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Shadowlands Mythic+ Representation for DPS, Tanks, Healers - Fortified, Spiteful, Volcanic Week
Live
Posted
2021/01/27 at 3:32 PM
by
Anshlun
As we start a new Mythic+ week with new affixes, we will look back to last week to analyze how different affixes impact the Mythic+ meta. For this, we will look at data provided by
Raider.io
, looking specifically at the spread of classes being used to time Mythic+15 and higher, and Mythic+20 and higher dungeons.
Representation Changes from Previous Week
Overall, class and spec representation remained the same when compared to last week, with the large outliers for Marksmanship Hunter, Fire Mage, Balance Druid, Vengeance Demon Hunter, and Restoration Shaman. Besides those five specs, Outlaw Rogue, Holy Paladin, and Windwalker Monk have decent representation in 15s and their representation gets increased when looking at +20 or higher keys. Every other spec sees a reduction in usage as you go higher in keys, showing the prevalence of these eight specs in the Mythic+ meta. You can read more about the Mythic+ Meta in Shadowlands Season 1 in our
in-depth analysis
.
Below you can see snapshots of the charts. You can see their full interactive versions on
Raider.io
.
Current Week - Fortified, Spiteful, Volcanic
Click here to see the charts in more detail
Previous Week - Fortified, Spiteful, Volcanic
Click here to see the charts in more detail
Volume of Keys - Fortified vs Tyrannical
The largest change between the weeks is the volume of keys completed. With 143 thousand completed in time for level 15 and up during the Fortified week, an increase of over 50% compared to the previous Tyrannical week. There's even a starker contrast when looking at level 20 and up dungeons, with only 98 being completed during the Tyrannical week, compared to almost 2000 timed keys during the Fortified week, a perfect example of the discrepancy between the affixes in high keys.
While a large point can be attributed to the change of Fortified vs Tyrannical, Raging and Explosive is way more punishing than Spiteful Volcanic for most groups, with the last week being considered a push week for top Mythic+ groups.
Class Overview for Mythic+
We've asked a couple of our Class Writers from three of the specs dominating the meta to give their input about the strengths of their classes in the current Mythic+ balance. Every week we will invite different writers from different specs to give more context about how their spec fares in Mythic+, so make sure to check every week to see if your favorite spec is featured.
Vengeance Demon Hunter
Vengeance Demon Hunter is currently the most popular tank in Mythic+ due to several factors. First, due to the lower overall stats early in an expansion as well as changes to tanks in the past couple expansions, the meta playstyle for Mythic keystones is to stack heavy defensive cooldowns, build as much threat as possible, and then kite while DPS clean up. This playstyle is something that Vengeance in particular, especially with the Kyrian covenant, excels at. Using
Elysian Decree
early in a pull guarantees threat when combined with
Immolation Aura
,
Infernal Strike
, and
Soul Cleave
, even when forced to kite after defensives expire.
There are a couple strong builds for keystones, though the
Fiery Brand
build is more popular due to ease of use. This build involves taking talents that spread and extend Fiery Brand, as well as the
Fiery Soul
legendary, which reduces the cooldown by approximately half when played optimally. Combining this cooldown reduction and duration extension results in very high uptime on a 40% damage reduction, which enables stacking multiple cooldowns for more survivability while actively tanking. Without this build, players are required to spread out their cooldowns in order to survive because of the low Active Mitigation uptime that Vengeance has baseline. Alternatively, the Sigil reduction build using
Razelikh's Defilement
is preferred by some players, which allows for more control, but is significantly less tanky and needs to kite more often.
Aside from the strong front-loaded threat generation and high defensiveness, Vengeance excels in the third requirement - kiting, with many ways to control enemies through sigils and high mobility from Infernal Strike, Double Jump, and Glide. The combination of these abilities allows for kiting in ways that other tank specs can only dream of doing, as terrain issues and getting trapped aren't a problem.
Restoration Shaman
Restoration Shaman does quite well in Mythic+ right now which is primarily thanks to our large and consistent healing output, coupled with strong cooldowns as an answer to all situations a dungeon can throw at you. This creates a safe environment like no other healing spec can.
The Restoration Shaman spec is straightforward to play, easy on mana and brings a lot of tools which are useful in pugs as well as in pre-made groups.
Wind Shear
is very asked for in in pre-made groups as those often tend to run 2 ranged DPS, who have long cooldowns on their Interrupts, while in a pug you can just generally help yourself out a lot by interrupting anything that moves! On top of that there is useful utility such as
Capacitor Totem
,
Earthbind Totem
and
Earthgrab Totem
to keep your DPS safe from danger,
Earth Elemental
to keep your tank safe and
Reincarnation
to keep yourself safe :)
Fire Mage
Fire Mage has always been a strong pick in Mythic+ for a while now and in Shadowlands this is especially true for three main reasons:
The first is that
Bloodlust
drums are only half as effective as the real thing now, which makes a Mage, Shaman, or Hunter basically required. The second is many classes now have target caps on their AoE abilities. Because Fire can provide
Time Warp
and Fire’s main source of AoE (
Flame Patch
) has still dodged even a 20 target softcap, it has gained value against its peers.
The third and largest reason is the strength of Fire’s main cooldown,
Combustion
. This ability gives Mages guaranteed crit and increases their damage (via
Infernal Cascade
). In most cases Combustion ends up being about a minute cooldown, which is perfect for Mythic+ as it allows it to be up for every pack.
In addition to these reasons, Mage is also just a solid pick due to how sturdy and versatile the spec is. Fire Mages can Immune off debuffs with
Ice Block
or
Alter Time
big damage events, healing themselves to full every minute.
Dragon's Breath
is an AoE disorient on a short cooldown, which is fantastic for interrupting large packs of mobs and
Counterspell
has a reduced cooldown if it successfully interrupts thanks to a conduit (
Grounding Surge
). Fire can also freeze mobs in place, crowd control with
Polymorph
, and provide food for the group.
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Comment by
guatafu
on 2021-02-02T02:23:45-06:00
Standard 4-5 classes in 4-5 specs playable rest just GTFO standard since Legion...
it's called a the metagame and it's not exclusive to wow, look it up
Comment by
SquirePip
on 2021-02-05T16:49:52-06:00
Please, you're not helping anyone with these kinds of posts. Some of my friends who do not play the FOTM classes are getting really disheartened whenever they get reminded that other classes can outperform them without trying. Some are even contemplating stopping the game because it's not fun when other people say that you're wasting your time on a non-optimal class.
It's not just the posts, the entire design of mythic+ dungeons reinforces it also. As long as the the timer / speed aspect is tied to the dungeons only the best of the best will be viable. If mobs just increased in difficulty it wouldn't matter if you were using a couple dps specs that caused each mob pack to live like 30 seconds longer but didn't do any other harm to the run. But since speed is involved, 99% of the groups will not risk that happening if they have a choice and will only take the best of the best specs.
Comment by
SquirePip
on 2021-02-05T16:52:22-06:00
Hey look , i have an idea for all of you , make your own keys? Make friends ingame , join a guild ? Or look , you are a lot of guys here blaming blizzard ,
And i also have another idea , the people commenting here must be dps tanks and healers , so make a group together guys.
There will ALWAYS be meta just like at any other game in pro play , i myself play a shadow priest , ele shamy, demo lock and guardian druud and i don't care if i dont get invited i make my own keys , or ask guildies if they are up for keys.
So take responsability and stop blaming blizzard for anything , enjoy the game!
Blizzard is responsible for most of it, they could balance classes /specs to have a less than 1% damage variance with equal gear if they wanted to, but they don't
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