A new king rose and is already starting to fall, even before the announced nerfs went live! Subtlety couldn’t hold on for long, as it was doing too well. We’ll see where it ends up after this week’s nerfs actually happen, as it’s already down in the DPS department, but still holding on to the popularity throne.
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+
Subtlety unsurprisingly skyrocketed to the top of the most played chart, but we’ll see how that plays out after this week’s nerfs. The spec was dominating DPS charts by a wide margin, so it makes a lot of sense that players (especially Rogues) would switch for that big of a gain. Just for reference as to how insane the leap was, two weeks ago Subtlety was at 0.9% of the playerbase, and now it’s at 7.9%. Arcane is still heavily in the mix, only dropping 1.1%, while Beast Mastery only dropped 0.4%. The double Paladin combo remains intact, with Ret dropping 0.2% and Holy gaining 0.3%.
Demonology drops off a cliff, as it moves from 5th to 12th, while Blood moves past Arms in 7th. The bottom pretty much remains the same, with Outlaw dropping a spot into the bottom 3 to join Augmentation and Fire. The Mage is getting a buff this week, so perhaps it can dig itself out soon.
Runs by Key Level
The +24 barrier has been breached, and we have around 14 specs having cleared the highest key.
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.
Subtlety infiltrated basically every single group comp, showing up in NINE of the top 10! The top comp is extremely ahead of the competition, much more so than before the Subtlety burst, moving almost 10% ahead of the next best one. It also comprises 1.3% of all groups. The second most played just swaps out the tank, moving away from Blood and to Guardian. In third we find Elemental dropped in favor of Arcane.
Group Composition Success Rate
The completion rate chart is even closer than before, with the top two comps just barely ahead of the rest, 0.1% apart from each other, and around 1% above the third best.
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 DPS charts may have already adjusted to the nerf ahead of time, as we see Subtlety down in 3rd. Arms and Elemental retained their top 2 positions, and as expected, Assassination fell off a cliff after the Subtlety changes that pushed it up. The top 8 chart looks basically the same as two weeks ago, if you swap out the two Rogues and toss Assa down to 19th, below even Outlaw. Unholy also lost some ground after its earlier nerfs, down another three spots in 9th. Feral is on the rise after its buffs, moving into the final top 10 spot after a two-spot bump.
All Percentiles
The generalist bracket is, as always, slower to move, so we see Subtlety still hanging on in 2nd place. Elemental actually took over Arcane in 3rd, and Unholy is falling much more slowly than you’d expect, even for this chart, two down in 6th. Retribution pushed past Frost DK in 7th, and Enhancement moved up a spot as well. Windwalker closes out the top 10, moving two up.
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 (+15-23) 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 top keys don’t seem to care much about the Subtlety nerf for now, but they also may have done most of their runs before they were announced. Arms is moving up in the world here, as is Windwalker, and Demonology is hanging in there much better than the rest of the charts.
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.
