EU+US 20's (Veteran & F2P) Tier List - BFA 8.3

Boomkin excels with a good team behind it especially if involves a 2nd boomkin which if properly timed can delete someone in a GCD. If both teams compositions are of similar strength(and generally well-geared vets) the boomkin's value is weighed more because of its potential to quickly delete someone on the other team and there is not much counterplay to it. No other class can really do this. However, boomkins tend to struggle if you have a mediocre team composition either from a dps/heals perspectives and its here where hunters or mages can end up just doing more. Your team has to survive the initial clash while you ramp up for starsurge as well as still force the other team to use its 'o shit' cooldowns. So, if your team is composed of off-meta dps and have a boomkin you're probably going to struggle especially if there is no hunter/arcane mage on the team for reasonable sustain/burst. This isn't to say that their mobility/stealth/offheals isn't great on its own and can still be really useful but just from the perspective of overall utility in terms of damage/landing key kills.
 
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Boomkin excels with a good team behind it especially if involves a 2nd boomkin which if properly timed can delete someone in a GCD. If both teams compositions are of similar strength(and generally well-geared vets) the boomkin's value is weighed more because of its potential to quickly delete someone on the other team and there is not much counterplay to it. No other class can really do this. However, boomkins tend to struggle if you have a mediocre team composition either from a dps/heals perspectives and its here where hunters or mages can end up just doing more. Your team has to survive the initial clash while you ramp up for starsurge as well as still force the other team to use its 'o shit' cooldowns. So, if your team is composed of off-meta dps and have a boomkin you're probably going to struggle especially if there is no hunter/arcane mage on the team for reasonable sustain/burst. This isn't to say that their mobility/stealth/offheals isn't great on its own and can still be really useful but just from the perspective of overall utility in terms of damage/landing key kills.

Some fair points.

You’re right that things change based on team comp and a million other variables, and if you find yourself in a wonky “no heals + off-meta dps” matchup certain specs will drop in potential and others will rise.

For the sake of a scaleable tier list, we’re assuming that with a large enough sample size, most games are balanced-ish, with equally geared-ish and equally skilled-ish players, hence why something like Boomkin would be considered S Tier whereas Arcane and MM sit in A Tier.

If you, as a player, know that you only really queue during off-peak hours, that you’re usually short on healers, that you’re solo and don’t have friends to pre-made with, then certain specs might be more appealing. That doesn’t mean that in the grand scheme of things, though, they are more valuable/impactful to the bracket and honestly idk how to go about making a different tier list for every one of a million different situations/variables.
 
honestly idk how to go about making a different tier list for every one of a million different situations/variables.
Dont sweat it man. This is probably the best tier list I've ever seen in this bracket but there's no way, as you said, to account for everything.

I dont think there is ever a real world situation where someone says "oh shit, we have a boomkin. We lose" like they might if their whole team is assassin rogues and fire mages.
 
People who play bad specs C tier of below, why do you bother? Other than a big playstyle change (melee vs ranged, dps vs healer) what's your rationale behind gimping yourself massively?
For instance had a mage today in a lot of my games swearing frost is a twink support spec. You get so little from not playing the fotm spec (arcane for mages). But same things can apply for enh vs other shaman specs.
 
People who play bad specs C tier of below, why do you bother? Other than a big playstyle change (melee vs ranged, dps vs healer) what's your rationale behind gimping yourself massively?
For instance had a mage today in a lot of my games swearing frost is a twink support spec. You get so little from not playing the fotm spec (arcane for mages). But same things can apply for enh vs other shaman specs.
becuz when I kill people on my enh it’s like heroin

esp ftp clothiess
 
People who play bad specs C tier of below, why do you bother? Other than a big playstyle change (melee vs ranged, dps vs healer) what's your rationale behind gimping yourself massively?
For instance had a mage today in a lot of my games swearing frost is a twink support spec. You get so little from not playing the fotm spec (arcane for mages). But same things can apply for enh vs other shaman specs.
because there are no wargames, so any twink is pretty viable in small premade + leveler games, some people really enjoy shit like WW monk or lock or frost mage and enjoy the challenge of making them work to some degree.
 
People who play bad specs C tier of below, why do you bother? Other than a big playstyle change (melee vs ranged, dps vs healer) what's your rationale behind gimping yourself massively?
For instance had a mage today in a lot of my games swearing frost is a twink support spec. You get so little from not playing the fotm spec (arcane for mages). But same things can apply for enh vs other shaman specs.

Burnout from FotM specs and fun, mostly.

There comes a point when carrying a BG as Resto Shaman or Druid and topping leaderboards stops being fun, and it feels a lot more fulfilling playing a weird spec like Enhance or Frost or WW or what have you and playing it well enough to have SOME kind of impact.

Also, people like playing weird specs and playing them well and getting recognition lol...a good enhance Shaman is more memorable that a Resto Shaman for instance.
 
Burnout from FotM specs and fun, mostly.

There comes a point when carrying a BG as Resto Shaman or Druid and topping leaderboards stops being fun, and it feels a lot more fulfilling playing a weird spec like Enhance or Frost or WW or what have you and playing it well enough to have SOME kind of impact.

Also, people like playing weird specs and playing them well and getting recognition lol...a good enhance Shaman is more memorable that a Resto Shaman for instance.


Yall be skipping Brewmaster monks too :( SMH. True story brewmaster monks can top damage in BGs
 
Yall be skipping Brewmaster monks too :( SMH. True story brewmaster monks can top damage in BGs

Haha anything can top damage with enough gear, enchants and saltwaters :p

Love seeing good brewmasters though just cus it’s different and fun...even if it means, as a healer, I’m on babysitting duty all match chain-spamming Healing Surge lol.
 
Debatable.

They don't get roots at 20, but levelers do.

They're regrowth spam is very strong if they're ranging or LoSing you, if a boomy doesn't want you to kill them in wsg, chances are you're not going to kill them. In team scenarios they have some of the best off heals. Double starsurge hits harder than aimed shot, so I'm not sure why you're undermining it by only referring to it as "some" burst. Travel form (like the rest of the druid forms) is very strong.

It seems like you care far too much about the scoreboard and only really care about big haha pewpew twink damage. Sure, if you want to base your entire opinion off of what had more damage padded and kbs, mages and hunters may look better than boomy and you can get your nice scoreboard screenshot.

@Kakakaka summed this idea up pretty nicely in an earlier post:

Why it's not consistant dmg? Because one can not simply spam instant starfires every second or did I miss something? A good mages arcane missiles ticks for 190 dmg each second. Different spells and mobiltys can look good in theory, but in the end in most games the class that can push out the most dmg consistently with no RNG in every game while surviving while doing so should be S-tier. Honestly I feel like it's hard to compare everything also in a BG, I mean a boomking will be able to 1vs1 and win against prety much everything. But in a cluster of players the mages and hunters will do the most dmg and get the most KBs. Sure boomkins are good if you wanna dot everything and dont get any cred for your kills, but your also making it impossible for other classes to CC the other players in the opposit team. Sure they can heal, but if this argument is about that why not put all classes that can do alot of healing above hunter and mage?
 
A good mages arcane missiles ticks for 190 dmg each second.
A good mage knows that 4 charge blast > missiles lol.
Different spells and mobiltys can look good in theory, but in the end in most games the class that can push out the most dmg consistently with no RNG in every game while surviving while doing so should be S-tier.
By this logic affliction lock is quite possibly the best spec in the bracket because of it's high survivability and consitent damage btw.
I mean a boomking will be able to 1vs1 and win against prety much everything.
Na ret beats everything including boomy (except maybe a balance tauren but it'd be a very close duel.)
But in a cluster of players the mages and hunters will do the most dmg and get the most KBs.
The more you talk about the scoreboard the less I want to reply to you. You take KBs too seriously.

Sure, mages and hunters can get big kills, but they also have like 1200 - 1400 hp if they're geared right, they're almost useless if they don't have multiple pocket heals. If Walder the 1200 hp mm hunter extends we can just fucking one shot him or force CDs and disengage. Glass balance druid on the other had operates the same way but they also have big regrowth spam and the mobility to kite which still makes them very very hard to kill.

You're also neglecting the fact (or you're just ignorant) that a geared balance druid can crit starsurges for like 1k. Double starsurge usually hits much harder than an aimed shot (2 surges > 1 aimed shot. 2 aimed shots > 2 surges most likely but the by the time the 2nd aimed shot is casted your target is probably already full hp again whereas 2 surges is 2 gcds.)
 
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A good mage knows that 4 charge blast > missiles lol.

By this logic affliction lock is quite possibly the best spec in the bracket because of it's high survivability and consitent damage btw.

Na ret beats everything including boomy (except maybe a balance tauren but it'd be a very close duel.)

The more you talk about the scoreboard the less I want to reply to you. You take KBs too seriously.

Sure, mages and hunters can get big kills, but they also have like 1200 - 1400 hp if they're geared right, they're almost useless if they don't have multiple pocket heals. If Walder the 1200 hp mm hunter extends we can just fucking one shot him or force CDs and disengage. Glass balance druid on the other had operates the same way but they also have big regrowth spam and the mobility to kite which still makes them very very hard to kill.

You're also neglecting the fact (or you're just ignorant) that a geared balance druid can crit starsurges for like 1k. Double starsurge usually hits much harder than an aimed shot (2 surges > 1 aimed shot. 2 aimed shots > 2 surges most likely but the by the time the 2nd aimed shot is casted your target is probably already full hp again whereas 2 surges is 2 gcds.)

Are you talking about Arcane blast? There are major reasons to also use arcane missiles, if you for instance want to burst someone down quickly you do more dmg with arcane missiles by spamming the bottem insteed of full casting it, this drains alot of mana but is a powerfull thing you can do to take down healers.

My point with this entire discussion is: Sure boomkins have more survival tools then mages and hunters. However a mage or a hunter in the hands of a good player don't need all those survival tools, they stay alive the entire game by making good decisions and playing correcly. They also have CC which can be very strong if usen correcly. Since they do the biggest dmg and burst in the bracket, in my opinion they are S-tier classes among the skilled players. However if your not so good at the game then boomkins are a better package, since they can do abit of everything worse then other classes, but with it all combined it's a strong package.

The boomkin does have burst, but they cannot burst all the time unlike mages and hunters. We have talked about this before so I guess the main problem here is that we don't agree which is completely fine. No one is forcing you to respond.
 
There are major reasons to also use arcane missiles, if you for instance want to burst someone down quickly you do more dmg with arcane missiles by spamming the bottem insteed of full casting it, this drains alot of mana but is a powerfull thing you can do to take down healers.
Fast burst as in chunking health? That's when you should be using blast > missiles, not missiles > blast. It's also pretty important that they use blast if they're coordinating burst with other twinks.
My point with this entire discussion is: Sure boomkins have more survival tools then mages and hunters. However a mage or a hunter in the hands of a good player don't need all those survival tools, they stay alive the entire game by making good decisions and playing correcly. They also have CC which can be very strong if usen correcly. Since they do the biggest dmg and burst in the bracket, in my opinion they are S-tier classes among the skilled players. However if your not so good at the game then boomkins are a better package, since they can do abit of everything worse then other classes, but with it all combined it's a strong package.
I had a similar conversation with someone else the other day about this. A good player making a spec work doesn't change what tier the spec itself would fall into, it just means the player is good.

If this was a player tier list, sure, we can put some good mm hunters and arc mages up at s tier because of how impactful they are in games, but this is a spec tier list. We're looking at the spec itself, it's kit, what it offers to the group (here's where a spec's versatility matters,) etc. we're not taking player skill into account.

When I'm clicking through my BGE at the start of a match I can't think of a single arcane mage that I would be genuinely scared to face because on their own it's whatever. Druids on the other hand (specifically intellect druids,) are one man premades. I can think of a dozen balance / resto druids (and rshams for that matter) that can go up against an entire premade on their own and still make the game a good one. A mage against an entire premade would just sit and watch a GY timer the entire game.
 
Fast burst as in chunking health? That's when you should be using blast > missiles, not missiles > blast. It's also pretty important that they use blast if they're coordinating burst with other twinks.

I had a similar conversation with someone else the other day about this. A good player making a spec work doesn't change what tier the spec itself would fall into, it just means the player is good.

If this was a player tier list, sure, we can put some good mm hunters and arc mages up at s tier because of how impactful they are in games, but this is a spec tier list. We're looking at the spec itself, it's kit, what it offers to the group (here's where a spec's versatility matters,) etc. we're not taking player skill into account.

When I'm clicking through my BGE at the start of a match I can't think of a single arcane mage that I would be genuinely scared to face because on their own it's whatever. Druids on the other hand (specifically intellect druids,) are one man premades. I can think of a dozen balance / resto druids (and rshams for that matter) that can go up against an entire premade on their own and still make the game a good one. A mage against an entire premade would just sit and watch a GY timer the entire game.

Okey but how about if we flip it around, insteed of not making a tier list based of how good the player is. Is it more rightfully to make a tierlist based upon how bad a player is? There are some mages out there with 240 int in the lv 20 bracket, that is some scary shit to face against because they take down people from full health to zero in like 8 seconds, you lagg for a bit and your dead lol. Would I be willing to do 20% less dmg in order to be able to also heal? No I would not because you don't need it to survive, you have healers in your team to do that job. I'm just saying there is 2 healers and 1 hybrid build at this S-tier list, there should be a spot for a pure dps at the S-tier. Maybe perhaps it's even better to make one tierlist for healers and one for DPS, that would make it less confusing. But in the end I guess it's just a play of words.
 
There are some mages out there with 240 int in the lv 20 bracket, that is some scary shit to face against because they take down people from full health to zero in like 8 seconds,
I queue in premades if I see a mage with 240 int that means he has like 1300 hp. A clothie with 1300 hp? Sounds delicious. Better have a healer on you hard because you won't have the 8 seconds to spare otherwise.
you have healers in your team to do that job.
This is why arcane is considered inferior to a spec like boomy. You have a dependency to stay alive, that's a weakness.
there should be a spot for a pure dps at the S-tier. Maybe perhaps it's even better to make one tierlist for healers and one for DPS, that would make it less confusing. But in the end I guess it's just a play of words.
I agree, the meta we are in right now isn't fair to dps, that's just how it is. Hybrid and healer specs are king. If we were to make a DPS only tier list I'm sure arc and MM would find their way into S.
 

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