[00:02] of dragonflight entering its final month and the war within right on the horizon more Dragon flight tier list before the season wraps as you may have noticed we didn't see a ton of tuning in season 4 and The Meta on the whole ended up
[00:15] pretty dull with a variation of season 2's God comp quickly emerging and dominating the season so rather than just repeat ourselves we want to try list both as an update to the previous tier list but also as a follow up on our
[00:28] season 4 predictions with reference to data like participation and highlighting specific players who are making off metas specs work let us know what you help in your final push this season skill cap has you covered join today for
[00:42] famously effective guides that we only produce alongside the world's best players you can even get free monthly VOD reviews as a skill cap member where gameplay and provide personalized feedback and remember a single
[00:56] our games so what are you waiting for click the link below to hit your goals this season and get the rating you've always wanted so let's begin with tanks Demon Hunter off the list we've run out of fun ways to say that Vengeance Sean
[01:10] Hunter has dominated the tank meta as much as any tank ever has 83% of all keys at level 15 or above have had a Vengeance Demon Hunter in season 4 we're all sick of talking about vengeance and their sigils so let's move
[01:24] on because when you exclude Vengeance it's frustrating how balanced the tank meta could otherwise be when discussing Guardian Druid in our previous tier list we Nam dropped squish vegan as guardian druid's greatest champion and noted that
[01:37] alive on the leaderboards so it's no surprise that squish vegan Remains the highest ranked tank who isn't purple followed by uh vegan squish his alt we had even expected Guardian to have a bit more representation than that but under
[01:51] the circumstances this is what passes for an a tier tank performance blood appear on the tank leader board after Guardian blood is similar to Guardian in stable than blood in an M plus environment but blood decays bring
[02:06] is a big Advantage for the guardian but if you've already got a druid nah basically it's splitting hairs we're happy to put blood and guardian next to each other as a tier buddies brew master is the one tank that was considered weak
[02:20] in season 4 Blizzard's bizarre Nerfs to brew master back in May killed the it was a clear signal from blizzard that they didn't want anyone playing Brew this season and monk Mains begrudgingly complied so I guess we'll call that c
[02:33] tier now for protection paladins who are the most popular tanks after Vengeance despite us not loving protection paladins this season their strong representation convinced us that maybe we just didn't get it so we put them in
[02:46] a tier but with a month left in the season no it's the children who are wrong we're dropping protection Paladin down to B tier they remain very squishy relying on kiting and smaller pulls to survive resulting in them having the
[02:59] lowest damage of any tank finally for tanks we have protection Warriors despite being the second least popular tank ahead of brew master we really like prop Warriors after their mid-season Buffs everything about PR Warrior feels
[03:11] well-rounded their durability control damage output it all feels right however specializing in nothing seems to have prevented them from finding a niche in higher keys for that reason we're going to keep them in the
[03:24] beer now let's move on to the melee and we want to start this section a little differently normally we'll do these tier lists alphabetically but we need to talk about retribution paladins up front in terms of melee DPS nothing else came
[03:36] close to retribution in season 4 in Keystone's level 15 and up Rhett accounts for over 60% of all the melee essentially Rhett is the only melee who season we've discussed why this is at length in other videos retributions
[03:50] damage control and utility are immense in season 4 retribution also has the allowing them to better deal with the numerous mechanics melee have to Dodge in season 4 because the meta was so skewed towards casters this season we're
[04:04] the melee and besides we aren't Rivals here we're all Partners in misery in season 4 unless you're Retribution Paladin I guess so with that established let's begin with Frost death Knights Frost DK has always been a fringe spec
[04:17] predictions for season 4 was that Frost would do really well now across the board this hasn't happen but technically technically we were correct because at the time of writing a guy by the name of of ferocious is the highest rated death
[04:31] knight in the world with his io on Frost beating every single Unholy DK and sure Unholy is obviously the stronger spec but Fay proves that we weren't fullish when we hyped up Frost that's all I'm saying however unless Fay is in your
[04:45] getting top tier performance with the frost DK you're going to be getting B tier performance as for Unholy while it may be stronger than Frost as we've said middling there's no noteworthy weaknesses but no strengths that set the
[04:59] spec a heart and for us that is the definition of b tier so let's move on to Havoc we gave Havoc a really hard time in our previous list after a series of Nerfs in season 3 their damage output just isn't what it was and with all the
[05:11] Vengeance demon Hunters doubling up on havoc's utility it makes it all the more tempting to replace the Havoc with an arms Warrior or Unholy DK but despite that Havoc was the second most played melee in Keys above level 10 and having
[05:23] thought about it look Pro Palin deserve chaos brand too right in a Caster meta groups with off metat tanks to still access that 5% magic damage buff so as a gesture we'll give Havoc the small bump it needs to sneak into the a tier now
[05:38] let's quickly talk FAL Druids Ferell never got off the ground in season 4 if balance Druids can't break into a Caster meta Ferell is no hope one of these days Ferell is going to explode and we aren't going to be ready for it but for season
[05:50] 4 they remain a c tier melee and as for survival Hunter there's also not much positive to say despite receiving some Buffs a few weeks ago survival is also Ferell Druid as we've covered before survival isn't doomed to suck in Mythic
[06:04] plus it has all the pieces to do well but in season 4 it had to overcome a bunch of obstacles so while survival is more popular than a few other DPS specs us they are the worst DPS spec in the game right now so yeah we'll call that c
[06:19] tier now let's move on to wind walker monk we had really high hopes for wind dream perhaps a bit longer than we should wind walker was certainly much better than it was in season seon 3 but was never able to beat The Fringe melee
[06:32] allegations above level 15 wind Walkers saw a similar amount of play to Unholy dks wind walker has a lot of similarities to Havoc but in our view better season in short there's no longer any doubt wind walker is firmly B tier
[06:46] throughout season 4 we told you to expect Outlaw to regress by some vague had a lot going against it this season its Target cap stat scaling its relationship with augmentation it all risked derailing what had been a season
[07:00] 3 across the entire population Outlaw saw a lot less play in season 4 seeing less play than wind walker and even Fury Warrior but as the key level increases and those specs drop off Outlaw sticks around and at level 15 and up it is the
[07:13] third most represented spec behind arms and retribution in the modern game where the meta has such a huge influence on a Spec's popularity it's unusual to see a Keys it would suggest that while Outlaw is great players aren't tempted to fotm
[07:27] reroll to it in either case we see Outlaw as an a tier melee in season 4 even if it didn't reach the heights it saw last season as for assassination we were uh unusually cruel to assassination in our last tier list and right as that
[07:41] video dropped assass received some very needed Buffs those Buffs have made assassination one of the top DPS specs in raids but the fundamental issues with assass that we covered in our previous tier list still holds true assassination
[07:53] few Rogues have been able to make the spec work it has come from the brute force of tuning and maybe a little bit of deception assassination metrics are propped up by a few obviously Shady runs involving this one particular Rogue most
[08:07] notably this althar Academy run that comes in almost 12 minutes faster than considering the Rogue hasn't done a key higher than 14 before or after that week assassination up to the B tier now let's talk about subtlety Rogue who true to
[08:23] their class fantasy were completely invisible in season 4 we explore the possibility of sub being a bursty perhaps gimmicky alternative to Outlaw but Outlaw managed to be good and still ultimately end up in the margins so sub
[08:35] was never going to get taken seriously to make it clear just how unpopular sub has been this season it has half the recorded runs as feral Druids C tier that's C tier so now let's talk enhance who had a weird season despite how
[08:49] flight we foretold Doom for enhance in season 4 pointing to their squishiness and low Target cap as crucial flaws some mid-season Buffs helped their cause but half the representation of Fury Warriors at all key levels despite that in terms
[09:04] of performance quite a few players have done extremely well on enhanced this enhanced Shaman subbing in for a fire Mage in God comp across the board enhanced Shaman metrics most closely resembles Unholy DK so we're happy
[09:18] putting inh in the Beats here we were very dismissive of arms Warrior prior to them because we didn't have anything new to say and you know let's not overblow this arms Warriors make up less than 2% of DPS in keys at level 15 and up they
[09:32] didn't blow the doors off season 4 but within the rat race that is season 4 melee DPS arms Warriors are the clear silver medal behind retribution it's been both more popular and more successful than Outlaw which we
[09:44] certainly were not expecting it's an a tier melee it doesn't matter whether or not they play Shockwave as for Fury Warrior as part of undervaluing arms Warrior we may have overvalued Fury just a bit the dynamic between arms and fury
[09:57] has ended up similar to Unholy defrost night like Unholy arms is assembled a stronger overall body of work across the entire player base but like frost the top Warrior on the ladder right now is a fury Warrior so while noxive provides
[10:10] overall like frost we can't let one powerful gamer sway us so to wrap up melee we're putting Fury in the B tier so now let's move on to the range DPS and we'll start with moonkins who never really caught on in season 4 even after
[10:24] their much talked about tier set was buffed balance wound up being solid but didn't find Niche for itself the majority of balance Druids we looked at where they were subbing in for either the fire Mage or augment evoker that's
[10:38] what moonkins were this season good enough to pass as a substitute but as that very few DPS can really cleared this season so we're going to keep talk about augmentation of ochre and look you're tired of hearing about Aug
[10:52] I'm sick of talking about Aug in season 3 augmentation was everywhere but we had opportunities to cut the AUG and replace it with something fun in season 4 the AUG arrives once it's time to start pushing and no one has been able to
[11:04] properly Shake It Off augmentation is insane the only thing more insane is the for the war within but let's not get into that for Dragon flight obvious s tier let's move on as we said before the season started the success of
[11:17] Devastation and preservation was tied to the popularity of augmentation despite preservation would struggle to see play if augmentation was popular and since augment has ended up being so dominant at the high end this season it basically
[11:30] smothered both Dev and pre despite that Dev still had a strong showing this season across the board Devastation actually had more runs than augmentation it's only once you get to the plus 15 bracket that Aug really starts to muscle
[11:42] Dev out of keys so we're going to go with B tier for Devastation across the board BM is the most popular range DPS spec above plus 10 it slips to second place behind Shadow before disappearing almost completely at plus 15 and up this
[11:56] reinforces what we've said about the spec before they are the kings of the Vault Keys solid B tier spec a spec that we underestimated was actually Marksmanship well Marksmanship wasn't outstanding this season it ended up
[12:09] for its money and like some of the other specs we've discussed Marksmanship is a spec with one Champion single-handedly fighting the haters at time of writing baners is in the top 100 overall DPS as Marksman standing out like a sore thumb
[12:23] and a sea of Mages priests and evokers it really is the same Dynamic that we saw with Unholy and frost Marksmanship has less than a quarter of the representation of BM at level 10 or above Marx is quite a fringe spec but a
[12:35] handful of players have demonstrated its potential it's impossible not to look at it and at least be like hell yeah B tier moving on fire Mage is stier let's just get that out of the way immediately fire Mages have had one of the all-time great
[12:49] excellent in season 1 but were able to keep quiet about it but from season 2 onward they have dominated High Keys non-stop while there were some question marks around fire going into season 4 we pointed out that its utility defense and
[13:03] ramping damage profile would make it very hard to displace from the top keys and sure enough as the season progressed fire was able to pull away from frost at representation is down because Frost is so strong in lower Keys but this season
[13:16] has demonstrated just how overpowered fire really is even when it's bad it's despite fire having a higher ceiling than Frost at the absolute peak of keys Frost has had a terrific season while we slept on it going into season 4 we
[13:30] recommending it as one of the best specs to play Frost is so much more popular than fire because its damage profile is fantastic with glacial Spike able to carry priority damage checks and its defensive toolkit while weaker than fire
[13:44] the game so while the S tier has been hijacked by the god comp Frost has had one of its best ever Seasons so we're giving it a very strong a rank which brings us to Arcane as we said in our previous video Arcane is a victim of
[13:57] circumstance in season 4 Arcane is in a solid spot if it were the only Mage spec with both fire and frost so strong there just isn't a strong argument for playing Arcane Arcane has quite a few similarities to Marksmanship both being
[14:11] burst oriented range DPS however Arcane is a fraction of mm's already low representation and has demonstrated a lower ceiling so we're going to drop it down to C tier Shadow priest Mains were another class that ate extremely well in
[14:24] Dragon flight Shadow priest season 4 has ended up being at least as good in to say about Shadow that hasn't been spec right now the only possible Challenger is fire Mage who is less of a
[14:37] rival and more of a partner in crime Shadow as a member of the god comp goes in our s tier Elemental was the big surprise for us in season four it was a niche pick with less play than wind walker but numerous Shaman have been
[14:49] able to thrive in this season I don't want to overstate This Ellie is a league behind the god comp but at Keys level 15 and above there are more elemental shaman runs than Outlaw Rogue we were shaky on our decision to put Ellie in
[15:01] the a tier on the previous tier list but the shaman have made us look like Geniuses now let's move on to Warlock and we'll start with Affliction which has remained a deeply unserious Speck I say that because unlike so many of the
[15:13] off meta DPS we've mentioned we can't find any examples of players pushing to make F work there are Affliction Mains but they aren't even trying to push with it they're just chilling and hoping for better luck next expansion for that
[15:25] reason it's an easy C tier for us next up destruction we were hyping up Destro early on it was doing great however when destruction was always in the augmentation of ochre spot and as we've
[15:38] discussed augmentation took over the high-end Keystone meta and that left destruction in a really odd Niche when it comes to trash Destro loocks are like Goldilocks the pull can't be too big it can't be too short it has to be just
[15:51] right so it needs High keys but not too high to the point that the Warlock gets cut for an Aug evoker and look the way our a tier has gone become the list of great Caster DPS that just happened to miss the cut for the god comp and that's
[16:04] exactly what Destro is finally for the ranged we have demonology which was another spec in a weird spot in season 4 across all keys demo ended up with roughly equal participation to Destro but the spec drops off aggressively as
[16:16] the key level increases so we read demo as being similar to Beast Mastery Demo's current damage profile and play style is very flexible while Destro is a lot more rigid and suffers from that Goldilocks Dynamic and when compared to Destro that
[16:28] just makes demo all the more appealing for Vault Keys it's a solid B tier spec season 4 more than half the runs at level 15 and up have had a Resto Druid and that isn't counting the runs where the Druid started as balance Resto
[16:43] Druids have dominated this season but the healing meow was downright diverse compared to tanks where 83% of tanks in those same keys were Vengeance demon Hunters Resto Druids bring Mark of the wild a bunch of key utility have a
[16:55] everything goes according to script and the ability for the Druid to respect balance shouldn't be undervalued half the dungeons featured meta routes where the Druid began as balance rest of droids are just up for anything in
[17:08] them so good they are the god comp healer and thus go in our s tier next preservation we wanted preservation to that pre would see more adoption as the season went on but as the weeks went by
[17:21] augmentation only grew more dominant in high keys and undermined the value of preservation we had predicted a return to season 1 form for pre but even a flat 6% healing buff couldn't move the needle preservation has ended up as the least
[17:33] played healer in season 4 and while a handful of players excelled on the spec it doesn't feel like a victory for us preservation falls down to the B tier Heights it achieved in season 3 but it remained a strong healer there isn't a
[17:46] haven't said elsewhere this spec is one of our favorite healers in terms of its design it has no doubt suffered a bit from the Caster meta both having a less value to Mystic touch but were
[17:59] holy paladins received some meaningful throughput Buffs mid-season and given that their core issues were throughput related this has done holy a lot of good allow the top holy paladins to substitute in for a Resto Druid in God
[18:13] comp and time a few plus 20 Keys that's a massive Improvement on where the spec was at the start of the season so we're putting Holy Paladin in the be tier moving on to Holy priest who ended up having a pretty respectable season given
[18:26] priest didn't see as much play as they perhaps otherwise would have but they were still firmly the second most played healer after Resto drew it while the very top holy priest in the ladder is just running God comp most of the best
[18:39] holy priests are doing well with off meta setups most without a shadow priest so holy priest is bringing all that useful priest Tech while also bringing damage we're going to put holy in the a tier as for disciplin priest we had
[18:53] expected to see it slowly usurp holy priest as time went on discipline put up similar numbers to Holy but hasn't done enough to pull away from it at the top end like we expected holy and disc are broadly comparable but disc has
[19:07] difficult to play and just generally less popular so disc has ended up fading from relevance pretty badly in season 4 the spec isn't bad by any means but it's had a b tier season on the whole and to wrap up our final Dragon flight tier
[19:20] list we have Resto Shaman we made bold predictions for Resto Shaman in season 4 they could come out of nowhere and blow up the meta but when that that didn't happen after a few weeks I'll be honest we lost faith we put them in the C tier
[19:33] shaman themselves did not and Resto has ended up having a great season statistically they've performed about as well as Mist Weaver monks as we spoke secret sauce to Resto Shaman they just do a ton of healing and bring a lot of
[19:46] control this makes them friends with off-meta specs the shaman can help compensate for the lack of a Vengeance DH or let you bring in an arms Warrior control Department we shouldn't overblow this but we imagine most Resto Shaman
[19:59] pretty good about how their class performed we think they earned an a tier with a little retrospective on season 4 and its class balance as you're no doubt aware participation in season 4 is way down we view God comp as one of the
[20:14] to ride the meta and pick the flavor of the month but there are limits man and class balance in season 4 would be remarkably strong if it weren't for the god comp all you need to do is Ban these five specs tweak the five specs we put
[20:27] in the C tier and season 4 could have been brilliant so to wrap up our metad stress the importance of tuning in future Seasons we genuinely believe that the existence of a god comp especially one involving Niche specs like fire and
[20:39] augmentation can single-handedly spoil a Mythic plus season before you go whether fundamentals or Master some advanced concepts we designed everything on our website with one goal in mind to make sure you can get the rating you truly
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