Good day! It’s Librarian Husky. What melee spec is fun in The War Within when it comes to dungeons, raids, and outdoor content? Sometimes just doing good damage isn’t enough. Although I know it’s enough for some, it actually matters how it’s played, how it pilots, what the cooldowns are, how the rotation feels, and the synergy of the talents. The Hero talents matter because, for some, it’s essential to the experience.

Arms Warrior: A Subjective Experience

I’m going to try to contain myself because we’re starting off with Arms Warrior. This is pretty much how I feel about Arms when I actually play it. Of course, this is subjective; you might enjoy Arms, and there are a couple of things that are going really well with it. The Hero talents are, let’s say, better than not. They’re not amazing and won’t change your mind about World of Warcraft when it comes to Warriors. Unfortunately, they’re no Mages, Warlocks, or Evokers.

Controversial Changes in Arms Warrior

Arms Warrior is in a weird situation right now as it’s undergoing some very controversial changes. We’ve lost our double Bladestorm, which was fun to play whenever we had big AoE and fortified weeks. We didn’t really care about single-target damage not being great because you ended up not actually playing double Bladestorm if you cared about pushing keys. Overall, that was not a degenerate automatic lock-in pick that people would take, as opposed to what I believe the dev notes were regarding this particular move.

Deciding Between Sweeping Strikes and Warlord’s Torment

I want to play Sweeping Strikes, or do I want to play Warlord’s Torment? It still felt like I wanted to play Warlord’s Torment, and I don’t see the point otherwise. Not to mention, the changes in Cleave and removing Whirlwind kind of took away some cool moments for Arms when you had Merciless Bone Grinder builds with Storm of Swords, where you just blast a fat Whirlwind, and that felt really great.

The Simplification of Arms Warrior Abilities

Now you’re spamming Cleave, so it feels just dumbed down. Not only do you use one ability that doesn’t do that much damage, but you’re also losing two other abilities. All in all, I am not a fan. Legitimately, I haven’t ever been this sad about playing a spec in WoW as I was playing Arms. I don’t know if you feel that way, but before I go into the rest of the melee specs.

Assassination Spec Needs Attention

I feel Assassination definitely needs some love right now. I think baseline the spec plays fine from what I understand, although I haven’t been maining it with the new talent tree. I have been playing it, and the class talents need a little bit of rework, but I think that was the case in Dragonflight as well. I still enjoyed playing Assassination a lot.

Issues with AOE in Mythic Plus

It still feels like it needs more work when it comes to AOE in Mythic Plus because it’s a little bit all over the place and not clear what we want to do. It’s very similar to how Feral AOE was when it was fun, where you have Crimson Tempest do a lot of bleed AOE damage but also Caustic Spatter funnel from one target, which is what Rampant Ferocity does. That type of AOE is really fun.

Balance and Rotational Complexity

However, the balance and tuning of it don’t seem to match. Not to mention, Assassination has about three extra layers of dots and rotational enablers that you have to manage, as opposed to other specs that can just go, go, go. I compare them because they’re very similar in that sense. I don’t want to lose the extra layers of depth for Assassination in AOE, but it feels a bit too reliant on abilities like Indiscriminate Carnage to have AOE, which Feral doesn’t have to do.

Current Performance and Future Adjustments

I don’t know how it would be played the best. It’s doing okay damage and has been buffed every week. The Hero talents are atrocious, to be fair, but they are being tuned and worked upon. It’s likely that by the release of the expansion, it will be a bit better.

The Current State of Outlaw

Now, it’s not okay, but hopefully it gets better. Outlaw is in a similar situation. Baseline, the spec is fine. Outlaw is always a blast to play, and I always really enjoy it. The Hero talents are still iffy, to be fair. Fate Bound is a little bit better, and Trickster is kind of fun, I have to admit. But Fate Bound just being pure RNG is frustrating.

Challenges with RNG and Balance

I don’t care about the balance; I don’t care about the RNG. Just give me all of it. I want to go blind into a casino, spend all my money, and come back in my underwear—that’s basically Fate Bound. It’s not, but you know, for entertainment purposes. Overall, I feel like Outlaw is in a better spot. I could see myself playing it.

Improvement in Hero Talents

I do see the changes to the Hero talents, and they’re a little bit better each time they’re being addressed. It still feels like it might have some issues overall from a gameplay perspective. At the moment, I don’t see how personally I could play Outlaw without reading a guide, watching something online, or talking to some of the top rogues to see exactly what I’m supposed to be doing.

Fun Factor Despite Design Challenges

That’s probably still a problem with the overall design of the spec, but it’s so fun. It does everything that I need it to do.

Baseline Performance and Average Fun

I cannot really put it any lower than okay. I could play it just basically baseline—average, average fun.

Survival Spec Rework

Survival, bam! How long have I waited to put Survival back into Giga fun. Oh my God, the rework is so good. It still has some tweaks; I mean, we’ve just gone from Flanking Strike being a Kill Command replacer to going back. I understand that they don’t want Flanking Strike to be the way it is now, but it’s just so much better.

Managing Resources and Abilities

I could probably see some things putting it down one tier slot because Tip of the Spear still feels a little bit annoying to manage. It sounds like you want to use Kill Command between each big ability, whether it is bombs, Explosive Shots, Kill Shots, or anything like that, and it feels like I’m still capping Focus. Now, I could be a terrible Survival Hunter—that’s fine; that goes away with practice. But the resource generation and resource management still feel like they need some tweaking.

Future Adjustments and Overall Fun

However, I believe they did mention that they’re going to keep their eyes on Kill Command resets, Focus generation, and similar stuff. Even if they’re reverting Flanking Strike to how it was prior to last week, depending on when you read this, overall, it’s so fun. It’s bombs galore!

Anticipation for Complex Survival Gameplay

I cannot wait to be able to play a super convoluted hit, mongoose bite three targets, put Serpent Sting on all of them, and then cleave more Serpent Stings out into other targets. That sounds incredibly fun. Having different builds and identities for Survival is what I’ve wanted for this spec for a long time.

Issues with Hero Talents

Granted, the Hero talents are kind of disappointing, and I cannot see myself playing Pack Leader, even though I would love to. I don’t see Kill Command being an interesting ability for Survival at all. However, it is better than it has been in years in terms of how good I feel about pressing Kill Command. Hopefully, by the time the expansion releases, it’s in its best iteration.

Enjoyment and Improvements

Right now, I am having way more fun on Survival than I’ve had in a very long time. I’m happy that we’re getting rid of the bland, passive flat damage increase talents that are so boring and having more cool stuff being put in. Enhancement is due for a rework, and we’re recording this just a little bit shy of the rework being added into beta.

Future Enhancements and Current Enjoyment

We’re going to come back with impressions after experiencing the new version of Enhancement. Hopefully, it’s better because right now, it’s going to sit right over there. As such, we’re moving into Feral. I have had quite a bit of fun playing Feral recently.

Comparing Outlaw and Druid of the Claw

I could see myself playing it; I think it’s a little bit better than Outlaw. I was not very impressed with Druid of the Claw overall. Stalker felt like the Feral we have today, while Druid of the Claw just doesn’t feel right. Something about Druid of the Claw doesn’t do it for me. I don’t ever really want to shift into Bear; I don’t have an incentive to shift into Bear yet.

Issues with Shifting into Bear Form

I don’t know what their intent is with the fact that we could shift into Bear since we only want to do that if it gives us more damage. The purpose of it, from what we know so far, is that Bear should give us an option to be super tanky for a particular moment, which Bear kind of already does. I don’t know if more tankiness is needed. It does give us access to Frenzied Regeneration, which is okay, I suppose; it adds a little bit of tankiness.

Current Version of Feral

Stalker is just the current version of Feral. I do have to say the reason why it’s not a tier higher is because it feels like losing Tear Open Wounds kind of takes a little bit away. Like I mentioned before when I compared it to Assassination, the duality of doing AOE with Feral felt really nice. Having the option to spam Primal Wraths to deal a lot of bleed damage and then occasionally consume the Apex Predator procs with Ferocious Bites to ramp up Ferocity was great.

The Loss of Tear Open Wounds and Rapid Ferocity

Having that choice felt great, but that choice was taken away when Tear Open Wounds was removed. Prior to that, it was taken away when Rapid Ferocity was removed. I don’t understand why we cannot have both. It feels like it adds a layer of depth to Feral that it almost lacks entirely in AOE, where now you just keep bleeds up and then bite.

Preference for Bleeds Over Bites

More and more Feral players I talk to and listen to pretty much prefer bleeds over bites. It’s funny to constantly see bites being prioritized over bleeds consistently. That’s my personal feel as well. I like big bites; they’re really, really fun. I think Apex Predator and Rapid Ferocity already accomplish that, but I would also like to have some kind of uncapped AOE with Primal Wrath to put as many bleeds out as possible and spam continuously.

Importance of Choice in Playstyle

If I don’t want to sink my bite into one target, or at least I want to have that choice, having that choice matters a lot. It feels like I’m rewarded for choosing to play one way over the other, as opposed to just having one optimal way to play.

Limitations of Hero Talents

I’m just going to do it in the only way that’s there to do it, so that’s kind of why it’s not a little bit higher. Overall, the Hero talents don’t really do much to elevate it further. I guess we could say the same for Survival as well, but Hero talents are such a big miss that judging specs based on them alone is not sufficient.

Frost DK in The War Within

Frost DK is better in The War Within. After playing for a bit, it has way better Hero talents than any of the specs so far and has some new talent designs. I do have to say that it’s on the precipice of becoming really good, but it still feels like it’s missing something.

Controversy of Breath of Sindragosa

Breath of Sindragosa hasn’t been addressed at all, despite being the most controversial aspect of Frost DK‘s current design, and it was just buffed. I don’t understand why it’s not being addressed. Maybe they don’t have the manpower or time to fix it, especially since they’ve added two other capstones that are really cool but don’t add a lot of depth to the spec.

Improvements and Future Potential

It has been fixed in a lot of places. You can now Frost Strike in AOE to consume Razorice and do AOE damage. It’s been made a little bit better if you have to Frost Strike during Obliteration, which is great because that was always a resource flood moment. However, you will still not play Frost Strike if you play Breath of Sindragosa. I don’t know if you’ll be playing Breath of Sindragosa at all. I would love to see this redesigned into a more modern version. I think that’s probably what’s keeping it from being really good.

Enjoying Frost DK but Facing Talent Issues

I’ve had a lot of fun with Frost DK, but it feels like I’m going to have way too many dead talents, and that doesn’t feel great. I don’t think anybody’s going to pick Chill Streak unless something changes for it. There are a lot of talents in the middle that you’re probably also not going to play.

Satisfaction and Adjustments

I have to say, the Frost side is so satisfying. Actually, I changed my mind; I’m going to put it a little bit higher. It’s way more fun than Feral and Outlaw, and it has some things going for it. If we can fix Breath of Sindragosa and have some viable builds without dead talents, it could be much better.

Current State and Potential Improvements

Right now, when everything is pretty much generic and we don’t have tier sets pushing us one way or another, it feels like a big miss. Until then, I don’t think it’s going to be any higher than decently fun. Even if you’re not looking to have a super complex spec like Unholy, even a simple Frost DK can still be really fun. But it’s just not quite there yet. Hero talents are doing a lot of work in propping it up.

Speaking of Simple Fury Warriors

Speaking of simple, Fury Warriors have also seen some changes. So, I know a lot of people like Warrior because Warrior was just buffed. Listen, that’s great…

Importance of Damage Output

I mean, it’s nice to do damage, and it kind of sucks if you don’t because what’s the purpose of playing the spec then? I do agree that damage is important. I’ve seen Fury Warriors blast on the meters in the beta so far, but I’m just not impressed by that. Warriors, although sometimes overlooked, have always done at least okay to really good, so I’m not worried that Warrior will lack damage, whether it’s Fury or Arms.

Comparing Fury and Arms

The way Fury plays and the way it’s built is, eh, I guess it’s maybe slightly better than Arms. I don’t know if I want to put it into “okay, could play it” or “needs a little bit of love.” There are things happening for Warrior at the moment. The talents were still kind of bugged last time I checked. Slayer has been slightly more fixed with a lot of the bugs addressed.

Disappointment with Slayer and Bladestorm

Even so, Slayer has been a very big disappointment for me. Losing double Bladestorm was probably made in such a way so that Arms isn’t favored over Fury when it comes to Slayer. I cannot really say that it feels great having to Bladestorm when now we have the Ravager and Bladestorm talent, which is true for both Arms and Fury.

Superiority of Ravager Over Bladestorm

Once they’ve added Ravager, it’s just clear that Ravager is superior in all aspects to Bladestorm. Something needs to happen to Bladestorm; otherwise, it will always be overshadowed by Ravager.

Issues with Ravager and Bladestorm Choices

It’s just frustrating because you cannot put a choice node with one choice being Ravager, which is clearly better in all aspects than Bladestorm when it comes to mechanical performance, and have a whole talent tree related to the opposite node. I don’t want to feel bad for picking an ability. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bladestorm, and I would pick Bladestorm over Ravager any day of the week if I just wanted to have some fun.

Bladestorm vs. Ravager

Whether it’s on Arms or Fury, Ravager is just boring. It’s better, but it’s boring. You just put it on the ground, and it does its thing. Bladestorm takes you out of rotation; you spin like a maniac. It’s a very Warrior thing to do, and I love it. I don’t feel like Slayer is putting enough love into it, and I need to see more competition between Bladestorm and Ravager for things like Mythic+.

Balancing Slayer and Talent Choices

If you don’t play Slayer, you’re always going to pick Ravager, and I don’t think that’s a great situation for Warrior to be in, whether it’s Fury or Arms. So, they both need some love, but maybe Fury is a little bit better. Odin’s Fury is a little bit more fun. Annihilator is gone, which I’m unsure about. I think we’re on the precipice of getting more buffs to Raging Blow, which is great because right now, Raging Blow hits like a… it should destroy, but it doesn’t feel like it does that at the moment.

Community Influence on Havoc

Every time I want to play Havoc, and I’m in a community of people who play Havoc, they convince me not to play Havoc. What is with that?

Issues with Havoc Demon Hunter

What’s up with that? I’ve played Havoc, of course, and I agree with them—like, what is going on? All right, Ragefire has been made slightly better, but I feel like Fel Barrage is just what you’re supposed to be doing as a Demon Hunter, and it’s actually surprisingly fun. Listen, Fel Barrage is fun, and since I’m not going to be ranking on the damage and Fel Barrage is severely undertuned at the moment, that’s great because that won’t pull Havoc any lower.

Missed Opportunities and Recent Changes

To be fair, Ragefire is a bit of a missed opportunity. I’m still seeing changes; I think recently they just made a change where it’s easier to get your Reaper’s Glaive. I think it’s called Reaper’s Glaive or Revered Glaive—it’s probably Reaper’s Glaive, right? You can get it a little bit easier, at least for Vengeance, and I think that applies to Havoc as well.

Enjoyment and Talent Options

Outside of that, to be fair, Havoc is actually a really fun spec. The talents are really cool. I am a big fan of Momentum, even though a lot of people don’t like Momentum. You can play Momentum in two ways: with it or with Elysian Decree. However, I believe there are still some bugs with Elysian Decree from what I understand. That’s neither here nor there.

Variety in Capstones

Having really different capstones is cool, and I hope they balance it so I don’t feel like I just have to play Essence Break all the time. Even though I love Essence Break, I like Shattered Destiny, and I like the Immolation build, which you’re probably going to combine to some extent.

Havoc Demon Hunter Potential

I mean, you’ve done that before, I believe, but it’s actually not that bad. I could see myself playing it. I kind of want Aldrachi Warblades to be a little bit better, and I’m hoping for a bit more competition when it comes to the talents. I feel like a lot of the fun for Havoc was with the tier set and The Hunt. Yes, you can reduce The Hunt cooldown through certain talents, but it’s not quite the same.

Missing Elements in Havoc

I feel like that kind of bumps it down. I could have probably seen it at Frost level, but for me, Havoc just feels like it’s missing something. It’s a lot of cool, flashy stuff, but it’s missing something, and I don’t know what that is. Hopefully, we’ll figure it out, if not in The War Within, maybe in Midnight or a little semi-patch rework.

Giga Fun of Retribution Paladin

Oh, Retribution Paladin is giga fun. I cannot, in good faith, not put it into giga fun. It’s not a spec that I would like to main because it’s a little bit too bland, but that doesn’t make it any less fun. Maybe it will become less fun over the course of a whole tier or expansion, but a lot of people are seeing it as a lot of fun.

Button Pressing Satisfaction

To be fair, it’s just so cool to press your buttons with Retribution Paladin. Very few specs do this. The only reason I’m ranking it a little bit lower than Survival is because Survival adds a bit more depth and complexity—well, actually a lot more complexity, which I personally enjoy.

Enjoying Retribution Paladin

I appreciate a lot more depth, but if I just want to have some fun, if I just want to blast and make sure that no matter what I press, it works, then Retribution Paladin is my choice. I’m not going to fall over because I’m too squishy—I’m still a Paladin. I have Blessings of Protection, Freedoms, and Sacrifices. I like that, and I like that fantasy for Retribution Paladin. The Hero talents are fantastic.

Improvements and Criticisms

Templar could use some upgrades to its Hammer of Light animation because, you know, if I’m going to still put it into the Giga Fun tier, I still am going to criticize some aspects of it. It’s not perfect—no spec is perfect—but it is giga fun to play. The animation is a little lackluster, which is probably going to be very hard to fix for Retribution Paladin and Paladins in general, considering Paladins are just a very flashy class all around. But at least it delivers in pretty much everything you can expect from a DPS, with the exception of a little bit of complexity and depth.

Ranking Subtlety Rogue

Subtlety has been a favorite of mine for a while, and I’m going to rank it probably in front of Outlaw. I don’t know if I would rank it in front of Feral or not. I kind of like Subtlety a lot—a little bit more than Feral, actually. I like Subtlety a lot more than Feral. However, the Hero talents are holding it back a little bit.

Hero Talent Issues

Until the Hero talents are addressed—similar to the boring talents you have for a Warrior but not ruining the gameplay as it feels with Rogue—it could once again be a top-tier spec.

Subtlety Rogue: A Mixed Experience

I’m a terrible Rogue, and that’s fine, but if that’s how I feel, that’s how I’m going to judge the spec. It just feels bad to pick my Hero talents, and I wish that were different. However, Subtlety baseline is so cool, man. I love Secret Technique. I don’t know where Gloomblade is going to be by the end of this testing cycle because when I mained Subtlety last year, you didn’t get to play Gloomblade because it was nerfed before it came out.

Potential and Playstyle of Subtlety

I’m hoping they buff it a little bit, at least to be competitive, because it’s a really cool ability. However, it does skew the playstyle into a “generators are hitting really hard” situation. Do we really want that? I don’t know, but overall, it’s fine. This is as high as I could essentially rank Rogues, considering what they’re going through with the current Hero talents. That probably says a lot about how actually fun they are baseline and how much love they probably need.

Unholy Death Knight: Giga Fun

Unholy, oh baby, Unholy is also a giga fun spec for me. I have been super surprised with the playstyle of Unholy, and that’s probably because I’ve been playing it a little bit blind. Usually, the builds that are very good for Unholy are very cookie-cutter and almost sameish. I’m hoping that doesn’t end up being the case when the expansion releases because I love to play a wound build with Festering Scythe, which I understand does very little damage or is at least undertuned at the moment.

Playing Unholy Death Knight

I would like to play Vile Contagion. One kind of good thing that happened was that Defile was nerfed, so you don’t have to pick it anymore, which makes it boring in the sense of the depth of the spec, but it’s just such a bad skill. I’ve died so many times because I cannot see the swirls underneath it, and I don’t think that’s acceptable anymore after so many expansions in a row where people have been pointing this out, and it still hasn’t been changed.

Defile and Talent Choices

I think the only change they could do is just nerf it so that it incentivizes people not to pick it. That’s not a solution, but that is a solution if they essentially want to get rid of it completely, and I don’t think many Unholy DKs will miss it. Outside of that, being able to play with a different talent than Gargoyle is interesting. Doom’s Bidding has been really fun with the tier set, where you just constantly spawn the Mages by consuming Sudden Doom—sudden death is for a different class; I miss Warrior.

Restrictions in Talent Tree

I do feel like the bottom part of the talent tree is very restrictive when it comes to making your build. It feels like you’re going to have most of the same talents always. You’re probably always going to get Unholy Frenzy in Mythic Plus, at the very least, and you’re probably always going to run Abomination.

Unholy Death Knight: Raids and Talents

I believe you might also run that in raids. It depends if the Army itself gives you a better damage profile and more melee damage than the Abomination. It’s probably better. Abomination feels more AOE-oriented anyway. You’re probably going to be playing with Festering Wound almost always, and you’re likely going to be playing with Superstrain at the very least for Army of the Apocalypse.

Disease Focus and Talent Modifiers

Both your talents have some modifiers for your diseases, which incentivizes you to play diseases. Now it comes down to tuning. If we’re talking about flavor, if you’re going to give me disease buffers, I’ll probably want to play diseases. If I play diseases, I’m just reusing the same playstyle talents that we have right now on live. Granted, pretty much everything has been made a little bit better.

Improvements in AOE and Resource Management

AOE has been made a little bit better, resource economy and generation have all been made a little bit better, and that’s great because Unholy was already a fun spec to play. Improving the bad parts of it and adding more cool stuff is always very appreciated. I just hope that we have competitive talents and talent diversity to keep it there because if we stay like this, it might actually go down a tier.

Windwalker Monk: A Surprising Joy

If it ends up just being another expansion of disease-focused Unholy, Windwalker Monk is a welcome change. Windwalker has been the biggest surprise in terms of melee for me. I kind of expected Survival to be pretty fun; it always had the potential. But Windwalker has always been a spec that I saw as good but not quite clicking for me, and I didn’t know why.

Rediscovering Windwalker

Well, it has clicked for me now. Before the enhancement rework, Windwalker is just the most fun melee spec that I was able to play. The type of combinations and synergies I have, how I execute my kicks, and the kind of AOE access I have—these options in different playstyles are exactly what I’m talking about.

Whirling Dragon Punch Capstone

The best example is the Whirling Dragon Punch Capstone, which I didn’t know I needed until they added it in. You either get four more stacks of Ancient Teachings of the Monastery or an instant proc of Dance of Chi-Ji. This gives you more upfront reliable burst when you need it or just really awesome kicks all over the place with a 120% resetting Rising Sun Kick.

Windwalker Monk: The Thrill of Combat

I think there’s a pretty high chance of resetting Rising Sun Kick, with Blackout Kicks left and right and Fist of Fury hitting like a truck. Playing Conduit to the Celestials, however funky the name sounds, has been so fun. I love Zen, I love proccing Zen, and getting Zen out—it’s so flashy and fun.

Issues with Shadow Pan

The biggest problem right now is probably still Shadow Pan. It’s a crime for Shadow Pan to be not only boring and passive but also to affect gameplay so negatively. To be fair, my health is in jeopardy until Shadow Pan gets buffed. Shadow Pan is the only hero talent that monks have that monks can look at and recognize from the lore—it’s like, “Oh, I know that, that’s from Mists of Pandaria.” We don’t really know what the other ones are—Mash of Harmony, Conduit of the Celestial, whatever—but Shadow Pan being bad in terms of numbers and having almost no interactions with your class at all is just criminal. I hope that gets addressed because, dude, Windwalker is on a whole different level of design.