---
title: 'The Most Fun Melee DPS Tier List for World of Warcraft Midnight'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=zOcQ-x5-cA8'
video_id: 'zOcQ-x5-cA8'
date: 2026-08-09
duration_sec: 1403
---

# The Most Fun Melee DPS Tier List for World of Warcraft Midnight

> Source: [The Most Fun Melee DPS Tier List for World of Warcraft Midnight](https://youtube.com/watch?v=zOcQ-x5-cA8)

## Summary

The video presents a subjective tier list of melee DPS specializations in the World of Warcraft Midnight expansion, based on fun, design, and feel rather than raw numbers. The creator, Sky, ranks specs from S-tier (Enhancement Shaman, Unholy Death Knight) to D-tier (Subtlety Rogue), highlighting the most enjoyable and disappointing iterations.

### Key Points

- **Enhancement Shaman: S-Tier** [00:01] — The spec flows super well rotationally, with reduced button bloat and overcomplication. Abilities hit harder, Flame Shock is easier to spread, and cooldowns are easier to track. It relies on procs rather than a resource, offering S-tier utility and is main-worthy.
- **Unholy Death Knight: S-Tier** [02:13] — Received a massive rework, ditching festering wounds for a minion/necromancy/disease focus. The kit matches the fantasy, feels active without being messy, and offers incredible gameplay variety. It's the most fun version of Unholy the creator has played.
- **Survival Hunter: A-Tier** [03:48] — A big surprise, Survival Hunter is a blast. Hero talents and talent trees were cleaned up, with a thematic overhaul into an engineer/bomb/explosives spec that works with a pet. The rotation is beautiful, and abilities are impactful, with a dual-wield option.
- **Outlaw Rogue: A-Tier** [06:03] — The creator had a grudge but was surprised. Roll the Bones is substantially better, APM is lowered, and the spec focuses on big setup windows with Between the Eyes. It feels more planned and less RNG-dependent, though blade damage is a downside.
- **Fury Warrior: A-Tier** [08:19] — The core rotation (Rampage, Bloodthirst, Raging Blow) is unchanged, but talent trees were drastically reworked to lean into the class fantasy of damage getting out of control. It feels good moment-to-moment, with big setup windows via Avatar.
- **Havoc Demon Hunter: A-Tier** [10:11] — Havoc is mostly untouched, with the same movement-heavy, spammy playstyle. Glaive Tempest is being gutted. The creator wishes for more new toys, as the rotation feels identical, making it alt-worthy but not main-worthy.
- **Assassination Rogue: A-Tier** [11:30] — Bleed gameplay and dot spreading feel infinitely better. Crimson Tempest is now a simple ability, not a finisher, making bleed spread easier. It's a deliberate, setup-heavy spec with big venom windows, but can be exhausting for a main.
- **Feral Druid: B-Tier** [13:32] — Energy starvation is better but requires talenting. Snapshotting bleeds is easier, and they got a new AoE Feral Frenzy. However, the core gameplay is the same, and damage outside cooldown windows feels slow and stiff, making it risky for a main.
- **Arms Warrior: B-Tier** [15:03] — Arms didn't get a massive rework but had clunky interactions smoothed out. It's still slow and deliberate with big hits, but the talent tree needs work. It desperately needs gear to feel good, so Fury is better early on.
- **Frost Death Knight: B-Tier** [16:39] — Frost stayed exactly the same from War Within, which is a problem since Unholy got a huge change. It's still bursty every 45 seconds to a minute and a half, but the rotation is smoother. It's a better version, but Unholy is the hot team.
- **Retribution Paladin: B-Tier** [18:03] — Retribution carries forward from its rework, a simple builder-spender spec that's hyper-consistent in Mythic+. It's easy to play but repetitive, with a rinse-and-repeat cycle every 25-30 seconds. It didn't get the next evolution level up.
- **Windwalker Monk: C-Tier** [19:47] — Windwalker got a heavy tuning pass, with a cleaner rotation and less button bloat, but lost the big bursty damage moments that made it special. It feels more controlled, which the creator doesn't love, making it a casual pass.
- **Subtlety Rogue: D-Tier** [21:09] — Subtlety got simplified to a three-button rotation (Shadow Dance, Shadow Strike, Finisher). The high skill ceiling and rewarding complexity are gone, making it bland and a hard pass compared to other specs that got more fun.

### Conclusion

The video concludes that the most fun melee DPS specs in Midnight are Enhancement Shaman and Unholy Death Knight, with several A-tier surprises like Survival Hunter and Outlaw Rogue. The creator encourages viewers to try these specs on the beta and offers a giveaway for a free copy of the expansion.

## Transcript

here. Some classes are feeling great so far in the beta, while others are sadly definitely use some work. In today's video, we're breaking down the most fun melee DPS you could play in Midnight World of Warcraft. Remember, this is
based off fun, design, and feel rather than raw numbers at the moment. Also, stick around until the end of the video to see how you can earn a free epic edition of World of Warcraft Midnight from the Comeback Kids. Okay, now
starting off first, man, I got to bring it up. I got to talk about it. Enhancement shaman man. Now the truth is is this spec right now just finally flows super well in midnight right now rotationally. This is one of the best
rotationally. This is one of the best iterations of this spec I have played in a very very long time and I could not be happier right now with it. A lot of the with like the ridiculous amount of button bloat and the overmplification of
setting up everything so you can actually deal damage. It's all gone and just incredibly happy. Advancement feels very very refreshing right now. Uh not
they actually hit harder and feel like they deal damage. Crash Lightning hits hard as well. Uh Flame Shock is easier to spread. Uh cooldowns are easier to track and manage. And I would say from a base rotational perspective, it they
they nailed it. This is an S tier rotational, you know, pruning and design good. What I love about enhancement, too, is that you're not relying on a resource. Like, for example, energy for a rogue, rage for a warrior, runic
power, and runes for a death knight. With enhancement, you're just 100% going procs going, you're doing your cool down thing and and you're pumping damage. So, it's really fun. Not only that, you have S tier utility on enhancement, which is
great. But, I would say for me right now, this is absolutely main worthy come midnight. Personally, it's my main right now at the moment heading into midnight. It's one of those specs that's easier to pick up now, hard to get bored of, feels
really happy about it. Absolutely love it right now. Moving on to our second and only other S tier spec. What's it going to be? I think we're going to go Unholy here. Let's just be upfront. Unholy is slapping right now. Unholy got
probably the biggest ginormous rework I've seen in a very long time. But not only that, it actually is designed well. It's a major winner. Blizzard finally ditched the whole festering wounds BS miname bull crap and they leaned into
that good part of unholy death knight which is all about minions, necromancy, diseases and plagues popping exploding. Not only that, you have incredible gameplay variety. You could pick which route you want to go. The spec is just
completely refocused now. You're building the undead. You're detonating there. And the entire kit finally matches the fantasy in a way that we all wanted. I would say from a raw gameplay perspective, like beat by beat. Um,
Unholy feels insanely active, but without it being messy and like convoluted for no reason. Your screen has like a bunch of minions on it and it leads into the next thing. One minion bumps the other. Then you have your big
festering sites and then you could pop your diseases. And then you have automatic death and decays going off. You also have your hero talents and the mean, you're constantly doing something meaningful. It never feels like there's
downtime. And this is the best version of Unholy I've played personally ever cuz I really never dive into Unholy that much before um you know, Battle for Azeroth. But I I love it. I'm very happy. I think for me, this is a spec
that is absolutely main worthy for any of you watching this video out there. Hands down the most fun version of Unholy I've ever played. Um, if you love specs that love pets and that sort of gameplay style, it's excellent. Overall,
to the next because this is another big surprise. We're going to be putting first up in the A tier. Really, Survival Hunter Sky. That's kind of crazy, right? But let me explain. Hold on. Take it easy. I can't believe I'm saying it
either. Survival Hunter is a blast to play. It's the truth. They cleaned up a ton of their hero talents. They cleaned up their talent trees in general drastically. And then of course they give them a nice little thematic
overhaul. Now you're kind of like an engineer bomb explosives guy that works in tandem with his pet, which I'm going to be honest, I was super on the fence then I played it, it felt really good.
The rotation is beautiful. And not only that, the abilities are super cool and impactful. Yeah, I mean, sign me up. Survival actually has a class fantasy. The rotation's solid, and it all feels really fun. I personally love that your
abilities really intertwine together with their rotation really well. Like if you use wildfire bombs, it reduces the cooldown on other abilities. Then if you down on another ability. Then you have tip of the spear procs to make sure you
And then you have your really awesome apex talent for, you know, downtime and great. Then you have the big shotgun blast little channel in front of you. I I I mean, it's awesome. I think they did a really really good job. And uh one of
that you have the dough wield thing back. I thought really that was awesome thematically. Now I can have a little dough wield action and there could be that. But I would say for me this spec is just really solid. I think if you're
interested in at least trying out this whole bomb spec rather than, you know, what a lot of people wish it was about, which is poisons, traps, black arrow, that sort of thing, I think this is a really good choice for a main heading
into midnight. Really, really fun. Explosives are fun. The shotgun channel know, customize the transmog of the shotgun though cuz it makes no sense. I have like a futuristic mod going on and I'm whipping out like a 1900 shotgun. It
I'd be really happy. Really excited for survival heading into Midnight. All right, next up now, another really big surprise back to back is Outlaw Rogue, man. Um, and I got to say this one really surprised me because I have a
really big grudge against Outlaw Rogue. I've had a big grudge against them for a comments. I've argued in the live streams, on the podcast, on the videos, everywhere. I've argued that I think Outlaw is horrible and it needs drastic
changes. Now, Outlaw did get some pretty drastic changes. Roll the Bones. It's not entirely reworked, but it's substantially better. It's not like something good, you're going to slam, and then if you roll something bad,
you're you're dead in the water. It's not like that anymore. It's a little bit of a more middle ground, which is good. Not only that, they lowered their APM just a little bit, so you're not some non-stop spammy like carpal tunnel
causing class anymore. Clean that up a little bit. And now they're focusing more on like big setup windows with between the eyes giving you percentage damage increase with the rework on that. And then you tie that with your apex
backtoback between the eyes uh constantly. It feels way more know, you're mashing a button, a bunch of buttons, and then hoping the dice cleaned it up. It's really good. I think the spec is a lot of fun to pilot right
you're planning your rotation a couple global cooldowns ahead. You're lining moments. And listen, you still get that chaotic, you know, outlaw proc and RNG aspect, but it's not as like hit or miss, dead or alive feeling. You know
what I mean? Man, there have been times where I'm on my Outlaw Rogue and I'm dealing no damage. I feel like I don't like I'm not rolling good dice. I'm not getting between the eyes procs. The crack shot isn't coming. What's going
on? What's the problem? But now it's a little bit less and the damage is more. this spec so far. The only thing I don't love about Outlaw is the whole blade damage. Uh, that kind of sucks and I
personally. That's what I think. But this is looking like it's going to be my main alternate character heading into Midnight. But I would say it's a great interested in trying Outlaw, I would say give it a try on beta because it really,
really surprised me. Moving on next to our first warrior spec, we got Fury, is a big shocker here for me personally. Once again, this is another spec that I've had a grudge against for a very long time. I think Blizzard has needed
to really redesign this spec and change a lot of things drastically. Now, from a almost exactly the same. You're still doing, you know, your rampage, your bloodthirst, your raging blow, and that that's your still core aspect, right?
But they drastically reworked a lot of their talent trees. Their talent trees before were so bad. I hated them so much. I thought it was so boring, so bland. But they've really leaned now into that class fantasy that's like once
the Fury Warrior gets up and running, the damage gets out of control. And I think that's a really cool class fantasy for Fury Warrior. I think overall moment to moment with Fury, it still feels really good because your rotation has
stayed the same and other players, you know, specs and classes have slowed down a little bit. It gives Fury a thematic and really cool, I guess, gameplay style Warcraft, which is cool. Still got the rampage, the Thunderclap or whirlwind,
depending on the hero talents, raging blow, bloodthirst, but then you got these really big setup windows with obviously avatar pairing with your talent, which reduces the rage cost of everything, which increases your damage
and all that fun stuff. So, once again, once you get up and rolling with fury, fun. I love that class fantasy and I think it's really cool. I'd say if still going to love Fury. You're still going to love Arms and you'll probably
even love pro because that's just how warrior players are. Overall, I think this is a really great spec. Man, I I'm so close to picking this up as my main rogue. Fury warrior is right there for me. But I I think this is a really
really solid spec looking in Midnight so far. Next up, ladies and gentlemen, what is there to say about Havoc? Uh Havoc is Havoc. It's still Havoc. They're still flying around. Same core loop, movement heavy, uh uh I would say spammy play
style. It just carries over into Midnight, mostly untouched. They made say the one of the bigger things is like Glaive Tempest uh is being passive, gutted. It looks like no one's going to play that, which I think is a good
thing. Um and that being said though, it it really hasn't evolved. Um, the rotation feels identical top to bottom. And you might hear me say this a lot throughout the video, but I think when you go into a brand new expansion, you
almost two years, brand new expansion, I think it'd be fun to have a couple new toys to play with. When I'm going into a new expansion, the first thing I'm like, okay, what is changing about my class? And when I checked Havoc, not really
much happened. And I don't want to say I was upset, but I would have liked some new toys to play with. For example, you got other classes like this arms demon hunter, feral druid. Those are like the big four for melee that nothing
a couple more toys. I would say for me though, having demon hunter is definitely alt worthy. Um or something I'd like to play casually, especially Really cool spec, by the way. We'll talk about that in another video. Um so,
right now. If Havoc or Demon Hunter in general, and and then you got Devour, a new toy to play with coming soon. Next up, we have the other rogue spec, which is the assassination. The last one on the A tier, I would say. And the biggest
change here is how much better the bleed gameplay and dot spreading style feels now. It's infinitely better. Crimson Tempest, it got reworked. It's not a finisher anymore. It's just an ability that you press, it costs some energy,
enemies around you. So, you have that whenever you want now, and it feels to get your bleed spread. You don't have to vanish. You don't have to pray your tank slows down to do this. It's really, really good. So, it's not awkward
gameplaywise, Assassination, they've really dove into that deliberate big setup, you know, energy pooling in venom windows. They've
dove into that big apply your bleeds to get you up and running and then you got those big, you know, invenom chunky windows for burst and cash everything in when that happens. So, when it clicks, it feels good and it's satisfying. Um,
though, it it feels like a better version of feral druid. I'm just being completely real. That said, it's still sometimes there are some players out there who just want to go in there and
press buttons. Enhancement shaman, survival hunter, outlaw rogue, I would Those are classes you go in, press buttons, deal damage, everything's fun. lot of setup. It's a lot of management, a lot of preparation, and then the big
payoff. Some people like it, some people don't. So, for me personally, I like that every so often, but I never like to pick that character as my main because it can be kind of exhausting doing that. I would say for assassination, I do
think they're going to perform the best this expansion for the overall sense of rogues. But I would pick Outlaw as like an alternate character over Assassination because it's a lot more chill, calm, laidback, roll the dice, I
you know what I mean? So, I thought that was cool. I would say if you like slower for you. Still a great spec. Very excited about this spec overall. Definitely a big W. Moving on to what we just spoke about, Feral Druid. Uh, feral
druid is another similar class to assassination. I would say a couple of the big key changes for Feral, they've made your energy starvation, I would say better, but you need to really talent into it. Not only that, they cleaned up
a few of their talents on their talent tree, including adaptive swarm. Uh they made snapshotting bleeds easier entirely, which is good. Uh you have snapshot, which is easier for that. With that being said, however, the core
gameplay, like I said before with Havoc, it's essentially exactly the same. They gave him a nice little AoE feral frenzy, which is cool. They gave him Chomp, it's pure single target for raid. I would say one of the biggest issues is
that they deal incredible damage during their cooldown windows with feral druid, coolown windows, your incarnation, things feel slow, things feel stiff, your damage drops, and it doesn't feel great. I think the class is still very
going on. It could just be a lot to ask of a player over and over to do that outside of those cooldown windows, it's not great. A class like this, retribution paladin, havoc demon hunter, I wanted a little bit more for them.
Frell is just one of those specs where if you've ever played feral, you're it. It's just one of those classes that if you play it and you've played it for I think it's a good alternate character choice. Very risky for a main because
Frell's always up and down whether they're a hit or a miss. I'm a little bit weary about playing feral. So, for me, it's probably going to be a heriner feral druid as an alternate character uh come post launch. Moving on. Next, we
have to bring up now the second DPS warrior spec, which is the arms warrior. Now, I would say this spec feels very opposite than it does to fury in a lot of ways. Arms didn't get like a massive rework, uh but midnight did smooth out a
lot of the weird and clunky interactions with the spec. It's still very much Arms Warrior, very slow, deliberate, big, chunky hits. I just still think their ARMS talent tree, it needs a lot of work because I think it's all over the place.
It needs to be designed substantially better in my opinion. You're still setting up for big mortal strikes with like two overpowers, a couple executes, your Colossus Smash windows, Avatar, and everything else. And then you're lining
up for big juicy mortal strikes, big juicy execute windows, and it does just needs to be cleaned up. I really don't like it. I will say ARMS is a lot a good thing for people who want a slower sense style of gameplay. It just
it feels like ARMS is one of those specs. It desperately needs gear, stats, and everything else in between to feel good because if you don't have it, the payoff is not worth it in my opinion. And then you're just a class that feels
slow with no meaning, which is just bad in my opinion. So, I think early on Fury is going to take the cake and then ARMS is going to pick up uh later on down the line with maybe some progression stuff. Uh for me, I would say once again, Arms
comfortably altw worthy. Uh still a very cool spec. I'm very close to having my main character. We'll have to see come launch day. I don't know. It's a game day decision, but we will have to say I think arms is very fun. Moving on next,
we now have to talk about another juggernaut melee DPS, the frost death knight. Now, this spec stayed exactly the same from War Within to Midnight. didn't get a massive identity shift. The problem is that Unholy just got a
ginormous change. They just got a brand new head coach. They got a bunch of new players. They traded for a bunch of people. They're the new kid on the block. They're the hot team to talk about. So, they're feeling really good.
really changed. You know what I mean? So, their respect that's still very bursty every 45 seconds to minute and a half. If you're into that sort of thing, you're going to love this spec because they they killed it. They beautiful
design on frost death knight across the board. I typically steer away from frost death knight because god forbid I I play solo and I try to go into like a mythic plus, you know, I pop all my cooldowns. Either my tank dies or the tank stops
don't get enough use out of my cooldowns. then he pulls a lot of mobs things can get kind of iffy and kind of messed up with frost death knight if So that's a bit of an issue just like it was for fire mage in the war within. I
would say the rotation is a lot smoother than before. Feels good. Animations are this is a substantially better version than frost DK. Problem is unholy DK is Moving on next now to one of the more simple glasses in the game. Uh we have
to talk about the retribution paladin. Now, retribution once again, it kind of just carries forward to what it was since the rework. Now, nothing massive Within into Midnight, which is fine. Simple builder spender spec. Uh,
gameplay style is very similar. A very, very hyper consistent DPS spec in mythic plus. Uh, very easy to like drive and pilot, and you can be effective very easily, I would say. Not only that, I also feel like retribution paladin's
like the main character in World of Warcraft. So, I do think that's a pretty cool selling point. The problem is is just Retro Mission overall just didn't get that next evolution level up that I thought it was going to get come
midnight. Maybe one or two more things added to it to make it really feel cool and really change up the gameplay variety and spice. Cuz the problem is is every 25 seconds you rinse and repeat. You got your wake of ashes, you build
and pairing hammers around you and and you're you're golden pony boy. The problem is is it's smooth, it's accessible, but every 2530 seconds it just it's repetitive. It's a little bit stiff and it doesn't surprise me
anymore. That's my only problem with Rep Paladin. It's fun and it's a good design for what it is. I've just seen this for the last two, you know, two years, two and a half years, and it's a little bit a little bit bland to me now. We need a
think Retribution's a really good class that you could pick up as an alternate character right now. Right now, Paladin as a whole is doing really good on the beta. So, you could play any one of
me, I'd probably pick up Protection Paladin over Rhett and then, you know, goof off with Rhett every once in a while. Moving on next, we do have the Windalker Monk, man. Um, Windalker Monk. This kind of hurts to say because this
got a pretty heavy tuning pass heading into Midnight. A lot of things changed. Talent tree top to bottom is pretty much changed. Um, the rotation is a bit cleaner. Um, there's less button bloat. The most important thing is like the
fewer awkward dead moments with Wind Walker where you're either energy starved or cheese starved. So, it's a lot less of that. The problem is is I point where they took out too many things of what made Windalker feel
special. And what I mean by that, those big like bursty spiky damage moments like every 30, 40 seconds, 20 seconds, know, Last Emperor's Capacitor used to feel great. TheQi burst explosion once
you, you know, build up the chi and then you spend it in your spinning cane kick. Uh, the slicing winds paired with your condor to celestials talents and stuff, all, you know, it's not mostly there anymore. A lot of it got taken out,
which kind of sucks. It just feels a lot more controlled, which personally I don't love. For me, this is going to be a spec that I would very casually try and play. maybe a couple Mythic Plus dungeons because I'm not really invested
in Monk right now anyway. I I'm not loving how Monk is looking so far heading into Midnight. So, you know, for me personally, it's it's going to sadly be most likely a pass. And then lastly, ladies and gentlemen, for the melee DPS,
we have Subrogue. Uh I'm going to stuff Subrogue in the D tier. And I'll tell you why right now. The biggest change is that Subrogue got simplified. Yeah. Haha. Very funny, Sky. Just everyone got simplified. Yeah, but subro rogue got
simplified to the levels of like fire mage simplification. Subrogue used to be mage simplification. Subrogue used to be a spec that was very very complicated but incredibly rewarding. There was a high skill ceiling for subro rogue
players and usually if you played with a subro rogue they were going to whip ass. And now it's to the point where like subroges rotation is quite literally shadow dance, shadow strike, finisher, or if you're in an AoE, you shuriken
storm, and then, you know, you black powder. Uh, don't love it. I think it's away a lot of buttons and things that made them super fun and interesting and and and used to have a lot of thought process into it like cudigra and then
you know timing up your your symbols of death and then running the cooldowns cooldown windows with shadow dance properly and it's just all gone. So now it's just very straightforward and bland and it's literally three button
rotation. I don't love it. Nothing none of this blows me away. And for me this is honestly a hard pass. Um, and less subtlety is probably already your I don't think it's bad, but compared to
how many melee specs got more fun, more expressive, more satisfying. Sub just, man, it feels very behind. I'm I'm quite upset because I thought sub at least had a place in being that spec that was like super complicated, super high skill
ceiling. Not anymore. It's just not very fun. So, yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is going to wrap up today's video. Uh, you can see the final list on screen to be making a ton more videos on Midnight World of Warcraft. So, hope you
you're interested in earning a free copy of Midnight World of Warcraft from the description below and sign up for the giveaway, which we will be doing very soon. Hey everybody, thanks for watching. If you enjoyed the content,
consider subscribing or check out one of the videos you see on screen here to My name is Sky for the Comeback Kids. It's an absolute pleasure to make content for you all. I'll see you in the next one. Peace.