For example, if a fight’s execution on Mythic difficulty is reliant on having at least 1 Blood Death Knight for Gorefiend's Grasp, does that give them A or S Tier ranking for the entire raid? Surely, Blood Death Knight should be ranked highly on the tier list due to how essential it is on that one fight - but what if Blood DK isn’t performing well overall that tier? Alternatively, what if the person reading the tier list only raids on Normal and Heroic difficulties, rendering the requirements of Mythic useless to them? Additionally, most tier lists ranking tanks and healers have yet to consider overall raid composition or synergy.Īlthough it isn’t possible to thoroughly explore some of these factors in the context of a visual tier list, it does raise a few questions for me. When it comes to ranking DPS specs, I have yet to see a tier list that actually takes raid fight considerations into account rather than pure power. There are SO many factors that contribute to whether a class is good or not in a PvE environment, and pure numerical output is only part of the story. Overly Simplistic Take on Multiple Variables This is a fantastic approach that not only offers a quick visualization but also allows readers to decide for themselves if the main consideration factors are important to them. They explain exactly WHAT each tier means and include a breakdown of why they decided to place each spec where they did. Check out their most recent Mythic+ DPS ranking here. While we’ll get into some solutions later in the article, an extremely easy fix to the lack of context issue is shown in Icy Veins’ tier lists. Additionally, this gives no context on their ranking system to explain that “B-tier” is still a good spec worth considering. If you’re trying to decide between playing 2 specs that are both rated as “B-tier”, the tier list has failed again at showing you any pertinent information required for deciding between them. While this might show the very top and bottom ends of performance, most people play specs that will fall somewhere in between. We’ve also seen tier lists where all but a handful of specs are lumped as a “middle of the pack” with almost no variation. In this case, the tier list has failed its main purpose of showing any significant differentiation between multiple specs. For example, the tank tier lists in Shadowlands have had all the specs ranked quite close together because all tanking specs have been able to comfortably do high levels of content. This can happen on occasion with healers and tanks. One of the reasons this can happen is, when spec balance is close enough, there is no “one” clear winner since the relative power difference between them is not very pronounced. While that could actually be a truthful representation of where things stand, it doesn’t actually give meaningful information to the reader. We’ve all seen tier list rankings where every spec is ranked “A-Tier” or higher. In PvE style cooperative content, specs should be ranked against the encounters and bosses, not necessarily each other. Specs are not directly competing with each other, as there is often also a need for class diversity within a raid group to bring a diverse utility kit. Based on the traditional use of tier lists in fighting games, each tier level is more or less a placeholder that simply shows the relative strength between different characters in games that have win-lose statistics and other metrics, you can use a combination of numbers and expert opinions to create a loose ranking system. Most ranking systems don’t take the time to explain WHAT each tier actually means and what the specs are being measured against. Probably one of the biggest obstacles most current tier lists have in being a useful source of information is that they lack overall context. Lack of Context & Inconsistent Ranking Criteria Let’s take a look at each of these points in a little more depth. They have widespread implications and influence on community perceptions.“Expert” opinions lack the knowledge of every spec to draw proper comparisons.They represent an overly simplistic “take” on multiple variables.Inconsistent ranking criteria leads to a lack of context.Some of the most glaring problems with tier lists are: For now, my hope is that you read this article and become more critical when looking at the next round of tier lists coming out for 9.2. While the community as a whole collectively comes up with a better solution to tier lists, the fact stands that they exist today and likely will continue to in one form or another going forward. After learning where they come from, I hope you begin to see how translating a ranking system that (sort of) works in individual or team-based PvP style competitive content does not translate smoothly to large-scale cooperative content like a 20-man Mythic Raid.
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