So, I’m getting mentally prepped for my return to the game in shadowlands, I’m very excited about the direction I’ve seen the game going in with the expo info so far.
What I’m trying to do is figure out what class I want to play at launch.
Currently I’m looking towards Arcane mage / MM hunter / Destro lock / Ele shaman, I’m looking for the hardest hitting single target nuker of the bunch. I like seeing big numbers and while I know that doesn’t always translate to most DPS, I’m more of a for fun player at this point, the hardcore days are very much over.
So, help me out, which do we think in shadowlands will be this?
Arcane Mage with all their buffs up is probably the strongest single target in the game.
Problem is, that’s the only thing Arcane is good at. And sometimes you will need to AoE, and Arcane has to sacrifice their single target to do mediocre AoE.
Chaos bolt (destro) or gpyro might be the best perhaps, for single big hits.
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According to a wowhead article the other day, a specific shaman setup.
https://www.wowhead.com/news=316312/rextroy-one-shots-drestagath-with-39-million-damage-stormstrike
But for shadowlands, we’re not going to know, and the start and end of expacs are two different times.
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We talking straight up burst? Cuz that’s Arcane Mage.
Destruction Warlock is pretty bursty too, with their Chaos Bolts and Infernal… but idk if that’s staying when the Azerite Trait is gone. 
Current numbers on the Alpha are completely irrelevant. They haven’t been tuned for damage balancing yet.
I think that Arcane Mage, Destro Lock, and MM Hunter are all fine examples. I personally hate the Arcane playstyle with all the GCD-triggering cooldowns that spec has, so I’d lean towards Destro Lock personally. MM Hunter is fine as well. Both those specs are designed around big high damage casts of Chaos Bolt and Aimed Shot, respectively.
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Its not. This is the problem with borrowed powers, your losing it all just like you lost artifact bonuses that made your class wholesome. Expect warlocks to fall down the latter.
Good! Dirty warlocks coming close to / beating out my arcane mage’s burst damage… get back down there where you belong and wait for my 10 second buff windows to expire to pass me.
I always feel like I get big hits from my arms warrior and fire mage. With the war, I love saving rage for when I can sunder armor (i know it’s not called that anymore) and then clobber them with huge execute hits. If you have the base turned up, you really feel it.
And with a fire mage, man when you get those hot-streak chains going, it’s like a machine gun of fire. So fun.
Seems like arcane mage is agreed to have the hardest hitting single hits and that’s their entire point, while others are saying destro / mm will be close seconds. I’m guessing ele is more sustained then, okay, sounds like I’ll prolly roll arcane mage then.
Arcane is the only class in the game with a planned downtime mechanic (Evocation) to balance their burst. It’s quite literally their whole gimmick and if we’re honest… it hasn’t always been great for 'em. Depleting their mana bar in a burst window and then not dpsing while they channel it all back… then doing resource management of their mana bar waiting for those cd’s to come back.
It’s great fun though to just delete something in mere seconds or pull threat off a tank because you’re doing nearly quadruple the dps of most specs while in your burst window. And since like 90% of the rotation is just “Arcane Blast”…
https://i.imgur.com/6QSC2TR.jpg
I’m not worried about being optimal lol, I’ll be happy if I clear heroic content and do mythic +10’s. I’m playing with very casual chill people, I just want to see big numbers, that actually sounds like exactly what I want, so I think we’re good to go. Thanks. 
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When I’m running frost on my mage my glacial spikes hit for over a million. The biggest unbuffed one I have had was 1.4m and the biggest buffed one I’ve had was 4.2m on the first boss in motherlode. 160%+ mastery with procs rolling is kind of insane.
When it comes to single, biggest hits Frost mage wins hands down.
As for Shadowlands… Nothing is tuned yet.
if you are wanting open world burst, Venthyr covenant Arms/Fury Warrior. they get access to Condemn, which will give Execute the ability to be used on any target with over 80% health as well as less than 20% health. you will charge in, execute them, and if they aren’t dead then you execute them again, and move onto the next mob.
the single hardest hitting spell is probably a tie between a max charged Arcane Blast, and Chaos Bolt though. Chaos Bolt being easier since you don’t have to set up all your buffs to get the big Arcane Blast spike.
Destro will be the biggest hard hitting nuker at the beginning of next xpac just like it was in BFA. Beyond the 1st patch of shadowlands tho is a mystery. itll still be one of the top but other classes will start to pick up later on.
I’ll like to interject at this point,I would suggest not play an Arcane mage til midway because of the changes involved at the beginning of an expanse ,unless you have a fondness for torture.
Ret pal under wings is something ridiculous. Only once per 2 minutes, but that damage is something insane. If you want actually massive numbers - it’s ret pal or destro lock. (not DPS overall, just bursts)
Arcane missiles too if they proc.
Had missiles proc on me 4 times in a row for a boss fight.
Not too sure about other classes, but I do know frost mages are getting hits of over 1mil right now.