The World of Warcraft Cataclysm Classic expansion will be seen on May 20 at 3 PM PST, which class to start with? We’ll take you into a WoW Cataclysm Classic tier list that ranks every single class and spec to find out the best DPS, healer, and tank. 

WoW Cataclysm Classic Tier List - Best Classes & Specs Ranked in Cata 

This tier list is based on the class performance in normal and heroic dungeons, which evaluates their damage, healing, and survivability at early gear levels. Movement abilities, CC, burst damage, sustained damage over time, and more will be considered. Early-game dungeon performance weighs more heavily, as that's what most players will experience leveling and gearing initially in Cataclysm. Later phases will impact classes as they gain access to legendary items, harder raid gear, and new talents or abilities. 

1. S Tier: Blood Death Knight, Unholy Death Knight, Survival Hunter, Demonology Warlock, Arms Warrior, Fire Mage, Holy Paladin, Discipline Priest 

- Starting with Death Knight, Blood DK is extremely strong as a tank with excellent self-healing and a new mastery system, and provides strong utility like AoE grips/stuns.. Their self-healing ability allows healers to focus more on the raid rather than dedicated tank healing, they are also easy to level and gear up compared to other tanks, and solid DPS assist any group. Skilled blood DKs could maximize uptime on mitigation cooldowns and effectively control threats through Death Strike heals.

- Another Death Knight spec ranked as an S-tier DPS for Cataclysm Classic is Unholy, consistent damage is going to shine in Cata Classic, self-healing can supplement the lack of plate armor, then mastery adds significant potency.

- Survival Hunter takes one of the S-tier spots because of its balance of DPS, survivability, and utility. It far outperforms the other two Hunter specs. 

- Demonology Warlock has insane scaling damage through snapshotting and pet scaling. Demonology scales absurdly well with gear as pet damage scales multiplicatively.

- Arms Warrior has incredible burst and sustained damage potential.  

- Fire Mage, Ignite DOT effect works incredibly well with Cataclysm talents/gear, enabling massive sustained AoE/cleave damage. 

- Holy Paladin is a top healer, mana-efficient healing toolkit that provides high throughput and strong utility.

- Discipline Priest defines healing meta with its shielding. Mastery increases shield absorption, further empowering their healing style. 

2. A Tier: Elemental Shaman, Balance Druid, Retribution Paladin, Frost Death Knight, Shadow Priest, Affliction Warlock, Assassination Rogue, Feral DPS, Restoration Shaman, Feral Tank

- Elemental Shaman stays at high A with strong scaling and procs talents. The mastery system significantly buffs Elemental with additional spell procs. Shamans have simple yet powerful skill sets, ideal for any player.

- Balance Druid is easily an A-tier spec with amazing single target and AOE DPS, as well as innovative utility. Balance brings multiple valuable raid buffs/debuffs on top of excellent damage potential. The ability to fill all 3 raid roles (tank, heals, DPS) provides great group coverage and versatility as a Druid.

- Retribution Paladin is high A-tier due to its solid tanking kit with strong mitigation, and really good for their defensive cooldowns, offers group utility as well. Ret scales incredibly well into raids. 

- Frost Death Knight can deal strong damage but not as good as Unholy, their burst AOE is top-notch for the dungeon. 

- Shadow Priest towards the middle spot among A tier, their damage relies heavily on instant cast abilities, allowing for great uptime in fights. Consistent damage and strong single-target DPS. As with all casters, they scale well into later phases with top-end raid gear. While not topping meters constantly like Survival Hunter, they deliver solid throughput without as many limitations.

- Affliction Warlock, strong DoTs with good scaling but weaker than Demonology. The mastery system enhances DoT damage/scaling for Affliction.

- Assassination Rogue does high damage through bleeds. Mastery improves bleed effectiveness for Assassination. Rogue is undoubtedly a top melee DPS class with their versatile abilities.

- Feral DPS could be a high A or low S tier choice, scales their bleed nicely.

- Feral Tank (Guardian Druid) falls into the bottom of the A-tier. Not a top tank but brings formidable mitigation and DPS. 

3. B Tier: Enhancement Shaman, Restoration Druid, Marksmanship Hunter, Combat Rogue

- Enhancement Shaman offers consistent damage without burst limitations of some melee. 

- Restoration Druid owns great healing tools and raid cooldown, but lacks burst healing potential compared to other classes, struggles to be top healers, and probably be near the bottom of A tier or top of B tier depending on raid composition needs. 

- Marksmanship Hunter brings good sustained ranged damage but lacks the high ceiling of survival. 

- Combat Rogue is ranked at low B, burst cleave damage through abilities provides niche.

4. C Tier: Destruction Warlock, Protection Warrior, Beast Mastery Hunter, Arcane Mage, Subtlety Rogue, Holy Priest

- Destruction lacking the strengths of other Warlock specs.

- Protection Warrior is not a good pick as lacking viability compared to others. 

- Beast Mastery Hunter lacked the damage profiles of the other two specs.

- Arcane Mage is capable of bursts, but lacks sustained or cleave damage, mana management is more difficult than other specs, and damage relies heavily on lengthy spell rotations and mana conservation.

- Subtlety Rogue lacks damage specialty of other specs and relies on burst potentials.

- Holy Priest falls bottom of C tier, strong direct heals but weaker in terms of utility.

5. D Tier: Fury Warrior, Frost Mage

- Fury lacks the burst utility and damage profile of Arms and falls to D-tier. 

- Frost lacks the consistent damage profile of Fire. Their niche is mainly burst cleave, which falls off compared to Ignite.