---
title: 'Pure Damage! 12.0.7 Melee DPS Tier List'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=ga9Phhrn82M'
video_id: 'ga9Phhrn82M'
date: 2026-08-03
duration_sec: 1145
---

# Pure Damage! 12.0.7 Melee DPS Tier List

> Source: [Pure Damage! 12.0.7 Melee DPS Tier List](https://youtube.com/watch?v=ga9Phhrn82M)

## Summary

This video ranks melee DPS specs in World of Warcraft Mythic Plus based purely on raw damage output, ignoring utility, group composition, and other factors. The host provides a tier list from S to F, discussing each spec's performance in specific dungeons and the impact of recent changes.

### Key Points

- **Ranking Criteria** [00:04] — The video ranks melee DPS specs solely on damage numbers, not on utility, group composition, or synergies. It acknowledges that results are circumstantial and specific to certain dungeons.
- **Arms Warrior is King** [00:59] — Arms Warrior is currently the top melee DPS in terms of raw damage, especially in dungeons like Algeth'ar Academy and Scithe. It excels in funnel damage, pulling mobs into bosses to maximize Cleave.
- **Assassination Rogue Performance** [02:47] — Assassination Rogue performs exceptionally well in Myzrael Caverns but struggles in Algeth'ar Academy. Its damage relies heavily on bleeds (Rupture, Garrote) that need time to tick, making it less effective in fast pulls.
- **Survival Hunter is Weak** [04:54] — Survival Hunter is one of the worst melee DPS specs, consistently underperforming across dungeons. The gap between top Survival and top Arms is about 60,000 DPS, almost an extra player in lower keys.
- **Feral Druid Shines in AoE** [07:10] — Feral Druid is the absolute best DPS in Algeth'ar Academy due to uncapped AoE with Rip, especially during boss intermissions with many adds. However, it drops in other dungeons like Myzrael Caverns.
- **Frost Death Knight in Gutter** [08:52] — Frost Death Knight is performing poorly in Mythic Plus despite being strong in raids. Its damage is carried by Frost Beam, but it's outclassed by Unholy.
- **Fury Warrior AoE Capped** [09:46] — Fury Warrior is held back by AoE capping at five targets. The talent Rampaging Ruin was supposed to fix this but is now soft-capped and rarely used, leaving Fury behind.
- **Havoc Demon Hunter Lacks Identity** [11:21] — Havoc Demon Hunter struggles to deal competitive damage, losing its funnel identity. Most damage comes from Immolation Aura, but it lacks a niche to shine.
- **Retribution Paladin Middle of Pack** [12:40] — Retribution Paladin is middle of the pack, but can be strong in physical comps with a Shaman for the Fury buff, which increases melee swing procs and resets Blade of Justice.
- **Subtlety Rogue Falls** [14:14] — Subtlety Rogue has fallen from grace, relying on Black Powder and Secret Technique with no funnel potential. It's been simplified and lost its burst identity.
- **Unholy Death Knight S-Tier** [15:24] — Unholy Death Knight is S-tier, but the host deliberately places it behind Arms to highlight that Arms has higher raw number potential in ideal conditions. Unholy excels with big pulls and uncapped AoE.
- **Windwalker Monk in D Tier** [16:56] — Windwalker Monk is in D tier, possibly better than Fury but not convincing. Spinning Crane Kick is abysmally low, and Dance of Chi-Ji isn't doing the extra damage it used to.

### Conclusion

The melee DPS tier list is a snapshot of raw damage performance, with Arms Warrior and Unholy Death Knight at the top, while Survival Hunter and Frost Death Knight lag behind. The meta is subject to change with upcoming patches, so players should stay informed.

## Transcript

Who hits the hardest in Mythic Plus? Arms Warrior? Windwalker Monk? My dad? I mean, let's look at the top DPS specs when it comes to melee and how much they do damage. We're going to rank them based on damage and nothing else. Not
highest keys cleared, not best group composition, not actual good synergies and utility brought. Just very biased amount of damage because it's nice to look at the big numbers and say, "Yo, look at my big number." And if you're
going to be honest with yourself, that's pretty much what 50% of your WoW Arms, and we're going to make a bunch of disclaimers in this video because there's definitely at least one person in chat that's going to go like, "Well,
listen, based on this data and by that player, you're wrong because it's a it's actually like this that bro." It's fine. It's also going to be very circumstantial and very very specific to to what we're looking at. So, right now,
to what we're looking at. So, right now, Arms is an actual king. And we took data some kind of like polar opposite types of dungeons. For instance, Algeth'ar Academy, Arms is not doing as well as other specs. If we're going to be
ranking strictly based off performance in dungeons like Algeth'ar Academy, Scithe, so far from what we've seen, the the dungeon with the absolute most amount of
DPS throughput period, Arms is actually the king. I think the number one Arms, is it Biz? Oh my god, big man Biz. Out DPS the the number one Unholy. As of time you watch this, we might have like more dungeons cleared, higher keys
cleared. And also, the top DPSers of each respective spec don't actually log their their dungeons. And And you will see throughout the this video, we're going to put some assets here and there, and some of them will not have like rank
one parse went to somebody who didn't really log their dungeon or at least doesn't have the log public so that we can see and say, "Hey, look. That number thing to remember with Arms Warrior as well is that it's very specific on how
numbers because Arms Warrior is just play a lot of Colossus and with Colossus you just want to pull mobs into bosses to deal a lot of damage. On a lot of boss fights, Arms just has Cleave as its top damage source which obviously
doesn't really make any sense to use Cleave in single target and that's just because tanks just pulled extra mobs for Arms to funnel damage as one of the kind of only really good specs in funnel and maybe actually the best DPS spec in
funnel. For Assassination Rogue, it's kind of Arms does have a difference between its and then Myzrael Caverns, Assassination Rogue's
difference in performance is even higher where it absolutely destroys in Myzrael Caverns but kind of struggles a little bit in Algeth'ar Academy. One thing to Assassination, let's actually put this on. Where do I have it? I have some data
It's around C tier. Now, I want to explain exactly what C tier is. C tier that in the Myzrael Caverns that we've seen one of the top Assassinations has been averaging or you know, actually not averaging but the overall DPS is about
260,000. That's pretty high. That's higher than most any spec that has done in let's say dungeons like Algeth'ar Academy which is known for a dungeon that you want to deal a lot of damage in. And
Assassination has a quite a bit of setup where most of its damage is coming from its bleeds, Rupture and Garrote. Garrote actually is the number one damage you just need to spread it a lot. And a lot of that spreading gameplay is doing
damage, of course, but it's not that kind of damage and the the bleed still has to tick quite a lot of its duration in a pack. And depending on your key composition and synergy, packs might not just leave live long enough for that
damage to show up. But, with that being said, I mean, we're talking about the DPS specs. So, if you're looking at C tier, and you're saying, "Man, this kind of sucks, C tiers." Just remember, it's not that bad. It's kind of average. It's
will. Outlaw is doing just slightly better. Not to mention that Outlaw is just being taken into more high-end uh physical group composition, which is where you will find your best Arms in the world,
and a couple of others. Actually, one other DPS spec that's really good. And, It's It's kind of like a back and forth with with Assassination. I'm pretty sure that if you take 10 different Outlaw players, 10 top Outlaw Outlaw players,
and 10 top Assassination players in uh every dungeon possible, they're going better one, which is actually kind of a great situation to be in as a class if you're playing Rogue, since that you have just specs that can fight against
absolutely dominate the others, which is what we're going to see in a little bit, as well. That's, of course, not Survival Hunter. Survival Hunter is actually one of the worst DPS specs in the game right now,
consistently no matter what dungeon we we look at. I mean, of course, it's it's still cranking very high numbers. I mean, uh over 200K in any dungeon that you look at, at least in the top top of creme de la creme. I think Banchors
And, if you know Hunter, and you follow top Hunters, you probably have heard about Banchors. Man is a god on Hunter. But, with that being said, the difference between Survival and and Arms
is just criminal. I believe in My'sara Caverns, the top Survival was about what, 230,000 DPS, while Arms was 290 over 90,000. So,
that's about 60,000 DPS. That's that's a almost a tank. That's almost an extra player in a lower key. So, that's quite the difference, which is why we wanted that bad, but putting it into F here, we want to like hammer down the fact that
yo, there's a They're they're clearing 22s, 23s, probably, but they're you'll tell there's a difference in damage, okay?
the pack, but again, it starts to fall a little bit behind. So, where we have curve, because if you if you can't tell on this series, we skipped E tier. [ __ ] is E tier? Nobody cares about E tier, okay? We want F. So, there's a tier
then CT would kind of would definitely be like middle of the bell curve. But, performance so far, and just raw numbers, no actual numbers, no actual knowledge and intelligence needed, is
just a smidge below. It's probably it I want to say it can compete with with that's necessarily true. There are, of course, diamonds in the rough, one one-of-a-kind players,
one-trick ponies that just play, and they're they're about 10, 20, 30,000 DPS every other person playing their own spec, right? So, there's also that. And that's true for every every spec, but enhancement just doesn't really shine
and it's still pretty good, but, you know, D tier for now. Now, feral. If we're going to be talking pure, let's say Algeth'ar Academy performance, where everybody just wants that first pull out. That first pull is
so juicy. And also, the first boss, one of the best boss designs in the world, where he has intermissions with 30, 40 plants spawning at the same time. Oh my god, delicious damage. Feral is king. Feral is actually number
one in in that situation. It has uncapped AoE with with rip pretty much. hidden soft cap scaling after certain point which we kind of know that that applies to every ability that's uncapped when
ability in the game once you once we pass 20 targets, I think it does almost But with that being said, feral would actually be king. In Algeth'ar Academy, it is the absolute best DPS spec period
Caverns. It actually drops down probably even below outlaw in Mists of Sharah in Algeth'ar than everybody else, I'm going to put it into A tier. I think it deserves A tier. I think feral has fought for six to eight years with
balance for an actual spot in mythic plus and now it's actually part of the about where you would have an arms, a feral and most likely an outlaw. Outlaw can sometimes be replaced with with an assassination.
Feral might be replaced with with red paladin sometimes but we'll get it looks like. Now, next, I was hoping to put frost
death knight way higher than it actually is but I do believe it's doing a lot with frost death knight being in the absolute gutter. Oh my god was frost
know that in the raids it's pretty high. It's probably it used to be S tier about it's still there but it is pretty high at the very least. So as a whole,
right now it's just crushing it with frost beam damage. Dude, the frost beam capstone has been carrying frost death knight in dungeons crazy which is season two so don't put your hopes up too high. But of course, its competition
is unholy and I haven't pressed unholy yet. Pressed play placed unholy in the tier list, but you might take a guess as to where unholy will be. So, suffice to say that Frost Death Knight has its work cut out for it.
Fury Warrior started way stronger than Arms. I think actually, to think about it, Arms was the bigger loser between Frost DK and and Arms itself rather, but now it's S tier and it has overtaken Fury and Fury has
just kind of like stood by. What I have a problem with when it comes to Fury Warrior is that it continuously remains AoE capped. Fury Warrior is not doing and it's a very small cleave. It's doing really good burst damage. It has a
really good profile. It's placed on this delicious, I do have to say. However, I feel like its biggest drawback is the AoE capping. And we've had this discussion for years, of course, and most recently and most
loudly was in the war within when we discussed this. And as a result, Blizzard has added a talent that was called Rampaging Ruin. That was supposed to give Fury some some identity outside five targets. That was initially
uncapped and then it was capped to eight targets and then I think or it just launched at eight eight targets capped. And now it was it's back to being soft capped at five targets, which is dead. I don't think anybody uses Rampaging Ruin.
tuning and how it actually applies in combat, so you're not going to be able probably surprising nobody, Fury is still kind of down, especially after we've we've complained that we have too many five target specs that are just
Plus. We still have new Mythic Plus seasons with very big pulls, which we all love big pulls, but Fury Warriors don't. Havoc has been living in the shadow of the war and will probably continue to
live in the shadow of the war. It has some shining moments where if we take a look at probably Algeth'ar Academy, it's doing a little bit better. Probably put very least, which is definitely way better.
Um however, it has lost a lot of its identity. Particularly what would have carried Havoc this season is if Al Draenei was um the premier here talent to play just because of the funnel and the funnel being just very good overall.
said this on the channel as well that funnel damage in Mythic Plus is so good so much so that Arcane Mage was for almost an entire expansion a meta spec meters at the end of the dungeon, but it was always the best funnel DPS spec. It
was always the best funnel DPS spec. It would just delete dangerous single mobs. of lost. Arms kind of has it, but not really. Uh Rogue maybe a little bit, but not really. So it's kind of like a little
bit, but not really the the whole the the gist of the of the discussion. And Havoc is doing just really well and most of his damage is coming from Immolation blasting abilities. Nothing to do with actually taking down one particular
target. Havoc is just struggling to dish out the raw amounts of damage numbers that it needs to do and it's not going to have like a particular thing that to have like a particular thing that will make it shine on over the others.
Now I mentioned the Ret before and Ret is seen in some of the higher keys. However, overall it's still about kind of like middle of the pack. We're going specs here. Um now I'm putting it last in CT but I
can probably interchange it with this. Probably better than Havoc. I want to say it's probably definitely better than Frost at night. Um and Ret is actually really cool. However, to make Ret work I think it the only way it would work to
resto shaman or at least a shaman in the group, but you're definitely going to be in some of the top physical comps where you would include a Ret in the group, you would have a resto shaman instead of a mistweaver. Still a bear. So you would
increase everybody's physical damage by what is it? Did they lower Mystic Touch right now. And that's just because this guy Fury buff that Shaman brings gives Reds chance to for for their melee
swings to hit again. And those usually contribute to Crusading Strikes in generating potentially Holy Power and also resetting Art of War with Blade of Justice, which is Reds actually biggest damage source. Blade of Justice is
profile. Again, a kind of a weird thing because Blade of Justice is actually a generator. However, it is also a proc that you consume. in season two. We talked about it. I don't know if we have the video out, but
channel. You know, like and subscribe. Hit that notification bell cuz YouTube. those changes on our channel. So, if you've missed them, they're probably already there. Subtlety Rogue has also kind of fallen a
little bit from grace. And it it's sharing its down spot with Survival in Rogue does have its moments where it shines. But most of its damage is just pure black powder, secret technique. And then that has just like no funnel or
potential whatsoever. And it doesn't even do that much AoE damage in the same way that let's say Primal Wrath for Feral would do where it just spreads all of the bleeds or maybe even let's say Immolation Aura for for Havoc Demon
Hunter or Breath of Sindragosa for Frost DK. Like I I can go on, right? It's it's damage profile, but I think it's been neutered a little bit too much where not only it has been simplified, but part of the simplification with with Subtlety
was on how you dealt your burst damage and how you took down dangerous targets. I feel at least in the a little bit. And that has gone away where it's just kind of like a bland Beast Mastery style spec at the moment. I'm a little bit salty
much about it. Numbers are numbers and that's where it's going to go at least for now. We'll see in season two. Unholy, probably surprising nobody, it is S-tier. But as opposed to the rest of the tiers in this tier list, I am going
to deliberately put it behind Arms to showcase that in terms of raw number potential, Arms might actually have a little bit of an edge over Unholy. That's when we're talking about the absolute best Arms and
best Unholies in the world with the absolute best conditions for these two specs to thrive. And that's not, you know, relevant throughout the the rest 100 Unholies and the top 100 Arms, Unholy is probably by and large, on
average, going to beat Arms easily. But, we're looking at the top and this is really, really well. Putrify is absolutely destroying the meters and
And graveyard, which is kind of going to get nerfed in season two, graveyard being the epidemic upgrade once you press your army, is uncapped. And so is just reading the tooltips. Of course, there's always underlying engines behind
of how how some of these mechanics work and they could be capped or soft capped know because it's not explained in the tooltip. But unless you're like a theorycrafter that's doing these things regularly, you might know
well and it would make sense if Putrify would be uncapped because it's just would be uncapped because it's just absolutely exploding in AoE and it has a one of those specs where outside of cooldowns, you just don't do very much.
So, that means that in order for Unholy to thrive, you need a particular party so that they can just constantly pull whatever you can actually blast. And if you can, and if they do, the dungeon is just deleted.
And last, but not least, Windwalker. That I would have expected to put down tier, actually. It's going into D tier. Now, it might actually be better than a Fury. I'm not necessarily convinced. And I feel like Windwalker took a little bit
of a leg up when was it 12.0.5 when they introduced the Zenith Storm, currently the second or third best damage source that Windwalker has considering that you're also blessing pressing it very rarely. Of course number one will always
think that's what we expect when we play Windwalker Monk. Um however, Windwalker took a dip I feel like indoor within was doing slightly better in comparison with the rest of the specs. Now I cannot really blame it on design because at the
fact that maybe dance of Chi-Ji is something that's actually is being played in in its current build is not doing the extra damage that it used to and Spinning Crane Kick is just abysmally low. While in the past
the best damage sources and you would think if you look at the Windwalker it should do the most amount of damage. You spin and just destroy everybody in AoE, right? But it's very very low in terms of the overall damage output. And
I'm not saying that that's why Windwalker is low but obviously in terms of its identity when you talk about it and with the design and where the buffs could actually go in um they're just not going where they used to go when
But again, this is you know, uh just looking at damage numbers, just raw top performance. And by the time you watch this things might change. It's not What's important is the evolution and somehow a snapshot in the meta can look
something like this. If you just want raw overall to impress your friends or to find groups to get you in, maybe playing some of the top specs in this year list will get you that. In the meantime, I did talk a lot about the
changes that are coming in 12.1. We already have two videos on it with the one recently just covering all of the recent changes to the specs and the instance for Death Knights which are currently absolutely destroying the
meta. So you can check that right here in our video and uh see if that changes in our video and uh see if that changes your main next season.