Challenge Mode DPS Tier List for Mists of Pandaria Classic

You can find below a quick summary of the current Challenge Mode Dungeon DPS rankings:

1. Survival Hunter (S-Tier)
2. Frost Mage (S-Tier)
3. Elemental Shaman (S-Tier)
4. Frost Death Knight (S-Tier)
5. Destruction Warlock (A-Tier)
6. Unholy Death Knight (A-Tier)
7. Arms Warrior (A-Tier)
8. Enhancement Shaman (A-Tier)
9. Shadow Priest (B-Tier)
10. Windwalker Monk (B-Tier)
11. Retribution Paladin (B-Tier)
12. Demonology Warlock (B-Tier)
13. Combat Rogue (B-Tier)
14. Feral Druid (B-Tier)
15. Affliction Warlock (B-Tier)
16. Beast Mastery Hunter (B-Tier)
17. Fury Warrior (B-Tier)
18. Subtlety Rogue (B-Tier)
19. Arcane Mage (C-Tier)
20. Fire Mage (C-Tier)
21. Balance Druid (C-Tier)
22. Marksmanship Hunter (C-Tier)
23. Assassination Rogue (C-Tier)

In order to further understand the reasoning behind these ranks, we would recommend you read the rest of the page, as that is explained in more detail in the next few sections.

If you are interested in other Challenge Mode Dungeon role rankings for Mists of Pandaria Classic, check the following links:

When sorting out the rankings for DPS in Challenge Modes, damage output is going to be the primary driving factor. However, there are some key differences in how you evaluate the profile of damage that is most valuable for dungeons:

1. AoE — unlike raids, single target damage is not nearly as important in Challenge Mode Dungeons. The most important type of damage will be AoE for pulling large groups of trash mobs together to cleave down effectively. The entire dungeon is on a timer; fewer pulls with more enemies means less time overall, with a higher effective use of damage cooldowns.
2. Cooldowns — while having good cooldowns for burst damage can be important in raids, the timed environment of Challenge Modes makes cooldowns less valuable. It is more important that you are able to get through every pull effectively, or utilize specific big cooldowns for intentionally big pulls. Classes like Survival Hunter are extremely strong because they are not at all reliant on their cooldowns for damage, meaning they are capable of doing exceptional AoE damage on every single pull of the dungeon.
3. Utility — again unlike raids, dungeon enemies are prone to all sorts of crowd control abilities, including grips, stuns, and hard controls like Polymorph. Challenge Mode dungeons are quite difficult, particularly for the tank due to the massive damage intake. If your group has more control available, that means more tools for your tank to utilize to survive each pull.

Finally, generally every class brings some sort of useful raid buff. While there are certainly some buffs that are more valuable than others, classes that bring multiple raid buffs will also have slightly more value. This also makes your overall group composition extremely important to ensure that you are making the best use of possible buffs, bringing important abilities like Heroism, and bringing appropriate crowd control.

Survival Hunter require very little gear to be effective, making them an excellent choice for Challenge Modes. Hunter in general has some amazing utility tools like Misdirection, along with the ability to fill any missing raid buff. Survival Hunters have the best on-demand AoE in the game, both for burst and sustained AoE damage with the power of Explosive Trap and Serpent Spread. Survival is one of the most versatile, powerful ranged damage dealers that is not reliant on cooldowns, always capable of dealing insane damage across every pull.

Frost Mages are far and away the strongest caster in challenge mode dungeons thanks to a large base power that is not reliant on cooldowns. Perhaps most importantly, Frost Mages can actually freeze most enemies in dungeons, allowing for incredible burst damage thanks to Shatter combos, specifically with Frost Bomb. Mages also bring exceptional utility and survivability, making them an incredible choice for dungeons.

Elemental Shaman bring a high number of important buffs, making them a great choice to round out your comp in challenge modes. While Elemental lacks the single target burst damage of the other S-tier classes, their AoE with Chain Lightning and Fire Nova is exceptional. Shamans also notably bring Ancestral Guidance, which converts a portion of their damage into healing, providing massive bursts of healing during heavy AoE pulls. The added Shaman utility combined with their incredibly strong, consistent AOE is what keeps them in S-tier.

Frost Death Knight has many of the same strengths as Unholy, but are different in a couple of key ways. While Unholy is based around pets and DoTs, Frost focuses instead on hard hitting strikes along with powerful short burst cooldowns and procs. They have similar relative strengths as both do exceptional damage, top-tier single target, and amazing on-demand AoE. Unholy does more damage overall however, and has a more powerful burst window, specifically when it comes to single target. Additionally, Frost loses out on more single-target damage during its AoE. However, Frost is one of the best AoE and sustained cleave specializations in the game thanks to the power of Howling Blast. This exceptional AOE thanks to their inherent, strong cleave will make them a fantastic choice in challenge mode dungeons as one of the only melee specializations that compete with the range DPS above.

Destruction Warlock is one of the best possible ranged DPS in the first tier of Mists for almost any situation. Warlock has an incredibly array of damage cooldowns to pull from, but Destruction in particular utilizes a high base level of damage thanks to some reworked abilities to deal incredible damage. Havoc is Destruction's signature spell however, which causes them to deal the most two-target cleave damage in the game. Destruction will be one of the best casters for the first phase of Mists of Pandaria thanks entirely to their damage output.

Thanks to their powerful spec cooldowns, Unholy has some of the highest burst damage in the game, specifically due to the power of Summon Gargoyle. Death Knights in general are incredibly strong all expansion, and fully live up to the title of hero class. Perhaps one of the biggest weaknesses of Unholy is that while it may be one of the strongest DPS at the start, Frost DK is also exceptionally strong and does more AoE. Unholy DK offers incredibly defense, burst damage, and the powerful combination of sustained single target and large scale AoE that allows them to excel in any encounter. Death Grip is also unique utility that is impossible to replicate with other specs.

Arms Warrior was absolutely dominant all the way through Cataclysm and continues to be a top contender in the beginning of Mists of Pandaria. Thanks to Colossus Smash, Arms Warriors have incredible sustained single-target damage along with low cooldown burst windows inside their smash. Arms still has some of the best 2-target cleave in the game thanks to Sweeping Strikes, providing them a niche where they're ahead of even the S-tier classes. Arms will remain strong throughout the expansion, but will eventually be out-scaled by Fury. For now, they remain one of the strongest melee DPS.

Enhancement Shaman is possibly one of the most difficult specs to play well, but have a high ceiling when played properly. Enhancement has a huge arsenal of competing cooldowns which can make their rotation hard to perform well, especially in a tier where swapping between AoE and single target is critical. Enhancement has great damage potential, but is still a bit lacking compared to the melee above. However, Enhancement also brings decent AoE with their Fire Nova, making them a compelling choice on any cleave fights without a huge sacrifice to single target throughput.

Shadow Priest offers some strong utility options in general, mostly dealing with ways to help your healer out. Shadow as a damage specialization is strong, offering decent damage in most situations, but getting far outmatched by specs like Survival Hunter and Destruction Warlock in AoE and burst damage. Multi-dotting is still certainly a strong niche, and is actually quite useful in several dungeons, but Shadow Priests are a weaker option for AoE overall. The primary weakness will be Shadow's single target damage, where they are exceptionally weak.

Windwalker Monk is the new DPS in Mists of Pandaria, starting the expansion with quite a decent showing. While Windwalker is not quite S-tier in terms of pure single target output, it has incredible burst damage that allows for exceptional AoE burst with the right setup utilizing Storm, Earth, and Fire. Windwalker also has incredibly mobility and defensive cooldowns, giving you plenty of ways to deal with every dungeon. This will be a specialization that heavily rewards skillful play; when played well, great Windwalkers can be competitive with any DPS.

Retribution Paladin has every benefit of being a Paladin, but unfortunately do not bring quite the same power level that Holy and Protection bring. Retribution offers some strong damage cooldowns giving them decent burst damage for single target, but lacks the AOE and cleave that Arms Warriors and Unholy DKs bring. While still a solid melee choice, the other melee DPS above offer just a bit more in the way of both throughput and utility. Retribution still shines when it comes to burst damage thanks to great cooldowns, but their sustained single target and AoE is where they fall behind.

Demonology Warlock utilize their Metamorphosis form to deal incredible burst damage, primarily for AoE cleave. Warlocks are a staple of the S-tier meta, but Mists of Pandaria will be mostly focused on Destruction and Affliction. Demonology is still quite competitive and a solid choice throughout the expansion, but the pressence of the other more powerful Warlock specs will overshadow it. Demonology's primary strength will be its burst AoE however, which can still be strong in some dungeons.

Combat Rogue requires a bit of gear and scaling, but once they have some solid raid gear, they can output some incredible numbers. However, in an environment like Challenge Mode dungeons where scaling is far less noticeable, Combat does not perform nearly as well. However, Combat's strength is still its cleave thanks to Blade Flurry. Combat deals strong sustained AoE damage, making it a solid choice in dungeons. Their overall output is still a bit low due to poor scaling in dungeon gear, but they have far more AoE capability than any other Rogue specialization.

Feral Druid has one of the most complex rotations in the game, but when played properly offer exceptional single-target damage. Feral lacks single-target burst and sustained AoE, but their burst AoE when combining Berserk and Swipe is quite strong. Outside of sustained single-target and burst AoE, Feral does suffer since they require a significant time investment to get their damage and DoTs rolling on new targets. Feral scales exceptionally well, and will become one of the best single target damage dealers later on in the expansion.

Affliction Warlock offers the strongest multi-target spread damage in the game thanks to their powerful DoTs, which allows them to both funnel more damage into a main target and do strong add damage at the same time. However, even with exceptional multi-dotting and spread cleave potential, their single target is still a bit lacking compared to that of Destruction. Spread cleave and multi-dotting is quite storng in general however, making Affliction a solid choice overall and even one of the best choices on select fights. Affliction has the highest scaling potential out of any DPS in the game, and will eventually be the top spec towards the end of the expansion.

Beast Mastery Hunter is a weak option just like in Cataclysm, at least early on. Survival heavily outclasses Beast Mastery, as your pet is significantly less important to your overall damage. This is mainly true because the other two Hunter specs offer meaningful DPS talents to increase their damage done, specifically giving powerful build-defining shots that their rotations are based around. Ultimately there isn't much to say besides just that Beast Mastery does not do adequate damage without the necessary scaling to make your pet powerful. Beast Mastery does have the best damage cooldowns out of any Hunter spec however, giving them one clear niche. Beast Mastery also now has Beast Cleave, giving them a great way to deal cleave damage now.

Fury Warrior continues to be quite weak after suffering for most of Cataclysm. Just like in Wrath, Fury is set up to fail early on as it requires a significant amount of haste and crit to really scale well. However, unlike previously, Fury will eventually outscale Arm. Arms Warriors will be one of the best DPS specs in the game early on, but Fury will surpass it in the final tier. Fury has decent low target cleave damage, but doesn't bring the same single target damage that Arms does. Fury suffers from a lack of Rage early on, making it feel slow and bulky.

Like Frost Mages, Subtlety Rogue is redesigned significantly going into Mists of Pandaria. Subtlety is no longer a purely PVP specialization and does incredible single target damage. Subtlety has a relatively complex rotation requiring lots of planning to upkeep several buffs such as Recuperate and Slice and Dice. If you can pull it off successfully, Subtlety Rogues deal the most single target damage in the game on pure sustained single target. However, Rogues also lack almost any good AOE or cleave options, which is what keeps them in A-tier. Rogues additionally bring Smoke Bomb, which is one of the best defensive cooldowns in the game that DPS bring.

Arcane Mage has great burst and decent single target, but require a fair amount of gear to really start to scale. Arcane can have some strong power early on, specifically when combined with other external buffs such as Power Infusion. Arcane also lacks the same AoE power that Frost and Fire bring however, and is only really competitive in single target. Arcane has received multiple rounds of buffs however, making it more and more promising to see niche use in the first tier.

Thanks to the power of Combustion, Fire Mage in Mists of Pandaria has one of the highest DPS ceilings out of any class in the game, but only towards the end expansion. The spec is a bit RNG-heavy and does require some luck for good setup, but Fire has the potential to set up some absolutely monstrous burst damage through proper ignite stacking that can then be spread to all targets in range for AoE that no other spec could ever even hope to come close to. It's not a reach to say that Fire Mages has one of the single most powerful cooldown ever introduced in WoW, but only when luck goes your way. Fire Mage early on is quite weak unfortunately and needs a significant amount of crit and haste to really scale to its full potential.

Balance Druid has some incredible utility, specifically with Typhoon and Innervate. These are both highly sought after, and invaluable to certain other classes. Boomkins do decent single-target damage, but have some of the better AoE in the game thanks to Starfall and their powerful multi-dotting. Boomkins also have incredible funnel damage potential thanks to a unique mechanic where DoTs can reset their Starsurge cooldown, allowing them a powerful, constant stream of priority target damage. That being said, their damage overall is still a bit weaker than the classes in the tiers above with low scaling early on.

While Marksmanship Hunter does require some gear to scale, massives buffs to their core abilities have really pushed their effectiveness up in the first tier of Mists of Pandaria. Marksmanship still ultimately scales worse than Beast Mastery, and is weaker than Survival early on, putting them in a weird middle ground throughout the expansion. Marksmanship is slightly weaker in terms of raw output, but has one of the strongest opening burst combos due to Careful Aim. It may be popular in PvP, but that success just does not translate into PvE at the moment. Marksmanship notably has the worst AOE options out of any Hunter spec as well, with no significant way to cleave.

Assassination Rogue offers decent sustained single-target damage and are extremely consistent. The meta for Rogue specs largely comes down to tuning and scaling. For the first tier of Mists of Pandaria, Subtlety is the far superior specialization. It does more damage than Assassination, making it the better choice, especially when both specs share the same niche of only being good in single target scenarios. Rogues still all bring Smoke Bomb, which is a compelling defensive choice however.