5) Marksman Hunter:

Hunters took a huge hit this xpac. In my previous power rankings post I made about 8 months ago, I noted that Hunters were going to lose Spirit Bond in Legion, and this was going to dramatically impact the class… and it has. Spirit Bond was the best passive healing talent in the game, and it was what gave Hunters their good survivability they had in Warlords and MoP.

To make matters worse, they lost a lot of burst. Chimaera Shot is crap this xpac, Aimed Shot is an absolute joke, and Kill Shot has vanished. Their only saving grace is the talents. Take Lone Wolf, Black Arrow, Explosive Shot, and Piercing Shot. The choice between Murder of Crows and Barrage is a tough one, and it depends on which battleground you are playing to make a decision. Barrage is usually the better choice in general if you can’t decide.

Piercing Shot is the only single target burst that is on par with what Chimaera Shot used to be. But it has a 30 second cooldown, vs. a 9 second cooldown with the old Chimaera. And it costs a hell of a lot more focus. It does one-shot people though, so it is strong.

Explosive Shot is great for bursting down melee that are on you. Just hit the toolbar button for it twice in a row and it will explode for damage around you, and usually one shots melee on you. It is also hindered by a 30 second cooldown however.

Camouflage works a little better this xpac, and is good for healing up, but still has some glitches where you come out of stealth for no reason at all. They have never fully fixed this ability. It also doesn’t start its cooldown until you come out of stealth, so keep that in mind when using it.


Beastmaster spec still suffers from the same problem it did in Warlords… a lack of burst. The only BG where I found BM useful was Temple of Kotmogu, where you can just hide behind a wall and sic your pets on orb holders… it’s kind of fun. It also could work in AV if you don’t like climbing those horde towers, you could just make your pets climb up there and kill things for you

Honestly, I haven’t tried Survival, but I can’t imagine it being much better. It probably does good sustained dps like Feral, but it still doesn’t have any combat heals for survivability.


6) Havoc Demon Hunters:

A little lacking in the survivability department with little to no healing, these guys do put out some good damage. If you play conservative and don’t get into any big brawls, you can kill players fast enough to pick stragglers off and take some objectives.

Good talents to get are Fel Mastery, Demon Blades, Bloodlet, Soul Rending, Fel Eruption, and Master of the Glaive. Master of the Glaive coupled with Bloodlet allows you to put some amazing ranged pressure on people with bleeds.


Vengeance spec is good in theory, especially since it has better self-healing, but in practice it doesn’t kill things fast enough, and it doesn’t seem to have any more survivability than Havoc.


7) Retribution Paladin:

Ret spec is actually really good against other melee classes. If you’re up against a bunch of melee on the opposing team, you are golden and will do well that BG. It does good close combat damage and has a really good heal if you get the Word of Glory talent. The only drawback to Word of Glory is its long recharge time.

It’s a bit of a different story when you’re up against a bunch of ranged. With no gap closer like Charge or Death Grip, you are stuck with running after players. Your two best friends in this scenario are going to be Blessing of Freedom and Hammer of Justice. Put Hammer on a round robin with ISBoxer so that you have 5 of them to use, because you’ll need it to pick off hunters and casters.


I tried Holy and Protection spec as well... neither does good damage this xpac and not really worth playing in PvP.


(Tie) 8 & 9) Frost Mage and Balance Druid:

I gave these classes a tie for 6th because they have similar damage output mechanics and similar survivability. Melee tends to give them a lot of trouble, and because this is a melee meta, they have issues with actually being effective in battlegrounds.

The Frost Mage can do some great instant cast burst with Ice Nova and Comet Storm, and Ice Block and heal up (with the Cold Snap talent) when in trouble. Glacial Spike does good single target burst, but you have to build up to it and it takes a 3 second cast time. Not usually necessary for multiboxing, because it would be overkill. If it didn’t take a buildup of icicles and were instant cast, like Comet Storm is, then maybe it would be worth using.

Balance Druids best offensive spell comes from the artifact weapon, the New/Half/Full Moon spell, and when it gets to Full Moon it’s pretty much one-shotting anything. Go with the Restoration Affinity for some good healing spells, and use the following macro with Starfall:

#showtooltip Starfall
/cast [harm] Celestial Alignment
/cast [harm] Astral Communion
/cast [@player] Starfall

This macro will make it work somewhat like it did last expansion, and the [@player] modifier makes it so you don’t have to click the ground with your toons. (This is also helpful with other click ground type spells, such as Metamorphosis with the Havoc Demon Hunters.) You might have to click the macro twice to get it to work, and also make sure you are targeting an enemy to make it work.


(Tie) 10, 11, & 12) Shaman, Rogue, Monk:

Solo players may have good results with these classes, but for a multiboxer in PvP, they just don’t work well. Enhancement Shamans would be good if Ascendance were a passive, not a 3 minute cooldown spell. None of these 3 classes have any reliable burst, which makes them not so desirable for my PvP game.

If you like healing, Mistweaver Monks actually make a decent raid healing team. Just don’t expect to win many 10-15 man BG’s with just healing when you are taking up 5 spots. They were nice in Ashran for raid healing, and could also be fun for raid healing if you like to PvE.



Closing statement:

If someone out there has good experience with a particular spec that I haven’t covered, or believes it should be a higher ranking on my list, please let me know. I am perfectly willing to give it another shot. I still need more playtime on the different classes and specializations and am open to suggestions for how to play them differently.