The first week of World of Warcraft Dragonflight season two is over and we can finally take a breather from hardcore Mythic+ and raid grinding and open our Great Vaults in peace. While you’re still opening your Great Vault and simming the new items, we’ll take a look at the first Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible, and see why one surprising spec is topping the charts.
According to the first logs from Aberrus on May 17, Arcane Mages are sitting on the top DPS throne with most other DPS specs falling far behind. While Arcane Mages are effortlessly mopping the floor with Beast Mastery Hunters and Havoc Demon Hunters, Subtlety Rogues and Destruction Warlocks are doing their best to match the overall 95th Percentile Arcane Mage DPS.
But, that’s an ideal scenario only looking at the 95th Percentile parses.
While you might think that Arcane Mages won’t shine that bright when looking at all Percentile parses and they would be replaced by a similar caster spec like a Shadow Priest or Destruction Warlock, that’s not the case. Arcane Mages are still the best DPS even when we include other Percentiles and damage to bosses only.
The reason why is it so surprising to see Arcane Mages relentlessly topping the charts is because the spec has spent the large majority of season one, with the exception of the beginning, forgotten in the mid-tier oblivion. Besides, Blizzard Entertainment had no plans of giving them any kind of buffs in Patch 10.1, but when the devs picked up on cries of mains, they gave Arcane Mages last-minute buffs.
Related: One of WoW’s best classes could be getting even better in Dragonflight Patch 10.1.5
The buffs were rather simple—some damage increase buffs here and spell duration buffs there, but it was nothing special. But, when the season released on May 9, the high-end guilds like Echo and Liquid couldn’t be separated from this spec and it effortlessly outperformed all other DPS classes.
It’s safe to say that no WoW player stepped into Dragonflight season two with the idea that Arcane Mages will be a top-performing class. In fact, the community expected to see Shadow Priests and Devastation Evokers as clear patch winners who would shamelessly take over the raid leaderboards.
Arcane Mages have even more changes coming in Patch 10.1.5 with the most important change being the removal of Rune of Power, more consistent damage output in AoE scenarios, and better access to spells like Arcane Barrage and Clearcasting. So, if you’re worried about keeping up with Arcane Mage DPS right now, maybe you should rethink your spec choice, at least for Patch 10.1.5.
