World of Warcraft Dragonflight season two debuts on May 9 and it’s quite a step up from the first season. It’s set to bring major class changes, tweaks and visual improvements to old dungeons joining the Mythic+ pool, new affixes, and radical combat changes to healing.
Even mere class changes can shake up the meta to its core. Major changes, new affixes, and a new dungeon pool is an entirely different story. We asked WoW expert and streamer Tristan “Dratnos” Killeen on May 2 to dive into all the Mythic+ changes coming and to sniff out the best and the worst DPS, healers, and tanks for Dragonflight season two.
Healers will have a lot on their plate in Dragonflight season two
Looking at a crucial Mythic+ change in season two where players got their health increased by 25 percent and enemies will do 25 percent more damage, Dratnos believes this is a straight nerf to healers.
“It’s gonna take more healing to top somebody off and Blizzard’s reasoning for this: ‘We accidentally made healers too powerful, mostly the talent tree’… It’s not so much that they made healers powerful in 10.1, it’s probably more at the start of Dragonflight with the talent system,” Dratnos said. “Healers got too powerful and they don’t want healers to be able to top people off instantly in all cases because if they do that, then the only way to threaten people is to one-shot them.”
Essentially, with players having more health at their disposal and healers still healing for the same amount, it will take a couple of more casts before your group is topped off. To make up for that loss in healing, tank, and almost all DPS specs received compensation buffs, but major healing cooldowns like Shaman’s Ancestral Guidance, Priest’s Vampiric Embrace, and Druid’s Nature Vigil weren’t lucky and Blizzard could potentially give them some love in the first weeks of the new season.
Related: World of Warcraft Dragonflight season 2 Mythic+ dungeon pool
Interrupt nerfs won’t be a big deal
With Dragonflight Patch 10.1, interrupts received nerfs across the board as every interrupt ability will have a shorter duration. Although you might think this will mean more deadly casts will go through, Dratnos stresses this change will play a bigger role in PvP rather than Mythic+ dungeons because mobs still have cooldowns on their spells. Besides, most mobs don’t spam their abilities.
“But for the most part, most dungeon mobs tend to have cooldowns on their spells that are longer than the interrupt lockouts are anyways. So aside from those sort of pretty rare mob cases of the ones that just spam cast at you, this is mostly going to be a change that just affects PvP where the spell lockout is relevant all the time,” Dratnos explained.
Ranged DPS will shine in Dragonflight season two
When asked about the classes that will be top-tier in Mythic+ dungeons, Dratnos mentioned Shadow Priests as the best pick because they have strong utility, namely Mass Dispell and Power Infusion, and their DPS isn’t looking too shabby either.
Other casters that will be strong according to Dratnos’ PTR investigation and in-depth analysis of patch notes are Fire Mages, Devastation Evokers, Demonology and Destruction Warlocks, Balance Druids, and even Elemental Shamans thanks to their strong AoE damage.
But casters have one clear weakness—long cooldowns on interrupts. Dratnos suggests you should always bring Restoration Shamans or Protection Paladins to make up for the lack of interrupts and maybe even create a three ranged DPS teamcomp.
Related: WoW Mythic+ affixes in Dragonflight season two
“One of the problems casters usually have is that they have longer cooldowns on their kicks. It looks like you could probably play a Protection Paladin or a Restoration Shaman and if you have either or both of those, then you don’t have much pressure on your kicks because those two provide really good, really solid, really frequent kicks,” Drantos said.
The middle-of-the-pack specs in the second season, as Dratnos sees it, are Enhancement Shamans, Rogues, Beast Mastery Hunters, Arcane Mages, and Survival Hunters because they struggle to keep up in the damage department with casters.
Healer meta is looking colorful
In the next season, you should expect to see all healers equally represented, similar to the end of season one. Restoration Shamans, however, stand out to Dratnos as the best healer at the beginning of Dragonflight season two. But Restoration Druids, Preservation Evokers, and Holy Priests aren’t too far behind and you should expect to see them as often as Restoration Shamans. The only healer Dratnos believes will be less popular is Mistweaver Monk. But, all in all, it should be a good season to be a healer.
Protection Paladins will stay everyone’s favorite tank
Since Patch 10.0.7, Protection Paladins have been your go-to tank for every occasion and Dratnos believes this won’t change much in the next season. They simply have too many tools at their disposal, short cooldowns, and incredible survivability. Other tanks might also get their time in the spotlight, but Guardian Druid’s future is looking grim as they didn’t get much love in this patch.
“I don’t think Guardian Druids are gonna be bad—they are going to be able to do the dungeons and the bosses. I just don’t think it’s gonna be bringing something special or powerful in the way that other tank classes do. It is pretty powerful with its cooldowns, but they are relatively long, especially when compared to other tanks,” Dratnos said.
Dragonflight season two has real potential to be great
Looking at the Mythic+ affix changes as a whole that were mainly focused on improving and tweaking major problems with affixes like Raging and Bolestering, changes to healing, and class balancing, Dratnos is optimistic about Dragonflight season two. But he warns that the novelty will wear off and then we’ll see the true face of this season.
All these Mythic+ changes Blizzard has made are a step in the right direction, but the PTR environment is much different than live servers. There’s nothing much for us left to do than wait and see how season two plays out and just enjoy the ride.
