We’re back to raids after a bit of a hiatus, as it’s been over two weeks since we last checked in. We have a brand-new raid (that’s not getting any play), Forever as competition, which resulted in a big drop in players, as you’d expect. The patch and previous week’s class tuning did a huge number on the rankings as well, moving everything around and bringing Subtlety to the throne. There’s a lot to get into, so let’s dive right in.
Note: We are using normalized scores instead of raw DPS for the Warcraft Logs rankings. Normalized scores take into account the outlier boss fights where certain specs could stack massive DPS (due to the nature of the fight, whether it’s AoE spam or something else), which would then affect their overall score for the whole raid.
Note 2: Warcraft Logs bundled the Lair boss, Nymrissa Wavecaller, from the Tidebound Grotto into the Venomous Abyss rankings, which means the logs from here affect the overall rankings you can see below.
Mythic Venomous Abyss
For the first time since 12.1 launched, we see a drop in player numbers in Mythic. The top specs are down as much as 20% this week since last we checked, over two weeks ago. The rest are losing a little less, with the very bottom only dropping around 10%. Now, we do have a new single boss raid that’s dropped this past week, but Kith’ix got very, VERY few players in there. The other possible culprit is WoW Forever, which is in its 5th week of Beta.
In terms of positioning, there is one large mover, and it’s the same spec that’s risen to the top of Heroic. Retribution gained three spots and landed in fourth place, while actually dropping 2K players since last we checked. Beast Mastery managed to get past Elemental in 5th, and Balance just swapped places with Ret, moving three down into 7th. Frost DK is on the rise, actually gaining the most spots, now sitting in 8th after a 7-spot leap. Unholy dropped like a stone after the tuning fixes, losing five spots in 15th. Subtlety joins Frost DK in its meteoric rise after its buffs, sitting in 9th. Marksmanship closes out the top 10 two spots down.
Overall Damage 95th Percentile
While Unholy gets its massive post-tuning drop here as well, it’s still almost holding on to the top 10, dropping 10 spots into 11th, just below Frost DK. We do have a new No.1 in Subtlety, and it’s already pulling way ahead of everyone else, which explains its huge population rise. We then have something very unusual for the season, as spots two and three are taken by two Evokers! Augmentation is slightly ahead and actually received buffs in 12.1.5. It gains seven spots, while Devastation “only” rises three. Shadow is the next surprise visit in 4th, also climbing three spots, with no changes in the patch. For all these upward movers, someone has to come down, and one of them is Demonology, which drops three spots into 5th. Windwalker has pushed into the top 10 and gained a massive eight spots, just behind Retribution which dropped three.
Overall Damage, All Percentiles
Shadow is doing better here, managing to squeeze between the Evokers in 3rd. Unholy didn’t drop quite as far yet, but it usually takes this chart longer to replicate the top percentiles. The DK moved down from No.1 to No.7, just ahead of Frost Mage, which only dropped two spots.
Damage to Bosses
We see where Subtlety gets a lot of its momentum here, as it’s outclassing everyone by a large amount, even more so than in the overall damage charts. Unholy is still holding on really well here, only dropping one spot, and Frost DK remains stable in 3rd.
Individual Bosses
We’re checking out all the latter bosses in the Abyss, despite Ula’tek and Altar still not having that many players on them. We’re also taking a look at week 1 of Kith’ix!
Kith’ix
We see mostly the same specs in the top 10 here as in the Abyss, with two notable exceptions: Feral and Fire! Both have very few players, and the boss has a shockingly low number of logs in general, with the most-played spec having 190.
Twin Fangs
This is where Arms and Frost Mage get their foothold in the overall top 10, as they cleave to their heart’s delight.
The Coiled Altar
Unholy still remains in power here, but we do see Subtlety catching up fast, and the Warlocks still loving it.
Ula’tek
Subtlety managed to outclass Assassination on the single-target mass-damage heart boss, but not by much.
Heroic Venomous Abyss
We see a large drop in Heroic population as well, with the previous No.1 dropping as many as 100K/30% of players since over two weeks ago, when we last checked. Even the new No.1, Retribution, manages to lose 10% of its playerbase. The rest are around 20% down. Beast Mastery pushes past Demonology in 4th, and we see Unholy drop three spots into 10th.
Overall Damage All Percentiles
While Subtlety dominates everything here as well, we see Marksmanship still doing a lot better than in Mythic, only losing to the Rogue after being on top. Frost DK makes a big move into 3rd from its previous 9th, and Arcane is still holding on, four down in 6th.
Individual Bosses
Ula’tek
Havoc and Windwalker are doing really well on the final boss, even managing to beat out the previous top dog, Assassination. But Subtlety is still on top here as it is everywhere else.
And, as always, you can check out our tier lists, our raid guides, and our class guides, updated with the latest changes! And for even more stats, head on over to Warcraft Logs.