World of Warcraft: Midnight is about to launch, but Blizzard is already preparing for the new expansion with the pre-patch. This affects all classes, as overall damage has been significantly reduced.
Midnight will be released on March 3, 2026, and already has 3 confirmed raids as well as 8 dungeons. Since January 21, the pre-patch has been live, among other things, with a stat squish for everyone, meaning: all numbers have been shrunk. Less health points, lower gear score, and above all: less damage.
The adjustments apply equally to players and bosses, which has led to the current content becoming ridiculously easy. Accordingly, the current DPS numbers are quite absurd, but give you a good picture of who with raid gear will be ahead at the Midnight release.
Our DPS list shows actual numbers achieved by tens of thousands of players, not simulated values. So here you will find real performances (on average) and usually get a sense of what your class can do in the raid.
Note that characters with similar gear can achieve different DPS values. This is due to numerous factors such as player skill and experience, knowledge of the fight, type of encounter, raid composition, number of critical hits or procs, special tasks, and so on.
Midnight DPS Ranking: The Best Classes to Start
For our list, we reference data from warcraftlogs. We are looking at the heroic mode with a percentile value of 75 across all bosses and considering only the time since the release of the pre-patch (as of January 27, 2026, via warcraftlogs).
We continuously update the list. The current ranking in heroic mode is as follows:
| Rank | Class | DPS |
| 1 | Survival Hunter | 43,262 |
| 2 | Unholy Death Knight | 42,573 |
| 3 | Affliction Warlock | 40,647 |
| 4 | Destruction Warlock | 40,531 |
| 5 | Subtlety Rogue | 37,299 |
| 6 | Fury Warrior | 36,199 |
| 7 | Arcane Mage | 35,703 |
| 8 | Windwalker Monk | 34,946 |
| 9 | Havoc Demon Hunter | 33,708 |
| 10 | Enhancement Shaman | 33,529 |
| 11 | Shadow Priest | 33,448 |
| 12 | Beast Mastery Hunter | 32,603 |
| 13 | Frost Mage | 29,412 |
| 14 | Arms Warrior | 26,360 |
| 15 | Elemental Shaman | 29,102 |
| 16 | Retribution Paladin | 28,502 |
| 17 | Devourer Demon Hunter | 28,352 |
| 18 | Feral Druid | 27,795 |
| 19 | Outlaw Rogue | 27,450 |
| 20 | Balance Druid | 27,268 |
| 21 | Frost Death Knight | 26,482 |
| 22 | Marksmanship Hunter | 25,852 |
| 23 | assassination Rogue | 24,089 |
| 24 | Fire Mage | 23,847 |
| 25 | Enhancement Caller | 23,508 |
| 26 | Demonology Warlock | 22,735 |
| 27 | Destruction Warlock | 21,632 |
The overall damage is now only about a hundredth of the values before the squish, and almost all classes that were in the lower half of the list before the pre-patch are now found somewhere in the top or even at the top. In contrast, the previous leaders are now significantly lower – especially hard hit are the warlocks.
However, due to the adjustments, many boss fights now run significantly different, creating a slightly distorted image. Notably, survival hunters, who are usually very underrepresented, now participate in the middle of the most popular classes with over 9,300 records. In contrast, the bottom spot is occupied by outlaw rogues (2,759 parses).
The new specialization, the Vengeance Demon Hunter, which is not particularly well received by the community, settles almost exactly in the middle of the DPS ranking.
The current scaling not only results in strange numbers for damage but also leads to unusual behavior of healing potions. However, one could expect some absurd situations during the squish – historically, this has happened every time.
However, Blizzard has not only tinkered with the scaling, but is also delving deeper into the game: many addons no longer work, some of which were particularly relevant for raiders. This also affects the DPS list (currently). However, it is not as bad as initially feared: Addons in WoW remain powerful – Blizzard breaks the biggest promise for Midnight
