Power Ranking all Classes (For 5-toon Multi-boxing)

Power Ranking all Classes (For 5-toon Multi-boxing)


Well we’re about 6 months away from the release of the Legions expansion… I wanted to go over all of the classes in PvP in their current state, discuss their current power and ranking, and give thoughts about how the Legion expansion will impact each class.


This article is about 5-boxing in PvP, all 5 toons being the same class. I have leveled every class to 100 and 5-boxed them in PvP… Ashran mostly, but battlegrounds as well. If I discuss any tactics, it will assume Ashran, but many tactics can also apply to BG’s.

A couple of notes before we get started. As far as gear goes, I primarily stack Versatility for all of my slots including trinket slots and enchants. Crit is my go-to secondary stat. This holds up for pretty much all classes, however on my Frost Mages I tend to lean a little to the Multistrike side as well for a secondary stat.

Also, I will not be discussing mobility in Ashran and BG’s, or my method of following. That is a topic for a different thread. I will say this though, there are really, really good options out there to get your toons moving with you, you just have to be a little diligent in your search.


Now for the list… 13 specs ranked 1^st through 13^th in four categories:


Marksmanship Hunter:

Overall Ranking: 1^st Single Target Burst Dmg: 1^st AOE Burst Dmg: 1^st Survivability 2^nd

The undisputed kings of damage in the current Meta. They have been on top since Mists of Pandaria, and they only seemed to get better in Warlords.

Single Target: Chimaera Shot is THE hardest hitting instant cast spell in the game currently. Only Chaos Bolt hits harder, but for a 3 sec cast and only once a resource has been filled for it. For the purposes of ranking, I considered Chimaera to be single target damage…. However, it occasionally hits 2 targets that are really close together, and this is a bonus when it does. It doesn’t do this with any real consistency though, so I don’t classify it as AOE.

Other single target DPS heavy hitters include Aimed Shot and Kill Shot. Chimaera Shot usually one-shot kills any target, (of course by one-shot I mean a simultaneous casting of all 5 toons you are boxing), but sometimes tanky targets will require more. If I’m targeting a tank, (or a Disc Priest), I will usually open up with Aimed Shot, followed by Chimaera Shot, and then a Kill Shot if it is still needed. That combo will take out even the heftiest of tanks.

AOE damage mostly comes from Barrage. This is a must have talent in the 90 bracket, and in my opinion is the hardest hitting AOE in the game currently. It is especially effective in Ashran when the two sides are going at it in the middle or at an event. Each side will be all bunched up together with a clear line drawn between them that only the occasional tank will dare to cross. Target a healer or tank at full health, use Barrage, and sit tight for 3 seconds to watch the ensuing carnage. Their whole team will drop to low health, and many will die. Finish off the healer or tank you have targeted with a Chimaera or Kill Shot, if they didn’t already die from the Barrage. With only a 20 second cooldown on this amazing AOE, you’ll keep consistent pressure on the enemy team and force them to keep backing up… until they eventually rout and flee.

Survivability comes from Disengage, Deterrence, Traps, and Spirit Bond. Spirit Bond is one of the best self-heals in the game, and should always be your lvl 45 choice, unless you’re one of those players that just wants to Lone Wolf all the time. I don’t recommend it. Lone Wolf is fine if you want to open up with it, and hit people at range, but the moment you get targeted and attacked, you need to be summoning your pet and disengaging. Even if you pick Lone Wolf as a talent, keep Spirit Bond as a talent, so that you can summon your pet whenever you get low on health to tick back up. Lone Wolf’s biggest drawback is that it doesn’t work with Barrage, the ability that would benefit the most from it. Chimaera already hits hard enough. I just pick up Exotic Munitions instead for the extra DPS and utility. (I put Incendiary on 3 toons, Poisoned on 1 toon, and Frozen Ammo on 1 toon.) You just have to remember to refresh the buff every hour.

Other Notes: Beast Mastery is fun but not nearly as effective in this Meta for PvP. It’s definitely a good PvE choice if you raid or do dungeons though.

As for talent choices, Spirit Bond and Barrage are probably the only two must haves for PvP. I also use Posthaste for speed bursts, Intimidation which I put into macros for stuns, (I have Intimidation in a different macro for each toon, i.e. Steady Shot macro for one toon, Concussive Shot for another toon, Aimed Shot for another, etc.), Dire Beasts for extra DPS and energy recovery, and Blink Strikes, (although Murder of Crows is another viable choice, I just don’t find the need to do more single target DPS spells than necessary).

Explosive Trap seems to be a mandatory glyph this xpac for knockbacks… though I wouldn’t mind seeing Blizz take this out of the game because it’s highly annoying to be on the receiving end of constant AOE knockbacks in PvP.

Legion Thoughts: It looks like Chimaera Shot is moving to Beast Mastery, which means BM might be a more viable spec in PvP in Legion. It might be a welcome change; I kind of miss killing players with pets alone… it’s fun, and they can’t hide behind walls and barriers when pets are on them.

Marksman is getting Lone Wolf as a passive, and Sniper Shot and Head Shot sound like they could be as powerful as Chimaera Shot, but only time will tell.

The explosive trap knockback is going away but getting replaced by Bursting Shot, which has a 30 second cooldown, for more highly annoying knockback fun in PvP. (Not a fan btw if you haven’t picked up on the sarcasm.) Knockbacks are difficult for a boxer to recover from if some or all of their toons are knocked off ledges and such.

The biggest loss seems to come from not having Spirit Bond… I may be missing something but I don’t see any passive self-healing anymore, which is a huge loss to survivability. Exhilaration is still there on a 2 minute cooldown, but it’s not enough.

Kill Shot also seems to be missing from the menu; no idea if they will have an equivalent, but this would be a big loss as well.


Shadow Priest:

Overall Ranking: 2^nd Single Target Burst Dmg: 2^nd AOE Burst Dmg: 6^th Survivability 4^th

The overall ranking for the #2 (SPriest) and #3 (Mage) spots is almost a tie. The deciding factor between these two classes is playstyle and whichever you prefer. They are both fun.

Single Target DPS comes from Mind Blast, Devouring Plague, Insanity Mind Flays, and Shadow Word: Death. I choose the major glyph Mind Harvest, which gives you two additional shadow orbs the first time you Mind Blast a target. This ensures you can always follow it up with Devouring Plague. The downside is the increased cooldown, but the level 100 talent Clarity of Power should be taken to reduce the cooldown and make Mind Blast instant. This is crucial.

Basic combo is select a target, Mind Blast them, follow it up with Devouring Plague, then finish them off with an Insanity Mind Flay and/or SW: Death. Select another target, rinse, wash, and repeat. It’s EZ mode.

For AOE damage, you can choose to use an Insanity Mind Sear instead of Flay. Little less damage than Flay, but with a 10 yard radius. I do this only when the enemy team is all bunched up together, like in the mines event in Ashran. Also Cascade is a great AOE spell.

Survivability comes from Power Word: Shield, Devouring Plague self-heals, Vampiric Embrace self-heals, and Flash Heals work in a pinch if one of your toons is taking heavy damage. Dispersion is your run away tool when the going gets rough, and if one of your toons is dragging behind being snared and DPS’d, you can use Leap of Faith to bring him back to your lead toon.

For talents, you want Body and Soul for the movement speed increase, Insanity for damage, Psychic Scream to get melee off of you, Twist of Fate for damage, Cascade for damage, and Clarity of Power as I mentioned before. The first tier of talents is whatever you prefer; there is no wrong selection. Cascade is interesting to macro with Vampiric Embrace, so you cast both together, and get some very quick burst healing going on in a pinch.

Legion Thoughts:
Shadow Priests are going to be tough to judge how they will work out in Legion, because they are getting a new resource bar (Insanity), and a new Voidform stance, which you switch into when your Insanity meter is full.

Mind Blast looks like it will be just as powerful, but I do not see a talent to make it instant cast anymore. Self-healing will come from Vampiric Touch instead of Devouring Plague, and it looks like they removed Devouring Plague altogether which is a huge burst loss. It may be replaced by Void Bolt, which is a burst spell you can only do while in Voidform. Pinch healing will be done with Shadow Mend, which could work better than Flash Heal currently.

The PvP talents don’t really look all that impressive, so I’m skeptical about this class being as good as it is now when Legion drops.

Frost Mage:

Overall Ranking: 3^rd Single Target Burst Dmg: 3^rd AOE Burst Dmg: 2^nd Survivability 6^th

The Frost Mage’s biggest advantage comes from their lvl 75 Ice Nova talent. There is an equivalent talent for the other two specs as well; the frost one seems to hit a bit harder but the Arcane version is neat because it lifts them up in the air for a second as well. Without this talent, this class wouldn’t rank #3 on my list. It’s a must have.

Single Target damage comes from Frost Bolts, Ice Lance, and your Water Elemental pet. Macro a /petattack and a /cast Icy Veins with your Frostbolt hotkey, and you’re good to go. Not much to this class, you know the drill. Frostbolt + Frostbolt + Ice Lance usually takes out a target.

AOE burst damage comes from the Ice Nova talent, the level 100 talent Comet Storm, and Frozen Orb. Note that you can use all of these AOE spells on a single target in a pinch, such as on an extremely annoying tank that has taken a fancy to you and won’t let go. Ice Nova hits hard, about on par with Mind Blast for SPriests, but with the added bonus of being AOE.

Survivability is in the form of Ice Barrier, Ice Ward, Blink, Ice Block, and Greater Invisibility. I chose the Evanesce talent in the first tier, so I can go immune and run away at the same time. Greater Invisibility is great for getting away from an enemy group, or being able to sneak up on one to take out a key healer or AA carrier in Ashran… (Or a flag carrier in a battleground.)

Legion Thoughts:
Most of the mechanics and spells already in the place will be largely untouched in Legion, which is good for the class. A lot of the PvP talents look pretty interesting as well, Ice Form for example, increases Frostbolt damage by 50% for 12 seconds, as well as providing immunity to stuns and knockbacks during that time. Very good talent to have. Prismatic cloak also sounds nice for survivability.

In addition, there is a new lvl 100 talent called Glacial Spike that is a 3 second cast but a huge single target burst spell, on the order of magnitude of a Chaos Bolt. All in all, the future looks bright for Frost Mages.


Balance Druid:

Overall Ranking: 4^th Single Target Burst Dmg: 4^th AOE Burst Dmg: 5^th Survivability 8^th

The Balance Druid is one of the most fun classes to play, mostly because of Starfall hitting everything in sight passively for 10 seconds after you click the hotkey. (Of course you need the Glyph of Untamed Stars.) This was also the class that was the most fun to level up.

Single Target bursts come from Starsurge, which can be boosted up by Celestial Alignment and the lvl 60 talent, Chosen of Elune. Take the glyph of Celestial Alignment so it lasts longer, and while it is active you can cast really strong Moonfire/Sunfire combo hits. In large battles, you want to Moonfire spam everyone in sight so you get procs of Shooting Stars which give you more charges of Starsurge/Starfall.

AOE comes from Starfall, which you want to have 100% uptime on during large battles. Starfall doesn’t do a lot of burst damage, but it keeps a lot of constant pressure on your enemy healers to keep their team up if you learn to keep it up 100%. After 30 seconds of the entire enemy team taking Starfall damage, they are going to be hard pressed to keep up the healing. Because of the way Starfall AOE’s everything in a 40 yard radius, this would be the greatest spell in the game to take advantage of if you were 10, 15, or 20 boxing. Or even as a 40-boxer who just did World PvP, I can imagine 40xStarfalls just wiping out everything in sight in seconds. As a 5-boxer, however, I’ll just take the constant uptime of being able to pressure the enemy team. This constant pressure AOE is very similar to the tactic of the Death Knight, which I will cover in a bit.

For survivability, Ysera’s Gift is one of the best passive healing talents in the game, even better than a Hunter’s Spirit Bond because it can heal nearby injured teammates passively as well. If, for example, your lead toon is taking damage and your other 4 toons are at full health, the lead toon will get a 20% heal every 5 seconds! Cenarion Ward is the other choice in the lvl 30 talent tree, which can be a better healing spell for pinch heals when taking heavy damage, but each has a different playstyle so it is up to you.

Other talents I like to take as Druids are Feline Swiftness, Typhoon, Incapacitating Roar (this and Typhoon are good for getting melees off of you), Dream of Cenarius or Nature’s Vigil for more self-healing, and Euphoria.

If you get trapped by members of an enemy team and you need to keep yourself up, one tactic I use sometimes is switching to Bear Form and spamming Thrash. I have Thrash macro’d with /cast Frenzied Regeneration, so that it will constantly keep self-healing in Bear Form every time you Thrash. This can buy you valuable time if you are waiting for your teammates to catch up to you, for example. This works even better in Resto spec, but I will go over healing specs in a later section.

And if one of your toons dies, don’t forget about Rebirth. If you have the Ashran Book of Rebirth, you can instant cast Rebirth 5x among your toons to bring dead ones back to life quickly. Get the Glyph of Rebirth that brings them back with full health.

Legion Thoughts:
The mastery stat will now increase damage to Starsurge and Starfall, which is good. There is a PvP talent that increases the damage of Starfall by 30%, which is great. The difference will be that there will be a resource meter for Astral Power now, instead of a flat 3 charges. This means Starfall or Starsurge will no longer be able to be used as an opener because you have to build up Astral Power first. Not a great change, but hopefully the damage increase will be enough to offset this disadvantage. There is a pretty awesome level 100 talent that increases the radius of Starfall by 30%, damage by 20%, and allows you to cast while moving in the Starfall. This seems like it will be a pretty mandatory talent.

A level 10 passive called Astral Influence will increase all of your spells ranges from 40 yards to 45 yards, and with the 30% increased Starfall radius, this means Starfall will be hitting at 58.5 yards? I’m excited to see this in action.

Also a PvP talent called Twin Moonfire will Moonfire a second target passively while you cast on the first, which sounds pretty nice for more AOE damage.

Overall, it looks promising for Balance Druids.

Death Knight:

Frost Spec:

Overall Ranking: 5^th Single Target Burst Dmg: 6^th AOE Burst Dmg: 3^rd Survivability 5^th

Blood Spec:

Overall Ranking: 6^th Single Target Burst Dmg: 9^th AOE Burst Dmg: 4^th Survivability 3^rd

The two Death Knight specs I play use similar tactics, but I try to stay out of the fray more and hang back if I am in Frost spec.

The basic tactic is to melee bomb the enemy team with a quick burst round of Necrotic Plague. The crucial talents for this are Unholy Blight, Death’s Advance, Remorseless Winter, and of course, Necrotic Plague. Glyph of Blood Boil helps as well. Glyph of Enduring Infection could help against certain teams but will reduce your damage. It usually isn’t necessary unless they have really good healers that are quick with the dispels.

You want to make a couple of macros first of all, one macro containing a /cast Dancing Rune Weapon, /cast Anti-Magic Shell, and /cast Unholy Blight. The second macro contains a /cast Icebound Fortitude, /cast Remorseless Winter, and /cast Pillar of Frost. Understandably, the Dancing Rune Weapon is only for Blood spec and the Pillar of Frost is for Frost spec, but if you make the macros like this you can use them in either spec. For Blood Spec, it is important that you put the Dancing Rune Weapon first in the macro, the reason being is that it will cast the Rune Weapon first, then Unholy Blight, and you will create 2 stacks of Necrotic Plague per toon instead of one. (10 stacks total among your 5 toons)

Once you have these macros setup, sneak up behind the enemy team during a battle in Ashran, cast Death’s Advance, and then hit the 2 macros. Run in and cast Blood Boil over and over, or if you’re in Frost spec, you can also Howling Blast to rack up the stack count on Necrotic Plague. You should have Necrotic Plague ticked up to 15 stacks within about 5-10 seconds, on the entire enemy team. Once the stacks are up, pick off single targets such as healers with Death Grip, Death Strike, or Obliterate depending on which spec you’re in. Also Death Coil or Frost Strikes, depending on the spec, and Soul Reaper to finish them off.

The idea of this tactic is the same as the Druids, the AOE isn’t bursty, but it applies constant pressure to the enemy team with 100% uptime. You keep the healers busy, you keep the DoTs up, and let them do their magic. If you don’t feel like the push is going to work, get the heck out of the melee fray and back to your team, wait for the cooldowns to expire, and then push again with the melee bomb.

The alternate strategy of the DK is a ranged one. Stand back with the rest of your team, target healers, Death Grip them and begin your single target rotation, when they start to run, Death Grip them again. You have 5 Death Grips at your disposal on rotation. Also in Frost spec, you can constantly Howling Blast the enemy team at range and get some DoTs on them. You can do these tactics while your Anti-Magic Shell and Unholy Blight is on cooldown as well.

Legion Thoughts:
Necrotic Plague is gone completely, so everything I talked about above will no longer apply. Playing the DK’s in the new expansion will require completely different tactics, perhaps. There is a version of the plague in Unholy spec, a PvP talent called Wandering Plague, but looks much weaker.

There is a really interesting PvP talent in Frost spec called Chill Streak, which looks like it will be a burst spell that does Chimaera Shot-like damage, and jump to 5 other targets(?!), but has a 1 minute cooldown.

I don’t really see too much else that jumps out at me as spectacular, and to be honest, the DK without Necrotic Plague will probably drop way down in the power rankings when Legion comes out. Only time will tell…


Disc Priest:

Overall Ranking: 7^th Single Target Burst Dmg: 10^th AOE Burst Dmg: 11^th Survivability 1^st

Before I discovered how bursty Shadow spec was, I used to play my priests in Discipline spec a lot. They are the absolute kings of survivability, and can take punishment no other multi-boxing team can even think of surviving against.

For damage, open up on a target with Shadow Word: Pain, followed by Holy Fire, and then Penance. Believe it or not, this will actually kill a lot of squishy targets such as mages and shamans. For tankier targets or healers, you will need to open up with a Mindbender first, and then the combo above. If everything is on cooldown and you still need damage, Smite is your last option.

You typically won’t be able to take out a group that has 2 or more healers by yourself, you will need help from your team. But even if you get cornered by the enemy team, your survivability should allow you an escape even if you have 10-12 guys on your 5.

Survivability comes in the form of Power Word: Shield, Penance, Flash Heals, Prayer of Mending, Atonement, Divine Aegis, Focused Will, Divine Star, Prayer of Healing, Power Word: Barrier, and Holy Nova. No other class can do as much healing and damage at the same time as the Disc Priest can. With Atonement, you can Penance an enemy target, and take all that damage as healing to your team. With Holy Nova, you can spam it as AOE damage, and collect all the damage in heals and Divine Aegis procs.

Recommended talents and glyphs: Angelic Bulwark, Body and Soul, Mindbender, Psychic Scream, Power Infusion, Divine Star, and Words of Mending. Glyph of Penance, Reflective Shield, and Weakened Soul.

Reflective Shield deserves a special mention as a really great glyph, as any target doing damage to you will take reactive damage, including any melees attacking you, spellcasters free-casting on you, or those really annoying mages in the towers in Ashran :)

Legion Thoughts:
Atonement will be getting a huge nerf, and instead of being an always-on passive, it will have to be activated on a target first with a healing spell or PW:Shield. In addition, the healing is reduced from 100% of the damage done to only 40% of the damage done. This does not bode well for the Disc Priest in Legion.

A positive change will be the Plea spell, which is an instant cast heal that should replace Flash Heal and be a very effective pinch healing spell. There are a few decent damage talents, such as Power Word: Solace, Dark Archangel, and Purge the Wicked…. and a few decent survivability talents, such as Shadow Covenant, Renewed Hope, and Premonition.

Based on the changes to Shadow and Disc specs, I would expect to see them move down in the power rankings in Legion, but they could surprise me.


Holy Paladin:

Overall Ranking: 8^th Single Target Burst Dmg: 7^th AOE Burst Dmg: 13^th (Last) Survivability 7^th

Another healing spec which actually turns out to be the best ranged damage dealing spec for this class.

The recommended talents and glyphs are Speed of Light, Clemency, Sanctified Wrath, Holy Prism, Saved by the Light, Glyph of Holy Shock, and Glyph of Harsh Words.

Denounce, Holy Shock, Holy Prism, Word of Glory, Judgment, and Hammer of Wrath are your damage spells. On a squishy target, Holy Prism, Holy Shock, and Hammer of Wrath might be all you need for a kill. For a tankier target, I like to open up with a couple of Denounces first, then Holy Shock and Holy Prism. The nice thing about Denounce is that is has a delayed damage component, so after you finish casting it, the target doesn’t actually receive the damage for a second or two, depending on how far away they are. The advantage of this is that an enemy healer won’t see the damage hitting their teammate until it is too late, because you are already finishing off the burst combo with a Holy Shock and Prism. Word of Glory can also be used to finish off the burst combo if Holy Prism is on cooldown.

Sanctified Wrath will work nicely for your rotation because you alternate Holy Shock and Denounce, by the time you cast Denounce your Holy Shock is back off cooldown.

The biggest disadvantage to this class is there is no AOE… nada. But Ret spec is too squishy and only does damage at melee range, Prot spec’s strongest spell, Avenger’s Shield, is weaker than a Holy Shock with a longer cooldown, and so Holy is the surprising go-to spec for PvP damage at range.

Legion Thoughts:
Holy Shock will do as much damage as now or even slightly more, and a talent called Holy Bolt in the first tier will increase its damage by 30%. Holy Prism is still in, but now shares a tier with Sanctified Wrath, which is very unfortunate. You will have to drop Sanctified Wrath and the short cooldown Holy Shocks, which is a bummer because that really comes in handy.

Beacon of the Savior is a very interesting talent choice in the lvl 100 tier, because it acts like an Atonement heal. Avenging Light in the PvP talents also looks very interesting, albeit situational.

Would Ret spec be worth another try in Legion? Taking a look at it, the healing and survivability might be tons better, with amazing talent choices such as Word of Glory, which AOE heals your multi-boxing team for 450% of spell power at instant speed, Blaze of Light which is a super powerful pinch healing spell, and Luminescence, which heals your team for 30% of the healing given to a member of your team.

Survivability may be increased, but I don’t see a lot of damage potential, and it still doesn’t change the fact that Ret is all melee damage. Ranged damage is so much better for PvP, for obvious reasons. In fact, it looks like Ret is losing Exorcism and Hammer of Wrath, two of the only ranged spells it had, and I don’t see any replacements. That’s a major downside.

Protection Warrior:

Overall Ranking: 9^th Single Target Burst Dmg: 8^th AOE Burst Dmg: 7^th Survivability 10^th

Protection spec because, forget about it… you won’t be able to last long enough to dish out damage in a DPS spec. Unlike DK’s, which have a ranged alternative strategy, melee bombing is your only choice with the Warriors.

Take the talents Double Time, Enraged Regeneration, Unyielding Strikes, Dragon Roar, Mass Spell Reflection, Bladestorm, and Gladiator’s Resolve. Take the Glyphs Wind and Thunder, and Resonating Power.

The melee bomb strat works similar to the DK strat, but without diseases. Use Charge to dive into a juicy target, such as a healer. Open up with a Thunder Clap, which will do some AOE damage, put bleed DoT’s on everyone in range, and slow them down with a snare.

Then break into a Bladestorm. I like to use a macro consisting of a combination of Land Stand, Demoralizing Shout, Shield Wall, and Shield Barrier, as well as Bladestorm itself.

Once you come out of the Bladestorm, follow up with another Thunder Clap, and then Dragon’s Roar for the finale. If your healer target is close to dead, finish them off with Devastate or Execute.

Then, using a combination of Shield Barrier, Enraged Regeneration, and Mass Spell Reflection, you should be able to Intervene and Heroic Leap your way back to the safety of your teammates. Wait for your Bladestorm cooldown, and repeat.

Thunder Clap is a terrific way to AOE pressure the enemy down with Deep Wounds procs, while snaring them at the same time. Devastate and Revenge are really good melee abilities, Devastate having no cooldown and no rage cost, so it is spammable.

Legion Thoughts:
Deep Wounds looks like it’s gone, which is a pretty big loss… and Bladestorm will be Arms and Fury only, so that pretty much kills Prot PvP. There are some good DPS talents choices… Siegebreaker, Crackling Thunder, Avatar, and Booming Voice… and there are some good Survivability talent choices… Second Wind, Never Surrender, and Softened Blows.

Fury will probably be a much better choice in the next expansion, as Bloodthirst will restore 5% health, Imposing Roar will give you a 20% leech, and it gives you access to Bladestorm (240% + 240% physical damage each second with two weapons equipped!) and Dragon’s Roar in the last talent tier. Hopefully they will have enough Survivability to make an impact.


Destruction Warlock:

Overall Ranking: 10^th Single Target Burst Dmg: 5^th AOE Burst Dmg: 8^th Survivability 13^th (Last)

Destruction Warlocks are the bottom of the barrel in Survivability, mostly because they have no way to run away from a persistent melee character. …And with very few instant cast spells, no real way to burst a melee class down. This is one of the few classes a boxer can play where the enemy running in circles around you still works really well. Other classes will have an instant cast burst response, or some other method to run away from them.

The biggest thing the Lock has going for them is the famous Chaos Bolt spell, the hardest hitting spell in the game. As a 5-boxer though, it is pretty much overkill, and the long cast time and the building up of the Burning Embers resource is tedious and clunky.

I tried liking Cataclysm, the lvl 100 talent, as it does really good damage. However the short radius, long cast time, and the fact that you have to target the ground with all 5 toons, (which they never seem to target the same place even with a center macro), makes it tedious and ineffective. If only Mannoroth’s Fury worked with it…

Grimoire of Sacrifice is a decent talent and should be taken, however it makes Soul Link useless without a pet so you won’t get your leech.

The only decent combo I’ve found for AOE, though it can be tedious to set up, is with the talent Charred Remains. Build your way up to 4 burning embers, position yourself right at the 35’ish yard range from the enemy team, wait until they are nice and bunched up, then target someone and use Fire and Brimstone. Then cast Chaos Bolt a couple of times. Try to switch to a different target the second time you cast it. It should wreak havoc on their front line.

Legion Thoughts:
Burning Embers are now Soul Shards that can only be generated with Conflagrate and critical strikes with Immolate… yuck. Chaos Bolt still has a 3 second cast time and consumes TWO Soul Shards… yuck.

Instead of getting better Survivability talents… they seem to have lost the only decent ones they had… yuck. The one exception seems to be the PvP talent Demon Skin. It sounds like a good pick, but overall the class looks like a disappointment for Legion.

Maybe the redesign of the Demonology spec will be better. (Cast a Doom on everything in range?)


Elemental Shaman:

Overall Ranking: 11^th Single Target Burst Dmg: 11^th AOE Burst Dmg: 9^th Survivability 11^th

Oh the master class…. the birth of multi-boxers… how we miss the glory days. The truth is, the utility and broad selection of useful spells is all still there… it’s just that there is no burst DPS anymore. Chain Lightning used to hit hard, and Lava Burst used to hit like a truck back in the WotLK days. Now, Chain Lightning hits like a mosquito and Lava Burst hits like a horsefly. Why Blizz took away all the burst of Shamans and gave it to Hunters? I don’t know. But that’s the state of things now.

There’s really no good strategy for playing them; they just suck. Flame Shock a target, Lava Burst a target, Lava Burst again, do an Earth Shock and maybe 4 Lightning Bolts later you can get a kill. (Ok it’s not quite that bad, but seriously, there’s really no tricks to playing this class.) Just build up Fulmination for a while, and you might get a 1-shot kill with an Earth Shock every once in a while.

The only cool thing about Shamans is they get the best Ashran book, which gives you Ghost Wolf at epic mount speed with invisibility attached to it. They play much better as resto healers, so if healing is your thing, do that.

Legion Thoughts:
Other than the minor change of Fulmination charges to a Maelstrom resource instead, very little is going to change with this class.

Control of Lava might be the best talent for Shamans coming up in Legion. It seems mandatory to give you some good Lava Burst damage. Lightning Lasso looks interesting, although I can’t tell how much damage it’s going to do. It’s very interesting that Shamans are going to get some decent stun spells besides just a lame totem.

I doubt those two talents are going to completely turn around the downfall of this class, but perhaps they will move up in the power rankings.


Rogue:

Overall Ranking: 12^th Single Target Burst Dmg: 12^th AOE Burst Dmg: 12^th Survivability 9^th

The spec you play as a Rogue is entirely preferential; I seemed to have the most success with Assassination, but others could do better with different specs I’m sure. I use the word “success” lightly here, as I never really had much success or enjoyed playing the Rogues very much in Ashran or BG’s. I did enjoy them back in the day when I did world PvP in Timeless Isle, but those days are gone.

Because melee is so bad in Ashran, the best I could do is grab the Shuriken Toss talent and go to town on someone from 30 yards out. After a while of doing this though, you realize you might as well just log off and play a real ranged class.

If you happen to catch someone alone and separated from the rest of their pack, you can open with Vendetta, and using the Subterfuge talent, Ambush them a couple of times, and then Dispatch them. I always set one of my toons to Cheap Shot when the others Ambush, so that you at least get a stun on your target.

Legion Thoughts:
Subtlety looks like it will be the best option, as Shuriken Toss looks like it won’t be available to the other two specs. The PvP talents Cold Blood and Shadowy Duel look interesting.

Shadowstrike looks like a better version of Ambush, and will deal 550% of Attack Power as damage and teleport you behind the target… as well as granting a combo point. Coupled with Cold Blood and/or Shadow Dance, this could make for a lot of quick kills.

Still no good range options, so unless there’s going to be some really cool world PvP (like Timeless Isle was…) in the expansion, I’d steer clear of this class for the most part.

Monk:

Overall Ranking: 13^th (Last) Single Target Burst Dmg: 13^th (Last) AOE Burst Dmg: 10^th Survivability 12^th

Brewmaster or Windwalker…. Take your pick. They are both terrible for multi-boxing. Fists of Fury deals decent damage, but it is so hard to land for all 5 of your toons, and even once you do land it, you are leaving yourself susceptible to being focused hard by the rest of the enemy team. Hurricane Strike is nice, but just not enough.

Keg Smash is more consistent reliable damage in Brewmaster spec, but it is also just not enough. It also doesn’t seem to be as tanky as DK’s or Warriors are in PvP.

Mistweaver damage is just a joke. A bad one.

Legion Thoughts:
Crackling Jade Lightning looks like it will be getting a buff, which is very good for the class as it is a good ranged spell. It also looks like it will deal the same damage over the same cast time no matter what spec you play.

Chi Orbit looks like a really good talent choice for Windwalker boxers, stacking up to 4 times to deal a 1200% of Attack Power hit?! This could be a 1-shot kill once it stacks up and if it works the way I’m reading it…

If they get rid of those awful stances in Mistweaver, and allow Crackling Jade Lightning to do good damage which it looks like it will, it will be a viable damage spec in PvP.

I expect the Monks to move up in the power rankings if these changes hold.


Healers:

I’ve already discussed Holy Paladins and Disc Priests as they are viable damage specs in PvP, and they are good healing classes as well. Discs are fun because you can do damage to things while healing your team with Atonement. Holy Paladins can only do this with Holy Prism every 20 seconds.

Druids can do some decent damage if you get the Dream of Cenarius talent and cast a few 5xWraths at a target, which will be healing allies at the same time. They make great raid healers with Wild Growth, Tranquility, and Wild Mushroom, and good single target healers with Rejuvenation+Swiftmend, and Lifebloom. You just have to watch your mana by not casting too many Wild Growths back to back.

Want to be damn near invincible as a Resto Druid? Macro your Bear Form’s Thrash and Mangle hotkeys with a /cast Frenzied Regeneration line in the macro. It’s not on the global cooldown, so you can keep mashing your Thrash and Mangle hotkey for a constant health regeneration. Throw down 5xWild Mushrooms on the ground beneath you, go into Bear Form, and Thrash away. This works even better if you have the passive healing talent Ysera’s Gift for even more constant healing. 5 people will not be able to take you down. It will take 8-12 enemy players to kill you.

Mistweaver monks are simply awful for damage, and the stances thing makes them painful and not fun to play. They are decent raid healers with Renewing Mists, Chi Burst, and Spinning Crane Kick, but they lose mana the fastest of all healers and you will go OOM very quickly.

Resto Shamans are pretty awful with damage as well, but they are pretty good raid healers. 5xHealing Stream Totems, Riptides, and Chain Heals keep your group up pretty well, but the real magic is the Healing Tide Totem. Cast it in a round robin rotation whenever your team encounters the enemy team and a big fight occurs. It’s a really massive heal for 10 seconds, then you can cast it on your next toon, for a total of 50 seconds of massive raid healing coupled with your Healing Tide Totems for extra effectiveness. Also if you start taking damage, throw down your Spirit Link Totems in a round robin, and that will keep you alive with ease. Don’t forget to use your Grounding Totem every time it’s off cooldown for some magic absorption for your team.


Conclusion:

I hope you’ve enjoyed this power rankings article. Hopefully this will give you some idea what to play if you are new to PvP, or if you are a veteran, some new tips and tricks. I’m eager to hear your thoughts on the Legion expansion and any impact to multi-boxing that you see. (I really hope they aren’t getting rid of click-to-move like the rumors I’ve heard!)

:cool:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Vegasboxing

A level 10 passive called Astral Influence will increase all of your spells ranges from 40 yards to 45 yards, and with the 30% increased Starfall radius, this means Starfall will be hitting at 58.5 yards? I’m excited to see this in action.

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Not exactly... Atleast on the current alpha build, starfall is a non-channeled targettable AOE, fairly similar to Rain of Fire. With the talent the affected area is decent and should work as a decent deterrant for melee wanting to get on your group, especially with the addition of the move-while-casting mechanic it has. Here's a screenshot demonstrating the size of the AOE in the current build: http://imgur.com/yUEqzOa

What I personally think is a bigger game changer is one of the new Lvl 15 PVE tier talents, Warrior of Elune. 2 guaranteed instant cast Lunar Strikes (currently known as Starfire) is fairly big, especially due to the resources for Starsurge and Starfall having to be built up, as you mentioned. On top of this, boomies will gain a decent amount of healing through the Restoration Affinity talent. Overall, I do think they look fun, but I think how good they will be is highly dependant on how bursty and fast the gameplay style of Legion will be overall.


Personally, I think the usual classes will be the ones to go for in a 5x setup. Hunters, Boomkins, DKs, Enha Shammies, and maybe (just maybe) Ret Paladins. As I said before, what turns out good depends on the power of AOE and single target burst at max level and gear. If the gameplay is bursty similarly to WoD, I would imagine the safest bets are Boomies and Hunters for ranged, and DK for melee. If the gameplay however slows down, I could see Rets being very good with a more off-healing oriented playstyle that is simply not viable currently.

I have no experience with Demon Hunters yet, but considering how Monks and DKs were when they were initially introduced, I think there is a good shot that they will be rather good. Partly because people will not initially know how to deal with them, and partly because they could turn out just as OP as the initial versions of Monks and DKs.

Omg so they have turned Starfall into a "Next Click" type spell?! That is so freaking lame... they've ruined it.

Powershifting is gone in legion so that will hurt druids mobility.

"We've added a cooldown on reentering a shapeshift form you just left. It's not a GCD, though"