WoW Classic Season of Mastery PVE Tier List
Published: Nov 22, 2021
WoW Classic Season of Mastery’s recent launch was a massive success. The game is packed with players eager to embark on a new adventure. Even though the servers have been live for less than a week, there’s already reports of certain players hitting 60.
The pace of the game is much faster this time, mainly due to the boosted experience from quests in Season of Mastery. Pretty soon, many guilds will start raiding Molten Core and the race to slay Ragnaros will begin.
We’ve decided to create a WoW Classic Season of Mastery PVE tier list with all the classes and separate them into different categories. Hopefully this will help you create your dream 40-man raid group and make your Molten Core runs a breeze.
PVE Class Tiers
This guide is strictly aimed at WoW Classic PVE, and not PVP. Certain classes that dominate PVP will not exactly be the best for PVE, and vice versa.
S Tier – Warlock, Mage, Rogue
Season of Mastery doesn’t upset the usual S tier meta too much, with Warrior being the only exception where they’re currently sitting in A tier instead of the usual S tier spot.
Rogues, on the other hand, are looking better than ever in Season of Mastery. Season of Mastery opens way more weapon options for Rogues, but we might also see them come up with some new rotations that were previously not possible. Skills such as Garrote, Rupture, and Deadly Poison will now be viable as Rogues won’t have to worry about taking a valuable debuff slot.
Frost Mages will be the go-to spec for Molten Core, mainly due to the increased fire resistance from monsters and bosses inside the raid. Fire becomes viable later on when ignite stacking becomes a thing. Nothing really changed for Mages in Season of Mastery – they were great back then, and they’re great now.
Warlocks are the biggest winners in WoW Classic Season of Mastery. With no debuff limit, Warlocks will thrive. This will open up new specs in raiding and possibly increase the number of warlocks in each raid. Since the mechanics are more punishing this time around, guilds might stack warlocks and drain the bosses with damage-over-time skills.
A Tier – Warrior, Hunter, Priest
We’ll start with Warriors, who were always the kings of WoW Classic PVE. They’re currently sitting in tier A in Season of Mastery, and here’s why.
Warrior relies on gear and consumables more than other classes do, and since there’s no world buffs in raids in WoW Classic Season of Mastery, Warriors could potentially experience issues with rage generation in Molten Core. They will most likely jump back to S tier in the later stages of the game.
Hunters are pretty strong in the early phases, and not just to level fast in Season of Mastery. They have competitive damage and bring Tranquilizing Shot for some strong bosses with enrage mechanics. They’re also super easy to gear up, at least compared to some other classes.
Priests are top tier healers in all phases of the game, but especially in the beginning where Paladins lack the critical chance to truly shine. Holy is the main raid spec, but a couple of Discipline Priests spots will always be open for that strong Power Infusion cooldown. Shadow is strong, but runs out of mana fast. Expect 1-2 Shadow Priests in each raid, mainly to buff the Warlocks.
B Tier – Shaman, Paladin
Shamans for Horde, and Paladins for the Alliance, will be some of the best WoW Classic classes in Molten Core. The more niche specialisations such as Retribution, Elemental, and Enhancement will have troubles finding a spot at this stage in the game.
If your guild is progressing and you’re running into dps issues, punishing mechanics where your melee is dying, or any other issues – chances are you won’t be bringing any of the three aforementioned specialisations. Restoration Shaman and Holy Paladin will be the go-to specialisations for Molten Core.
Alliance raids will try to bring as many paladins as possible to cover each Paladin buff, while the Horde raids will do the same for the Shaman totems.
C Tier – Druid
The only class in C tier is currently the Druid. This does not mean that Druids are bad by any means, that’s completely false. It’s just that they don’t bring as much as the other classes do.
Restoration Druids will be pretty solid healers with an ability to combat resurrect on demand. Feral and Balance Druids will most likely not find spots this time around. Maybe 1 or 2 spots if there’s a need for a Feral off-tank or if the caster group wants to sacrifice a spot for the Balance Druid buff.
What Should You Play?
This tier list simply shows what each class brings to a raid group, and how stacking the best classes in WoW Classic Season of Mastery will increase your overall performance in raids. However, your guild might decide to run a wide mix of classes and specialisations and you might not run into any issues.
Keep in mind that Season of Mastery is still in its infancy and things might change later down the road. Some classes that were thought to be strong might fall off, while the community might figure out ways to make some previously underperforming classes rise to the top.
At the end of the day, it’s best to pick a class that you enjoy playing and find a guild that will let you raid with the spec that you want. Some of the best WoW streamers will probably create their own guilds to raid with their community, so you can try there first.
