Look for which are the most powerful melee class to use in WoW TBC Classic PVP world for arenas and battleground? Here you'll find our tier list for the best Melee DPS class for PVP in World of Warcraft The Burning Crusade Classic, which ranges from tier S (best) to tier D (worst).
Best Melee Class Tier S - Subtlety Rogue
Rogues are the absolute best melee spec in season 1 and have some of the best comp options in the game, not only are they strong on their own but their ability to elevate other classes is unmatched. There are a few things that will make rogues incredibly dominant early on into the expansion:
1. Lower Armor Values - most gear sets especially cloth have much lower armor values in season 1 compared to season 2, these armor differences are a huge buff to melee dps but especially rogues due to their high crit chance and wound poison pressure. And since resilience values will be relatively low during season 1, their high crit chance will carry their dps especially when paired with a mage priest or warlock who can complement their setups with their own damage and control. On top of low armor and resilience values some rogues will even have blacksmithing weapons early into the season, giving them access to epic weapons weeks before most players will have their own.
2. Double DPS Comps In 2v2 and 3v3 - Expect to see rogues in the majority of your arena games as they are definitely one of the most popular classes, and for good reason double dps comps will likely farm 2v2 early on into the season with rogues being in many of those comps. Rogues are so good that human is the default race for many alliance specs just because of how much it counters rogue openers, the meta during early season 1 will likely be incredibly hectic with many games lasting under a minute because of this rogue cooldowns are going to be disproportionately strong in the early meta game, especially since they can be reset with preparation. If a game lasts 30 seconds, it's possible to have 100 uptime on evasion and when combined with other cooldowns you can see how shorter games make cds exponentially more powerful. In 2v2 and 3v3, expect to see rogues do really well with mages and warlocks on the DPS side.
Read Read: WoW Classic TBC Best Arena Comps Tier List
Best DPS Melee Class Tier A - Subtlety Rogue
Moving on to the a tier, we have warriors who are probably one of the most polarizing classes on any WoW Classic TBC tier list, there are two things that hold back warriors during season one:
1. Lack of high resilience values - you see warriors tend to play best with a push and pull playstyle, where your goal is to push in and deal damage in berserker's stance, while pulling back and kiting in defensive stance whenever things start getting dicey. Lower resilience values will make the push phase a bit more difficult, since camping berserker stands increases your damage taken this will limit warriors from being able to fully demonstrate their pressure as they will likely be forced to camp d stands more than they would like to。
2. Long DC chains from nova and polymorph - Without a doubt warriors do the most pressure in the game, that is of course if they manage to have up time, the pressure from mortal strike alone is what defines them as a class, and situates their role into a specific comp archetype but given the popularity of mages warriors can feel a bit limited in arena, often sitting long DC chains from nova and polymorph. But their high melee damage on low armor targets will allow them to absolutely crush damage if they have uptime.
Even though it seems like we are completely flaming warriors, they will become dominant in later seasons of the expansion as their stats start to scale with gear. One benefit of playing warrior early on is that you will have instant access to best in slot weapons for a good chunk of the expansion, deep thunder will absolutely carry warrior damage once they become available to players and storm herald will be best in slot up until season 4.
And just as we mentioned with rogues lower armor values will be a huge benefit to warriors in season 1. Less armor on enemy players means more rage generation and more rage means more pressure so even though they aren't as versatile as rogues, warriors should still be respected in this early meta. Expect to see comps like Warrior Druid and WLD get better as the season progresses, while they might struggle a bit early on due to low resilience values, they will become quite good once players have full gear.
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Best PVP Melee DPS Class Tier B - Enhancement Shaman
Moving away from the pure DPS classes for a bit, we have the enhancement shamans as our first B-tier representative. We are sure just hearing the words enhancement shaman conjures up some image of wind fury crits annihilating backpedaling battleground players, and while they are fully capable of doing that in arena, they can get a bit bullied by other classes. Without a doubt, enhancement shaman has some of the highest burst damage in the game which will allow them to score some cheeky wins early on into the expansion when health pools are low.
But the one thing really holding them down is their lack of CC and limited defense. Without reliable forms of control, the majority of shaman utility is tied to totems and off healing which can get quite mana intensive if they are forced to spam heal; and with shamanistic rage as their only real defense, they lack the passive durability of other classes especially with lower resilience and armor values; their fragile defense might encourage playing with a shield in some matchups which dramatically reduces their pressure.
But when they are allowed to be the aggressors there are very few classes that can compete with their burst, shorter games during season 1 will make bloodlust disproportionately strong and might give enhancement a designated slot on some 5v5 rosters. In 3v3 expect to see enhancing comps like turbo cleave and even paired with affliction warlocks who will be one of the most dominant casters early on.
Best PVP Melee DPS Class Tier B - Retribution Paladin
RET paladins are one of the most threatening classes in the game when paired with a shaman, their primary strength is the sheer amount of utility they bring to arena. Cleanse is usable by all paladin specs meaning that even ret paladins can dispel CC and poisons off their partners, this makes them tremendously valuable given the popularity of rogues and mages. For the entirety of the expansion, blasting and protection is also incredibly strong due to the popularity of other melee and is a massive advantage in the early stages of the expansion where games are incredibly fast. Using it quickly on a blind for instance allows your teammate to save a trinket for other CC which has huge value and a quick meta. On top of that, hammer of justice is one of the true setup options in the game and with a shortened cooldown with improved hammer of justice, expect to see most retribution strategies involve setups around stuns. As far as comps are concerned, expect to see RET paladin and resto shaman as one of the hidden bosses in 2v2.
Although it is not very popular, it is incredibly threatening with its one-shot wind fury combo which is an almost guaranteed kill at low armor and resilience values. In 3v3, Rets will probably gravitate towards cleaves with warriors or even setup based comps with mages, including the possibility of palm pyro mages in one shot setups.
Best PVP Melee Class Tier C - Feral Druid
Unfortunately, being king of the jungle doesn't make you king of the arena, and with the mana bar of a malnourished alley cat ferals will find it hard to compete during season 1. All jokes aside ferals can do some surprisingly good damage, especially when they use their omen of clarity procs to spam shred which can hit upwards of 2k in arena, while this damage might be insane during the early stages of season 1, the lack of immortal strike to complement their damage makes them outclassed by rogues and warriors. On top of that, the need to spam shapeshift in some matchups can be really punishing on their mana, especially since mana pools will be noticeably lower. One workaround is to get the staff of natural fury which gives a massive mana reduction to all shape-shifting.
In any case, despite their relative weakness to other melee dps, ferals should still be respected and expect to see feral priests pop up periodically in 2v2. In 3v3, BM jungle cleave or feral rogue will likely be a sleeper setup as the damage from BM hunters is nearly unhealable during be still wrath. The healing reduction coverage of aimed shot and wound poison will dramatically increase the value of your sweet shred damage.
More Tips To Choose Your Best Melee Class For PVP
Here we have our full tier list of Melee DPS during season one, we know there are some alternative builds like adrenaline rush rogues and reckoning ret paladins, but there are standard specs for a reason, that doesn't mean that you can't test your own builds out but just keep in mind that the best players usually optimize their specs for consistency. So here are some tips for you to choose your Melee PVP class:
1. As far as the season 1 meta is concerned expect to see really short games in both 2v2 and 3v3, there are multiple reasons for this:
- Being higher damage due to lower armor resilience and stamina values which will be the biggest limiting factors to longer games
- Healer mana which is noticeably worse than season one compared to following content patches, there isn't enough spirit or mana per five on gear to make games truly go the distance.
2. With the combination of high damage games will probably gravitate towards complete chaos in the early stages of the phase 1. As far as playstyle is concerned in early season 1, you are best off not being greedy with your abilities in arena, damage will be incredibly volatile meaning you will have to adjust your playstyle to be more aggressive overall, don't expect to sit full kidney shots and live.
3. If you get stunned against double DPS, you will have to react quickly, games will end really fast so using your cooldowns liberally will carry you early on.
4. Even if you don't have a damage cooldown, simply using an on-use trinket in the opener for damage might actually yield pretty consistent results, with that in mind avoid being too reckless as you can get punished really easily. Just keep in mind that if you are too passive you might get overrun by damage within a few seconds.
5. Once the season progresses and people have full arena gear, we will likely see a big change in the meta - as we mentioned, warriors will likely get stronger as the season goes on as they get enough resilience and stamina to complement their damage, rogues will remain fairly dominant the entire expansion but with higher armor values later on their spec might adjust slightly to include improved exposed armor. In any case, all melee classes will see huge spikes in their damage once epic weapons are available. Weapon upgrades disproportionately benefit melee dps which is why having deep thunder or dragon maw early on into the season is so broken.