff, etc. However, we generally get less use out of these buffs than what other specs do; for instance, we can’t really use Freezing Arrow reliably without Scatter Shot, a talent we can’t viably take. Master’s Call is nice, but we’re already immune to slows thanks to The Beast Within. We don’t even get Readiness like MM does, so all we really get in this expansion is more damage, with Kill Shot and Beast Mastery, the latter of which locks us into specific pet families, which is both a blessing and a curse.

So we don’t really have any of the strengths of the other specs, but we do have their weaknesses; our CC is extremely jank, with Freezing Arrow getting resisted. We can’t use Deterrence while disarmed, so we’re very prone to dying in a disarm, with no defensive we can use to save ourselves. The one area we do slightly better at is range and line of sight issues, as a big bulk of our damage comes from our pet, which cannot be deadzoned and follows players behind line of sight. MM wishes it had that strength, but we wish we had many, many of its strengths.

BM isn’t a terrible spec, but it isn’t a particularly great one, either. Its main issue is that its gameplay is extremely simple and predictable — you use Bestial Wrath and tunnel an ungodly amount of damage into someone for 10 seconds, while you’re immune to crowd control. If you fail to kill someone during those 10 seconds, you likely lose. So all people really have to do is use their defensive cooldowns to survive those 10 seconds. As a result, we’re severely limited to what comps we can play in; we really need partners that can similarly pop an offensive cooldown and help us delete someone in 10 seconds. We can’t really play with specs that prefer to crowd control enemies and play defensively — when we have to go, we have to go.

Best 2v2 comps

BM Hunter / Enh Shaman (Best)
BM Hunter / Ret OR Preg Paladin

Best 3v3 comps

BM Hunter / Enh Shaman / Holy Paladin (Best)
BM Hunter / Ret OR Preg Paladin / Resto Shaman (Best) OR Disc Priest
BM Hunter / Arms OR Protection Warrior / Holy Paladin OR Resto Shaman

Protection Paladin

Some may be surprised to see a 3rd Paladin spec in this list, and the Protection spec while at it. A series of buffs to Protection’s damage has finally made it actually viable as a PvP spec, with some unique strengths and differences when compared to the 2 other Paladin DPS specs.

Protection is extremely similar to Retribution — in the simplest terms possible, it sacrifices some of Retribution’s burst damage and utility, in exchange for more crowd control and survivability. Protection gains a lot of damage out of the strength stat now (f.e. Hammer of the Righteous), and the Touched of the Light talent causes strength to further empower our spells and heals. Avenger’s Shield in specific hits incredibly hard now, which often catches people off-guard. Moreover, it now silences all of the targets hit for 3 seconds thanks to Shield of the Templar, and an AoE silence effect on a mere 30 second cooldown is obviously incredibly potent in PvP. Judgements of the Just gives us an even lower cooldown on Hammer of Justice, and Ardent Defender paired with Sacred Duty give us some very strong survivability, with survivability traditionally being one of Retribution’s biggest weaknesses in WotLK.

These trade-offs can certainly be worth it, but unfortunately they make things a bit awkward as well, as our “usual suspect” arena partner, MM Hunters, also have a silence effect, which is on the same diminishing return category as ours, which hinders our combination. Furthermore, we also lose 2 of Retribution’s most useful traits: the ability to remove stuns with Divine Purpose, and the ability to bypass damage reduction effects with Sanctified Wrath. Moreover, Protection has some very awkward issues. For example, we have exceptional healing power thanks to Touched of the Light, but we lack The Art of War for instant-cast heals, meaning we have to always cast in order to heal, which opens us up to interrupts. Furthermore, we lack Retribution’s Judgements of the Wise, instead relying on a permanent Divine Plea granted by Guarded by the Light for mana regeneration. Unfortunately, Divine Plea comes with the drawback of reducing our healing done by 50%, so we have to cancel it in order to heal our allies effectively, which in turn causes us to run out of mana and be unable to do anything for a while.

Protection is a decent spec, and may even prove to be better than a C-tier spec, particularly in earlier seasons, as Retribution and Preg both take off in seasons 7 & 8. However, it simply lacks some of the great synergies that Retribution has, which restricts it in both the 2v2 and 3v3 brackets. You’ll find it harder to find arena partners than if you played standard Ret, though when you do find some team-mates, chances are you’ll do just fine, as it’s very much a viable spec.

Best 2v2 comps

Prot Paladin / Disc Priest (Best)
Prot Paladin / Resto Shaman

Best 3v3 comps

Prot Paladin / MM Hunter / Disc Priest (Best) OR Resto Shaman
Prot Paladin / Unholy DK / Disc Priest OR Resto Shaman
Prot Paladin / Enh Shaman / Disc Priest

Balance Druid

Boomies didn’t fare very well in TBC arena, and unfortunately we don’t do significantly better in WotLK. We’re certainly a good bit better than what we used to be, but so is everyone else. We have some surprisingly decent comps, so we get a spot in the C-tier, but we unfortunately don’t really belong much higher than that.

To Blizzard’s credit, they tried… kinda. A good few of our new talents are fairly good for PvP: Owlkin Frenzy, Typhoon, Balance of Power, Gale Winds — all very good talents in their own right. Our survivability is surprisingly decent, as are very tanky against physical damage thanks to the massive armor buff (and new damage reduction when stunned feature!) of Moonkin Form. We are one of the most resilient caster DPS, as our high armor counter-acts their armor penetration. Meanwhile, our new capstone talent, Starfall, does some absolutely crazy damage, which can often catch people off-guard and kill them before they even notice what hit them. Thanks to this talent alone, we have some viable comps with high-burst specs that can blow up another target with us.

The good points end there, unfortunately. Our downfall is the fact that most of the major buffs that we got in WotLK were aimed at buffing our PvE viability, without helping PvP a lot. Eclipse for instance gives us some incredible damage, but you need to stand still and turret Wrath and Starfire in order to get that damage off, and unfortunately that’s just not happening in WotLK. Melee DPS in particular can just focus you down and prevent you from casting altogether, effectively taking you out of the game. You aren’t taking as much damage as other casters, but you’re not really dealing any damage back, which isn’t a great spot to be in.

Boomkin has some surprisingly decent 3s comps it can play in, though if we’re being frank they aren’t too strong. Still, it’s much better than the 2v2 bracket, where being a Balance is an absolute nightmare. If you’re dead-set on doing arena as a Boomkin, grab a caster friend and do some 3v3!

Best 2v2 comps

Balance Druid / Subtlety Rogue (Best)
Balance Druid / Destruction Warlock
Balance Druid / Frost Mage

Best 3v3 comps

Balance Druid / Destruction Warlock / Resto Shaman (Great comp!)
Balance Druid / FIRE Mage / Resto Shaman

Frost Death Knight

Death Knights had an explosive rise to the top when they were first released in 2008, and many people have very ugly memories of how overpowered they used to be back then. A few nerfs and a fairly substantial talent re-design later, the dust has settled, and while our Unholy brothers are doing very well for themselves, Frost is unfortunately not doing so hot, barely clawing its way into the C-tier — and one could easily argue that they may even not even belong this high, either.

One might be surprised by this placement in the C-tier, were they to take a look at the Frost talent tree. Indeed, there’re some decent PvP talents in there, such as Icy Talons, Chilblains, Improved Frost Presence and Acclimation. Many specs would kill for an instant-cast, AoE incapacitate effect like Hungering Cold, on a mere 1 minute cooldown no less. That’s on top of all the great spec-agnostic spells that Unholy gets to benefit from, such as the overpowered Death Grip, Strangulate, Anti-Magic Shell, Lichborne, etc. Plus, we actually have far superior burst damage to Unholy, so on paper, Frost should be a pretty strong PvP spec.

The unfortunate reality is that we just trade too much for that extra damage of ours. We don’t have a reliable slow like Desecration, we can’t help our team with Anti-Magic Zone, we don’t have a low-cooldown on-demand stun like Unholy does with its pet. And on top of that, we have the same weaknesses that Unholy does: terrible mobility, and Icebound Fortitude as our main defensive cooldown just doesn’t do enough to save us when we’re being focused down, so we’re unfortunately prone to getting focused down and dying helplessly. In fact, this weakness is even worse for us, as we really need strong PvE gear in order to do the ungodly damage we’re known for, meaning we die even easier than normal.

These factors combined make us a very easy target in 3v3 arena, though thankfully we fare a little bit better in 2v2 arena, as there’s usually only 1 person attacking us and thus our poor survivability doesn’t hinder us as much. Frost can actually be pretty fun to play in 2v2 with a healer friend, and you can even climb to a reasonable point with it. But overall, it doesn’t really have any particularly strong comps, and you’re unlikely to do anywhere near as well in 3v3, which in turn makes it a lot less likely that people will want to be your arena partners, unfortunately.

Best 2v2 comps

Frost DK / Holy Paladin
Frost DK / Disc Priest

Best 3v3 comps

Frost DK / Arms Warrior / Holy Paladin
Frost DK / MM Hunter / Holy Paladin

D-Tier

The D-tier consists of specs that we’d say are borderline not viable. They simply have very substantial and easily exploitable weaknesses that render make playing arena as one of those specs a struggle. It’s not impossible to win with these specs — they typically have at least 1 strong point that a good player can take advantage of, and at the very least you’ll nearly always have the element of surprise on your side as nobody expects your spec — but you’ll lose a lot more than you win, most likely.

Fire Mage

Fire has always been a PvE-centric spec that has stayed in Frost’s shadow, and this unfortunately doesn’t change in WotLK. A minor gimmick allows it to have some surprisingly okay arena comps, but overall it lacks a major strength that’d push it any higher than the D-tier, at the edge of viability.

At first glance, the Fire tree is brimming with incredible PvP talents. Blazing Speed, Fiery Payback and Dragon’s Breath are all practically useless in PvE while being amazing in PvP, so what gives? Living Bomb has an anti-dispel component, and as anyone who has been blasted by several Pyroblasts back-to-back thanks to Hot Streak can tell you, Fire Mages can do so insane damage, without ever using a spell with a cast time for you to interrupt no less!

Unfortunately, Fire just has beyond garbage survivability. Our Frost brothers with their Ice Barrier and other amazing survivability tools can barely survive the onslaught of Arms Warriors, Unholy DKs and MM Hunters — we simply don’t stand a chance, as they delete us faster than we can delete them. Furthermore, while there’s no doubt that Hot Streak gives us great damage, it unfortunately relies on crits. The Resilience stat found on PvP gear reduces the chance that enemy attacks on you will be crits, which in turn makes it a lot harder to score Hot Streaks. It’s not impossible, but it’s not like in PvE content where you can get 50% crit chance and proc instant Pyroblasts very reliably — in PvP you’ll just have to get really lucky for your procs, which isn’t a reliable strategy, unfortunately.

All that being said, we have an interesting gimmick: Dragon’s Breath only breaks on direct damage, not damage-over-time. As a result, we have surprisingly good synergy with damage-over-time classes, like Shadow Priests. Still, that’s unfortunately not a good enough strength for us to really make it in any bracket, and finding a partner as a Fire Mage will be very challenging. It can be hilarious to play, and extremely annoying for your enemies as you zoom around breathing fire on them randomly, but unfortunately we have to do better than annoy our opponents in order to win.

Best 2v2 comps

Fire Mage / Shadow Priest
Fire Mage / Subtlety Rogue

Best 3v3 comps

Fire Mage / BALANCE Druid / Resto Shaman (Best, actually OK comp)
Fire Mage / Destro Warlock / Resto Shaman OR Resto Druid
Fire Mage / Shadow Priest / Resto Shaman
Fire Mage / Subtlety Rogue / Disc Priest

Arcane Mage

A series of fairly major buffs made Arcane an incredibly powerful PvP spec in the beginning of WotLK — in fact, many RMP teams ran with an Arcane Mage over a Frost Mage. A handful of nerfs later, we’re unfortunately nowhere near as strong as we once were. While Arcane will likely still be a thing in early seasons (season 5 & 6) as players have a low amount of resilience, it will likely gradually fade away over time, which is why it can’t really be higher than the D-tier.

A lot of our PvP related talents are buffed in WotLK: Arcane Shielding, Prismatic Cloak and Slow all do the same thing, but better, which is a noticeable buff to our survivability. Meanwhile, we get a low-cooldown instant-cast nuke that does a very substantial amount of damage, in Arcane Barrage. Thanks to the new talent Incanter’s Absorption, which was clearly designed to buff our PvP viability, we actually have some really good damage in PvP without having to stand still and spam Arcane Blast as if we were doing PvE content, partially thanks to the very potent Missile Barrage. On paper, Arcane is very good.

And indeed we are, at least in the first couple of seasons — Arcane Mages may even be as high as the B-tier in seasons 5 and 6. Players have very low Resilience early on, and thus we can blow them up with 2-3 Arcane Barrage casts. Over time however, our damage begins to fall off, while Frost gets better and better. Given that we can’t compete with them in the survivability or crowd control departments, we live and die by this damage advantage, so when it goes away, unfortunately so do we. We lack a gimmick like Fire and its peculiar little Dragon’s Breath that keeps it somewhat relevant — starting in season 7, you’re unfortunately extremely unlikely to see an Arcane Mage, as anything we can do, Frost can just do better.

Arcane Mage / Shadow Priest
Arcane Mage / Subtlety Rogue
Arcane Mage / Destro Warlock

Best 3v3 comps

Arcane Mage / Subtlety Rogue / Disc Priest (Best, good in seasons 5 & 6)
Arcane Mage / Destro Warlock / Resto Shaman

Combat Rogue

Combat has traditionally been a PvE-focused spec that does pretty poorly in PvP. That’s certainly still true in WotLK, where we even suffer a fairly substantial nerf, with the Mace Specialization talent no longer having a random stun proc, which was by far our strongest point previously. A minor gimmick prevents Combat from being the worst of the worst, but we’re certainly among the weakest specs in the game if we’re being honest, barely clawing our way into the D-tier.

Combat has a few useful PvP talents, so one cannot be blamed for thinking that it must be at least decent in PvP. Indeed, Improved Kick, Nerves of Steel and Unfair Advantage are all clearly PvP-centric talents, and surprisingly decent at that. Plus, who can forget the insanely overpowered Throwing Specialization and 5v5 arena teams comprised of 5 Combat Rogues spamming Deadly Throw exclusively? Unfortunately, these things just aren’t good enough to compete with what other classes have. Never mind other classes, they don’t even begin to compete with our own Subtlety spec and some of its incredible strengths, like Shadow Dance and Shadowstep. Compared to Subtlety, Combat is unfortunately a low mobility, low survivability, and most of the time low damage spec — as far as PvP is concerned, anything we can do, Subtlety can do better.

That’s anything but one thing; for the 2.5 seconds that Killing Spree lasts, we cannot be crowd controlled. By popping all of our damage cooldowns (Adrenaline Rush, Blade Flurry, any PvE trinkets you may have) followed by Killing Spree, we get 2.5 seconds of high damage where we’re unstoppable — which Subtlety cannot match. This gives Combat a funny little gimmick: there are some arena comps that you may be unable to beat as good ol’ Subtlety. However, if they have a spec that’s vulnerable to being blown up in 2.5 seconds, notably a Disc Priest or Resto Shaman, you can temporarily switch to Combat and surprise them by killing them in your opener, before they realize that you’re not Subtlety and they must be careful.

Granted, that’s not really an incredible strength. Nobody will intentionally switch to Combat for their primary spec in arena. Still, it’s something, and more than what some other specs can brag about. It’s good for all Rogues to know they have this potential, as they go about their regular arena games as Subtlety.

Best 2v2 comps

Combat Rogue / Shadow Priest
Combat Rogue / Ret OR Preg Paladin
Combat Rogue / Feral Druid

Best 3v3 comps

Combat Rogue / Frost Mage / Disc Priest (Best, don’t main spec combat)
Combat Rogue / Shadow Priest / Resto Druid OR Resto Shaman
Combat Rogue / MM Hunter / Disc Priest

Survival Hunter

Anyone who remembers Survival Hunter from the early days of WotLK must be groaning as they read through this section. Initially a wildly overpowered spec, as T.N.T. gave Explosive Shot (which did ridiculous damage at the time, approximately 50% of someone’s HP with all 3 ticks), Black Arrow and your traps a fairly high chance to randomly stun the target ON EVERY TICK, thus giving Survival Hunters the ability to randomly kill someone with back-to-back mini-stuns beyond their control. Blizzard realized this was a pretty silly design fortunately, and quickly changed the way T.N.T. works — but unfortunately they never compensated us for this nerf, or a plethora of other nerfs to the spec, and thus so we find ourselves in the D-tier.

On paper, Survival has a lot of the same strengths that MM does: very high damage, paired with an instant-cast ranged healing reduction effect in Aimed Shot. We got a lot of the same buffs that they did in WotLK, such as Freezing Arrow, Master’s Call, Roar of Sacrifice, etc. We still have a very powerful CC in Wyvern Sting, with its cooldown reduced to 1 minute. We even get some brand new PvP goodies like Noxious Stings and Resourcefulness. On paper, we should be almost as good as MM is, at the very least.

In practice however, that’s nowhere near true. For one, we lost Readiness, by far the strongest talent in the Survival tree, as it gets moved deep into the MM tree. Furthermore, where MM is already a janky spec, we crank the jank up to 11; our main damage spell, Explosive Shot, does AoE damage, which means that enemies can intentionally move closer to their crowd-controlled allies and break the crowd control effect with your Explosive Shot. And then we have all of the same weaknesses that MM does, with none of the strengths; it’s trivially easy to line of sight and deadzone us, we can die in one disarm as we can’t use Deterrence while disarmed, we have mana issues, etc.

Survival isn’t a completely awful or unusable spec, by any means, hence it’s not in the F-tier. However, in all honesty it’s just flat out worse than MM in almost every way possible. We are good in the same comps that MM is good in, but MM is just better. There’s just no reason to even consider going Survival for PvP as a Hunter, when you could go MM and do far better.

Best 2v2 comps

Survival Hunter / Disc Priest
Survival Hunter / Ret OR Preg Paladin

Best 3v3 comps

Survival Hunter / Ret OR Preg Paladin / Disc Priest
Survival Hunter / Unholy DK / Holy Paladin OR Disc Priest
Survival Hunter / Feral Druid / Disc Priest OR Holy Paladin

Assassination Rogue

Assassination was originally the preferred Rogue spec in WotLK PvP, so some may be surprised to see it in the D-tier. Indeed, there’s a good chance that Assassination might see some play in the early seasons of WotLK Classic (season 5 and maybe 6) as it has some noteworthy traits. Depending on how the meta shapes up, it might even temporarily be a C or even B-tier spec, though that will remain to be seen.

Plainly put, Assassination is largely a budget version of Subtlety, trading control, survivability and mobility for damage. A LOT of damage. Mutilate and Envenom hit very hard, very fast, which can catch a lot of people off-guard. But damage isn’t all we have, thankfully: one of the main things that pushes Assassination to be very strong early on is the Improved Kidney Shot talent, which allows a team-mate to do some insane damage for 6 seconds when paired with Tricks of the Trade. RMP teams in particular may choose to run an Assassination Rogue in earlier seasons, blowing someone up in those 6 seconds. Moreover, thanks to our ability to apply 3 poisons (Deadly Poison, Wound Poison, Crippling Poison) courtesy of the Deadly Brew talent, on top of a 30% dispel resist chance afforded to us by Vile Poisons, our Wound Poison is incredibly hard to remove, which no other Rogue spec can brag about.

Unfortunately, while these strengths are very real, our weaknesses are also extremely real. We can pick up Preparation by dropping several Assassination talents including Hunger For Blood, but that’s a pretty awkward position to be in. Without Shadowstep, our mobility is pretty awful, and without Cheat Death, so is our survivability. It’s very easy for the enemy team to focus you down and force you into a position where you have to constantly play defensively or risk dying, which unfortunately makes all of that extra damage we got by losing mobility and survivability not the greatest trade overall.

As mentioned previously, Assassination will likely see some play during seasons 5 & 6, where its incredible damage can put a serious dent into people’s health pool while they still have low resilience values. Over time however it’ll get completely phased out by Subtlety, and we don’t have any cool little gimmick to fall back on like Combat does, so nobody will dual-spec Assassination and thus the spec will most likely die off. Still, it can be fun to play at the start, so knock yourselves out, you sneaky little Mutilate lovers!

Best 2v2 comps

Assassin Rogue / Shadow Priest (Best)
Assassin Rogue / Disc Priest
Assassin Rogue / Ret OR Preg Paladin
Assassin Rogue / Feral Druid

Best 3v3 comps

Assassin Rogue / Frost Mage / Disc Priest (Best)
Assassin Rogue / Shadow Priest / Resto Druid OR Resto Shaman
Assassin Rogue / MM Hunter / Disc Priest

F-Tier

The F-tier is the pit of unviability. Specs found in the F-tier are so bad that we’d honestly not even classify them as viable. There might be an absolute maniac out there that makes it their life mission to get a Gladiator title, and if they’re incredibly skilled they might even succeed, but for the overwhelming majority these specs are so bad that they’ll hold you back severely, most likely preventing you from even finding arena partners to begin with.

Demonology Warlock

How the tables have turned. Demonology was always seen as the de-facto PvP spec of the Warlock class, thanks to the Soul Link ability, which has defined the Warlock class in PvP since the dawn of time, was found deep in the Demonology tree. However, it gets moved up to the 3rd row in WotLK, meaning other specs can pick it up as well without sacrificing their own spec identity. A rework to the spec aimed primarily at PvE meanwhile leaves it in a really terrible state in PvP, and so it finds itself in the F-tier.

At first glance one might think that Demonology should still be a pretty good spec in PvP, as most of its talents offer a PvP boost in some way. Our survivability isn’t any worse than what it used to be in TBC; in fact with our new Warlock spells, Demonic Circle: Teleport & Shadowflame (boosted by Glyph of Shadowflame), it’s better than before, even. Meanwhile, Metamorphosis is clearly an amazing PvP ability, giving us a lot of extra damage, massively boosted defenses, and even an on-demand stun ability in Demon Charge. So, what gives?

To make things simple, a very large part of your damage as a Demo Lock comes from your pet. Unfortunately, in WotLK pets just aren’t very beefy, and the Avoidance passive which was added to make them beefier against AoE damage only works in PvE. This means that the enemy team can just focus your pet down until it’s dead, and then your damage is awful. Moreover, unlike our Affliction and Destruction brothers, we didn’t really get any fancy instant-cast or crowd control spells in WotLK. The main new goodies we got are Decimation and Molten Core, which rely on us casting spells with long cast times, like Immolate, Incinerate and Soul Fire. Unfortunately, that’s just not going to happen in WotLK; the enemy team will just focus you down after killing your pet, and prevent you from playing the game altogether. All they have to do is wait out your Metamorphosis or crowd-control you while it’s active, and you’re rendered completely useless for 2 minutes. Chances are, you’re not surviving for 2 minutes until you can use Metamorphosis again, either.

These weaknesses are absolutely massive, and to make things worse, there’s just no real pay-off. Destruction does far more damage than you could ever hope to do, while having a significantly easier time casting. Affliction has far better control than you do, without having to rely on a 2 minute cooldown. There’s just no reason to play Demonology in PvP, unless you enjoy suffering, or are really into cosplaying Illidan.

Best 2v2 comps

Demonology Warlock / Elemental Shaman
Demonology Warlock / Subtlety Rogue

Best 3v3 comps

Demonology Warlock / Elemental Shaman / Resto Druid
Demonology Warlock / Subtlety Rogue / Resto Shaman

Blood Death Knight

Death Knights were originally extremely overpowered in PvP, which forced Blizzard to mete out some very heavy-handed nerfs in order to bring them in line with other classes. A major class overhaul later, and Blood emerged as a tank-centric spec, largely unsuited for PvP, finding itself in the F-tier.

Simply put, Blood just has terrible damage compared to most specs — possibly the worst of any non-healer spec. Sure, it has incredible survivability, and an insanely valuable buff for your team-mate in Hysteria, but arena unfortunately isn’t a dungeon, where your DPS specs can deal enough damage without you. Moreover, the Blood tree has ZERO crowd-control or mobility talents, which is an absolute disaster. We have all of the incredible DK spells like Death Grip, Strangulate, Anti-Magic Shell, Lichborne, etc, but they sadly can’t to cut it. Our other specs are already struggling in the CC and mobility departments, and we don’t even have anything like Desecration or Hungering Cold to help us out here, meaning we’ll usually just impotently run after an enemy we can never reach, and thus be unable to deal any real damage anyway.

The child represents you as a Blood DK, and the dad is the Arms Warrior you just pissed off.

Blood is a spec for people who want to live out a power fantasy of being an immortal god. Unfortunately, in reality you’re more of an immortal pea-shooter. Or an immortal 6-year-old having a tantrum. In any event, it’s not a good PvP spec, don’t play it.

Best 2v2 comps

Blood DK / Arms Warrior
Blood DK / Ret OR Preg Paladin

Best 3v3 comps

Blood DK / Arms Warrior / Holy Paladin
Blood DK / MM Hunter / Holy Paladin

Fury Warrior

If it’s not obvious by the ranking, Fury is terrible. Bottom of the F-tier terrible. With many other PvE-focused specs that are bad in PvP, at least we can say “hey, at least Blizzard tried!”, as they typically at least gave them a few useful PvP talents — things just didn’t happen to pan out. That is certainly not the case with Fury, as it’s just terrible in almost every way that matters in PvP.

Fury gets a whopping 2 new PvP-focused talents in WotLK: Furious Attacks (poor man’s Mortal Strike) and Heroic Leap. Both of them are meh. Oh, the Improved Intercept talent also happens to get moved to the Fury tree, reducing the cooldown of our Intercept down to 20 seconds. Needless to say that doesn’t even begin to cut it, being significantly worse than Arms’ equivalent, Juggernaut. Every other talent in our tree is designed for PvE, almost exclusively boosting our damage. And therein lies the issue — with our garbage mobility, we can’t keep up with our target well enough for our damage to matter. Arms has very similar damage output, while having far superior mobility and a nuclear warhead in Bladestorm, while we have… 2 big sticks.

Fury simply has nothing going for it. Terrible mobility, terrible survivability, non-existent crowd control, and for the most part unimpressive damage. It is a PvE spec through and through, so just do yourself a favour and have Arms as your 2nd spec if you intend to do PvP on your Warrior.

Best 2v2 comps