Warcraft Logs' Mogu'shan Vaults Statistics
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DPS Rankings in Mists of Pandaria Phase 1 - August 26th
Heart of Fear
95th Percentile Statistics
Overall Damage
Damage to Bosses
Overall Statistics
Overall Damage
Damage to Bosses
Mogu'shan Vaults
95th Percentile Statistics
Overall Damage
Damage to Bosses
Overall Statistics
Overall Damage
Damage to Bosses
Biggest Changes This Week
Tanks
As should be expected in Mists of Pandaria, all tank specs are currently on top of the damage. We asked Riyani, one of our Tank Guide Writers, for their thoughts on tanks in Heart of Fear:
Continuing the trend from Mogu'shan Vaults, the Protection Warrior ranks first among the tanks in terms of overall throughput, especially in the higher percentiles.
Now, this is not a completely faithful representation of the actual throughput balance of the tanks. Two encounters, Grand Empress Shek'zeer and Wind Lord Mel'jarak, heavily skew the results in favor of the Protection Warrior due to the role they fill in these encounters.
On Grand Empress Shek'zeer, a Protection Warrior is much more likely than any other tank to solo tank the 6 Set'thik Windblade in Phase 2 due to how well suited they are for mitigating damage with Shield Barrier while getting a constant flow of Revenge procs. The tank that's assigned to the Wingblades will very quickly get Vengeance capped, and due to the long duration of Last Stand, Protection Warriors can increase their Vengeance cap for an extended period of time. During this time, Shield Barrier will quite easily absorb 2,000,000+ damage in a single cast.
Similarly, on Wind Lord Mel'jarak, because of the constant rage generation and enormous Shield Barriers, the Warrior is one of the best tanks to build Vengeance while opting not to dispel Quickening on the boss and adds. I suspect we'll see other tanks perform similar numbers as the Protection Warrior in the coming weeks, but for now, this heavily skews the overall data in favor of the Warrior.
That said, looking at data on bosses that are not the two bosses mentioned above, we see a slightly different picture with Blood Death Knights and Guardian Druids performing rather well, but fall behind in the overall rankings due to being a very unlikely contender for tanking Wingblades on Empress and slightly underperforming on Wind Lord in the 95th percentile. Protection Paladin, like the Protection Warrior, is very adept at handling high Vengeance. I expect them to perform very well in future weeks.
Feral Druid
Feral Druid is currently one of the top DPS specs in Heart of Fear, gaining quite a lot of momentum after Mogu'shan Vaults. Our Feral Druid Guide Writer explains why:
Feral scales really well this expansion, and Heart of Fear is a great raid for Ferals. You can pull off some fun shenanigans with Symbiosis and Soul Swap on Garalon, going from the legs to the boss to gain the 100% damage increase on multiple targets. There are also opportunities for cleave multidotting on other bosses. Several bosses are mostly stationary, allowing you to focus primarily on your rotation instead of the boss mechanics.
Mage
Fire Mage shot up in the MSV rankings this week, going from middle of the pack to 4th place. Along with this, Arcane Mage has remained consistently high on boss damage. We asked our Mage Guide Writer for their thoughts:
Fire Mage ending up so high on the rankings is largely due to the large amount of RNG involved in the spec. On average, this leads to just OK results, but when luck is on your side, you can easily skyrocket to the top. Combine this with the very small number of people playing Fire Mage, and you end up with some skewed results. Some bosses, such as Stone Guards and Elegon, allow Fire Mages to take advantage of their insanely high burst potential with Combustion, weighting the results more in their favor.
Arcane Mage, on the other hand, focuses on consistent single-target damage. This is most visible on primarily single-target fights, and there are quite a few of those in Heart of Fear. Arcane Mages don't have to fight RNG to perform well, and as such are a more reliable DPS, especially for progression.
As far as Frost Mage goes, it is underperforming due to a couple of factors. Groups clearing Heart of Fear Heroic week 1 tend toward bringing the best specializations, meaning there are very few people playing Frost. Frost's main advantage is that it is significantly easier to play than Arcane, while still being more consistent than Fire. As a result of this, a lot of the players playing Frost are doing it because it is easier, not because it is better. This can, however, be a boon in progression, allowing players to focus on the fights first and foremost, instead of their rotation.
Disclaimers and Source
The data for this article was taken from the Heart of Fear & Mogu'shan Vaults Statistics Page on Warcraft Logs. We will examine the data for the 95th percentile and show the overall results to paint a better picture.
The idea of this article is to give a perspective of the current state of class balance for Mists of Pandaria Phase 1, meaning this is an incomplete picture of Mists of Pandaria balance.
We refer to perspective, as there are inherent biases in examining the data in this way.
Specs considered underpowered are generally played less and tend to appear weaker than they are.
This happens as many performance-oriented players tend to play the strongest spec or class, increasing the gap between top and bottom specs even further.
Position of specs for the 95th percentile might be skewed by alternative strategies and parse funneling. We're including the chart showing all percentiles' results to paint a better picture for all specs.
Statistics displayed below show data for 25-player heroic difficulty. For 10-player difficulty, please visit Warcraft Logs.
Mists of Pandaria Classic Class Guides
For more information on Mists of Pandaria classes & specs, check out our Class Guides!
Blood DK
Frost DK
Unholy DK
Beast Mastery Hunter
Marksmanship Hunter
Survival Hunter
Arcane Mage
Fire Mage
Frost Mage
Brewmaster Monk
Mistweaver Monk
Windwalker Monk
Holy Paladin
Protection Paladin
Retribution Paladin
Discipline Priest
Holy Priest
Shadow Priest
Assassination Rogue
Combat Rogue
Subtlety Rogue
Elemental Shaman
Enhancement Shaman
Restoration Shaman
Affliction Warlock
Demonology Warlock
Destruction Warlock
Arms Warrior
Fury Warrior
Protection Warrior
Balance Druid
Feral Druid
Guardian Druid
Restoration Druid
