DPS PvP Rankings / Tier List for Mists of Pandaria Classic

MOP Launch Update: The rankings have been updated for the first MOP PvP Season!

You can find below a quick summary of the current PvP DPS rankings:

1. Warrior (S-Tier)
2. Warlock (S-Tier)
3. Monk (S-Tier)
4. Balance Druid (S-Tier)
5. Elemental Shaman (S-Tier)
6. Mage (A-Tier)
7. Hunter (A-Tier)
8. Rogue (A-Tier)
9. Enhancement Shaman (A-Tier)
10. Feral Druid (B-Tier)
11. Retribution Paladin (B-Tier)
12. Shadow Priest (B-Tier)
13. Death Knight (B-Tier)

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

Feel free to also consult our PvP Healer rankings page if you are interested in learning more about your potential partners in the arena, or our guides on compositions in each bracket (2v2, 3v3, and 5v5) to learn which kinds of teams best suit your class.

When sorting out the rankings for DPS in PvP, we are primarily concerned with three things:

• Damage Throughput — first and foremost, DPS are there to deal damage. You will not win unless you kill the other team. Unlike in PvE, however, sustained damage is usually less important than burst damage, although some classes still rely more on sustained damage to overwhelm the enemy healer.
• Utility — this is probably the most skill-based portion of PvP, and where the best players shine. Control abilities such as Fear and Polymorph are game-defining abilities in Arena matches, as you effectively can take other players out of the fight for short periods of times. Effective use of control abilities, and the number of options available to a class are hugely important in how valuable a class is in Arenas.
• Survivability — just as you want to kill your enemies, you are also trying to not die. Defensive abilities and cooldowns are also quite important, especially when you are trying to reset or live long enough to regain offensive pressure. Some classes are significantly more durable than others, which has a huge impact on their effectiveness in Arenas.

These rankings will focus on these factors, and are specifically written in the context of 2v2 and 3v3 Arena. These rankings also could hold up decently well for 5v5 arena, but 2v2 and 3v3 are the significantly more popular and more competitive brackets. It is also important to note that group composition is incredibly important in Arena; playing a comp that utilizes your class's strengths can turn a B-tier class into an A-tier comp.

If you would like to know more about recommended arena compositions for any of its brackets, consult our guides below.

Warriors are the antithesis of Rogues; instead of utilizing a stealthy, controlled style of play to set up and execute kills, Warriors are there to deal high consistent damage, while also tanking through enemy incoming damage. Warrior can put high pressure on enemy healers thanks to a combination of high burst and solid sustained damage, as well as Mortal Strike, a way to catch up with Heroic Leap, and high burst damage in Colossus Smash windows.

Warrior's biggest weakness is what you would expect out of a melee: up-time. Inexperienced Warriors can be easily countered by Mages and other ranged classes, meaning it is up to the Warrior and their team to work together, using tools such as Purify and Hand of Freedom, as well as the Warrior's own Spell Reflection, to stay out of CC and keeping Mortal Strike up.

With the right support, Warriors are unstoppable juggernauts that will wreak havoc in the Arena.

Warlocks are a great class in PvP in terms of sustained output and durability, and will mostly be playing Affliction in Mists of Pandaria. DoT snapshotting with Soul Swap and Dark Soul: Misery is one of the best ways to reach a win by dealing unhealable damage, and enemy healers cannot even dispel the DoTs off due to Unstable Affliction!

Shadowflame also contributes to Affliction's high damage potential, and Warlock utility is as strong as ever with Create Healthstone, Curse of Tongues, Fear, and Curse of the Elements. Finally, their passive defenses are also great thanks to Soul Link and other defensive talents.

Windwalker Monks have great burst damage potential with their powerful cooldowns Invoke Xuen, the White Tiger and Storm, Earth, and Fire, as well as unique utility such as Ring of Peace, Transcendence and Tiger's Lust which are great in PvP scenarios. They also evade attacks and spells after being stunned due to Dematerialize, which is a critical defense mechanism against common kill setups and are extremely mobile through some of the utility listed above and the short cooldown Roll, making them quite capable of sticking to their targets.

Balance Druid, when left unchecked, is able to do massive area damage and decimate an opposing team by itself. Unfortunately, they are also one of the most vulnerable classes to being trained and disrupted, as their ability to kite away is limited, while Starfall and any hard casts still require the Druid to not be CC'd in order to function. Regardless, Lunar Shower allows for massive fully instant damage output, helping a lot in this regard.

Balance brings the standard Druid arsenal of utility and defensive tools, and can also silence a healer for a huge amount of time with the Entangling Roots plus Solar Beam combo, but their damage is further amplified in cleave setups thanks to Starfall and their Eclipse-empowered DoTs. Balance can do massive spread damage, especially if DoTs are protected by Unstable Affliction, but is susceptible to line-of-sight plays from the opposing teams and is very vulnerable to damage itself, making it an easy target.

Elemental Shamans provide a lot of buffs for caster teams through Elemental Oath, Burning Wrath, and Grace of Air, but suffer from their signature cooldown Bloodlust and Heroism not being usable while in an arena match.

As a hybrid class, Elemental Shamans offer effective off-healing, helping their team to play defensively when needed and having powerful defensives such as Astral Shift and Shamanistic Rage for themselves. Purge is also a powerful tool for clearing enemy players of debuffs and helping to set up kills. Above all, Elemental has good burst damage potential with Unleash Flame followed by Lava Burst and Fulmination, and also has access to Thunderstorm, which is capable of disrupting enemy melee and casters alike.

Mages have always been strong, especially in the context of the Rogue, Mage and Priest (RMP) team composition. Their general kit has abilities, such as Blink, which are the bane of melee, enabling Mages to break stuns and disengage quickly. The new Alter Time is also a fantastic PvP ability that can be used for positioning, life saving, or even damage if you snapshot some of your damage buffs and procs with it!

Frost is the strongest spec available, with many kiting options and high damage instant casts and stuns. Arcane is not recommended, as its survivability and damage capabilities are much worse than the other specializations. Finally, Fire still has their signature cooldown Combustion but its Mists version is weaker for the arena. Regardless, the Dragon's Breath plus Polymorph guaranteed-CC combo is still a good way to get control of the match that is only available to Fire.

The Mage play style is less about overwhelming your enemy team and more about securing a win by bursting down one target while keeping every other target out of the game through crowd control abilities such as Polymorph, making it a highly technical PvP class.

The main change in Mists is that Hunters no longer have a minimum range they can shoot at, which is especially useful against melee enemies, as it allows them to fully retaliate even while being hit in melee! Hunter pets can also bring almost all party buffs in the game now, allowing you to bring the best buff for your team, and all specializations can reduce enemy healing through Widow Venom.

Marksmanship Hunter is the most common Hunter spec in arena, offering great burst windows through lining up multiple instant damaging shots, such as Chimera Shot and Master Marksman enabled instant Aimed Shots.

Hunters have multiple viable comps, but also have some issues, specifically around line-of-sight and how easily pets can die in Arenas. This is mostly a Beast Mastery issue, and part of the reason why the spec is rarely played in Mists of Pandaria PvP.

Overall, Hunter brings solid damage and control, provided their team can prevent them from being trained the whole game.

Rogues are one of the only melee classes that have stealth and rely on dishing out controlled burst damage to stunned or otherwise controlled targets in their opener. For that reason, Rogue has one of the highest skill ceilings in the game, and is a popular melee class to play in PvP.

Possibly the single most popular Arena comp of all time is Rogue, Mage and Priest (RMP), because their playstyles are so complementary. Rogues have incredible utility such as Smoke Bomb, amazing burst such as Shadow Dance, and their defense is also strong in Mists of Pandaria, with Recuperate and Combat Readiness among other defensive cooldowns.

Rogue's signature Stealth allows them to control matches from the start, picking and choosing how to open. Rogues have multiple powerful long cooldowns, making them very strong while they are available, but also weak when completely out of cooldowns, thus putting the pressure on the Rogue to use them appropriately to secure the win before running out of gas.

Enhancement Shaman bring ways to buff ally DPS in PvP, such as through Grace of Air and Unleashed Rage, and also have decent mobility through Spirit Walk and the new Windwalk Totem talent. Ghost Wolf can also prevent you from being slowed while active when used alongside Glyph of Ghost Wolf, but Enhancement still lacks gap closing abilities and a Mortal Strike effect, and also does relatively low damage compared to melee peers.

They can also instant-cast spells with Maelstrom Weapon, which can be used offensively, to off-heal, or to CC with Hex, making it quite versatile, and disrupt enemy casters heavily with Wind Shear and Grounding Totem.

Overall while Enhance PvP has its perks, its relatively low ability to catch up to targets and keep them within range allows it to be easily controlled in many caster matchups, and its Mail armor suffers against physical damage heavy teams, even with the powerful Shamanistic Rage and Astral Shift at their disposal, but they can also dish a lot of damage against high armor targets with the new Ascendance cooldown.

Feral Druid offers a jack-of-all-trades toolkit with a focus on melee DPS and bleed damage over time. They have great burst damage, especially against low armor targets or when all damage over time effects are ticking, and can stay mobile with their increased speed from Cat Form, teleport from Displacer Beast, and shapeshifting CC breaks. While they lack a Mortal Strike effect, this is usually overcome by playing with teammates that can bring it.

Feral's biggest strength comes from the Predatory Swiftness talent, which allows for instant cast spells, with Cyclone being a great option to take enemies out for a while, prevent healing, or allow yourself or your teammate to recover. They can also do decent off-healing, and have Bear Form, Survival Instincts, and Frenzied Regeneration for when they are the kill target, making them excellent all-rounders, which can fit well into nearly any composition.

Retribution Paladin is a very strong all-rounder melee class, which has great burst with their major cooldowns, Avenging Wrath and Holy Avenger, especially if also under the effect of the Inquisition buff. Its main weakness is the lack of a Mortal Strike effect.

Retribution can also consistently heal thorough Word of Glory and the new Holy Power system, allowing them to be the best supports for triple DPS compositions when taking into account their multiple defensives including Divine Shield immunity and Hand of Protection, Hand of Sacrifice, and Hand of Freedom, which can keep you mobile or help teammates survive being focused.

Shadow Priests are similar to Warlocks in their playstyle, but provide more defensive utility, such as the new Leap of Faith. While they no longer have dispel protection similar to Unstable Affliction, there is also less need for it due to the 8-second cooldown on most magic dispels, such as Purify and the 15-second cooldown on Mass Dispel.

Shadow Priests also have access to significant off-healing from the standard Priest healing arsenal, which allows teams to play defensively even if the healer is being pressured or controlled, and they can help remove buffs from enemies with Dispel Magic, or from everyone within the radius of Mass Dispel.

Finally, their control options are decent, and include Psychic Scream, Silence, and Psychic Horror, which can be combined for a very long lockout period on the enemy healer or other important targets.

Unholy Death Knights are slow but also difficult to stop, making them plate armored melee juggernauts who dominate the arena. While they lack a healing reduction effect like Mortal Strike, they more than make up for it with high sustained damage from diseases, the new Necrotic Strike, and pet burst damage from their multiple cooldowns such as Dark Transformation and Summon Gargoyle.

Also, they have multiple ways to bring enemies to them and keep them there instead through spells like Death Grip, Gorefiend's Grasp, and Chains of Ice. They also have great anti-caster tools in general, such as Anti-Magic Shell, Asphyxiate, and Strangulate.

Death Knights have no movements speed spells or dashes, which is their biggest weakness, making them better with mobility support from allies such as Cleanse and Hand of Freedom.

One of the most common comps in Mists of Pandaria is "TSG", which is Warrior plus Death Knight, plus Holy Paladin, known for being a melee cleave with high durability from its three plate wearers, and extremely high burst damage as long as they can connect, with the Paladin being there to keep them as mobile as possible.