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

[Vegasboxing]

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.