Midnight Ranged DPS Tier List — Full Breakdown & Transcript

[00:01] here. Some classes are feeling great on the beta, while others are sadly in the loser department and could definitely use some updates. In today's video, we're breaking down the most fun range DPS you can play in Midnight World of

[00:14] Warcraft. Remember, this is based off of fun, design, and feel rather than raw gentlemen, don't forget to 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

[00:27] Comeback Kids. Okay, last video we had enhancement shaman first. Up on this video first on the S tier, we're putting elemental here. This is easily one of the cleanest examples of how to prune a spec in World of Warcraft without just

[00:41] just lose their identity. Easily one of the biggest wins I would say for Elemental is the rework to their talent tree. They did a lot of really good things. They streamlined a lot of, you know, bad talent nodes that I thought

[00:53] into just much cooler things and thematic choices. It's definitely easier to differentiate the fire path. You're going to be going down far with like obviously enhancing lava burst, flame shock, and the brand new Voltaic Blaze

[01:05] ability, which is your AoE flame shock, which then gives you an AoE lava burst to shoot out, which you can combine that with lava surge or even your ancestral burst. It feels really, really nice. And then you have the different side of the

[01:19] lightning side for stormbringer which is amplifying chain lightning lightning rod damage your you know maelstrom spenders and stuff like that. So that's a really fun style of gameplay. Best AoE filler spell in the game with chain lightning.

[01:32] It does so much damage for honestly no reason. I also love the miniame of trying to upkeep your three elemental blast buffs at once. So as the fight goes on you get stronger which is really fun. What I also love about Shaman is of

[01:44] got all their totems. They bring blood lust, crowd control, you name it, the shaman has it. And if you combine that with how much fun they are by in pretty much every group possible. So, I think they hit the nail on the head

[01:57] with elemental, a superstar spec so far on the midnight beta. Moving on next, we this is a class that is probably the biggest surprise on the entire list. classes that got pretty much a toptobottom rework, but it's easily

[02:13] amongst one of the best overhauls in the game by far. It always feels like Frost Mage is lagging behind Arcane or Fire, either in terms of fun, damage, or just everything else because Frost has just always been known as that PvP like spec.

[02:28] You know, it's never been glaringly broken or super fun for PvE. But man, this time around, it's just a chef's kiss. It's in terms of gameplay, damage, kiss. It's in terms of gameplay, damage, numbers, overall fun, unique style, all

[02:42] on the beta right now, everybody's playing Frost Mage. So, they gave them a really nice size rework. They gave them a new shatter system uh that works as like a debuff on enemies and then use ice lance to pop them or other abilities

[02:55] like comet storm as well. Um, not only that, they got rid of icy veins. They changed that for now ray of frost, which is your channel ray of frost ability. It could also deal some AOE damage. And I got to say, man, I think the core

[03:07] overall aspect of Frost, they nailed it. The visuals are phenomenal. The class theme is of course there with all the new animations, effects, and sounds and stuff. Uh the talent tree has a wide variety of builds that you can test out

[03:19] and try and go through. And I would say just moment to moment gameplaywise, Frost just feels very, very fluid. Not only that, both their hero talent trees, Spells Slinger and Frostfire, they're both respectively fun. They both have

[03:33] Slinger being based around like frozen orb, frostfire is being of course built around comet storm shattering in an AoE scenario to get a lot of your apex call down your comet storm, it AoE shatters everything, which causes your

[03:47] hand of frost, and it shoots on everybody, it explodes, does a bunch of damage. Really, really fun. I would say for me, this is absolutely main worthy. If you've ever thought and considered giving frost mage a try, there is

[03:59] literally no better time than this. They nailed it. Absolutely love it. Moving on nailed it. Absolutely love it. Moving on next to our next A++ tier spec. Very close to S, I would say, Affliction Warlock. Everything about this spec is

[04:12] gripe about it, which I'll talk about in a second. But they completely overhauled affliction, man. They took away that malefic rapture really annoying burst style of gameplay from Affliction, and they reworked them into that true damage

[04:27] overtime spec that we all know and love like back in the day. So substantially they dialed up the damage on all their dots. They made your soul shard spenders now unstable affliction and seed of corruption which is a blast. I mean this

[04:42] is it. This is what players that have enjoyed affliction in the past. This is what they've wanted for so long and it's finally back and it is banging. Man, I affliction, you know, you're back to micromanaging. You got to make sure

[04:56] You're spreading your corruption instantly with your seed of corruption, setting up really big like damage burst windows, and then boom, you just watch everything rot away and it is awesome. My only gripe about affliction is that

[05:11] you don't have vile taint anymore to instantly AoE spread your agony. You do have to like tab target agony and then it applies to two enemies at once. So, it's not that much of a pain, but I I do wish there was a way to either upkeep

[05:24] the damage overtime effect like shadow priest have right now or just instantly seconds like we have a vile tank. Other than that, I love this spec and it overtime version of affliction that personally I grew up playing uh you

[05:39] know, Mr. Pandaria and even Cataclysm. Now, if you're not interested in damage overtime specs, I mean obviously affliction might not be for you. Uh, but lot of people are going to be really excited for this. I could not be more

[05:52] excited. This can absolutely be anybody's main out there. 9.5 out of 10 in my opinion. Very, very good spec. Moving on next to a very big surprise. Devastation evoker sky. That's kind of crazy. Why would you put Devastation

[06:07] here? I thought Devastation was crap. No one plays it. It's boring. Well, not this time around. uh devastation going into Midnight. They didn't get a into Midnight. They didn't get a complete overhaul, but a few very key

[06:20] hero talents got updated and a very few key capstone talents got updated and it has shot Devastation's gameplay style to the moon for me personally. Firstly, uh flame shaper got overhauled pretty much. Your fire build is substantially easier

[06:35] to dive into. Pretty much consume flame is now passive. It's built into your py. So whenever you py it explodes the flame breath damage overtime effect on them consume flame which is great. So overall flame shaper is a lot easier and the

[06:49] whole fire tree is just a lot better. So having two charges of fire breath as well just feels great. I think the star of the show though in my opinion is scale commander though. This is so much fun. You still have the huge mass

[07:01] disintegrates. um you still call in your squadron and stuff whenever you pop your improvements is that you're able to use deep breath backto back with a talent called strafing run, which has you proc and activate a ton of different talents

[07:15] when you're scale commander, you have imminent destruction. You have things that lower the cooldown on deep breath. So your deep breath, you're activating buffs for you. You're debuffing enemies. You're dealing a

[07:28] again. And then by the time you deep breath twice, your deep breath is already off cooldown. So you're pretty much ready to go. So every 10 seconds to 15 seconds, you can pop a deep breath. And it's one of the most fun abilities

[07:41] ever played Devastation. So from a gameplay perspective, it's one of those classes that you're probably never going to get bored of. Both the hero talent trees are very, very fun and a lot better this time around in terms of

[07:54] gameplay and variety. But I would say if you love Devastation, it's an incredible time to play this spec. 100% looking great. Moving on, next we have the master of demons, which is the demonology warlock man. Wow, another

[08:08] next to each other. That's pretty shocking. Well, let me break down why. This is another example of Blizzard nailing the pet class fantasy, but also not pruning a class to where they're they lost their identity or they're not

[08:22] really thematic anymore. They cleaned up the talent tree and they drastically lowered the amount of complication and ramp required to get going for have to set up, you know, you got to get your dogs out, you got to get your

[08:35] amount of imps out, then you got to get your tyrant window going and it could be a lot to micromanage for, I guess, you know, newer players and stuff. Now, the cost for ramping is a lot lower. For example, your dread stalkers are now no

[08:48] soul shards. their instant cast and they also cast your charhound at the same exact time. So on one global cooldown instantly you're summoning a lot of your cooldown with summon doomguard which is great. You have pure single target DPS

[09:01] with a brand new eye of Gul'dan. Um there's just a lot of things working here that slides perfectly into that core fantasy of demonology summoning a such an amazing job. I will say from a gameplay perspective it's still your

[09:15] classic builder spender DPS. You're summoning a bunch of demons that flood locked in ready to go, you pop your tyrant and you're dealing big burst damage. And I also love that new talent where it makes your demonic tyrant in

[09:27] melee range and cleave enemies in front of you. That is really really cool. They they nailed it for me for demonology. I know demonology is pretty niche. Not a lot of people love the pet gameplay style. For me personally, I used to love

[09:39] I'm a sucker for this. I would say Warlock in general is definitely main character worthy as a as a class. But man, demonology in general for me is just a really solid choice. So much fun. It looks incredible, feels incredible,

[09:54] one of the most visually satisfying classes to play in the game. Love this spec. Moving on next though, another drastic change, ladies and gentlemen, we have Shadow Priest. Now listen, pretty

[10:07] much the whole theme of Shadow Priest has changed to now being more about old god tentacles and shadows rather than about the void cuz you know we're is going to devour a demon which we'll talk about in a second. But the overall

[10:21] gameplay of this spec, it's it's very similar to the war within, but there are a couple of improvements. Um, they're making void apparitions, I would say, more streamlined and like front and centered in the talent tree and shadowy

[10:34] apparitions proc and activate a lot of things and they do really good damage builds out there. Personally, I like that kind of thing. I think it's really thought it was very thematic and fun. Um, it's also shadow priest aren't

[10:50] really living and dying by like the perfect ramp or the perfect uptime anymore. Blizzard clearly is trying to make the spec less stressful and less punishing overall if you aren't doing things properly, which I think is good.

[11:04] I don't think it's there yet perfectly. Um, but it's definitely better. That being said, though, Shadow Priest, there's still Shadow Priest. I do think there are some minor issues gameplay-wise. Um, you're going to be

[11:16] weaving in the big spells and building toward those big burst windows uh mistake could ruin your entire freaking life on a mythic plus pole and then you're behind the tank, which sucks. Um that being said, it's still a ramp spec.

[11:30] If targets die too fast and like for example, if you're in a low mythic plus key, you're probably not going to have a big payoff every pull like you should for shadow priest. Shadow priest really needs some time to ramp. Um, I would say

[11:43] one major issue with Shadow is that on lower tiers, it can struggle in terms of those specs that shines and anything above a plus 10 and onward, it starts to do better. Um, and it starts to pay off more. I really love their capstone

[11:58] talents. I love their apex with the shadowy apparitions. And I love the old stuff going on whenever you tentacle slam. So, it's a lot of fun. I will say though, I do think it's alt worthy. maybe maybe worthy if you like healing

[12:13] on the side man because I will say if you're going all in on shadow priest priest is known for being either drastically good or drastically down so very risky trying to main this spec definitely if you like healing it's a

[12:27] great option but if you purely just love shadow priest you'll be fine with this spec moving on next though we have the brand new kid on the block the devour demon hunter now there's not much to say about devour This is the brand new range

[12:40] And I would say the biggest thing here is just how different it is from anything Demon Hunter has had before. Um, you have the void infused metamorphosis. You got collapsing stars popping off whenever you're in that. Uh,

[12:54] visually and mechanically it's pretty cool. I love the design of the talent tree. I think they did a really good job. Um, it could just get a tiny tiny bit stale at times because you're mostly using consume to build up these souls.

[13:09] ground. You suck them in, then you can go metamor big collapsing stars and stuff and the payoffs are really, really big with humongous numbers. Uh, which is fun. Um, I will say one of the bonuses is that to that it's simple to pick up.

[13:25] It's easy, so a lot of people can play it, but there's real mastery here in terms of a decent devour and probably a really good one. So, I think that's cool as well. For me, though, I would say this is definitely alt or potentially

[13:37] main worthy. Uh because of course, it's the spicy new spec/class in the game. It's probably going to perform well due to Blizzard's track record of them doing that. With that being said though, over longtime playing devour, it could get a

[13:52] tiny bit repetitive casting, you know, consume 20 times in a row sometimes. So, still very fun and I think it's going to be a really cool spec. I think balance I

[14:04] think we're going to have to put it in the B tier sadly. Um the biggest change here is the eclipse system for them. Eclipse is now reworked. It's an activatable ability now that has charges, 30 second cool down. And the

[14:17] whole gimmick of balance druid now is you're trying to stay in Eclipse as long as possible and using buttons like celestial alignment and eclipse to stay bonus damage and effects and stuff like that. It's a pretty big shift, I would

[14:31] say. But I do think it's a step in the right direction from a gameplay perspective. I think balance feels a bit smoother than before. Uh you dive just have to do crazy ramping other than of course applying your dots. Um, I like

[14:45] their Apex talent flooding you with a bunch of effects the second you activate Eclipse, which is cool. But I think overall balance is just going to stay that mythic plus monster, the uncapped AOE DPS monster that they are. And I

[14:58] thing. That's a pretty good identity to have. You know, you just got to worry about them in raids sometimes. I will be upfront and honest. There hasn't been one season in World of Warcraft where I main them as a main character or even a

[15:10] main alternate character. So, I've been always on the fence for balance. If it's a short period of time, for me, this spec feels pretty good. Long-term got to let me know how you feel about these changes in the comment section

[15:23] below. But, I would say you're probably going to enjoy it. There's still, of druid. You have Mark of the Wild, arguably the best buff in the game. You have a a battle resurrection. Uh, you got decent control with, of course,

[15:37] going to be fine. It's raiding I'm really worried about. Moving on. Next though, we have another Warlock spec, the last one, which is destruction warlock. Now, the destruction warlock is the spec I mained in season two of the

[15:52] war within, and I love warlock in general, so I'm a big sucker for this one. But, I would say from a core rotational perspective with destruction, I I I think it's really well done. It's been the same thing for a while and it's

[16:04] always really fun to do. You have your consistent DPS with cataclysm spreading your wither. You have your ramp with malevolence to give you some haste and then you go into your builder spender which is incinerate chaos bolt and rain

[16:16] of fire. And overall from a core gameplay perspective that always feels good to press. However, beyond what's on face value for destruction warlock, there's not much that feels great. For example, you have you have a bunch of

[16:30] talents in the tree that just don't feel good to invest into. Uh, for example, I I think it's called Dimensional Rift. I I I've never even tried it and played it cuz it just feels horrible to press. Channel Demon Fire is good for like

[16:43] elongating the duration of your wither, which is fun and keeping that active. just classically going to go into the same old things you've always gone into, which is soulfire, summon the overfeend to deal some damage with chaos bolts and

[16:55] spender with chaos bolt and rain of fire. So, from that general gameplay destruction could use a little bit more. I was hoping they would get something to mix it up a little bit beyond that, but they didn't. Also, not only that,

[17:11] affliction and demonology because they're doing so good can lower the value of destruction's fund. I personally really like it. I just wanted a little bit more out of destruction. Uh, moving on. Next, we have man, sadly

[17:24] the arcane mage. Um, arcane and fire mage is what I mained in the final season of the war within. So, I have a lot of gameplay knowledge on these specs here. And I got to be completely upfront, honest, and real. I'm not

[17:38] loving what they did to Arcane Mage. I think Arcane got some improvements in terms of not needing a dozen weak auras to track what's going on, which I do think is a good thing, but something I don't know just feels empty and a little

[17:51] bit off about this spec compared to a bunch of other specs in the game like frost mage, affliction, devastation, uh, demonology, elemental shaman, like those demonology, elemental shaman, like those specs feel so fluid and fun. Arcane

[18:05] feels a bit stiff. I do like that they're, you know, trying to add some new things. For example, you have a talent called orb mastery, which whenever you consume clear casting with Arcane Orb, it shoots out more orbs,

[18:18] which I think is kind of cool. Uh, I also like that they added an AoE filler DPS ability called Arcane Pulse. I just don't like that it replaces Arcane situations where you need Arcane Explosion on the move for a quick one or

[18:33] two, you know, Arcane charge procs to then dump with barrage. I also think there is another interesting build type with arcane missiles being your main spender for arcane orbs rather than barrage. So, there's an arcane missile

[18:47] build where it's kind of like your eviscerate if you're a rogue. So, you build with Sinister Strike, aka Arcane Blast, and then you finish with Eviscerate, aka Arcane Missiles, Builder Spender action there, and it does some

[19:01] really good damage. But, I don't know, it just doesn't feel very fluid to me. Something just feels a little bit off. I think we need something a little bit really appreciated Arcane, that it was

[19:14] like pretty complicated and difficult to get into and there's a very high skill ceiling, I don't love what they did. sadly. And I'm not trying to hate on it. I love that they're making changes and they're trying to dive into brand new

[19:26] need some more changes and adjustments cuz I really don't like their talent tree uh at the moment. Moving on next to our very first hunter spec, we have our very first hunter spec, we have marksmanship hunter. Um now this spec

[19:41] definitely is a lot simpler and easier to understand in Midnight. I'm going to the biggest change is that Blizzard is making them all about those really making them all about those really heavyhitting, juicy aim shot windows,

[19:54] man. Um, they've made aimshot pretty much 100% the center point of the spec. Now, there's a ton of different talents, including, you know, their apex that amplifies it drastically. It makes it guaranteed the crit. Aimot will now

[20:06] increase his damage. And almost everything you do is about adding more damage to aimshot, which is cool. Now, I will say, man, I used to love The War Within where I'm get I'm popping off these, you know, 50% cast time,

[20:20] around quick, rapid fire, and devali, and then and then I'm getting my kill shot procs and then fast AoE, you know, aim shots, and it was I thought it was a didn't need drastic changes, but, you know, them kind of reworking this, I I

[20:34] don't love the direction. It feels substantially slower. And marksman used to be one of the most fun range DPS specs in the game in my opinion. Um, it's just more of that like big hit number standill turret like style of

[20:49] gameplay. Um, so for me, I think this is one of those specs that still need work. If you really enjoy the whole sniper, shoot from a far away slow gameplay style. It can be for you, though. Moving on next to our very last mage spec, we

[21:05] have the fire mage. And I'm going to put it into the low B tier. Um, once again, Fire Mage was my hardcore main at the end of The War Within. I got my 3k rating and I had a really good time with it. Now, it was substantially

[21:19] complicated. It was ridiculous. Um, but I think they pruned fire mage come midnight. Just substantially harder than I think they needed to, man. I mean, being, you know, pruned a little bit too much, too. But I think Fire Mage, in my

[21:34] of what it used to be. Phoenix Flames is gone. Hyperothermia is gone. Unleash cooldown reduction on your combustion, that's gone. Uh, Sun King's Blessing, one of my favorite abilities, is gone. So, they got rid of a lot of cool things

[21:49] that I really loved about Fire Mage. And they did not do anything to replace those voids they created, those empty holes. They really didn't do much to fill them again. Recently, they did just give them Scorchback with a nice little

[22:04] proc to make it instant cast every once in a while. It does some nice execute damage, but overall, if I'm being completely honest here, fire mage does not feel as good as it once did, and I don't think it's even close. I do think

[22:17] don't think it's even close. I do think it has some potential, but we need to gameplay style here. You're just spamming fireball outside of combustion, fire blast, and praying for a crit. It is is boring. It's just boring, and we

[22:32] need something more. Um, still of course in combustion, fire mage feels great like it should. But outside of it, it is one of the most boring specs in the game work heading into launch day. Uh, maybe even giving us living bomb back as a

[22:46] casted ability on like a 10 to 15 second cool down that maybe soaks up ignites or something like I don't know. Like we got to get creative here. Got to really something unique because I don't love it. Um, so yeah, that's my opinion.

[23:02] mastery hunter. Um, I'm going to put beast mastery in Ctier. Now, I'm going to make it very clear. I don't hate beast mastery at all. Um, I would say the biggest changes to them is that

[23:14] multi-shot is changed into wild thrash, which is a really cool AoE ability. It's a lot more thematic and beast your wrath is now a flat 30 second cool down now. So, you don't have to do the whole barb shot thing uh to reduce the cool down

[23:26] and stuff. Now, with that all being said, did beast mastery evolve like meaningfully heading into Midnight? To be completely honest, I would say no, classes, demonology, unholy death knight, they evolved substantially for

[23:41] And I just feel like over the last few years with Beast Mastery, they've pruned and simplified it into just being the spec that is all about like beginner gameplay style. And there's nothing wrong with that, having that identity.

[23:56] But now it's just getting a little bit too much. Like there's a three, four button rotation here. And that's really it. We're lacking a lot of meaningful choice in terms of rotation and talent nodes, which I don't love. You know,

[24:09] families for like encounters and situations with different abilities and stuff. Each of those pets, you know, had really strong interactive change in your gameplay style at moments. You know, Stampede, uh, I think it was back in Mr.

[24:23] Pandaria used to be like a 5minute cool down that would summon all of your pets would have their abilities active and stuff. I don't know. I just felt like there used to be more choice um where there was just more interaction between

[24:36] everything. I I just feel like Beast Mastery needs a tad bit more to be a little bit more interactive and it's just missing some stuff because right command, cobra shot, barb shot, you

[24:48] I've always loved the class fantasy of pets. I'm a huge sucker for the, you know, pet class fantasy, but there's no big setups, no big payoffs here. I don't of fan favorites out there. It's just personally not for me. Uh, a little too

[25:02] straightforward for my liking. And then lastly, ladies and gentlemen, we do have the augmentation evoker. And I'm going to keep this on the Ctier. I don't think it's D tier. Now, this one hurts to talk about because if this list was just for

[25:15] me, augmentation would actually be a few levels higher on this list. But the only one support class in World of Warcraft. No one's going to really want to play it. And it'sn't just impossible to balance properly the fact that

[25:30] there's only one. You know, in older MMO RPGs, support classes worked because There was variety in options. You had games like Star Wars Galaxies that had like the Entertainer and a couple other ones. Uh City of Heroes with controllers

[25:45] and defenders and a bunch of archetypes within that. EverQuest with like bards and stuff. Uh I think Lord of the Rings online had one as well. My point is is that in World of Warcraft there's just one and it's just one spec, not even a

[25:58] impossible to balance and really really awkward for I would say the player base to try to play and engage with. With that being said though, heading into Midnight, I was hoping for them to just at least overhaul augmentation either

[26:13] into a full earth and timebased DPS spec, which I thought would have been cool, or make augmentation a tank. They didn't do any of that. They kind of left and they didn't really change anything either. Simply pressing Eb and might and

[26:27] precience on cooldown isn't super interactive and it's not really fun in terms of you know interacting with other players and their gameplay style. And not only that, augmentation is awful in solo Q. You rely on really good players

[26:42] to be able to amplify their damage. So not fun either for that. So, from a pure gameplay perspective, um I just I would have hoped for at least some changes you overhaul the spec to make them a full-blown DPS or a tank. But in terms

[26:59] of levels of raw fun, I think devastation as well as a dozen other sadly. But yes, ladies and gentlemen, that is going to wrap up our video. You Remember, of course, we will be making

[27:12] sometime in February when the expansion's right around the corner. This is just the current level of fun of all the specs right now. Don't forget, copy of Midnight World of Warcraft from the Comeback Kids, check the link in

[27:24] description below and sign up for the giveaway, which we will be doing very watching. If you enjoyed the content, consider subscribing or check out one of the videos you see on screen here to stay up to date on all things Warcraft.

[27:37] It's an absolute pleasure to make content for you all. I'll see you in the content for you all. I'll see you in the next one. Peace.