Top 7 WoW Dragonflight Best Arena DPS

Updated:

09 Mar 2023

1. Demonology Warlock

We kick this list off with the undisputed kings of the ranged DPS and arguably the best overall, Demonology Warlock. These casters are incredibly tanky and can summon a legion of, frankly speaking, over-tuned pets who pump out damage. In a meta of sustained damage, the relentless damage of the pets, the amount of control over the match via interrupts and stuns, and the fact that they can soak damage really well make this class the current top of the pack.

The talent Gul’Dans Ambition, which allows you to summon a Pit Lord those scales (insanely) in damage from how many pets you’ve summoned during the Nether Portal duration
The talent Soulburn. A utility spell on a 6-second cooldown that modifies 5 of your core abilities with additional effects. Very versatile.
Tons of CC via spells such as Fear, Mortal Coil, Axe Toss(and Grimoire: Felguard), Shadowfury, and Spell Lock.
Curse of Exhaustion + Amplify Curse makes you able to kite melee pretty easily
The talent Unending Resolve is a powerful defensive ability that reduces damage by 25%, allowing you to cast without the worry of being interrupted for 8 seconds. This talent can also be modified by other talent choices, either increasing the damage reduction percentage or reducing the cooldown.
Summon a Demonic Tyrant, which buffs all your current pets damage output by 15% and only has a 1.5-minute cooldown

Overall, the damage is insanely strong, the resource generation is easy, the damage reduction is powerful and the talents just synergize well

By a super slim margin, this is the highest-rated warlock on the 3v3 ladder and the highest rated Demo lock in Solo Shuffle: Ryøsuke - Character (worldofwarcraft.com)

2. Shadow Priest

Slightly behind its demon-summoning cousin, are Shadow Priests. They are incredibly strong for pretty much the same reason as Warlocks are, they have high sustained damage, good control, and can tank a ton of damage. While some of the ways this is done are very different, the results are the same, making them our second strongest ranged and overall class at the moment.

Has kept its powerful utility abilities from Shadowlands, such as Mass Dispel, Void Shift, and Leap of Faith.
Also has kept its instant CC, Psychic Scream, Silence, and Psychic Horror
Gained new mobility through the talent Phantasm, which allows Fade to remove movement-impairing effects and Void Tendrils, a snare on a 1-minute cooldown.
The real boost has been not only the damage increase of their abilities but the ease with which they can get their damage abilities off, thanks to abilities such as Shadow Crash, which instantly applies Vampiric Touch as well as doing damage. Talents such as Shadowy Insight, and Surge of Darkness abilities allow your DoT damage to proc instant casts of Mind Spike and Mind Blast as well as scale their damage. Damnation allows you to easily get all your DoTs onto a target on a 1-minute cooldown.
Has a super easy-to-use 1-minute damage rotation based around Idol of Y’Shaarj which increases your and your Shadowfiend’s damage and prevents your Psychic Scream ability from breaking due to damage. Combine that with Dark Ascension which increases your non-periodic damage by 25% for 20 seconds (also only on a 1-minute cooldown) and every 1 minute you are a threat to 100-0 somebody.

Much like Warlocks, the sustained pressure of Shadow Priests can feel overwhelming, and they can kite, have tremendous tankiness thanks to self-healing, and provide a lot of utility for their team.

Featured at both the 1 and 2 spots on the Solo Shuffle ladder is the Shadow Priest, Flexaho: Flexaho - Character (worldofwarcraft.com)

3. Assassination Rogue

Coming in at number 3 are the current melee kings, Assassination Rogues. The playstyle has changed from Shadowlands, but it does feel familiar from previous expansions with a major focus on bleed damage, which can even be spread around to multiple targets creating an immense amount of pressure. This does require a certain amount of awareness to pull off, however, it’s hard to say that it is more difficult than Warlocks or Shadow Priests because it obviously doesn’t have to deal with spell cast times and Rogues do have a ton of crowd control abilities. Rogues also still maintain a lot of their powerful cooldowns and of course the ability to stealth which are huge advantages in PvP.

First and foremost, Rogues can still Sap. Getting that advantage while stealthed at the beginning of the game is (and always has been) incredibly important. They also still have Blind, Garrote, Kidney Shot, Cheap Shot, Smoke Bomb, and Dismantle as forms of Crowd Control making them very difficult to lock down.
Marked For Death is a strong 1-minute cooldown that generates instant combo points and Thistle Tea is another 1-minute cooldown that restores 100 energy, as well as Venomous Wounds grants energy return on bleed damage, making resource generation fairly simple for rogues.
Rogues rely on their mobility and control to increase their survivability; however, Elusiveness is a strong defense choice that grants Feint a 20% damage reduction.
Mobility spells such as Fleet Footed for passive movement speed, Shadowrunner for increased movement speed while stealthed or with Shadow Dance active, Shadowstep to teleport to your enemy, and Maneuverability which breaks all roots and prevents slows for 4 seconds after activating Sprint. All these make Rogues very frustrating as they apply their bleeds and poisons and then can kite around to get stealth again or until their damage cooldowns reset.
It would be hard to go over all the damage-boosting abilities in this short article, but the TLDR version is that bleeds and poisons are king, with the stand-out ability being Serrated Bone Spike, a ranged combo point-generating ability that bleeds the enemy until they die or leave combat. Assassination Rogues are also able to use 4 poisons at a time thanks to Dragon-Tempered Blades and the big burst damage ability being Deathmark (2 minute-cooldown), which is a bleed that also amplifies all your poison damage and damage from Garrote and Rupture by duplicating the damage for an additional 100% of their normal damage.

Assassination is in such a good place right now because they can open on a target, apply huge pressure thanks to damage over time bleeds and poisons and then kite around until they can re-stealth and start the sequence over again.

This rogue currently occupies the 2nd and 3rd slot on the Solo Shuffle ladder: Jarome - Character (worldofwarcraft.com)

4. Demon Hunter

Demon Hunters are a bit of a glass cannon. Their damage is insanely high, both burst and sustained damage. Their resource management has become a little more difficult and the increase on the Blur cooldown means they sometimes have to think about when to use it. It’s a pretty forgiving class, however, and a good DH can feel unstoppable, especially in a bit of an unorganized setting like Solo Shuffle. We’ll take a look below at some of the most important changes.

One of the strongest aspects of Demon Hunters right now is The Hunt animation canceling. I don’t know if it’s working as intended but using it and canceling the animation can trick opponents, so they’ll use their defensive abilities too late.
What was previously a tank-only ability in Shadowlands, Sigil of Misery, is now in the “Core” talent tree, and can be supplemented by Misery in Defeat, which increases the damage necessary to break the fear by 20%. This is powerful to deal big damage while the enemy is unable to get out of the fear.
The talent Essence Break has been completely reworked and is now another huge burst option outside of the Hunt. The cooldown has doubled, and the duration halved but the damage amplifier has been increased by double and it’s initial damage has been increased by 500% making it a very powerful ability.
The talent Any Means Necessary now applies the damage increase from Mastery to all schools of damage, buffing several abilities, most importantly, The Hunt and Immolation Aura. Also because of the Mastery changes, Blade Dance now scales, as you combine First Blood and Blade Dance to double dip on both Chaos and Physical damage being buffed by Mastery.
Finally, the talent Soulrend buffs Throw Glaive (physical damage) to deal a DoT effect as Chaos damage for 60% of the total damage done. This once again double dips on Mastery now, meaning even outside of the big damage abilities, using Throw Glaive and Blade Dance creates a ton of sustained pressure.
For defensives, the PvP talent Glimpse now grants 75% damage reduction and immunity to CC when landing from Vengeful Retreat, which is only a 25-second cooldown! This can be combined with Rain from Above (1 minute-cooldown) to massively reduce damage taken and allow you to pound damage while up in the air. Demon Hunters also still have Reverse Magic to turn the tables when a magic CC such as Polymorph, Fear, etc. are used.
The final major change is the PvP talent Detainment, which makes Imprison not break on damage effects or be dispelled. It also makes the target immune to healing effects. This means you can now use it on your burst target to prevent them from using defensive abilities or getting heals instead of just as a CC on an off-target.

This is the highest-rated Demon Hunter on the 3v3 ladder and the 2nd highest character overall: Mvqdh - Character (worldofwarcraft.com)

5. Feral Druid

Feral druids are interesting, because of the shifting forms, it’s a very interesting spec to play with a lot of utility being brought to the table. They also, in their current form, pump out a ton of damage. They’re basically Assassination Rogues but just slightly worse. Their damage comes from bleeds, and you can build your spec in a way that makes spreading their bleeds around to multiple targets a realistic and deadly playstyle. They also have a lot of CC and utility. Their weakness and why they’re slightly lower on this list is that their defensive abilities are mostly tied to self-healing as opposed to preventing damage or reducing damage by a certain percentage. This makes them weaker into healing reduction effects and in games that last longer as dampening starts to make more of an impact.

There are some familiar spells that are still key to Feral Druid’s damage rotation, Tiger’s Fury is great for the burst windows and Berserk is something that everyone in the arena has to keep an eye on as you can really pump out damage with it active.
Some new abilities are Lunar Inspiration which allows you to use your Moonfire in Cat Form. While not huge damage it is an easy way to generate combo points from range which allows you to instantly put up a Rip or Ferocious Bite once you reconnect with the target. Primal Wrath is the big star here; a finishing ability that applies Rip to all enemies within a certain radius. This provides massive pressure as it combines with Tear Open Wounds, which applies 60% of the Rip damage instantly and King of the Jungle, a PvP talent that gives you a stacking buff for movement speed and healing received for every enemy you have a Rip active on.
They are wildly mobile, not just passively in Cat Form but because of Wild Charge and Stampeding Roar, as well as offering tons of CC thanks to Bash, Maim, Skull Bash, Typhoon, and even Cyclone.
Defensively, Feral Druids have a lot of old spells that you will recognize, such as Ironfur, Thick Hide, Heart of the Wild, and Survival Instincts. These spells provide a good amount of damage reduction or health and help keep Feral Druids competitive.
On the surface, the changes to the talent trees look to really help the utility of Feral Druids as you can now access a ton of utility spells that aren’t tied to Cat Form. Most of these are healing, with access to Rejuvenation and Swiftmend and a new talent called Protector of the Pack which stores the damage done to increase the healing of your next Regrowth. The problem is that the current meta generally goes into heavy-dampening games. And each tick of dampening makes these healing spells less and less impactful. It’s especially noticeable in the 2v2 bracket where the rate of the dampening increase is sped up.
Overall Feral Druids are still wildly good, exceptionally dangerous, and – for my money- interesting to play. They just are not quite as good as Rogues (even though Rogues will never admit it).

This druid is 14th on the 3v3 ladder overall and number 1 on the solo shuffle ladder: Axtin - Character (worldofwarcraft.com)

6. Arcane Mage

Arcane mages are slippery, have huge burst, and can control the entire flow of whatever bracket or game type they’re in. Although if you talk to arcane mage players they’ll mostly tell you about the 1 spell they don’t have (RIP Improved Counterspell), thanks to the rework of the talent trees, you’ll see Arcane mages with spells that you might associate with either the fire or frost schools of magic. This does make the class very interesting to play and does give them high-priority spells to use even if they get kicked on the arcane tree, making them very dangerous.

Arcane mages are extremely mobile and very difficult for melee to connect to, which is why they are ahead of classes such as Windwalker Monks or Warriors or any of the other big damage melee classes. To start the game off, they now have Greater Invisibility AND Invisibility which allows them to start the match as they wish. Energized Barriers removes snares when a barrier is recast, Displacement teleports back to where you just blinked from, and Chrono Shift, which allows your Arcane Barrage to slow your enemies and gives you a 50% movement speed bonus. There are other abilities, but these are the big ones.
Not only are they very slippery, but arcane mages can also cast while moving thanks to Ice Floes (20-second cooldown, 3 charges). Combine this with damage-dealing CC abilities such as Dragon’s Breath or Cone of Cold and your enemies will be flailing after you while taking huge amounts of damage. If you’re playing with another teammate with high amounts of CC, then taking Meteor can cause huge damage when they can’t move out of its radius.
Mages can be a bit proc-heavy so to really maximize their damage you need to understand how to stack certain abilities and then unleash the stored-up damage multipliers at once. This can be a bit tricky but when mastered is deadly. Keeping track of Incanter’s Flow, Overflowing Energy, Nether Precision, and Time Anomaly is a good place to start.
Mages have a few strong defensive abilities, such as Ice Block, which if you max out Cryo-Freeze will heal you for almost half your total health. They also have Mirror Images which do a fair amount of damage and slow/distract the enemy, and the big one, Alter Time which will return you to your health amount and location of when it was cast after a 10-second delay.
Mages have strong damage, great mobility, and CC. They just are not quite in the same league as Demonology Warlocks and Shadow Priests, still “A” tier though.

This mage is 8th overall on the 3v3 ladder and 6th overall on the Solo Shuffle ladder: Junglejape - Character (worldofwarcraft.com)

7. Elemental Shaman

Elemental Shamans are biggg damage right now, they have literal one-shot potential. However, they are not as strong in other areas as the casters ranked higher than them which puts them last on our list of the top 7 damage classes. It’s also probable that the one-shot potential will be nerfed in which case we will have to see if they get buffs in other areas. Right now they are also strong in AOE damage and mobility, including damage on the move.

The strength of this spec lies in the ramp-up and potential one-shot of Lava Burst. When done correctly you will cast huge damage via Earth Shock Finishers and Lava Bursts, and the best part is when I say “cast”, I mean you press the button, all of the abilities in the rotation will be instant cast (once again, if done right).
The downside to a set rotation like this is that it is predictable, so you’ll have to play mind games with the opponent or figure out how to bait out defensive abilities before you use your big damage. Or you could just try to zug-zug through the defensive abilities with pure damage.
The talent trees offer a ton of fun talents that you’ve seen from shamans over the years which provide a ton of utility, Hex, Lightning Lasso, , Tremor Totem, Spiritwalker’s Grace, Nature’s Swiftness and that’s just in the Shaman specialization tree.
Elemental shamans are fairly tanky and very good into melee which makes them strong in this meta. They have Astral Shift, modified by Astral Bulwark for big damage reduction, they have Earth Shield for some healing, and Spiritwalker’s Aegis which modifies your Spiritwalker’s Grace so not only are you casting while moving, but you also can’t be silenced or interrupted for 5 seconds. You gain stacking movement speed and damage reduction when specced into Spirit Wolf, as well as Frost Shock and Earthgrab for kiting.
Thanks to the talent Inundate in the Elemental Specialization tree you can generate Maelstrom (their resource) from utility spells such as Purge, Cleanse Spirit, Healing Stream Totem, Hex, and Wind Shear.
Elemental Shamans are a ton of fun, are very mobile, provide a ton of utility, and can hit like trains. It’s best to pair them with CC-heavy classes since they don’t have a ton of hard CC. They are a little predictable in their damage as it requires a “set-up”, something that opposing players will know as you climb up the arena ladder; which is what keeps them from being higher on the list.

The number 1 shaman on the Solo Shuffle ladder: Fwwtyu - Character (worldofwarcraft.com)

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Paul Meister

Basically a background NPC living in New York City, Paul is determined to write articles that are at least as informative as your last quest dialogue.

Gamer Since:

2004

Favorite Genre:

RPG

Currently Playing:

WoW Classic, Halo, Warzone

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