What classes need buffs? (11/15/24)

PVP Arenas
1

Dear community and devs,

since its Friday again and we will hopefully see some PvP balancing this time, I just wanted to make sure that you are buffing the right classes.

DK, Monk, DH and maybe Pala don’t have a single good DPS spec for high ratings!

Explanation of how data were take and how to read tables For each number I used checked-pvp and combined NA and EU ladder. It does compare active class popularity (all players with 1000+ rating) with class representation on high ratings (all players with 2400+ rating), which gives us a rough overview of how the DPS classes are doing.

I also added this time a spec based table since a lot of people asked for it, even though I think it doesn’t has as much value and I’am a bit worried that people could misinterpret some values there! You can find it in the spoiler part!

In the following table, I took the strongest spec of each class for the overall points:

Class strength (DPS):

Class 3s RSS per mille
Rogue 58.93 27.46 86.39
Hunter 15.1 22.63 37.73
Lock 10.06 23.81 33.87
Ele 13.28 13.82 27.1
Feral 16.79 9.81 26.6
Enha 12.78 13.27 26.05
Evoker 7.64 12.45 20.09
Boomy 7.54 10.56 18.1
Priest 5 13.02 18.02
Warrior 8.05 7.88 15.93
Mage 6.97 5.91 12.88
Paladin 3.6 4.7 8.3
DH 3.17 2.89 6.06
Monk 1.97 2.58 4.55
DK 2.41 1.4 3.81

Spec strength (DPS):

Spec 3s RSS points
Outlaw 58.93 27.46 86.39
BM 15.1 22.63 37.73
Demo 10.06 23.81 33.87
Ele 13.28 13.82 27.1
Feral 16.79 9.71 26.5
Enha 12.78 13.27 26.05
Deva 7.64 12.45 20.09
Boomy 7.54 10.56 18.1
Shadow 5 13.02 18.02
Affli 6.31 11.6 17.91
Fury 8.05 7.88 15.93
Assa 7.68 7.84 15.52
Surv 10.51 4.34 14.85
Arcane 4.93 8.6 13.53
Frost 6.97 5.91 12.88
Fire 3.97 7.89 11.86
Destro 2.45 6.65 9.1
Ret 3.6 4.7 8.3
Sub 5.8 1.97 7.77
Arms 2.72 4.42 7.14
FDK 4.95 1.59 6.54
DH 3.17 2.89 6.06
WW 1.97 2.58 4.55
UDK 1.76 1.35 3.11
MM 1.66 0.4 2.06

But careful, this analyze doesn’t work well for unpopular specs like Outlaw, Fire and Arcane Mage. Outlaw is without a doubt very strong, probably S tier, but ~4 times more broken than BM? Naaah!

As another source of analysis to confirm this data, I wrote a script that gives me the average rating of the top 1% characters of each class. Unfortunately, this is only available for RSS, as the official 3s table only shows 1000 spots regardless of spec. For the class table I took the strongest spec for each class!

Average rating top 1% DPS Class (RSS):

Class Avg_CR Normalized
Rogue 2627 6.0472
Enha 2549 2.8984
Hunter 2539 2.4948
Lock 2538 2.4544
Ele 2528 2.0507
Boomy 2508 1.2433
Feral 2502 1.0011
Evoker 2496 0.7589
Priest 2486 0.3552
Warrior 2465 -0.4925
Mage 2430 -1.9054
Paladin 2418 -2.3898
Surv 2413 -2.5916
DH 2331 -5.9018
Monk 2328 -6.0229
DK 2317 -6.4670

Average rating top 1% Specs (RSS):

Spec Avg_CR Normalized
Outlaw 2627 7.7646
Enha 2549 4.5649
BM 2539 4.1547
Demo 2538 4.1137
Ele 2528 3.7035
Boomy 2508 2.8830
Affli 2504 2.7189
Feral 2502 2.6369
Deva 2496 2.3908
Shadow 2486 1.9805
Assa 2477 1.6113
Fury 2465 1.1191
Destro 2453 0.6268
Frost 2430 -0.3167
Arcane 2429 -0.3577
Ret 2418 -0.8090
Surv 2413 -1.0141
Fire 2411 -1.0961
Arms 2382 -2.2857
Havoc 2331 -4.3779
WW 2328 -4.5009
FDK 2317 -4.9522
Sub 2307 -5.3624
UDK 2267 -7.0033
MM 2238 -8.1929

Those data clearly shows, that we need to buff first DK (Frost or Unholy), Monk (WW), DH (Havoc) and Pala (Ret). About the other specs being on bottom, we need to find out first if its really their spec being so bad, or if just most of that class play the strongest spec.

Last but not least, lets take a quick look at our healer:

Spec 3s RSS points
Pres Evoker 10.52 6.83 17.35
Holy Pala 10.6 5.07 15.67
MW Monk 9.03 5.5 14.53
Disc Priest 7.13 4.04 11.17
Resto Druid 3.31 1.15 4.46
Resto Sham 2.08 1.54 3.62
Holy Priest 1.09 0.59 1.68

As you can see, Resto Shaman and Resto Druid should be the first to buff, after that Holy Priest need some love, so not every Priest has to play Discipline.

Thank you for your patience and time.

12 Likes
2

Again, while I think it’s very important to interpret this data with caution, I appreciate you putting it together.

What I think is interesting is how it adjusts week-to-week. For example, despite being nerfed this week, bm is significantly higher relative to last week when it was doing ~3% more damage.

It seems like there’s a very real lag time between the ladder adjusting as people climb.

Additionally, does your ladder analysis account for alts of the same spec? I do think enhance is solid atm, but when saul has 3 enh and bigdam has 6 (im honestly guessing here, but probably not far off), I feel like that throws a real wrench in the overall “spec strength”. Boomy is similar where it’s obviously good atm, but the top 6 boomies are 3 people between sam, camel x3, and rev x2.

6 Likes
3

Thanks mate.

There definitely is. It needs time until changes are noticable within the ladder!

But its a good indicator for specs that haven’t received buffs (or nerfs) within the past few weeks. That is the case for the DPS and Healer specs that I mentioned.

FDK/UDK, WW, Havoc, maybe Ret, Resto Druid and Resto Shaman definitely need some love the next tuning, as they are really lagging behind on top ratings based on their popularity.

It does not, as the options I get from check-pvp are very limited. Even for the top 1% analyze, I had to write a python script that is scalping the official ladder. But I guess it was worth it the time, to support my usual analyse!

But keep in mind, that top players of other classes also have multiple alts of their same class at top ratings.

Its also not just 1-2 people as you might think. In 3s, we have 14 Enha over 2400. They belong to 9 accounts in total. For shuffle its 45 Enha over 2400 with in total 23 accounts. So even then they would do exceptionally well, based on how least played Enha is.

I wouldn’t say that Enha is broken or something, but definitely in a great spot and the ladder analyze supports that impression.

3 Likes
4

BM still feels really strong after the nerfs, black arrows hit for like 500k~ now, but I’m still shredding people on my hunter alt and I have very little idea what Im actually doing (basically just try to cc healer and then do unhealable dam with a gorillian pets while running away the whole game). Albeit I’m super low rated, most of my matches last night ended with me doubling everyone else’s damage. I don’t think BM needs as many “spawn more pets” buttons, it even feels ridiculous to play… like, oh, I just sent a dozen different animals at you and ran around a corner and won the game, GG wp?

But I also feel like underrepresented specs like survival, outlaw, balance and maybe arcane are still really good, they’re just on classes that have easier S/A+ tier specs, so most people play those.

I think ww, DK, fire mage, DH and holy priest need buffs. Rdruid just needs an entire rework, but I feel like people will be complaining about it being broken in S2/S3 even with no changes just due to how they scale with haste/mastery, so they can prob be left alone.

I think this meta is closer to being balanced than people think though

1 Like
5

If ret paladin needs buffed why is it the most popular melee and 2nd most popular dps spec behind BM hunter several FOTM categories on drustvar data?

1 Like
6

Popular does not necessarily equal strong.

For example, Rogue is always one of the least popular classes, but also the strongest relative to population, especially in r1 range and tournament play.

3 Likes
7

100%. I’ve been saying this for legit 8 weeks!!!
I love when data supports my feelcraft opinion XD
(Also buff fire mage and arcane, but I do agree that pure dps specs are lower prio if they have at least one strong spec within that role)

Oh, I was talking about r1 specificially, but in hindsight I think you’re right that 2400 is a much better metric to evaluate on.

Oh 100%; same with boomy, I just wanted to caution alts over-inflating rep, ya know?

1000% this. Especially compared to how NOT balanced things were on release. It really does feel like every patch has been a step in the right direction (admittedly with a stumble on the bm dark ranger patch).

1 Like
8

Drustvar is working with absolute numbers and doesn’t respect of how much a spec is played.

Simple example:

Lets say we have in total 5000 UDK in the ladder and 5 of them are 2400+. At the same time we have 500 Outlaw and also 5 of them reached 2400+.

Drustvar would list both with 5, so you could get the impression that both specs are equally strong. But would they? Or shouldn’t you say that DK should have 50 spots at 2400+ because it has 10 times the player base of Outlaw?

Another example:

Lets say your favorite ice cream costs $2 and the new monitor you want costs $200. After a while, the ice cream costs $3 and the monitor $201.

Would you say both prices did increase the same (by $1)? Or would you say the ice cream price did increase by 50% while the monitor just increased by 0.5%?

I do agree, that is why I am not asking for nerfs etc. I just think the weaker specs should be buffed to be more viable, instead of nerfing everything to the ground.

I get that point, so we definitely should take all data with caution. Same for outlaw for example. Without a doubt strong, probably even S tier, but so much ahead of everyone else? Naaaah, I don’t think so. It is just an unpopular spec, that is doing great in the right hands.

Btw, which analysis do you like more? Top 1% average rating of each spec/class, or rating comparison from 1000+ to 2400+?

1 Like
9

Classes that need buffs: Whatever I’m choosing to play as today

Classes that need nerfs: Whatever Classes were in my latest shuffle loss

10

There’s also the case of people like Zenlyn who have over 20 Holy Priests which is skewing your healer data (which impacts that category more due to there being many many more DPS specs than there are healer specs in the game).

11

I think the rating comparison of 2400+ is a much healthier and more representative metric because it’s much less likely to be skewed by an outlier of a tournament team going 30-2 over a week and then sitting 250 pts higher than everyone else who plays the spec.

1 Like
12

MAKE CLEAVES GREAT AGAIN

holy hell, why are so many melee just mid. Melee cleaves are a staple to wow pvp and i think a good meta has a mix of melee cleave, caster cleave, and melee wizard/ranged.

right now there isn’t A SINGLE melee cleave queing besides when saul and larosz want to try 2x harder than just playing ele or bm

yesterday i saw petkick and mvq queing dh dk into fury frost mage, they got outcleaved by the fury AND the mage that was getting trained 70% of the game.

they still won most of the games because they are goated(and because the enemy pres blew every wall to aggro sleep), but something is clearly wrong when a melee cleave is getting outcleaved consistently like this.

unless petkick and mvq repeatedly outplayed the frost mage fury team, they just passively lost to dmg as the other team was doing like 30-50% more dmg than them.

i think something needs to be said that if the best unholy dk is fighting tooth and nail to squeeze a W at 2470(when playing with the best DH)… then that’s clearly a problem.

1 Like
13

If the data isn’t taking into account inactive ladder positions, not sure this accomplishes what your intended goal is.

14

Well, the other analysis respects average rating of the top 1%, not absolute numbers. For very unpopular specs (Outlaw), that could result in some strange numbers, but for most specs 1-2 outlier wouldn’t impact the data too much.

Thanks for your opinion though, appreciate it!

Compare it with the absolute numbers from drustvar for top ratings. It shows basically the same picture of what classes need buffs.

https://imgur.com/a/VGyrXpn

15

BUUUH WHERES THE HEALER TABLE
just kidding this time I actually read it, thanks champion

nerf holy priest to make Fluent’s achievement(s) that much more impressive

I am once again asking the american people to buff rsham and rdruid

I’m tired of these female blood elves walking up to me on their horse and HOJing me then casting repentance too late in melee range and getting kicked by me. I want to have female night elves deer form to me, bash me and then cyclone too late then get kicked

I honestly dont really care as much about DPS balancing. Healer (lack) of diversity affects me more and I would like to see and play against other healers

1 Like
16

B bu but, the forum level 11 alts stuck at 1400 in shuff said demo is barely B tier! This can’t be right!!

1 Like
17

No full on make melee cleave completely and totally unviable. While you are at it make all forms of ungabunga unviable. The idea that you are going into a pvp match and are going to pve tunnel a target into the dirt needs to die in a damn fire.

18

melee cleaves are the most chad comps to ever grace this game

3 Likes
19

Ftfy

10 chars

20

sounds like estrogen i dont get it

2 Likes