Creating a definitive DPS tier list for Ulduar in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (WotLK) Phase 3 can be challenging due to the complexity of the game and various factors that can affect performance (player skill, gear, raid composition, encounter mechanics, etc.). However, we’ll provide a general DPS tier list based on popular community opinions around the end of WotLK:
S Tier:
Unholy Death Knight: Unholy Death Knights harness the powers of death and decay, summoning unholy minions and spreading diseases to wreak havoc on your enemies. With abilities like Scourge Strike and Festering Strike, along with your ghoul pet and powerful cooldowns like Army of the Dead, you become a relentless and versatile melee DPS option for PvE encounters, excelling at both sustained damage and dealing with multiple foes by spreading diseases and dealing damage over time.
Affliction Warlock: Affliction Warlocks embrace the dark arts, spreading insidious curses and afflictions to slowly drain the life force of your adversaries. With powerful DoT (Damage over Time) spells like Corruption, Unstable Affliction, and Haunt, combined with your pet’s support and buffs, you become a master of sustained damage, providing valuable utility and consistent DPS in PvE encounters.
A Tier:
Enhancement Shaman: Enhancement Shaman wield the elements in close combat, imbuing your weapons with the power of wind and fire. With abilities like Stormstrike, Lava Lash, and Feral Spirits, you become a melee DPS powerhouse, providing strong burst damage and sustained damage in PvE encounters while enhancing the raid with your valuable totems and utility spells.
Fire Mage: Masters of pyromancy, wielding powerful fire spells to deal massive area-of-effect and single-target damage. With abilities like Fireball, Pyroblast, and Living Bomb, they excel when enemies are clustered together and provide strong burst damage in short and sustained fights.
Demonology Warlock: Harness the powers of demonic minions, summoning and empowering them to wreak havoc upon their enemies. With the ability to transform into a powerful demon form themselves, they excel in prolonged encounters, providing steady damage and valuable utility through their summoned demons.
Retribution Paladin: Retribution Paladins channel the holy light to smite your enemies in righteous fury. With abilities like Crusader Strike, Divine Storm, and Templar’s Verdict, you deliver powerful melee attacks and burst damage, bringing a mix of sustained DPS and utility through auras and blessings to your raid group in PvE encounters.
Arcane Mage: Tap into the raw energies of the arcane to deliver explosive bursts of damage, making them formidable opponents in short encounters. Their gameplay revolves around managing arcane charges and maximizing burst potential with abilities like Arcane Barrage and Arcane Missiles.
Combat Rogue: Wield a deadly combination of swords, maces, or fists, utilizing fast and furious strikes to take down your enemies. With abilities like Sinister Strike and Eviscerate, as well as Adrenaline Rush and Killing Spree for burst damage, you become a formidable melee DPS choice for PvE encounters, especially against multiple targets.
B Tier:
Assassination Rogue: Excel at delivering deadly, sustained damage to your targets. With powerful abilities like Mutilate and Envenom, you can apply deadly poisons and unleash lethal combos, making you a strong single-target DPS choice for PvE encounters in raids and dungeons.
Fury Warrior: Fury Warriors become a whirlwind of destruction, dual-wielding weapons to deliver rapid, relentless melee attacks. Your Bloodthirst and Whirlwind abilities, combined with powerful cooldowns like Recklessness, grant you immense burst damage potential, making you a formidable DPS choice for PvE encounters, especially against single targets.
Elemental Shaman: Harness the elemental forces of fire, frost, and lightning to deal devastating ranged damage to your enemies. With spells like Chain Lightning, Lava Burst, and Earth Shock, you can burst down multiple targets and provide valuable raid utility through totems, making you a versatile and powerful DPS option in PvE content.
Feral Druid (Cat form): Shapeshift into the ferocious form of a cat, dealing rapid melee damage with your claws and bites. Utilizing abilities like Shred and Ferocious Bite, along with Savage Roar and Rip, you excel at sustained single-target DPS, making you a valuable addition to any raid group seeking consistent melee damage output.
Balance Druid: Tap into the powers of the stars and moon to unleash potent arcane and nature spells on your foes from a distance. With abilities like Starfire and Wrath, along with your Lunar and Solar Eclipse mechanics, you bring both sustained and burst damage to PvE encounters, providing a unique and versatile ranged DPS option for your raid group.
Frost Death Knight: Frost Death Knights are known for their strong AoE and cleave damage, making them particularly valuable in encounters with multiple targets. They also have good self-healing abilities like Death Strike.
C Tier:
Marksmanship Hunter: Excel at dealing consistent and precise ranged damage with your bow or gun. Your steady shots, aimed shots, and rapid fire abilities, along with your pet’s support, make you a deadly ranged DPS class, providing reliable but not top tier damage output in raids and group content.
Shadow Priest: Shadow Priests excel in sustained single-target damage and bring valuable utility through their damage increase provided by Vampiric Touch and Misery. They can also provide mana regeneration for their group with Vampiric Embrace.
Destruction Warlock: Harness the chaotic power of fire and shadow to unleash devastating burst damage on your foes. Your powerful spells, like Chaos Bolt and Shadowburn, combined with your high crit potential, make you a fearsome force in dealing burst damage and obliterating enemies in both PvE and PvP encounters.
Survival Hunter: Survival Hunters offer decent utility with traps and crowd control. Serpent Sting, Explosive Shot, and Black Arrow abilities allow you to apply strong damage-over-time effects while maintaining good burst damage, making you a flexible and engaging DPS option, but you may lack the sustained damage of other specs.
D Tier:
Beast Mastery Hunter: Beast Mastery Hunters forge a powerful bond with your loyal pet, unleashing a flurry of ranged and melee attacks in harmony. With abilities like Kill Command and Bestial Wrath, along with a diverse array of exotic pets, you become a versatile DPS option in PvE encounters at both single-target and AoE damage while offering valuable utility to your raid group, but overall lack high-end damage output of some of the higher tier specs.
Blood Death Knight: While not as popular as Frost or Unholy for DPS, Blood Death Knights deal significant damage through their strong sustained attacks, excellent self-sustain, and Bloodworms providing additional damage and healing. However, they are still predominantly seen as tanks in most raid setups.
F Tier:
Arms Warrior: Arms Warriors bring decent sustained damage but lack the burst potential of other classes. Their primary utility comes from Warbringer and utility abilities like Disarm.
Subtlety Rogue: Subtlety Rogues are primarily focused on PvP and lack the sustained damage output required for raid encounters.
Frost Mage: As a Frost Mage, you harness the frigid powers of ice to freeze your enemies in their tracks, dealing devastating damage with your icy spells. Your mastery over frost allows you to control the battlefield and immobilize foes while maintaining a chilling aura that protects you from harm. Much like subtlety rogues, this spec performs much better in PvP than PvE.
Remember that individual player skill and gear can significantly impact performance. Players who are skilled and knowledgeable about their class can often outperform the listed rankings, especially in specific encounters that favor certain abilities or mechanics. Raid compositions and strategies can also influence the effectiveness of various classes and specs.
When putting together a raid group, it’s best to consider a balanced combination of classes and specs to ensure you have the necessary tools, buffs, and utility to tackle Ulduar’s diverse challenges.