The first week’s been done for a few days, so we have a slightly belated look at the stats. The tuning didn’t shift things too much for now, and we have three A-named specs at the top (at least in damage). Arcane is by far the most played, Arms is the most damaging, and Assassination is in there too! Let’s dive in.
The Data
The data used in this article comes from Raider.IO‘s excellent analytics tools, taking into account all Mythic+ runs across all levels of play. The data is focused on this reset and not on the season as a whole.
The Most Popular Specs in Mythic+
Week 1 is certainly an Arcane Age, as the spec is absolutely destroying the popularity ratings and the raid damage. The Mage is sitting a full 2% above the next most-played spec, Blood DK, which is basically tanking all top key groups and has 8.2% of the overall playerbase. We then come to the (relatively) closely grouped specs, starting with Arms at 6.8%. We have our first healer in spot No.4, bunched with its fellow DPS spec, and the tank is only two spots away too, as the Paladins grab a whole lot of players. Resto and Ele Shamans slot in between Ret and Prot in 6th and 7th, while the final two top 10 spots go to Beast Mastery and Demonology, with Unholy just missing out.
Runs by Key Level
We’re up to +19 in the first week, where spec diversity is only at 10 different spece, and the prior few keys are also predominantly the Arcane/Blood/Arms/Holy Pala/Ele Shaman combo.
And here are the full numbers, including the amount of runs.
Group Composition Popularity
Note: The below chart shows the percentage of group popularity in relation to the top 30 compositions. This means that, for example, the top group says it’s 30% of the compositions, but that’s just 30% of the top 30. In reality, it’s just 2% of all groups played. You can see the smaller 2% number if you hover over the group line in the chart on the Raider.IO page.
As mentioned above, one spec is reeeally dominating proceedings, and it’s Arcane, Blood, Arms, Holy Pala and Ele Shaman. The gap between the No.1 and 2 is already huge, 6.4%, in fact, with the second comp swapping out Holy Pala for Resto Druid, but keeping its Paladin quota by putting in Retribution for the Shaman. Groups 2-4 are pretty close, within 2% of each other, and they all keep Blood and Arcane. Also keep in mind that the 13.7% of the top group refers to the percentage of the top 30 group comps. In the overall picture, the most-played group is only 0.9% of the population.
Mythic+ DPS Logs
The below logs are based on POINTS, and not actual damage or healing. This means that they log the timed completion for the specs, with higher keys getting more points, obviously. The time in which the dungeon is completed is also a factor. It is a much, much smaller factor, however. It grants only a few points for significantly faster completions compared to just any in-time finish. We’re also using the Normalized Aggregate Scores numbers, for clarity. This means that the top spec is marked as 100 and then the rest are ranked in relation to that peak point.
95th percentile DPS
The logs are a little “tainted” by a few days of week 2, with the latest tuning kicking in. Having checked the clean logs from week 1, this didn’t change that much yet. This early in the season specs are insanely close together, with the top two being barely distinguishable. Arms manages to eke out a top spot, but Assassination’s right there, and Arcane isn’t too far behind either. So, that’s three A’s at the top! Things are very tight all the way down to spot 7 or so.
We see all three Rogue specs in the top 10, and the Shamans are the only other class that managed to (barely) get more than one spec in. Feral is the Druid of choice for now, and Unholy is doing well, unlike in the raid. Augmentation does its usual “drop from a high place to the bottom” season switch thing, and it’s a particularly hard fall this time, from No.1 to the bottom 3.
All Percentiles
Devourer is doing a lot better in the generalist bracket, moving to 2nd and breaking up the AAA combo at the top. The Rogues are doing even better here, collectively, if you can believe it, Subtlety is doing a lot better in 5th behind Arcane and Outlaw does drop a little, but they’re still all over the top 10. Elemental is down a bit, while Unholy is up compared to the top percentiles, and it’s Balance that’s repping the Druids here. Enhancement manages to grab spot No.10 here as well, and so we still have two Shamans in the top 10.
The bottom shows us the flip side of Mages. Both other specs are down here, with Fire just barely managing to stay out of the bottom 3. Frost is dead-last, and by a pretty wide margin, joined by the two non-Demonology Warlocks.
Very High Key Raw DPS Numbers
Note: We’re also taking a look at the raw damage numbers from Mythicstats. They take the top runs for extremely high keys (+12-19) from WarcraftLogs and list the overall DPS for the dungeon, which includes non-combat time as well. They’re ranked by the average DPS numbers, with the very top of the top shown next to it.
The high keys show a different picture, but still have mostly the same actors. Elemental is doing a lot better, and we still have all three Rogues in the top 10. Retribution makes it in, as does Fury, so it’s definitely a good time for Warriors. The bottom is a mix of the above two charts, with Augmentation and Frost Mage at the bottom, joined by Survival this time.
For more stats and spec information, you can also head on over to our class guides and tier lists, as well as the full Raider.IO, WarcraftLogs, and Mythicstats data.
