As someone who have played both ( *From way back* ) & Pserver meta which is *Vastly* Different. From The Original Retail Servers in 2010. ~ I'm impressed..! #scottejaye - Great vid
So much better to see a wide data set from the actual expansion rather than skewed numbers from smaller pools over far too long a period on private servers. The min maxing has so little bearing for the average player once you get past the first phase of content
@@mikeiscoo2 yes it was common practice (i mained a rogue) and that's literally the point of live real world data instead of repeated sims on patchwerk clones. If the majority are doing something it becomes part of the average in the same way certain boss fights have different classes behaving in different ways giving you more meaningful numbers with a large dataset. Sims only work up until the point the are real world tested then averaged, private server numbers are skewed with bad mechanics, larger health pools effecting execute ranges, gearing changes (rate of collection and stat weighting) and a multitude of other factors not to mention the number of them using ICC 25 bis lists as a baseline for dps ranking which is worthless in a live real time scenario.
I mean... private server is going to be more accurate. Player skill is so different. I'd say private servers will represent the 90th percentile of players which is like a semi hardcore raiding guild in tbc.
@@sidh196 lol that’s the dumbest thing I’ve read.. how are private servers with higher boss health pools and more armor going to any clear representation of actual wrath classic… you literally have worse cd dps average. And you have skewed execute uptime damage… how on earth did you come to the conclusion in your head that private severs would be more accurate..
@@mikeiscoo2 never played a private server but if bosses have more armor it would mess with assassination dmg cause they dont stack arp but still do a good chunk of phys
Finally, a more data based view on class viability. WotLK is actually THE expansion which allows you to try out almost any specc without completely gimping yourself or becoming a meme. Another important aspect of these data sets, which was just briefly mentioned here, is the optimization level required to bring out the best performance. I don't simply call it skill level because optimization also includes the right consumables, the right profession choices, the right group composition etc. So by taking a look at the AVG data sets and the ones of the "top performers" you can identify which specs require more or less optimization to compete. This is an aspect which is usually overlooked in tier lists. Take shammy for example. So many people claim that shamans (except resto) are trash in WotLK. If you take a look at the actual data, the gaps are not nearly as dramatic as people say. So yeah, play whatever you like. I personally like the challange to stay competitive with a class/spec, which is perceived to be "sub-optimal".
@@MrWwoww123 If you look at average dps versus best player dps, it's rogues that are continuously on top. That means rogues should be easier to play than other classes :)
Yeah but that data isn't accurate... What is the point at looking at the overall data, over the entire course of an expansion, where everyone is still nowhere near their full gear and their true damage potential?! Not only is there no point in doing so but I would argue that doing so is plain stupid, because calculating and ranking damage of classes/specs, even when looking at top200 players, when there's still A WHOLE OTHER, BETTER TIER of equipment, off parts, trinkets and jewelry that you can obtain to nearly double your DPS... That is just beyond stupid and pointless to me... To get an accurate representation of how classes perform, you would have to look at the last 2 months of an expansion, in this case WotLK, where everyone is pretty much close to BiS gear aka. where everyone is equal or at least VERY close to equal in gear - only THEN will you see the true potential of each class/spec DPS and only then will you see how classes perform on average. That's why, in general, private server guides, as well as guides written by good retail guilds, offer a more accurate representation of class/spec DPS, because in both cases, people who are showing you the potential of XYZ class/spec DPS, are showing it to you either while near BiS gear or while in full BiS gear - where the DPS potential is either near maxed out or IS maxed out - because THAT IS WHAT MATTERS! Nobody cares what kind of DPS a rogue is doing in iLvl 245 gear, when the max iLvl of gear in WotLK is 284!?! What's the point of basing the class/spec DPS tier list on a iLvl 245 data, when the max iLvl of obtainable gear in WotLK is 284, not 245?!? THERE IS NO POINT, IT'S POINTLESS DOING SO!! Look at the DPS statistics of top 200 players, from the last two months of the expansion and THEN make a tier list - and guess what?! That tier list will look exactly the same as the ones from top guilds on retail or from players on private servers because it is based on near max gear or max gear potential of a class!
@@nogerboher5266 We are not talking about private servers which usually stay in the same phase for extended periods of time. The highest tier on a blizzard server lasts for a small increment of the overall server lifetime. So using the "true" endgame metrics to assess whether or not your class is viable during the bigger chunks of an expansion is useless. Not even mentioning that just a small percentage of players even make it to the late endgame or getting actual access to that high end gear. Those people who do and who care about min/maxing up to this stage usually don't bother much with tier lists on youtube anyways ...
I progressed through wrath as both a firemage and shadow priest, I can tell you one think: Nothing is more satisfying then a firemages hot streaks, it's incredible addicting and I've never had more fun dpsing then during wrath.
I played both a arcane(pve)/frost(pvp) on my mage and played shadow(pvp)/disc(pve) on my priest. I had a blast with both toons! At one point I remember shadow being pretty broken and I could beat anyone no matter their gear, with ease... lol
a video that doesnt just shit all over elemental shamans and shows they arent to different dps wise than some other classes. already makes this the best video on the subject out there!
Brother, I gotta say, this is my favorite wow classic channel. Many, dare I say most, other channels pump out videos constantly for the views. This channel doesn't feel like that at all. There's always an actual reason for the video you post behind hoping for clicks. Never change! 💕
It's crazy how ret starts middle of the pack and slowly goes to top 25% even on meelee unfriendly fights. Interesting, can't wait to see what I can do in classic Wrath.
@@Snxgur I’ll never understand the hate for ret. you guys must really hate physical damage boss murderers. Can parse 3k on twins and still be memed on for being ret.
Well before 2set ICC they are quite middling in terms of dmg. Still bring alot of utility but most of the people complaining only care about the dps meter
Hey Scotte. Loving your content man. Thorough yet you keep it interesting. You're likable and funny and the postproduction on the videos are clean. Keep up the great work!
Nice to see an accurate representation for assassination rogues that falls in line with what I knew from wrath. Everyone's praising combat rogues and I'm just rolling my eyes.
The difference today is now we know EXACTLY how/why/when combat beats assassination. Asassination will be the best average performing spec in this chart simply due to the fact it doesnt rely as much on armor penetration as combat does (breakpoints and armor pen levels). Its much more casual friendly. But now in 2022-2023 you will see very quickly how in ulduar combat soundly beats assassination, where earlier than that assassination will be more consistently high on the meters.
Fantastic find! Very cool to see just how reductionist tier lists are when compared to actual data. Would love to see how this shapes up in another couple years from now!
I do love an intellectually challenged comment 😂 you smashed it mate Had to edit because I felt bad being sarcastic to a kid who has Hugh jackman as their profile picture , sorry mate 😂😂
@@Scottejaye you've never played the game at a high level. You made a video saying moonkin was S tier cos in your shit guild they did top damage just because 80% of the dps in the run didn't know how to play their class. This video is misleading because it only applies to the last tier of the game. Like I said, you're a noob.
Glad to see this video and a few others that use wider and more normalized data sets. Been seeing a lot of skewed videos/in-game opinions which skew certain ways that only take into account literal bis and the constant melee hype/copium.
Excellent video! So many people sperg out about "this class better than that class and if you bring fury warriors you might as well just stop because you won't clear any boss". These logs clearly show that for people who can do the rotation, DPS class balance in WotLK is extremely good.
Be careful comparing top logs to average logs. The biggest thing that affects the differences is not skill but fight length. Raid dps is a huge spike for everyone at the start, then a series of valleys and peaks whose frequency and intensity depends on CDs. If the fight ends on a valley for your spec but a peak for someone else's your spec will look worse.
Specific fight mechanics too. Tanking festergut to start with in bear as feral dps will be a massive dps boost due to the tank debuff. Don't know if other melee can do it but yea
Most tier lists are just one persons opinion/experiences so it’s nice to see a non-biased list with holistic data. Also the point about having full icc25H gear can’t be stressed enough seeing as now you have to farm a full set of frost emblem gear before upgrading to tier 11, if anyone can get that in under 3 weeks then they’re super lucky and dedicated and doing better than 90% of the player base
What a refreshing video. I tend to shy away from these videos because I find myself watching them and thinking, "Oh god I need to re--roll so I can get a group!" But this left me with some hope for balance druid. I might try and make a new alt that I will enjoy in WOTLK rather than chasing the meters. Maybe something I've never played before!
I was able to top meters as a frost dk in wrath because a lot of people never focused on rotations or boss mechanics. It’s all about getting good in general and you’ll be fine… mostly lol.
Just like how Arcane mages will use Focus Magic on each other, or trade it for Innervate with a boomkin. DKs using Hysteria on each other. Priests giving Power Infusion to the best caster. Rogues aren't unique in this regard.
I think this is an important video, one of the best things about WOTLK is not only is every class viable and desirable but nearly every spec (not all but nearly all of them). Get to finally play what you really want and enjoy it.
Facts I shredded plenty meters back in the day as ele. It's the closest xpac for all dps specs to succeed unless you are going for world first which shouldn't matter in classic
@@Stunns91 I play elemental on frostmourne and destroy people on overall dmg. Its gonna be a bit different on classic as you will have the logs of the best and you are gonnea be probably comparing yourself to them. I do think elemental looses its viability in icc, its much harder to perform well in icc compared to others, its just doesnt scale as well
this doesnt explain anything..... its just like every other list just with data from a time when people werent throwing 1 person every tricks of the trade. back then rogues tricked each other.
@@e-athletemcb not sure a 1% increase in dmg is worth for the damage differential between a bm hunter and stacking another arcane mage or assassination rogue. I for one won’t be taking any bm hunters lol.
just play whats fun for you. in every expansion there is an another higher dps class. but it doesnt make sense to change class everytime in every expansion just to be best dps, just play the class you like. doesnt matter if its the best dps or not, raids will still need you for buffs.
its also worth keeping in mind how classes affect others and how useful some classes are to have in a raid regardless of where they really stand on the charts. Frost DKs for just one example providing a very useful haste buff to the raid. Play what you find is fun/cool, get half assed competent at your role and you will do fine
Ok, now this is more like it, I mained boomkin back in the day, my guild was consistently clearing heroic 25s/hardmodes/etc...and I was always crushing the meters, near the top on every fight....these graphs of top 200 are definitely more in line with my memory of wotlk
@@Dangerous1939 Nobody is going to struggle on Naxx unless they’re playing overtuned private servers. It’s so easy, guilds can run it with half raid capacity for less loot competition. I’ve seen guilds break off and spread their raid out in two teams to clear trash faster. Giving Naxx bosses more health isn’t harder, it just adds an extra few minutes on each kill. The average raid group shouldn’t struggle at all in Wrath.
@@Hari-on1sf It is that easy. I’ve played private servers for years with overtuned content and even that isn’t hard. Unless you’re doing hardmode fights in Ulduar, the content is not mechanically difficult and there are so many loot pińata raids that hand out free tier like VoA and ToGC.
I would be curious to see what the impact of fight length was on the ICC normal rankings. I assume that would be helping the rogues here what with their insane adrenaline rush burst
Well you can assume these fights are average length because for all these logs heroic had only just been World Firsted by paragon so no one will be bis geared etc
Partially true, but Assassination doesn't have access to Adrenaline Rush and they were above Combat in each of those fights. They just have really good sustained DPS from their poisons.
I really wonder about assassination rogue on these charts, in icc there is a lot of armor pen gear and combat should be favored. Also top arcane mage numbers might be skewed by stacking multiple innervations on them. The rest of the classes really makes sense especially on the top dps chart which is quite even, but if rogue is already far above everyone else at normal ICC gear, it's just going to be broken as hell with endgame gear.
I played assassination rogue back in the day and I was on top basically on every fight, even in icc. This is why I am so surprised to see so many 'tier list' putting them at the average ranking. Looking at this video, this is much more representative to what I remember. I get your point about armor pen, but from my memory, no class could pump single target like an assassination rogue could. Time will tell though if private servers are wrong or if people just learned to play better and closed the gap.
Also played assassination early on in ICC when I got that energy restoring dagger (which i said was always very broken from the first day i used it). Between that, resto druid energy restore, and the tricks energy restore from the tier bonus, plus vanish you were basically flooded with energy on most fights and probably had ~85% uptime on envenom. I still have videos on my channel from 12 years ago of some of our fights. I ended up going Combat at some point though probably after getting that heroic axe from ToC, we had a revolving door of 3rd rogue slots so we needed the 4% dmg at some point. --Zerix of
When I played wrath, I remember showing up to raid with a spec I threw together myself. My gear, was just whatever I happened to come across and seemed good lmao. In 2022 I'm binge watching tierlist videos to figure out if ele shaman will be good enough in PVE because I want to arena on them so badly.
No good guild will take an Ele shaman. Casual guilds will, and the expansion is a lot more forgiving than TBC, so casual guilds will have an easier time.
@@Lordturisas1 "good guild" yeah okay, we are farming BT and ready for Sunwell atm but we still let people play whatever they want, we dont be realm first but who cares for that anyway
I've been doing the same thing, the general consensus I've found is, unless your looking for world firsts or hard-core speed running, ele is fine not "optimal" but fine
Scottejaye is right, when your spec takes more than 1 button rotation, expect very varied results. A dedicated feral can no problemo top the ICC charts vs your typical casual fire mage. I played feral during the beginning of Shadowlands, it was hands down the hardest rotation/spec in the game and everyone straight off said IT SUCKS, DONT PLAY FERAL (Usual "dps tier lists" claimed feral is B tier and had 17 class/specs sitting above it)! Well, couple of months into raiding and I had secured world #2 druid dps (boomkin/feral, boomkin was supposed to be the best dps at the time) with 100 parses and absolutely destroyed the "FOTM" dps specs at the time on the majority of boss fights. People went even as far as trying to accuse me of some kind of botting because of how perfectly I managed to snapshot and time my cooldowns, but it's all just muscle memory and a lot of practice and this is what we are FINALLY going to see in WOTLK, parses (at least for a handful of specs) are going to be more than just who has more innervates/PIs and gear, finally rotation and knowing the fights starts to matter (Though you still want to suck up to your DKs for hysteria :D).
out of curiosity, i only spent a brief stint on a wotlk pserver that was an utter trainwreck- what do wrath pservers usually do that classic wrath wont do (because pservers got it wrong presumably)
I’m digging for anything as accurate and large in terms of data set as this, but you’re right it wasn’t as common and a lot more difficult to find anything reliable
Is that an assassination warrior i see on the graph?? As someone who's on the fence about whether I'm gonna play wrath classic and have no idea what I want to play I appreciate the info and not just a bias, nice vid
This is part of the reason I like boomkin so much. If you're doing bad damage, its your fault. If you're doing good damage its because you're playing well. It's also somewhat in demand because lots of people don't like eclipse and you usually want only 1 so there's usually 1 or 2 people who want the gear you want.
I've been wondering for ages whether to stick with my boomkin (made Day 1 of Classic, mained since), or change to Ret-a-din and I STILL have no idea what to do lol
Don't forget that some specs are more reliant on rng for top parses than others, procs and crits at the right time. Something to keep in mind when looking at only top 200 parses.
Reading the comments I'm confused; did you flip the icons for Combat and Sin or not?. I know there's a lot of Warmane Andies high on copium saying Combat beats Sin at any point other than near full BiS. The old Icons used to be Backstab for Combat and Eviscerate for Sin. Other than that its nice to see somebody looking at WotLK class performance in a way that makes sense, everyone keeps making videos about how things like Ele Shaman will be hot garbage when LK had some of the best balanced performance in raids. Its even nice to see triple DPS classes like Hunter, Mage, Lock and Rogue have 1 or multiple specs sitting at the top of the charts to make up for their lower utility. Definitely going to be a fun expansion to play, specially with the 4.0 lockouts allowing people to pug, cross guild raid and play at their desired pace.
it would be dope for you to do a guide on gear to get if wanting to play spellhance as soon as wotlk drops. like what gear from swp/bt/etc. we can get now to play it right out the gate
The issue is that wotlk back in the day had progressive class balancing where classic will run final balance patch. And looking at vanilla/tbc pservers compared to classic they are off somewhat to the point where warrior dps were predicted to be a joke in tbc but they do fine actually. Point is, none of the data we have now can accurately score dps
This is 3.3 mate so it’s what we will have and as for TBC (I can’t really speak for vanillas) it’s definitely what I was expecting over an average. I’m not defend the data here I’m just saying the DPS people are doing is exactly what I expected from TBC compared to both historically and close to pservers
@@Scottejaye Obviously it's only average data. We all know when there is a dedicated Feral in your group, he is going to top the meters in half the fights completely uncontested.
I just wanted to say that first of all thanks for the video, but those graphs are pretty shit. They make it seem like boomkin does a quarter of rogue’s damage, but according to the actual number that is not the case.
I distinctly remember pushing 8k dps as a destro lock back in Wrath. And Kohouri (my lock) was NOT in full BiS gear. And I also remember my Demo spec did around 6 to 7k. (Note: I was in 10m raids and not 25m)
dps is not enough for progress, destro dps doesnt matter when affli does the same while healing for 30% of his dps every sec. oh and destro has no execute which harder fights are all about. those dps lists make ppl think it makes their any spec great, but it doesnt.
@@David-hs1bu If you aren't standing in stupid, the self heal isn't really needed as much. And Destro is a constant execute for dps. No ramp up time, just blasting. By the time wrath was just about over, Destro for me was easily pushing 10k dps in 10 man groups.
@@Scottejaye 2:50 The eviscerate symbol stands for combat, not assassination. And it's well known that combat is #1 in T10 due to more arp and physical damage overtaking the poison damage that held assassination ahead during T7 and T8. Data from Warmane should also be way more relevant than 2010 data. Further, those averages barely hold any Shadowmournes, which also makes a BIG difference for those classes. A SM Fury is generally considered the top DPS overall, which is far from #9 as shown here - and it will be meta for guilds to give the first SM to the Fury as they get the most dps out of it (which was not clear back in the day, another big offset).
@Sam no it doesn’t lol tbc.wowhead.com/talent-calc/rogue even tbc wowhead talent calculator shows the icons at the top of the trees. And no warmane data is not better than this at all, people being absolute full bis farming icc25 for years is not how it’s going to be when Classic has an average of 16 weeks of content. Even getting full bis gear is a stretch never mind farming content with it for weeks or months. As for back in the day even fury warriors got our first shadowmourne, I think people forget how advanced as players we were in WOTLK. We have been playing the game for over 5 years at that point….also plus the fact warmane has SOOOO many bugs and things that were changed over the years including but not exclusively enhancement shaman proc rates, OOC for feral proccing obscene amounts and from things it shouldn’t, heals from spriest and warlock fel armor proccing trinkets they shouldn’t and the list goes on.
@@Scottejaye My bad about the icon then, even though having assassin ahead makes zero sense to me. Also I am not referring to Warmanes Icecrown realm. The Frostmourne realm is starting for the third time what Classic Wrath will only ever do a single time, progress through the entire content. I expect Pserver players to outperform other players on average, just like they did in Classic Vanilla and TBC - even when people said their "badly scripted, bug infested" pserver experience didn't mean anything. It was wrong every time.
I hear ya mate, your definitely entitled to your own opinion I’m not here to tell people they are right or wrong (like i even said at the start of the video) this is just data driven facts that isn’t from private servers. I mean even again in my opinion the classic player base are massively out performing the pservers from TBC and I played on all of them, the speed of clears, DPS, everything is just better but it’s because classic is how it was back in the day not like pservers. Fight length plays a massive part for many classes in terms of overall damage because of cool-down usage, frostmourne is buffed content by default meaning fights will last a hell of a lot longer than classic and the HPS required is higher as well, so it’s can’t even be thought about in comparison to classic imo.
in retail WOTLK I was an altoholic and I was usually top DPS with whatever I played (mostly mage, hunter and feral druid). "Bring the player, not the class" is true.
Very weird that in top 200 vs average Arcane suddenly becomes better than fire. I think there is something wrong in these stats that shouldn't be happening right?
I have been playing warlock on multiple PS (and retail tlk) and i can tell you that good Affli warlock are going to do INSANE damage if supported well (open with TOT/prepot/snapshoting corruption/TOT@35%...). If you play Demonology Warlock your spec is way easier to play and requires way less meta-knowledge but you bring the best SP buff in the game (scaling with you own stats), so 1 demono warlock is almost mandatory if you play a heavy caster group in 10M and you should nearly always bring one in 25M besause of the insane SP-buff they bring.
Snapshotting corruption LOL!!! demo is easier? You’re clueless. Demo is the harder spec 10/10. Snapshotting demonic pact is actually going to happen. Anyone “Snapshotting” corruption outside of tricks is a fool. Demo has to actually worry about using your pet properly and managing spell power buffs. Affliction is brain dead easy to top the meters.
seeing the Blood DPS on festergut makes me happy ive been trying to explain to people blood is perfectly capable of good DPS but i see a whole bunch of people saying its completly unviable i remember 25m 30% buff fights where i was breaking 18k dps on my blood dps Spec
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
The article - www.engadget.com/2010-05-06-icc-dps-analysis-by-spec.html
Great video as always lad
As someone who have played both ( *From way back* ) & Pserver meta which is *Vastly* Different.
From The Original
Retail Servers in 2010.
~ I'm impressed..!
#scottejaye - Great vid
So much better to see a wide data set from the actual expansion rather than skewed numbers from smaller pools over far too long a period on private servers. The min maxing has so little bearing for the average player once you get past the first phase of content
this is shit data.. it was common place that rogues tricked each other back then. you can read my longer comment for actual information.
@@mikeiscoo2 yes it was common practice (i mained a rogue) and that's literally the point of live real world data instead of repeated sims on patchwerk clones. If the majority are doing something it becomes part of the average in the same way certain boss fights have different classes behaving in different ways giving you more meaningful numbers with a large dataset. Sims only work up until the point the are real world tested then averaged, private server numbers are skewed with bad mechanics, larger health pools effecting execute ranges, gearing changes (rate of collection and stat weighting) and a multitude of other factors not to mention the number of them using ICC 25 bis lists as a baseline for dps ranking which is worthless in a live real time scenario.
I mean... private server is going to be more accurate. Player skill is so different. I'd say private servers will represent the 90th percentile of players which is like a semi hardcore raiding guild in tbc.
@@sidh196 lol that’s the dumbest thing I’ve read.. how are private servers with higher boss health pools and more armor going to any clear representation of actual wrath classic… you literally have worse cd dps average. And you have skewed execute uptime damage… how on earth did you come to the conclusion in your head that private severs would be more accurate..
@@mikeiscoo2 never played a private server but if bosses have more armor it would mess with assassination dmg cause they dont stack arp but still do a good chunk of phys
Finally, a more data based view on class viability. WotLK is actually THE expansion which allows you to try out almost any specc without completely gimping yourself or becoming a meme. Another important aspect of these data sets, which was just briefly mentioned here, is the optimization level required to bring out the best performance. I don't simply call it skill level because optimization also includes the right consumables, the right profession choices, the right group composition etc. So by taking a look at the AVG data sets and the ones of the "top performers" you can identify which specs require more or less optimization to compete. This is an aspect which is usually overlooked in tier lists. Take shammy for example. So many people claim that shamans (except resto) are trash in WotLK. If you take a look at the actual data, the gaps are not nearly as dramatic as people say. So yeah, play whatever you like. I personally like the challange to stay competitive with a class/spec, which is perceived to be "sub-optimal".
In your opinion, which classes require the least optimization?
@@MrWwoww123 If you look at average dps versus best player dps, it's rogues that are continuously on top. That means rogues should be easier to play than other classes :)
Actually to get that top parse the rogue needs a enh shammy in group
Yeah but that data isn't accurate... What is the point at looking at the overall data, over the entire course of an expansion, where everyone is still nowhere near their full gear and their true damage potential?! Not only is there no point in doing so but I would argue that doing so is plain stupid, because calculating and ranking damage of classes/specs, even when looking at top200 players, when there's still A WHOLE OTHER, BETTER TIER of equipment, off parts, trinkets and jewelry that you can obtain to nearly double your DPS... That is just beyond stupid and pointless to me... To get an accurate representation of how classes perform, you would have to look at the last 2 months of an expansion, in this case WotLK, where everyone is pretty much close to BiS gear aka. where everyone is equal or at least VERY close to equal in gear - only THEN will you see the true potential of each class/spec DPS and only then will you see how classes perform on average. That's why, in general, private server guides, as well as guides written by good retail guilds, offer a more accurate representation of class/spec DPS, because in both cases, people who are showing you the potential of XYZ class/spec DPS, are showing it to you either while near BiS gear or while in full BiS gear - where the DPS potential is either near maxed out or IS maxed out - because THAT IS WHAT MATTERS!
Nobody cares what kind of DPS a rogue is doing in iLvl 245 gear, when the max iLvl of gear in WotLK is 284!?! What's the point of basing the class/spec DPS tier list on a iLvl 245 data, when the max iLvl of obtainable gear in WotLK is 284, not 245?!? THERE IS NO POINT, IT'S POINTLESS DOING SO!! Look at the DPS statistics of top 200 players, from the last two months of the expansion and THEN make a tier list - and guess what?! That tier list will look exactly the same as the ones from top guilds on retail or from players on private servers because it is based on near max gear or max gear potential of a class!
@@nogerboher5266 We are not talking about private servers which usually stay in the same phase for extended periods of time. The highest tier on a blizzard server lasts for a small increment of the overall server lifetime. So using the "true" endgame metrics to assess whether or not your class is viable during the bigger chunks of an expansion is useless. Not even mentioning that just a small percentage of players even make it to the late endgame or getting actual access to that high end gear. Those people who do and who care about min/maxing up to this stage usually don't bother much with tier lists on youtube anyways ...
damn I love how good rogues are looking for Wrath. great video Scotte!
Gonna be epic mate! I expect lots of funny rogue videos to keep me entertained in WOTLK from you ❤️
WOTLIK HYPE WOTLIKA HYPE
I progressed through wrath as both a firemage and shadow priest, I can tell you one think: Nothing is more satisfying then a firemages hot streaks, it's incredible addicting and I've never had more fun dpsing then during wrath.
Totally agree mate!! I’ve actually started playing my mage again in TBC just getting it ready for that in WOTLK 😊
I played both a arcane(pve)/frost(pvp) on my mage and played shadow(pvp)/disc(pve) on my priest. I had a blast with both toons! At one point I remember shadow being pretty broken and I could beat anyone no matter their gear, with ease... lol
a video that doesnt just shit all over elemental shamans and shows they arent to different dps wise than some other classes. already makes this the best video on the subject out there!
5:25 is the weirdest UI layout ive every seen lmao. Great vid tho love the content man keep it coming
Brother, I gotta say, this is my favorite wow classic channel. Many, dare I say most, other channels pump out videos constantly for the views. This channel doesn't feel like that at all. There's always an actual reason for the video you post behind hoping for clicks. Never change! 💕
Appreciate that thank you mate 🙏
It's crazy how ret starts middle of the pack and slowly goes to top 25% even on meelee unfriendly fights. Interesting, can't wait to see what I can do in classic Wrath.
hopium
@@Snxgur I’ll never understand the hate for ret. you guys must really hate physical damage boss murderers. Can parse 3k on twins and still be memed on for being ret.
Well before 2set ICC they are quite middling in terms of dmg. Still bring alot of utility but most of the people complaining only care about the dps meter
I really like the message of "play what you want, there will be slots for your class", but these statistics look a lot different near BiS gear.
Thanks for that, always good to see data from a different angle.
Hey Scotte. Loving your content man. Thorough yet you keep it interesting. You're likable and funny and the postproduction on the videos are clean. Keep up the great work!
Really appreciate it mate, cheers 🙏❤️
My friend has been talking about DPS tier lists, and you articulated what I tried telling him perfectly.
Nice to see an accurate representation for assassination rogues that falls in line with what I knew from wrath. Everyone's praising combat rogues and I'm just rolling my eyes.
The difference today is now we know EXACTLY how/why/when combat beats assassination. Asassination will be the best average performing spec in this chart simply due to the fact it doesnt rely as much on armor penetration as combat does (breakpoints and armor pen levels). Its much more casual friendly.
But now in 2022-2023 you will see very quickly how in ulduar combat soundly beats assassination, where earlier than that assassination will be more consistently high on the meters.
Actually, the combat / assa icons were misstaken for each other in the video, combat is the one on top with assa closely behind.
Yeah I was always top dps as mutilate. When I watched some other videos, I think back and second guess myself. But this confirms what I remember.
Yep, combat is better than assassination *once you near ICC BiS *, before that assassination > combat and these logs show it.
People that played Warmane are going to have a MASSIVE advantage over the idiots that have been paying wow subs continuously for years hahaha
Fantastic find! Very cool to see just how reductionist tier lists are when compared to actual data. Would love to see how this shapes up in another couple years from now!
Thought the title was clickbait.... turns out it wasn't.
Keep up the good work Scott!
That frost mage and sub rogue cut got me laughing so hard. Love you and as always, phenomenal video.
Cheers babe
This is actually a fantastic look at the data, thank you!
Very good insight Scotty! Loved this video.
Super interesting, thanks for the video!
your muscle memory is the real dps
Great video, thanks for compiling this data!
Scotte is a pillar of the classic community
Thank you for the great content! 👍
Love this comment
He's a noob
I do love an intellectually challenged comment 😂 you smashed it mate
Had to edit because I felt bad being sarcastic to a kid who has Hugh jackman as their profile picture , sorry mate 😂😂
@@Scottejaye you've never played the game at a high level. You made a video saying moonkin was S tier cos in your shit guild they did top damage just because 80% of the dps in the run didn't know how to play their class. This video is misleading because it only applies to the last tier of the game. Like I said, you're a noob.
Glad to see this video and a few others that use wider and more normalized data sets. Been seeing a lot of skewed videos/in-game opinions which skew certain ways that only take into account literal bis and the constant melee hype/copium.
Actual good and informing video!
Great vid scotte, refreshing to see this alternative perspective with historical data
Excellent video! So many people sperg out about "this class better than that class and if you bring fury warriors you might as well just stop because you won't clear any boss". These logs clearly show that for people who can do the rotation, DPS class balance in WotLK is extremely good.
Be careful comparing top logs to average logs. The biggest thing that affects the differences is not skill but fight length. Raid dps is a huge spike for everyone at the start, then a series of valleys and peaks whose frequency and intensity depends on CDs. If the fight ends on a valley for your spec but a peak for someone else's your spec will look worse.
Specific fight mechanics too. Tanking festergut to start with in bear as feral dps will be a massive dps boost due to the tank debuff.
Don't know if other melee can do it but yea
Thanks for this, every video I have seen show those same ele shaman numbers and I was almost second guessing my self.
Really good video as always. Thank you!
Great video m8, really enjoyed it!
"you migt not be average"
as an average-andy im feeling personally attacked
-
XD
Hahahha sorry my man ❤️
high quality vid and analysis, well done my boy!
Just straight facts rather than a subjective tier list, noice.
Most tier lists are just one persons opinion/experiences so it’s nice to see a non-biased list with holistic data. Also the point about having full icc25H gear can’t be stressed enough seeing as now you have to farm a full set of frost emblem gear before upgrading to tier 11, if anyone can get that in under 3 weeks then they’re super lucky and dedicated and doing better than 90% of the player base
The title hooked me into the video haha
Hopefully you didn’t regret clicking! 😁
Thank you for posting this video. So many private server hardcores putting out crazy stuff.
What a refreshing video. I tend to shy away from these videos because I find myself watching them and thinking, "Oh god I need to re--roll so I can get a group!" But this left me with some hope for balance druid. I might try and make a new alt that I will enjoy in WOTLK rather than chasing the meters. Maybe something I've never played before!
I was able to top meters as a frost dk in wrath because a lot of people never focused on rotations or boss mechanics.
It’s all about getting good in general and you’ll be fine… mostly lol.
@@Zeph914 frost dk gets giga cucked on LK and PP, the rest is fine, the thing is capping the stats which is cancer for frost dk but doable
thanks for actual data summarising instead of a video just based on some personal experiences like most of the tier videos.
This is your best wrath video to date. Gj man
Keep in mind rogues would almost always use tricks on eachother, so they have inflated damage
our rogue will give it to the glorious affliction lock
QQ
@@timopint1125 only the first one and one at execution phase or else he is trolling.
Just like how Arcane mages will use Focus Magic on each other, or trade it for Innervate with a boomkin. DKs using Hysteria on each other. Priests giving Power Infusion to the best caster. Rogues aren't unique in this regard.
Honestly, the DKs bring so much to the raid that excluding them makes the list borderline relevant
just put them in top 3 - it is very relevant data
I think this is an important video, one of the best things about WOTLK is not only is every class viable and desirable but nearly every spec (not all but nearly all of them). Get to finally play what you really want and enjoy it.
These are the assurances you need to hear as an Ele Sham main.
Facts I shredded plenty meters back in the day as ele. It's the closest xpac for all dps specs to succeed unless you are going for world first which shouldn't matter in classic
@@Stunns91 I play elemental on frostmourne and destroy people on overall dmg. Its gonna be a bit different on classic as you will have the logs of the best and you are gonnea be probably comparing yourself to them. I do think elemental looses its viability in icc, its much harder to perform well in icc compared to others, its just doesnt scale as well
subscribed. good content my man
Cheers mate ❤️
It's nice what shadow priest from just mana battery and warlock buffer will evolve to decent dps =)
Thanks! I feel better sticking with my enhance shaman.
love this video. FINALLY someone explained why tier lists suck. literally any spec is playable in wrath its juicy
this doesnt explain anything..... its just like every other list just with data from a time when people werent throwing 1 person every tricks of the trade. back then rogues tricked each other.
I still won’t be taking any bm hunters, sub rogues or frost mages tho 😂😅
@@SavageGameHawk 1 bm hunter is good for ferocious inapiration
@@e-athletemcb not sure a 1% increase in dmg is worth for the damage differential between a bm hunter and stacking another arcane mage or assassination rogue. I for one won’t be taking any bm hunters lol.
Yep, it was better than any Wotlk list. Cheers 🍻
That difference between 11.7 dps and 9.5 will still show a massive %parse difference its like 23% difference.
just play whats fun for you. in every expansion there is an another higher dps class. but it doesnt make sense to change class everytime in every expansion just to be best dps, just play the class you like. doesnt matter if its the best dps or not, raids will still need you for buffs.
Great vid, only nitpick is the bar graphs not starting at 0 thus giving a misleading picture that the lowest DPS is that much lower than the rest.
Thanks Scotty think I'll continue with my ele shaman.
The top 200 logs are usually being fed PI/Innervate and other externals.
Love all the content man! Appreciate your work. The comment is just for support really :)
Appreciate it thank you mate 🙏
Is that your gameplay on the Warlock? If so, can we get a link to that ElvUI profile? 👀
It’s not mine mate just some generic footage from random RUclips videos I’ve amassed over the last year unfortunately 😊
@@Scottejaye Darn! No worries. Pretty sure I can replicate it easily anyhow! Screencap 📸
its also worth keeping in mind how classes affect others and how useful some classes are to have in a raid regardless of where they really stand on the charts. Frost DKs for just one example providing a very useful haste buff to the raid. Play what you find is fun/cool, get half assed competent at your role and you will do fine
Ok, now this is more like it, I mained boomkin back in the day, my guild was consistently clearing heroic 25s/hardmodes/etc...and I was always crushing the meters, near the top on every fight....these graphs of top 200 are definitely more in line with my memory of wotlk
With 30% buff ICC, you can bring just about any class comp. Same with Ulduar and ToGC, very easy expansion.
Did you see how many guilds struggled on KT / Lady vashj pre-nerf already? It's gonna be a challenge for a lot of casual guilds
Stop bullshitting, it wasn't as easy as you make it out to be.
@@Dangerous1939
Nobody is going to struggle on Naxx unless they’re playing overtuned private servers. It’s so easy, guilds can run it with half raid capacity for less loot competition. I’ve seen guilds break off and spread their raid out in two teams to clear trash faster.
Giving Naxx bosses more health isn’t harder, it just adds an extra few minutes on each kill. The average raid group shouldn’t struggle at all in Wrath.
@@Hari-on1sf
It is that easy. I’ve played private servers for years with overtuned content and even that isn’t hard. Unless you’re doing hardmode fights in Ulduar, the content is not mechanically difficult and there are so many loot pińata raids that hand out free tier like VoA and ToGC.
@@brandonkruse6412 Well i was obviously not talking about Naxx. Everyone knows its a joke. I was talking about Ulduar hardmodes and ICC hc
another banger scotte !!!
I would be curious to see what the impact of fight length was on the ICC normal rankings. I assume that would be helping the rogues here what with their insane adrenaline rush burst
Well you can assume these fights are average length because for all these logs heroic had only just been World Firsted by paragon so no one will be bis geared etc
Partially true, but Assassination doesn't have access to Adrenaline Rush and they were above Combat in each of those fights. They just have really good sustained DPS from their poisons.
Can you provide a link to all the graphs? I'm very interested in seeing more of those graphs
I really wonder about assassination rogue on these charts, in icc there is a lot of armor pen gear and combat should be favored. Also top arcane mage numbers might be skewed by stacking multiple innervations on them. The rest of the classes really makes sense especially on the top dps chart which is quite even, but if rogue is already far above everyone else at normal ICC gear, it's just going to be broken as hell with endgame gear.
I played assassination rogue back in the day and I was on top basically on every fight, even in icc. This is why I am so surprised to see so many 'tier list' putting them at the average ranking. Looking at this video, this is much more representative to what I remember. I get your point about armor pen, but from my memory, no class could pump single target like an assassination rogue could. Time will tell though if private servers are wrong or if people just learned to play better and closed the gap.
Also played assassination early on in ICC when I got that energy restoring dagger (which i said was always very broken from the first day i used it). Between that, resto druid energy restore, and the tricks energy restore from the tier bonus, plus vanish you were basically flooded with energy on most fights and probably had ~85% uptime on envenom. I still have videos on my channel from 12 years ago of some of our fights. I ended up going Combat at some point though probably after getting that heroic axe from ToC, we had a revolving door of 3rd rogue slots so we needed the 4% dmg at some point. --Zerix of
The chart icons are wrong.
@@shanehodges6980 Log into TBC and see what icon the combat and assassination tree looks like.
@@shanehodges6980 there is a legend at 43s in video
When I played wrath, I remember showing up to raid with a spec I threw together myself. My gear, was just whatever I happened to come across and seemed good lmao. In 2022 I'm binge watching tierlist videos to figure out if ele shaman will be good enough in PVE because I want to arena on them so badly.
No good guild will take an Ele shaman.
Casual guilds will, and the expansion is a lot more forgiving than TBC, so casual guilds will have an easier time.
@@Lordturisas1 "good guild" yeah okay, we are farming BT and ready for Sunwell atm but we still let people play whatever they want, we dont be realm first but who cares for that anyway
I've been doing the same thing, the general consensus I've found is, unless your looking for world firsts or hard-core speed running, ele is fine not "optimal" but fine
Don't worry, you won't really need any PvE gear for arena.
Scottejaye is right, when your spec takes more than 1 button rotation, expect very varied results. A dedicated feral can no problemo top the ICC charts vs your typical casual fire mage. I played feral during the beginning of Shadowlands, it was hands down the hardest rotation/spec in the game and everyone straight off said IT SUCKS, DONT PLAY FERAL (Usual "dps tier lists" claimed feral is B tier and had 17 class/specs sitting above it)! Well, couple of months into raiding and I had secured world #2 druid dps (boomkin/feral, boomkin was supposed to be the best dps at the time) with 100 parses and absolutely destroyed the "FOTM" dps specs at the time on the majority of boss fights. People went even as far as trying to accuse me of some kind of botting because of how perfectly I managed to snapshot and time my cooldowns, but it's all just muscle memory and a lot of practice and this is what we are FINALLY going to see in WOTLK, parses (at least for a handful of specs) are going to be more than just who has more innervates/PIs and gear, finally rotation and knowing the fights starts to matter (Though you still want to suck up to your DKs for hysteria :D).
Couldn’t of said it better myself 🙏
Damn I was #1 Druid dps at the same time as u
I'll take "Things that never happened" for 500, Alex. Edit: If it's the same druid from your video (Mdps on Silvermoon) then it appears I'm right.
out of curiosity, i only spent a brief stint on a wotlk pserver that was an utter trainwreck- what do wrath pservers usually do that classic wrath wont do (because pservers got it wrong presumably)
Been great to have some data set on t7 content to, but i guess logging was not that common back then
I’m digging for anything as accurate and large in terms of data set as this, but you’re right it wasn’t as common and a lot more difficult to find anything reliable
"by the time youre full icc cata will be out" ive never gagged so hard in my life.
This tier list was actually useful.
As a diehard Dagger Rogue, it's nice to know that I won't be getting left in the dust in ICC like all tier lists I've seen say I will.
Combat is better
Is that an assassination warrior i see on the graph?? As someone who's on the fence about whether I'm gonna play wrath classic and have no idea what I want to play I appreciate the info and not just a bias, nice vid
Love the way you say "data".
Fury warrior does for a fact have the potential to MURDER every other class and spec with DPS. Gonna dual spec it for when i get tired of tankin
This is part of the reason I like boomkin so much. If you're doing bad damage, its your fault. If you're doing good damage its because you're playing well. It's also somewhat in demand because lots of people don't like eclipse and you usually want only 1 so there's usually 1 or 2 people who want the gear you want.
I've been wondering for ages whether to stick with my boomkin (made Day 1 of Classic, mained since), or change to Ret-a-din and I STILL have no idea what to do lol
Honest play what you are drawn to most and you’ll smash it!
My opinion: moonkin as it is insanely fun and there will be ton of paladins.
Don't forget that some specs are more reliant on rng for top parses than others, procs and crits at the right time. Something to keep in mind when looking at only top 200 parses.
This very accurate to how I remember.
Absolutely agree mate same here
This has me excited about playing a fury warrior in Wrath.
Reading the comments I'm confused; did you flip the icons for Combat and Sin or not?. I know there's a lot of Warmane Andies high on copium saying Combat beats Sin at any point other than near full BiS. The old Icons used to be Backstab for Combat and Eviscerate for Sin.
Other than that its nice to see somebody looking at WotLK class performance in a way that makes sense, everyone keeps making videos about how things like Ele Shaman will be hot garbage when LK had some of the best balanced performance in raids. Its even nice to see triple DPS classes like Hunter, Mage, Lock and Rogue have 1 or multiple specs sitting at the top of the charts to make up for their lower utility.
Definitely going to be a fun expansion to play, specially with the 4.0 lockouts allowing people to pug, cross guild raid and play at their desired pace.
Affli lock tops almost all fights in naxx, ulduar, togc and icc. When u reach endgame (icc 25hc ilvl), fire mage will be top on most fights.
it would be dope for you to do a guide on gear to get if wanting to play spellhance as soon as wotlk drops. like what gear from swp/bt/etc. we can get now to play it right out the gate
Hey Scott what was the avg/peak dps of all classes in Tier 7? I couldnt find any info regarding that
True. And we also say "meeeeeleeeee" nowadays instead of melee. :)
I promise that was meant in good spirits. Love the channel, mate. :)
one of the best top3 classic creators by far for me
I am confused now, this chart says Assassin is tops but every other dps list I have seen states combat is tops and Assassin is mid tier.
The issue is that wotlk back in the day had progressive class balancing where classic will run final balance patch. And looking at vanilla/tbc pservers compared to classic they are off somewhat to the point where warrior dps were predicted to be a joke in tbc but they do fine actually.
Point is, none of the data we have now can accurately score dps
This is 3.3 mate so it’s what we will have and as for TBC (I can’t really speak for vanillas) it’s definitely what I was expecting over an average. I’m not defend the data here I’m just saying the DPS people are doing is exactly what I expected from TBC compared to both historically and close to pservers
@@Scottejaye Obviously it's only average data. We all know when there is a dedicated Feral in your group, he is going to top the meters in half the fights completely uncontested.
@@yan-zhilinn1402 amen to that 🙏
@@yan-zhilinn1402 if a really good feral and really good mage have the same endgame gear, there is no way a feral can top him, even on aoe bosses.
@@Scottejaye 3.3.0 right?
Just paid for one year of restedxp using your link. I love it, but I'm now making a Paladin!
Edit: using your link
Legend, cheers mate. All helps supporting the channel so I am extremely grateful 🙏
yooo I haven't heard the name "Elitist Jerks" in a looong time
Could you link the article you've based this video on?
www.engadget.com/2010-05-06-icc-dps-analysis-by-spec.html I’ll pin it in a comment as well now mate, sorry completely slipped my mind 🙏
@@Scottejaye Cheers!
I just wanted to say that first of all thanks for the video, but those graphs are pretty shit. They make it seem like boomkin does a quarter of rogue’s damage, but according to the actual number that is not the case.
I distinctly remember pushing 8k dps as a destro lock back in Wrath. And Kohouri (my lock) was NOT in full BiS gear. And I also remember my Demo spec did around 6 to 7k. (Note: I was in 10m raids and not 25m)
dps is not enough for progress, destro dps doesnt matter when affli does the same while healing for 30% of his dps every sec. oh and destro has no execute which harder fights are all about. those dps lists make ppl think it makes their any spec great, but it doesnt.
@@David-hs1bu If you aren't standing in stupid, the self heal isn't really needed as much. And Destro is a constant execute for dps. No ramp up time, just blasting.
By the time wrath was just about over, Destro for me was easily pushing 10k dps in 10 man groups.
I remember world of logs a couple my toons made the top 10/20 in ICC back then and even did it with BM spec hunter
You should be able to tell what symbol is assassination and whats combat tho.
You can there is a legend at the top of the page 😂 or are you suggesting im mixing up Assassination and combat? Because I assure you I’m not 😚
@@Scottejaye 2:50 The eviscerate symbol stands for combat, not assassination. And it's well known that combat is #1 in T10 due to more arp and physical damage overtaking the poison damage that held assassination ahead during T7 and T8. Data from Warmane should also be way more relevant than 2010 data. Further, those averages barely hold any Shadowmournes, which also makes a BIG difference for those classes. A SM Fury is generally considered the top DPS overall, which is far from #9 as shown here - and it will be meta for guilds to give the first SM to the Fury as they get the most dps out of it (which was not clear back in the day, another big offset).
@Sam no it doesn’t lol tbc.wowhead.com/talent-calc/rogue even tbc wowhead talent calculator shows the icons at the top of the trees. And no warmane data is not better than this at all, people being absolute full bis farming icc25 for years is not how it’s going to be when Classic has an average of 16 weeks of content. Even getting full bis gear is a stretch never mind farming content with it for weeks or months. As for back in the day even fury warriors got our first shadowmourne, I think people forget how advanced as players we were in WOTLK. We have been playing the game for over 5 years at that point….also plus the fact warmane has SOOOO many bugs and things that were changed over the years including but not exclusively enhancement shaman proc rates, OOC for feral proccing obscene amounts and from things it shouldn’t, heals from spriest and warlock fel armor proccing trinkets they shouldn’t and the list goes on.
@@Scottejaye My bad about the icon then, even though having assassin ahead makes zero sense to me. Also I am not referring to Warmanes Icecrown realm. The Frostmourne realm is starting for the third time what Classic Wrath will only ever do a single time, progress through the entire content. I expect Pserver players to outperform other players on average, just like they did in Classic Vanilla and TBC - even when people said their "badly scripted, bug infested" pserver experience didn't mean anything. It was wrong every time.
I hear ya mate, your definitely entitled to your own opinion I’m not here to tell people they are right or wrong (like i even said at the start of the video) this is just data driven facts that isn’t from private servers. I mean even again in my opinion the classic player base are massively out performing the pservers from TBC and I played on all of them, the speed of clears, DPS, everything is just better but it’s because classic is how it was back in the day not like pservers. Fight length plays a massive part for many classes in terms of overall damage because of cool-down usage, frostmourne is buffed content by default meaning fights will last a hell of a lot longer than classic and the HPS required is higher as well, so it’s can’t even be thought about in comparison to classic imo.
Can you make a ultimate rep guide like the one you did in tbc for wotlk ?
Definitely will be mate 👍
@@Scottejaye my man!, you are my favorite content creator
in retail WOTLK I was an altoholic and I was usually top DPS with whatever I played (mostly mage, hunter and feral druid). "Bring the player, not the class" is true.
Is boomkin skill intensive or what? That's the class that changes the most between the average and the best performers
Actually glad Enhancement shaman is in such a good place despite not reaching the higher places of the ratings. lol
Very weird that in top 200 vs average Arcane suddenly becomes better than fire.
I think there is something wrong in these stats that shouldn't be happening right?
I have been playing warlock on multiple PS (and retail tlk) and i can tell you that good Affli warlock are going to do INSANE damage if supported well (open with TOT/prepot/snapshoting corruption/TOT@35%...).
If you play Demonology Warlock your spec is way easier to play and requires way less meta-knowledge but you bring the best SP buff in the game (scaling with you own stats), so 1 demono warlock is almost mandatory if you play a heavy caster group in 10M and you should nearly always bring one in 25M besause of the insane SP-buff they bring.
Snapshotting corruption LOL!!! demo is easier? You’re clueless. Demo is the harder spec 10/10. Snapshotting demonic pact is actually going to happen. Anyone “Snapshotting” corruption outside of tricks is a fool. Demo has to actually worry about using your pet properly and managing spell power buffs. Affliction is brain dead easy to top the meters.
seeing the Blood DPS on festergut makes me happy ive been trying to explain to people blood is perfectly capable of good DPS but i see a whole bunch of people saying its completly unviable i remember 25m 30% buff fights where i was breaking 18k dps on my blood dps Spec
18k is nothing by today's standards. Top specs (fire and fury) are sitting on 24-25k, other strong ones like Affliction are like 22-23k.