---
title: 'WHO’S FUN? 12.1 Melee DPS Tier List'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=7PdJHTY1pXM'
video_id: '7PdJHTY1pXM'
date: 2026-08-03
duration_sec: 1565
---

# WHO’S FUN? 12.1 Melee DPS Tier List

> Source: [WHO’S FUN? 12.1 Melee DPS Tier List](https://youtube.com/watch?v=7PdJHTY1pXM)

## Summary

The video presents a subjective tier list of melee DPS specs in World of Warcraft's 12.1 patch, focusing purely on how fun each spec is to play. The creator shares personal opinions on each spec's tier set and gameplay changes, interspersed with a lengthy sponsored segment for Raid: Shadow Legends.

### Key Points

- **Introduction to Melee DPS Tier List** [00:04] — The video ranks melee DPS specs based on fun in the upcoming 12.1 patch, with initial playtesting results. The creator notes surprising fun on some specs and disappointment on others.
- **Arms Warrior Tier Set** [00:33] — Arms Warrior's tier set revolves around Slam, making it a more integral part of the rotation. The creator finds Slam not particularly interesting, but appreciates the change from focusing on Mortal Strike and Overpower, moving it to 'decently fun'.
- **Melee Gameplay in 12.1** [01:39] — The creator states that melee gameplay in 12.1 is 'crisp' and looks forward to playing more melee, despite the first season being melee-unfriendly. The downside is longer queue times as they refuse to tank.
- **Raid: Shadow Legends Sponsor Segment** [02:07] — A lengthy sponsored segment for Raid: Shadow Legends, where the creator discusses their enjoyment of the game and promotes a promo code for a legendary champion.
- **Assassination Rogue** [05:28] — Assassination Rogue is 'decently fun'. The tier set doesn't change much, but a capstone change increases Envenom damage while reducing the refresh window, making it finicky in single target but better in AoE.
- **Outlaw Rogue** [06:46] — Outlaw Rogue is a 'winner' and has been for a while. Recent buffs and talent changes addressing the 'hidden opportunity' playstyle are promising. The creator loves the 'keep it rolling' gameplay and considers it a main candidate for season 2.
- **Survival Hunter** [08:05] — Survival Hunter is 'decently fun' but the tier set is 'incredibly bland'. The creator misses the previous wildfire bomb/boomstick loop and feels the spec has dipped due to talent gate increases.
- **Enhancement Shaman** [09:11] — Enhancement Shaman is 'absolutely a blast to play' with incredible baseline gameplay. The tier set is passive, focusing on Voltaic Blaze and fire damage, but doesn't impact gameplay much. It offers talent diversity.
- **Feral Druid** [10:51] — Feral Druid is at the top of 'decently fun' but doesn't get proper changes. Chomp was buffed, but single target damage is still a concern. The uncapped AoE is great, but the playstyle is unchanged for years.
- **Frost Death Knight** [12:09] — Frost Death Knight has 'leveled up' but is not gigafun due to nerfs to Frostwyrm's Fury and Breath of Sindragosa. The philosophy of moving damage away from burst doesn't suit the spec, making it tedious. It might drop a tier.
- **Fury Warrior** [13:47] — Fury Warrior is one of the most fun melees, but has tuning issues. Raging Blow is weak, and the tier set extends Recklessness via Raging Blow, creating a finicky priority. The gameplay is 'crazy good' but suffers from tuning.
- **Havoc Demon Hunter** [17:05] — Havoc has 'leveled up' with a tier set that brings back Essence Break, creating a manageable damage window. The creator enjoys weaving Essence Break and considers it a main contender if it stays this way.
- **Retribution Paladin** [18:55] — Retribution Paladin's tier set is 'really interesting' and fun, allowing Divine Storm to consume Divine Purpose and buff Templar's Verdict with a spectacular animation. The creator wishes it were in the talent build.
- **Subtlety Rogue** [20:34] — Subtlety Rogue is 'a little bit meh'. Gormma's Bite changes are announced but uncertain. The spec has lost burst identity and feels dumbed down, lacking flavor outside of AoE spam.
- **Unholy Death Knight** [22:08] — Unholy's tier set is passive but makes Magus of the Dead shoot empowered spells. A capstone change combines three Magi into a 'super lord of the dead' with crazy damage. Visually incredible but lacks gameplay change.
- **Windwalker Monk** [24:12] — Windwalker has decent gameplay, better than Subtlety. The tier set buffs Rising Sun Kick after Fists of Fury, enforcing rotational restriction. However, the Dance of Chi becoming a passive proc feels like a loss of identity.

### Conclusion

The video provides a subjective but detailed overview of melee DPS fun in 12.1, highlighting standout specs like Outlaw Rogue, Fury Warrior, and Havoc Demon Hunter, while criticizing bland tier sets and tuning issues. The creator's personal bias and the lengthy sponsor segment are notable aspects.

## Transcript

The tier sets are in. Dungeons can be tested and melee DPS are. Are they fun? season? Dude, I don't know. But I had surprising amount of fun on specs, I did not expect to have fun. And on some of these, at least in the initial version
of their play testing in 12.1, have been kind of disappointing. I'm not going to lie to you. But what is the winner, the loser in terms of fun for meleps in the numbers yet. So, we're just going to look at pure fun and we're going to
look at pure fun and we're going to start it off with arms warrior arms as is. So, it uh it okay, I will put it in the middle and I'll tell you why. The tier set essentially revolves around slam being a more integral part of ARMS.
And I don't particularly mind slam. I know this is a contentious uh topic for a lot of ARMS players when it comes to slam. I just don't find it necessarily interesting in the way that it plays. It's It's great, but unless they kind of
buff slammed like really feeling powerful or meaty, that's great. But then again, it's just going to feel like a a cheaper version of Mortal Strike. To be fair, I'm just happy that ARMS is getting a tier set that's different from
focusing on Mortal Strike and Overpower. And I've changed my mind. I'm actually moving this guy back into decently fun because I realized we haven't had a tier set that was Mortal Strike and Overpower in a while. And all in all, despite the
first season being very me melee unfriendly, I'm actually really looking forward for the second season to play more melee cuz I want to take my orc and smash things. I'm telling you, the melee gameplay in 2.1 is actually crisp. The
only downside is that I will have to just wait for cues once again cuz from how it's looking out right now, ain't no way I'm tanking. I need to scratch my big guys uses big axe on enemy face itch. And the waiting for 12.1 and Q's
is generally killing me. Guess I'm just going to scratch my itch with my guilty pleasure, baby. Bring in my orcs. Oh yeah, this game has what I need. Every time I pop it open and look at my orcs, I can't help but think, why can WoW look
this cool? It's one of its only downsides. Maybe not exactly like raid, but orcs with a bit more metal and spikes, chicks with more, or rather less. Never mind, I got distracted by my shaman. Listen, I know what people say
about Raid, okay? Its audience is definitely unique. I'm part of that. As a 35-year-old adult, I have very little time to get my badass fantasy fix. And I cannot do it in WoW anymore because, well, you know why. And popping raid
while waiting for a tank just to farm one more mission or when waiting for the boss or when doing other activities is my adult guilty pleasure. Grinding like a maniac is how I enjoy RPGs. And when I hit my wall on my orcs team, I realized
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have one, but still, it is yet another legendary. Man, why couldn't they have had this when I started? I already mentioned Grand Oak or Padre, which is what I would recommend you take, but you can actually pick another one of these
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three legendary champions and one epic one as well. Give it a try. See if it scratches some of your itches. Maybe not with orcs like it does for me, but whatever. Dozens of every race I have seen in any fantasy game ever. And now
back to melee DPS being fun. Assassination Rogue doesn't have to be an orc. However, it is decently fun. Now, assassination is going through a controversial phase right now. I am actually a rogue enjoyer
at the moment. The tier set doesn't necessarily make it any more fun or less fun in the new season. It's part of the the group of this is a boring set that doesn't really change much. It did however receive a change in the capstone
which I forget what the name of it is but now the increases the invenom damage and also reduces the time window in which you can refresh in venom in. Normally this would be great. However, the damage increase is not big enough to
bit finicky in single target because the window becomes just very very small. And if you don't refresh your invenom at about five to six combo points, you're about five to six combo points, you're going to end up losing that extra damage
increase window, making stuff like the stalker almost impossible to play properly unless you just like are insanely lucky with your combo points. But this essentially gets to be better in AoE. Now, this is just one minor
change. This doesn't really impact the whole spec as a whole too much. However, I already like assassination. It is pretty fun. Season 2 just continues on that fun. Outlaw Rogue has just received buffs
just after I've tested it recently, and I cannot understand exactly how good it is, but the buffs are actually giving me big hopes for Outlaw. Outlaw is a winner and has been a winner for a while, and I absolutely suck at it and love every
coming to Outlaw Rogan, slight talent changes are addressing the hidden opportunity play style where you play a little bit more with ambush focused builds. And this is personally a my favorite way of playing Outlaw because I
However, even if this doesn't become like the go-to, the keep it rolling, killing spree preparation gameplay that we've been having so far with Outlaw is we've been having so far with Outlaw is absolutely delicious. Outlaw feels like
it's the only really wow spec that has decent amount of death into it. if you with your rotation in your class and you want a little bit more let's say skill was and I don't think it should be cuz that was a little bit too much but
outlaw is actually definitely fun and if the changes to hidden opportunity and audacity um the overall play on the left hand side I think audacity is getting changed too. If these changes actually bring some talent diversity for Outlaw,
it's looking like my one of the strongest main candidates I have for season two. Cannot really say the same about survival. However, I have been enjoying survival. Obviously, going into
Midnight, I this was one of the the top contenders for uh for my main actually the third after Rogue. Um, however, I am a little bit disappointed with the tier set because it's just incredibly bland. And ever since I've enjoyed survival as
much, things have changed a little bit. Builds don't really feature the type of love with survival because the talent gates have been increased in in Midnight as a whole. So overall, it kind of dipped a little bit because uh the the
with this particular rework was when you could get flame fang pitch to also give you charges of wildfire bomb while also at the same time wildfire bomb reducing the cooldown of boomstick and boomstick
giving you charges of wildfire bomb. This loop of gameplay was absolutely considering that a lot of the specs are just bland nowadays. Unfortunately, you sacrifice Apex talents and I don't know if that's necessarily the best thing to
do and that's just a little salty point otherwise survival will be gigafan irrespective of its tier set because this tier set is actually very very bland. Enhancement though, dude. I feel like
every time a new PTR section uh comes out, I bump this bad boy all the way to max and I never really made it. I don't know what it is, dude. So maybe maybe don't trust me too much on this, but I do have to say that enhancement is
absolutely a blast to play. Baseline, the spec is actually incredible. It's super complex spec that a lot of people cannot play and actually simplify it cuz simplify it and still retain its core identity of what it makes what makes it
identity of what it makes what makes it to be so fun. And the tier set is still kind of kind of passive to be fair. um is mostly around you pressing voltake blaze and um fire and noa just happening passively around at least it's
not RNG so that's maybe great and it just received a recent buff to maybe have a little bit more single target damage or hopefully priority damage and that's something that we know a lot of specs could need a lot more of. However,
once again the tier doesn't seem to impact the gameplay in any way and that's a big shame. I actually have a personal problem with these tier sets that do this. Um, but at least it offers some talent diversity since right now
And you would think that a voltaic blaze/fire damage ccentric play style would focus more on tomic rather than stormbringer. Either it's an issue of really matter whatsoever we'll end up seeing. But so far, whatever you pick
with enhancement, you cannot go wrong. Oo, feral druid. Also a spec that I've that I've that I always really enjoy playing, but it never really catches catches my attention. I'm going to put it in at the top of decently fun because
uh it is I do consider it better than uh than the other ones by by just a little bit. The only reason why I cannot put it into gigafun is cuz it just doesn't get any proper changes, man. Well, it did receive a couple of changes. Some
talents moved around recently and they did buff Chomp a lot, but that that capstone and that's mostly probably going to be in single target while I actually engage with all of these specs mostly in mythic plus since I can only
raid once per week, but I can just do way more dungeons per week. So, that's just the nature of endgame content. However, Feral is still completely fun and incredible. It just received a bunch of buffs on live as well, and it looks
AoE and a decent single target. Single target is definitely something that I have felt really discouraged me from playing feral. Like I don't really care too much about damage when it comes to fun, but when I'm doing like 20 to 30%
especially in dungeons. Well, I mean, not especially in dungeons cuz single but in dungeons still, you need that boss damage cuz the higher you scale in keys, the bigger the bosses become a a larger problem than the actual AoE
with its uncapped AoE. It's just absolutely great. But it's just it's lot of other specs in the game. It's just the exact same play style we've had for years. Take away blood talents which we don't have anymore and that just
simplifies a little bit more so you have like fewer little things that you can do and and juggle. Frost death knight has leveled up. Um I was going to put it into gigafun but now I'm thinking about it as well because
I'm thinking about it as well because frost bane has been turbora has been nerfed as well. And I feel like Frost Death Knight in season 1 is way better. Frost death knight in season one is basically Gigafan material, but in
feels like they're undergoing some changes. To be fair, Frost Death Knight is maybe the biggest uh problem when it comes to their philosophy of damage. Not melee. When it comes to their philosophy of moving damage away from burst to more
consistent, because that's just not what Frost Death Knight does. Everything has been giga nerfed and breath of I don't think nerfing breath of cynosa
to frost death knights. The only reason that cooldown is of any interest to anybody considering how difficult even after the simplified gameplay of it uh maintain is the fact that it does a lot of damage and moving damage away from
it. It just becomes tedious. I feel like that's a big L that they did. I don't think that's going to make Frost Death Knight a better class. If anything, it up just playing Obliteration once again for another season, I think Frost Death
Knight might even drop another tier by the end of 12.1. We'll see how that plays out. What will not drop is freaking Fury Warrior, dude. Um, I feel this is I think the second or third season that I
one of the most fun melees in the game. And then once the season launches, it Probably because that's when fury warrior actually gets its nerfs. Now, fury warrior has a couple of problems. That's uh it has one of the best tier
with fury warrior is that raging blow sucks balls. It's terrible to have an ability called raging blow and to deal so little damage that you actively want to ignore it. And the only reason you're putting points into talents that buff
its damage is because those talents buff other abilities as well. So, this is a major tuning issue that Fury, from what I understand, has been having for a but once I went back into it and tested this stuff is like it's it's also wild.
Not to mention that they want to bring back Raging Blow with the tier set. And they they kind of are, at least from my little personally uh napkin math testing that I've done with Fury Warrior. So, what the tier set does is now when you
pop recklessness, casting uh bloodthirst will increase the crit chance of recklessness or it says the crit power of recklessness. I don't know. It's it's it should be the crit chance, right? It and it caps it to two two times. So, you
more crit with blood thirst. So, two blood thirst will basically give you recklessness. Raging blow will also extend recklessness by I believe 2 seconds up to a total of six. Now, normally you never cast raging blow
almost ever unless you don't have any other ability to do so. But if you do do that, then you actually don't end up having time to cast it in recklessness naturally wouldn't get the recklessness
extension uh from the raging blow effect of the tier set. However, if you do because it turns out that getting six more seconds of recklessness is way more damage than the damage you lose by casting recklessness over or crushing
recklessness over bloodthirst. But you're probably going to be playing reckless abandon anyway. So, it's crushing blow over uh over blood bath. And because you do more damage by extending that recklessness, that means
it's very unclear where you want to fit this. for instance, it makes a lot of sense with the tier set for you to want to use the two blood baths really early into your recklessness to get that crit bonus up as fast as possible so you can
have 10% more crit for a larger duration of your recklessness. And then recklessness duration, you will use crushing blow. Now, I have played this better. Not to mention in single target, it kind of feels like you're going to be
playing slayer still. We'll see what the final numbers will say. and you have to force a crushing blow either uh ahead of blood blood bath in your priority or ahead of your execute procs from your slayer in when it comes to mountain
thing. I think you just get way too many thunder blast procs. Um it which is way worse to play because you also get the bursts of power that make your bloodthirst not have a cool down or blood bath not have a cool down. So
feels like you almost have no time to press crushing blow and that feels you're going to be capping on blood baths and thunder blast at the same time. So it's a little bit finicky. The game play is crazy good but it feels
like it's suffering from tuning issues where the average player might not even actually a DPS loss outside of recklessness. And that is a problem.
Lo and behold, Havoc has leveled up. And I have heard people complain, and I hear I have heard people complain, and I hear you. I don't agree. Havoc has again, similar to fear warriors, one of the best tier sets, or no, it's a good tier
set, but Havoc itself by itself has an amazing tier set that brings back essence break. So, essence break right now. Um, it it benefits from the same bonuses that cycle of hatred, I believe, gets. So you can lower its cool down and
you can have more essence breaks out there and it does a lot of damage. Or is Either way, you get to play essence break and now essence break becomes a manageable window that increases your your your damage amps a little bit more
we are in a world where they want to take away burst damage away. However, take away burst damage away. However, Havoc has never really had crazy crazy burst up until recently when it got its new rework. Now, if you're playing like
hunt, you have a lot of burst and very little consistent damage. Um, and the it's kind of like a weird situation where hopefully they don't nerf the havoc burst too much. I don't think they've touched it almost at all and
instead keep its damage up high cuz it's been kind of lacking for a while. However, in terms of gameplay, weaving in essence break personally, it's a favorite of mine because it just gives me something to do outside of just build
that just ends up being boring considering that it doesn't really look Reaver anytime soon. Not with the current numbers that we have as far as I know. So, at the very least, let me actually play a little bit of mini game
with essence break cuz otherwise it's just a boring spec. But if it stays this just a boring spec. But if it stays this way, it is a big big big main contender. way, it is a big big big main contender. Oh my god, dude. Red Paladin.
watched on our channel, but Red Paladin is never really a spec that I enjoyed boring and has nothing really interesting going for it. Unless we're talking about the tier set, which is constantly getting iterated upon because
the tier set that that red play paladins have actually needs to be tracked and unusual for red paladins that just mash their their faces on their keyboard, right? That's right, paladins. I said it. Um, it's actually really interesting
channel after you've watched this one. It's actually really fun. So much fun that I really want them to put this into the talent build because it adds player gives not necessarily a bit of randomness to the rotation, but a change
of pace rather than just being incredibly predictable proc. the fact that you can consume divine purpose uh with divine storm to give Templar's Verdict a buff right now. And the Templar's Verdict, oh my god, can we
talk about the animation? So, when you consume your Divine Purpose with Divine Storm on your foreset, your next two Templar's Verdict or Final Verdicts get arbiter at the enemy. I don't know if this is the old arbiter talent that we
had or it's like a totally new one, but when you do like like missiles of holy light, just blast your enemies and when you're in AoE is just glorious, dude. The way it looks like this is an example of an actual tier set that should exist
of an actual tier set that should exist in a goddamn RPG MMO or otherwise, and this tier set, then you read the survival one, it's just like it's just eating good in season 2. And I am happy for you guys. You you you should you
The subtlety is a little bit me to be fair. Um also just before we recorded this video, they've announced Gormma's bite changes for subtlety rogue, which I don't know how it will end up
translating because we've had Gormma's bite buffs before. I believe it was uh before the season 2 of Dragonfly when I test it in the PTR. I or maybe that's strong. And then just before the season launched, just before the PTR cycle was
over, they nerfed it into the ground and you never played it since. And I I'm not now. I don't even know if Gormma's bite is strong enough to be played. But I crave more gameplay for Subtlety, bro, because it's been just dumbed down a
little bit. Now I'm saying dumb down. Now I don't give a [ __ ] Subtlety has of fun to pop, you know, the Shadow Dance Burst, but they're taking burst away from the game. And I don't know how long survival survival subtlety has
as well cuz it did lose a lot of burst identity going into midnight period. I don't know what the subtlety has anymore outside of just spamming black powder AoE like a maniac or evviscerating single target. I just it doesn't have
enough flavor for me and I'm and with this still I love it. So it's it cannot go worse than no could play it. I feel like subtlety for for me will always be, oh, I need a little bit of break from assassination or outlaw. It's never
bland. It doesn't feel like this is a spec that belongs in a 20-year-old MMO. Believe it or not, Unholy got new changes, not a lot of changes, and I am
going to put it slightly. I think it's slightly ahead of Frost. I then I realized it's not quite there. Its tier set is also kind of passive. However, if we're going to have a
passive tier set, we might as well have the kind that Unholy has where now your maguses uh shoot out empowered versions of their original spells, which is actually really really great because they now you feel like your magazes
change anything that you do. And this is my problem with a lot of these tier sets. still uh summon your lesser ghouls, you putrify them, you which instead summons your magazes and they deal damage. And it doesn't matter how
how fast you summon as long as you don't cap on resources. It doesn't really matter how many magazines you have out, how strong they are, they just they will doesn't really matter. However, with the changes to one of its capstone, which I
also have a video that I think it it didn't go live just yet, but it will come soon where if you once you summon your third uh Magus of the Dead, they actually combine like Power Rangers into this super lord of the dead, which is
like a mini Keltus Lich dude that just does crazy crazy damage. Now, this is also augmented a lot about by the tier set. So, I don't know how good this is once the tier set goes away, but that's for future unholys to worry about.
Visually, it looks incredible. The fact that there's no gameplay change is kind of boring and we keep seeing more and more additions to this where it's just that's great, but we need to kind of feel like there's a change in our in our
moment to moment rotation as well. Not to mention that diseases seem even more before. or you're even going to play more pets. And I don't know why I'm fun gameplay, but maybe I'm explaining to you why it's not a gig of fun and
it's only decently fun because death knight is such a winner class in Midnight so far that it's just a shame that we're just dropping the ball in the last last minute. And last but not least, a Windalker
monk. Now, Windalker has decent gameplay. It's kind of like surv. better than subtlety. I'll put it in front of C subtlety in terms of its overall gameplay. Obviously, it has more interaction. However, for me, the the
windalker has gone with the midnight rework and it's not coming back in season 2 and the tier set is also on the better side when it comes to it. Fist of fury actually buffing your next sun kick or spinning crank kick is
your fist of fury, you always want to press these abilities. maybe they can enforce a little bit of a rotational restriction and that's better than just passive damage because at least you feel like you're using your tier set. Now
of wind walker, you're probably going to be using rising sun after a fist of fury set. However, the fact that the dance of chi is now just a passive simple proc feel feel feel feel feel feel feels like a big identity for Windalker has been
crank it kind of feels like a little bit of salt in the wound of what it used to be, what it could have been and what it is actually not at the moment. And maybe that's coloring or texturing my opinion of Windalker a little bit too much and
this is how I view the spec. Unfortunately, for my personal bias, I have played these specs in past iterations where I would consider they played way better, and it's kind of hard to judge them. It's kind of hard not to
judge them rather in comparison to that version of themselves. Once again though, if you want to support your boys in the future, check our link for Raid: Shadow Legends in the description or the QR code on the screen. Not only do you
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