Dragonflight Patch 10.1 Class Rankigs Prediction
It’s difficult to talk about Dragonflight class meta in the upcoming patch 10.1. But a few predictions can be made judging by the class and talent changes that are already known and well-studied. Besides, even though the revealed new Tier set bonuses get reworked from time to time, they may also hint at some meta changes. Since we have everything necessary to come up with preliminary Embers of Neltharion class rankings, let’s do it right now.
Tier Set Rankings
As usual, blogger Maximum hastened to make rankings for the patch 10.1 class Tier sets. What’s interesting, he tried to do it with the help of the WoW Community. Different players and bloggers gave reasons for placing their favorite class and specs at this or that place on a Tier List.
For instance, blogger Kalamazi specializes in Warlock and he took part in Maximum’s stream to give his opinion. Just the analysis of Warlock spec bonuses took about 15 minutes alone. That explains the two-hour length of the whole video. The shortest parts are devoted to Elemental Shaman specialization and Hunter specs. They were done with the Twitch Chat. The results of collective work can be seen in the picture.
A few comments should be made on the positions of some specializations. The Demonology Warlock set greatly empowers the Grimoire: Felguard talent. The only 4-piece set bonus description makes you shudder. It greatly increases additional damage of the summoned Felguard and makes your other demons deal 20% more damage. The buff becomes even more dangerous with the spell‘s cooldown reduction provided by 2-piece set effect. No doubt about placing Demonology Warlock in section S, right at the top of class sets rankings for patch 10.1.
Warrior is the happiest class. It’s worth mentioning as all its spec tier bonuses deserve to be in section A. Blogger Critcake suggests that the 2-piece Arms effect is pretty strong. However, he and Maximum express doubts about the 4-piece one being stronger than the effect of the Vault of the Incarnates tier set.
Fury bonuses may make a player move some talent points to the Bloodthirst perks. However, these build changes will pay off just because of the guaranteed critical strike of this spell and its powerful combination with Rampage. This only feature may have easily placed Fury Warriors at the top of a separate DPS tier list for patch 10.1.
Finally, blogger Dorki feels skeptical about the reduction of damage dealt to Protection Warrior because of the wave effect from the 4-piece bonus. But the damaging wave itself triggered with each Shield Slam after the Last Stand still sounds very attractive.
To be honest, we have slightly edited Maximum’s list. Initially, it had another and quite a fun name for section D, and one more section below called “War Crime (is illegal)”. We marked them both as rank D for convenience. The reasons for Maximum and his team creating such a list design were terrible weaknesses and flaws of some tier effects. That’s why they wanted to move them even lower than the lowest section.
A simple example is one of the effects Enhancement Shaman receives from the new armor. According to the opinion of blogger Wordup, this specialization’s tier bonuses are a “detriment to exist” because they change the usual rotation and make buffs disappear at the wrong time.
Class Changes
But how would a patch 10.1 tier list look adjusted for both set bonuses and class changes? There is a simple way to create it. Let’s take for granted some 10.0.7 rankings — for instance, the Mythic+ DPS, Tank and Healer rankings on the Icy-Veins website. If we look at them and correct various specs positions according to the 10.1 nerfs and buffs, our Meta predictions may become quite close to reality.
Devastation Evokers are going to receive more changes than many other classes put together. A few spells will be reworked: Imminent Destruction, Causality, Feed the Flames, etc. Most of the redesigns buffed the specialization’s key mechanics, like in the case of the Eye of Infinity talent. Previously it made Eternity Surge critical strikes generate Essence and now it increases the Surge’s damage to the main target by 15%. That’s why Devastation Evokers are moved from section B to A. Surely, these changes along with the tier bonus marked with rank B may greatly buff the spec. Although it’s too soon to make predictions about them showing enough DPS to get in section S in patch 10.1.
The new set bonuses will undoubtedly make Protection Warriors even more effective in dealing and tanking damage. But they are already at the top of the list. However, it would be accurate to change positions of Demonology Warlock and Feral Druid because of their ranks in class set rankings. Shadow Priests are also moved to section A because of bonuses, but a few other reasons are even more important. For example, a 30% nerf of the Idol of C’Thun buff. But this is only one recent nerf. It’s still hard to say how bad will Shadow specialization feel from all the nerfs and reworks fallen on its class tree with the very first 10.1 patch build on PTR.
It’s even more difficult to define some other spec places in such a tier list. In the recent patch notes, the Holy Priest Aberrus set effects were buffed. The 2-piece one now gives a bigger chance of duplicating the Prayer of Mending effect to one more ally. The 4-piece buffs the Holy Word not only after Prayer of Mending jumps, but also when it expires. This is quite a reason for moving Holy Priest from section C to section B, but not without a doubt.
Finally, a fun fact: Survival Hunters will receive a buff increasing all the damage dealt by them and their pets by 8%. But even such a simple buff won’t suffice to move them to sections higher than C or B. Especially considering the weakly assessed Survival tier set bonus.
A similar logic applies to all the specializations in our tier list. But it strongly depends on the rankings provided by Maximum and Icy-Veins that we take as a basis for analysis. However, the only class tier set rankings became a subject of interest for many other bloggers. Be sure to check them too and come up with your own class meta predictions for patch 10.1!
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