Ranking WOW Cataclysm Ranged DPS From Best to Worst

Casters and Hunters ranked and sorted into a neat little tierlist. While this list may be true if skill levels are equal, that doesn't mean that you can't top the meters as any of the classes on this list if you play better than your peers. The rankings will fluctuate somewhat throughout the Cataclysm expansion, but will generally be true and as such, help you in the process of picking a main if sweaty min-maxing interests you.
If you want to check out the other rankings, you can do so here:
Tank: • Ranking WOW Cataclysm ...
Healer: • Ranking WOW Cataclysm ...
Melee DPS: • Ranking WOW Cataclysm ...
Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:49 Hunter
01:23 Survival
02:16 Beast Mastery
02:45 Marksmanship
03:28 Elemental
04:45 Balance
06:11 Shadow
07:02 Mage
07:18 Fire
08:00 Frost
08:10 Arcane
08:56 Warlock
09:30 Demonology
10:27 Affliction
11:08 Destruction
11:50 Conclusion

[@ahetzel9054]

"which brings us to frost mage... *No* " 🤣🤣🤣

[@darrak1]

damn it I came here just for the frost mage

[@ShoqBeats]

Actually its not as bad as stated, specially for early. Deep freeze on targets that can't be frozen deals insane dmg. And with cold snap it's alot of burst!

[@Dualities]

Imagine youtubers have their own opinions not just repeating after each other's like botts

[@Aliceinchains1234]

ya, he's an idiot. Frost pve actually is very competitive in dungeons and not terrible in raids. Just another dumb youtuber droning off.

[@nsptko3113]

@@ShoqBeats Lol.

[@chrish0001]

I really like the closing note here- “the specs are close enough that a good player with one of these specs will outplay a poor player in a meta class”- I completely agree and it’s a nice balance.

[@mastersarge5488]

My survival hunter is already smoking most other classes since the prepatch and I cant wait to see what it will do at 85 with some gear! Another great video...

[@Riyaniwow]

Pre patch is such a fiesta- I love it! Thank you, friend 💕

[@Snxgur]

@@Riyaniwow prepatch is a mess, from mages and rets doing 1 million dps on aoe and 200k+ on single target, to talents resetting and abilities disapearing mid fight

[@warhawk927]

In your demo warlock section you had pet twisting backwards. You want to use demon soul on felguard and keep your felhunter out otherwise. So you should start with felguard out, use demon soul with all your other cds, then use the instant cast from soul burn to get your felhunter back out.

[@Fauxghost]

came here to say this same exact thing

[@lol301100]

how big is the dps difference between felguard and felhunter in a single boss fight?

[@warhawk927]

@@lol301100 I don't have an exact number but after testing it out on the beta last night the difference is pretty noticeable. Felhunter just slaps on single target.

[@lol301100]

@@warhawk927 thank you. but honestly i dont really like that - felguard is the iconic demo pet and it should be the strongest pet in aoe/ single target dps.

[@warhawk927]

@@lol301100 Yeah I don't disagree. It is worth using Felguard on AoE still, so trash packs and fights like Halfus, and you do use the Felstorm spin at the start of single target fights before pulling out the felhunter, but I do get where you're coming from.

[@Dalex19]

Great vid thank you. Swapping to Surv Hunter as my main this xpac. I'm looking forward to it. Prepatch has been a blast.

[@Riyaniwow]

You're in for a good time!

[@Kewlandos]

Great video. You could have mention that demo warlock also bring 10% SP buff and Dark Intent

[@BrunoMiguelSilva5]

Not only demo. All warlock specs have dark intent

[@R3ar3ntry]

Was waiting for the this video! Awesome! I'm going mage no matter what, I really just wanna play fire tho

[@The-Choo-Choo-Shoe]

Very good video. I only watched the first 2 minutes, nothing else matters. Thanks.

[@Riyaniwow]

Classic hunter brain

[@rikardek8438]

Hey man! Thanks for yoir videos. Could you possibly make a simple guide to the raids of phase 1? Thanks ❤️

[@Riyaniwow]

Thank you, friend 💕 Yeah thinking I’ll release both 3 minute guides for each boss on HC as well as a full tank guide for the entire tier- will see how well I can follow through 😅

[@rikardek8438]

@@Riyaniwow Bro that would be great!! Im going blood dk myself! 🥰

[@morgend901]

absolutely motivates me to play frost mage the whole expansion. XD

[@Riyaniwow]

Hell yeah!

[@alans1529]

Any advice on how to effectively do the gear swap for demo warlocks?

[@ShoqBeats]

Macro

[@thefinalskarm1754]

outfitter addon, or blizzard default armourset changer. note that if someone fucks up the timer, you lose big dps stuck in mastery gear.

[@Scott-we5vi]

What's the background music ?

[@zipnn]

Survival hunter can cover like 80% of the raid buffs, obviously 1 at a time, but still, missing 5% crit? Use wolf, missing sunder? Use raptor... etc. So they are pretty damm high on utility.

[@TheKarmaRhapsody]

What is this beautiful music playing in the video's background?? ❤

[@Riyaniwow]

Kul Tiras Sky Night 6 from the BFA expansion ☺

[@mathieuraquepas6612]

Kul tiras music from BFA. Makes me nostalgic for BFA, expansion was a mess but 8.3 was probably the most fun i had in the game ever

[@Riyaniwow]

@@mathieuraquepas6612 Same! Daughter of the Sea made me feel things

[@Buckhanah]

Hey mate, got that sword yet? :D

[@Riyaniwow]

Yessir! Day 3 🙌

[@giffeswe]

Gandalf really gonna solokill sauron in this one

[@kevencassivi3813]

Dark intent its bis buff for dpsing u said lock lack buffs i would reconsider that statement lol knowing how much that buff will torture people😊

[@aaronfisher7513]

Would shadow priest ever be picked for dragons wrath ...that chart at the beginning kinda tells me no lol

[@aaronfisher7513]

And I'm guessing the double shadow priest on the chart is one with DTR and one without

[@Riyaniwow]

The chart is from og firelands, so tuning is very different in classic from what you see here- that said, SP would definitely not be the first pick for the staff.

[@aaronfisher7513]

Well guess I'll just try to be happy to get it eventually lol

[@Melodeath00]

This list serverly undervalues how strong Shadow is in any fight with more than 1 target. If there's any possibility of multidotting, a Shadow Priest will always be 1# by a landslide, assuming you know how to multidot properly There are TON of fights like that in Cataclysm, and Shadow ST is also very competitive in t11 and t12. We do get outscaled by stuff like Warrs, Mages and Locks in Dragon Soul, but a good Shadow Priest can easily top ST in t11 and t12. Legendaries should always go to your best player anyway, not the best class.

[@Shruikin]

i'm hearing alot that the mastery snapshot for demo will be nerfed, how much does that change things for demo?

[@Riyaniwow]

I have a feeling nothing will change for anything in Cataclysm with the entire classic team being MIA lol

[@Fauxghost]

also hearing this too and tbh hoping they nerf it

[@bradleyrogers9165]

Quick question I have a level 70 priest. What would be the easiest way to get him caught up to 80 to prepare for cata?

[@Riyaniwow]

Quest and/or dungeon grind to 80, pvp and wintergrasp every 3 hours to get 277 pvp gear, save up 4000 justice points for Cataclysm, and get some gold. That'll get you pretty far without being too sweaty :D

[@Lethal_Intent]

Just level to 80, choose some professions to level and maybe cap justice points but even then don't worry most items are replaced whiles leveling in cata.

[@markiedabest]

It's not just BM hunter that can bring those buffs/debuffs, every spec can bring those. BM can just bring 3 more, including the BL effect

[@mattizhypd]

Frost...NO XD

[@matthewramirez1556]

I’m having fun with my arms warrior

[@Osiris1221]

wrong about shadow priest, they will absolutely dominate firelands

[@LeonDegrelle14]

i remember all the vids saying MM was gunna be THEE spec for hunter in wrath... Massive kek.

[@Riyaniwow]

I wish-- I miss MM

[@markustambet4098]

Fyi the saying for something negative happening is getting the short, not long, end of the stick

[@Riyaniwow]

Yeeeaaah, scandi-brain was not functioning properly when writing the script, clearly.

[@jakoby256]

Why do you call shaman shaeman? I never heard anyone pronounce it like that.

[@Riyaniwow]

American vs British English, potayto potahto :D

[@jakoby256]

@@Riyaniwow Haha, makes more sense then.

[@kenjeguides3675]

Evokers?

[@Riyaniwow]

Will be absolutely pumping in Dragonflight Classic

[@danmoore1427]

Bro and you said demo didn't get much play it was one of the top dps for most of wrath bruh did you play the game

[@TheShadowguardian1]

it was only high dps in phase 1 of wrath it slipped down each phase in dps rankings for 99 parsers

[@joshua_lee732]

PreRaid frost mage is actually better than arcane.

[@GokuIRL]

If Cata turns into another "parse fest" and raid loggy it might become boring for most. Hopefully they keep the prenerf versions..

[@Riyaniwow]

Yeah it's prenerf on the beta right now-- did 5/6 HC BWD pretty easily with limited prep; if the difficulty level is kept the same it'll definitely be a bit of a parse fest.

[@ozantemeke9440]

Give this man an oscar🫣😍

[@dusanspancy]

All cool just swap boomkin and spriest, haste caps for priests are fucked up to reach and you actually need mind blast crits to be competitive dps, but crit being worst stat you will not get more than 15%

[@Melodeath00]

No way. SP is basically a Boomkin with slightly better ST, WAY better multidotting and worse mass AoE. SP should be top of A or low S. Boomkin should be A. Ele should be B. At no point of Cata, can an Ele Shaman compete with either SPs or Doomkings.

[@dusanspancy]

@@Melodeath00 ele shaman has one of the best aoe and bosses in t11 are mostly with adds, so in terms of aoe ele beats them, also like i said haste cap for priest is hard to get, meaning they become viable dps at the end of tier, which is whatever.

[@Melodeath00]

​@@dusanspancy T11 is not a tier suited for mass AoE. While that certainly happens on some bosses aswell, the raid tier overall is much more suited to 2-6 target multidotting, which Shadow happens to be the best spec at in the entire game (by a massive margin). Also, you don't need any Haste caps for Shadow. Sure, there are softcaps where you "get another tick" for your different DoTs, but those are not really relevant. Sure, they are nice to get, and in BiS gear, you actively try to get to the most logical one, but they are not some magical Dps spike that "unlocks" your Dps potential. Shadow is at its strongest in t11 and t12, and get's outscaled by the top tier specs like Warrs, Legendary Rogues and Fire Mages in t13, not the other way around like you seem to think. It's still ahead of Ele though, which is one of the worst scaling specs in the game in Cata... This is not just my guild Shamans being shit back then either. Among the viable Dps specs (so excluding stuff that nobody played like MM, Frost Mage and Destro), both Ele and Enhc consistenly had some of the lowest logs in the game during Dragon Soul.

[@demonswordsman8320]

lol frost is apparently so bad it doesn't even make it to d tier

[@danmoore1427]

Bro did you really say survival was in the shadow of mm in wotlk? Bro marksman was never better than survival it was supposed to be better in ICC but didn't end up being so

[@Riyaniwow]

In original Cata, not wotlk-- certainly not wotlk :)

[@MuhammadJafarzade]

you didnt even mention earth n moon talent on boomies guess theres a hater of chickens

[@Riyaniwow]

Rewind and comment again 💕

[@aggzzz]

living bomb** lol

[@Riyaniwow]

SOD brain

[@rofltehcat]

Wow, elemental shaman A tier? Ours just keeps missing all the kicks, wouldn't trust them with that.

[@Benji594]

That guy must suck kicking isn't hard at all!

[@gerardoduran4240]

yours sucks so they all do? wtf sense is that

[@Riyaniwow]

“I missed”

[@Benji594]

That Trinketsplz guy looks like he is S++ tier not A tier, your one is probably just bad

[@rofltehcat]

@@gerardoduran4240 I think it is a UI thing. He's probably just really slow in moving his mouse to the button I think.

[@bmc3301]

So no consideration for pvp? Should put that in your title

[@Aysentaro]

hunter with focus just feels clunky and annoying to play

[@TriggaHappy00121213]

I seem to do alot better as MM over Survive in dungeons. maybe at 80 i'll switch survival

[@Riyaniwow]

Before 85 it's the wild west-- anything goes :D

[@Frey_64]

I like you cuz you are making guides without promoting the scam that is RestedXP .