Shadowlands Season 4 PvP Survival Guide
Patch 9.2.7 is out, being the Shadowlands’ final season, followed only by the much-awaited Dragonflight expansion that’s due to arrive later this year. Shaking up some of the game’s main content, Season 4 brings a lot of changes to the table, with the PvP mode bearing the biggest brunt.
To give you a better grasp of what’s going on in WoW PvP Season 4, here’s our guide on all the major changes and best-performing classes you might want to pick as your new Arena mains. Grab some snacks and enjoy your read!
Season 4 PvP Changes: Gear, Titles and Rewards
The recent patch introduced a new Shadowlands PvP gear upgrade system. PvP equipment can now be enhanced by claiming Ranks and investing Honor. Honor gear can go as high as ilvl 268, maxing out at Rank 7, and Conquest gear has 9 Ranks to climb, reaching the highest ilvl 301 at the very top. The amount of Honor you’ll need to spend on your upgrades increases with each rank, so if you want to give your gear a decent level-up, be ready to do some serious farming.
Where do you get all that shiny new equipment? It’s simple: you buy it from vendors, or get it as rewards for completing their quests. This season’s WoW PvP vendor location is Oribos, so you better not come with empty pockets, as there’s always some sweet gear up for grabs.
In the rewards department, we have the new Warstalker Vicious mounts, Eternal Gladiator’s Soul Eater mount, and Eternal Flux weapon illusion. The juiciest rewards come with the new Eternal Gladiator title, which will be a lot easier to get if you order Season 4 PvP boosts at WowVendor.
Class Balance Changes
Patch 9.2.7 class balance changes as a whole can be rightfully described as game-shattering. While some classes got massive damage buffs across the board, others have been completely smashed with devastating nerfs, which leaves us with one of the biggest meta shifts Shadowlands has ever seen. There’s also been a huge shift in class representation. Lots of specs that used to be rare birds in the Shadowlands PvP rankings are popping up in Arena more often, with more and more people trying them out and ending up actually maining them in PvP.
For the bad news, we have basically every RMP class significantly nerfed. The nerfing machine got to Holy Priests as well, trying to throw them off the top of the healer meta with increased cooldown time and less healing throughput. Death Knights took a couple of hits, too, bombarded with significant nerfs to their key mechanics, which led to the end of their PvP dominance era. The whole roster of class changes can be found on WoW’s official website.
Best PvP Specs to Play in Season 4
Right now it’s still too early to say exactly which direction the meta shift is going, but it’s definitely not the same as it was, as some of this season’s changes are just too big to ignore. However, from what we’ve seen so far, there are certain specs that already perform at a top level or show decent potential to actually make it to the meta.
Ranged DPS
Starting off with the meta newcomers, we have Affliction Warlock that received huge buffs to its damage output. With more consistent pressure and less reliance on cooldowns, it looks better shaped for Arena this season, which explains why it’s becoming more and more popular with PvPers. The main weakness of this class is jungle cleaves – that actually shape up to be one of the most powerful comps in Shadowlands Season 4 PvP – but it’s good that things are well-balanced here and such a good-tier spec is not completely overpowered, having a decent counter to it.
Elemental Shaman didn’t get any direct changes, but thanks to the nerfs and buffs splashed upon other classes, it’s now in a much better position than it was last season, which makes it a great spec to check out.
With no balance tweaks as well come Demonology Warlocks, remaining one of the best Ranged PvP specs in Shadowlands. Still performing at a top level, it’s very flexible even with all those nerfs inflicted on some of Demo Warlock’s main pair-up options. You might want to play around a bit with comps just for fun, but the beauty of this spec is that it can benefit almost any team, so you’re definitely not gonna regret picking it as your main.
Shadow Priest is a well-rounded spec that does really well in the caster meta when paired with Rogue and/or Shaman. It also pairs very nicely with Warlocks, having overall lots of comp options and solid damage output.
Casters really shine with these Season 4 PvP changes, and as our next pick we have Beast Mastery Hunter. It’s an insanely powerful spec with tons of guaranteed instant damage and great jungle cleave options. Not having lots of other decent comps available may seem like a downside, but you honestly wouldn’t want anything other than jungle here. Those who are ready to experiment will probably find a bunch of classes to pair their BM Hunters with anyways.
Wrapping up our Ranged top performers list, we’d like to add one more spec as an honorable mention. Marksmanship Hunter is more of a B-tier, middle-of-the-pack type of spec, but there’s a reason we want you to consider it as an option to main in Arena. First off, it deals really big damage. However, the damage is rather predictable: you’d be mostly focusing on traps and double tapping, and when on higher ranks, people will anticipate your attacks, knowing exactly where that damage is coming from. At lower levels, though, you can really pull some moves, wrecking players who just don’t see it coming. The element of predictability is what holds this spec back a ton, but nevertheless, it’s still a solid choice, especially if you’re just getting started.
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Melee DPS
Moving on to the next category, take a look at Assassination Rogue. The Sepsis version of this spec, which is part of the well-known One-Shot build, received some hefty nerfs, mostly in the form of the Septic Shock Conduit reduction, but luckily it did very little to change the build’s overall effectiveness. One-Shot Sepsis is still very decent, especially when paired with other specs that enhance its sustained damage and crowd control chains. And by the way, if you’re looking for PvP Season 4 tips, here’s one for you: that Conduit nerf can be completely avoided if you switch over to Necrolord.
Enhancement Shaman is basically tied to one comp, which is playing with a Warrior, but in that very comp, it works miracles. Bringing in a lot of self-sustain and healing is where Enhancement Shaman shines brightest, but you are extremely limited in terms of composition, having only one option to stick to.
The story with Subtlety Rogue is pretty much the same. Despite having received a big burst nerf, it still has one of the best comps in the game, but if you pick this spec, you’ll have to be ready to sacrifice your flexibility and a chunk of LFG options.
Next up, there’s Feral Druid that is most likely to excel in this patch. It’s a highly durable spec with a fantastic jungle cleave combo available with Beast Mastery Hunter. Unlike the previous mentions in our PvP S4 guide, Feral Druid is not a one-comp-only spec. You can easily flex around with some other compositions as well, which gives you both versatility and durability.
Survival Hunter is also a spec worth checking out as it’s recently been hit with massive sustain damage buffs.
Fury Warrior is remarkably good at self-sustaining against spell-casters, all while being very mobile and flexible at the same time. It feels like an S-tier pick at the moment; things might change while we go deeper into the season, but it’s highly unlikely for such a top performer to move down the tier list.
If you want something incredibly tanky, then Outlaw Rogue is your go-to spec. Pair it up with a melee DPS that can do a lot of one-shot damage, and you’ll get a killer meta comp that’ll pave you the smoothest way to top ranks. Honestly, you can’t go wrong by picking a hard-to-kill spec in PvP, so Outlaw here is one of the safest options in our entire guide.
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Healers
Holy Priest received a whole ton of nerfs, probably more than any other class in the game. Their healing has become substantially weaker as opposed to the totally imbalanced throughput of the previous season. Holy Priests used to dominate the healer meta with an almost 50% representation in the rankings. Now, we see a lot less HP players in Arena, but this spec is still incredibly good in terms of flexibility and healing potency. Now it’s just more competitive and can actually be countered, which is great for the overall PvP balance.
Restoration Druid looks like one of the best healers in the game right now, and even if you don’t quite dig the class, it’s a pretty safe go-to if other options don’t work for you or if you want to try out something new. This spec is versatile and flexible, but not very helpful when it comes to damage. Offense-wise, Resto Druid is not completely useless, but if you decide to play it, it’s better to avoid conflict, because otherwise you’d either get killed or need your teammates to come to the rescue, none of which is good for the team.
Discipline Priest is, on the contrary, a highly offensive healer, which means you can dish out solid damage and restore huge portions of your team’s health at the same time. Bad news: mana retention can slow you down, and things might get pretty tough when you go up against melee cleaves or spellcasters, running out of mana through them. On the bright side, Discipline Priest has a lot of variety in terms of composition. It’s a fun spec to play if you’re into min-maxing damage and supporting your team, but even if you’re not, it’s still too well-performing to simply walk away from without even giving it a good try.
On that note, we wrap up our today’s new WoW PvP guide and hope that you now have a better picture of the PvP environment in the aftermath of all those Patch 9.2.7 changes. If there’s a particular topic you’d like to read about, just give us a shout, and we’ll gladly come back to you with a fresh blog piece on it. In the meantime, feel free to read other WoW Shadowlands Guides we have on our blog, and don’t forget to shop for some boosts to start Season 4 with a blast.
Thank you guys for reading! Take care, and see you soon!
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