WoW Forever World PvP Tier List

On a PvP ruleset in WoW Forever, the fight you lose is rarely the one in a battleground. It is the Rogue who opens on you at half health in Redridge Mountains, the Hunter who tracks you across Hillsbrad Foothills or the five-man group that rides through your quest camp in Stranglethorn Vale. Open world PvP rewards different things from instanced PvP: the first hit, a way out when you are outnumbered, a way back to your body when someone camps it, and the speed to find your next target. That is why Hunters and Druids top this list while Warriors, strong in a battleground with a healer behind them, sit at the bottom.

This tier list ranks all nine classes for world PvP on the PvP and Roleplay-PvP rulesets, based on the final beta build of October 15, the October 31 class hotfixes, beta world PvP up to the level 30 cap and the rankings of creators who spent the beta ganking and being ganked. Below, you will find the full ranking, the best classes for ganking and for surviving, every escape tool and consumable worth a bag slot, how layering changes a fight, and the world PvP hotspots by level, including the new zones and dungeon entrances Forever adds to the map.

WoW Forever World PvP Tier List

Our WoW Forever tier list ranks every spec for PvP as one blend of battlegrounds, world PvP and duels. This page looks only at the open world, where nobody queues, fights are rarely even and the question is not who wins a 1v1 but who decides whether a fight happens at all. Four things decide a class's place here:

• Burst. Most world fights are over in a few global cooldowns, often against a target already fighting mobs.
• Escape. A way out when three players jump you, without a healer and without a teammate to peel.
• Getting away after death. A class that can resurrect and slip away beats one that gets camped until it logs off.
• Mobility and tracking. The ability to find a target, catch it and pick the moment to engage.

The tiers are set at the class level, with the spec that carries each class in world PvP. Ganking and surviving are graded separately, because a class can be a good hunter and a poor target, or the other way round.

Why Hunters and Druids Lead the List

Hunters are the class creators agreed on most, and one ranked the Night Elf Hunter above every other pick because Shadowmeld removes its one weakness: getting camped after a death. Forever made them stronger in the open world than they were in Classic. Traps now work in combat, so Scatter Shot into Freezing Trap is a real escape in the middle of a fight, and Entrapment roots whoever triggers a trap. The new pet abilities add disarms, webs and healing reduction. Eagle Eye scouts far ahead, Track Humanoids shows nearby players on the minimap, and Aspect of the Cheetah adds 30% speed to chase a target on foot. The datamined October 28 hotfix to Aspect of the Hawk would lower Hunter damage if Blizzard confirms it, but it leaves the pet, traps and tracking that win world fights untouched.

Druids are the hardest class to kill in the open world. Every shift into Cat Form or Travel Form frees you from roots and slows, Rejuvenation heals you on the run, and Prowl lets you wait out a group and come back. Feral burst is lower than a Rogue's or a Hunter's, which keeps Druids out of the top spot for ganking, but no class gets away more often. The one counter players found in the beta is a Hunter with a pet, Concussive Shot and Hunter's Mark who refuses to let go.

Rogues and Mages in A Tier

Rogues still control the start of almost every fight they choose: Stealth, Sap, Cheap Shot, Kidney Shot, Blind and Vanish decide whether a fight happens at all. They fall to A tier for two reasons. Hunters were buffed and Rogues mostly received bug fixes, and Forever adds more ways to see a Rogue: Perception on Humans, Hunter's Mark, Faerie Fire and damage over time effects that break Sap and Blind. A Druid tagged with Faerie Fire can still shift and run; a revealed Rogue usually can't.

Frost Mage is the hardest class to catch if it does not want to fight. Frost Nova, Blink and Polymorph turn any melee opener into a reset, and Ice Block, Ice Barrier and Cold Snap buy the time to bandage and drink. Ice Lance deals 300% more damage to frozen targets as of the October 31 hotfixes, but it now has an 8-second cooldown, so plan on one big hit per freeze rather than a chain of them. Fire and Arcane lose most of that toolkit, so on a PvP ruleset, Frost is the spec to level as.

Shaman, Warlock and Priest in B Tier

Elemental Shaman has some of the best burst in the game with Lava Burst, Earth Shock and Purge, which makes it a very good ganker. It struggles the moment it is the target: Ghost Wolf is its only movement tool and nothing in its kit breaks a slow. Enhancement is fine while leveling, but creators rated it weak in open world PvP at the top end.

Soul Link Warlocks are the best duelists in Forever and can even win a 1v2 against careless players, but they have no way to move faster or break a slow. Their escape kit is Death Coil into Fear, Curse of Exhaustion on the chaser and a Hearthstone. Shadow Priests are in the same spot: Psychic Scream, Silence and Power Word: Shield win the fight in front of them, and a good one can drop Shadowform to heal and walk away from a single attacker. Neither class gets away easily after it dies.

Paladin and Warrior at the Bottom

Paladins are very hard to kill and very easy to leave. Divine Shield, Lay on Hands, Blessing of Freedom and Blessing of Protection keep a Paladin alive through three health bars, and a Divine Shield into a Hearthstone is still the safest exit in the game. What Paladins can't do is catch someone who runs, so they rank low for ganking and well for staying alive.

Warrior is the weakest solo class in the open world, exactly as in Classic. A first Charge and Hamstring can still kill a caster, and Mortal Strike wins fights, but two players can slow and kite a lone Warrior forever. Warriors climb several tiers with a healer behind them, which is why the Warrior and Priest pair stays a classic world PvP duo.

If you are still picking a main for the launch on November 4, our WoW Forever class guides explain how each of the nine classes plays at every level.

Best Classes for Ganking in WoW Forever

Ganking is picking a fight you have already won: a target fighting mobs, at low health, alone. The best gankers either open from stealth or kill from range before the target can react, and they can find targets quickly enough to keep the session moving.

1. Hunter. The longest range in the game, a pet that interrupts and controls, and tracking that shows nearby players on the minimap. Open with the pet and shoot from 30 yards while your target is still fighting a mob.
2. Rogue. Picks the moment of every fight. Sap a player who is drinking, open with Cheap Shot, and Vanish if a second enemy shows up. When a zone gets crowded, wait in Stealth and pick off whoever walks past alone.
3. Elemental Shaman. Raw burst from range. Purge strips shields and buffs before you commit, and Frost Shock stops the target from running.
4. Feral Druid. Stealth openers, Bash, Entangling Roots and Moonfire on a target that can't reach you, and an exit if the fight goes wrong.
5. Frost Mage. Frost Nova into Ice Lance is a big hit on a player who is already fighting, and you can leave whenever you want.

Warlocks, Priests and Warriors can kill a careless player just as well, but they can't choose their fights, so they get chased off by the first group that answers a call for help in general chat.

Ganking Tips From the Beta

Players who spent the beta in contested zones kept coming back to the same few habits.

• Gank where your target can't fight back. Players under level 40 have no mount yet, so they can't ride away, and they are concentrated around a few quest hubs.
• When a higher level player arrives to defend a zone, move to another part of it, or to the next zone over. Redridge Mountains and Duskwood are close enough to rotate between.
• Avoid zones that level 60 players cross on their way to raids and dungeons, such as the roads to Blackrock Mountain or the flight paths into Alterac Mountains.
• Hunters and Rogues can use Feign Death and Vanish to drop guards and flight master griffins after an attack on a town.
• Scout before you ride in. A Hunter's Eagle Eye and a Priest's Mind Vision both show an enemy flight point or quest hub from a safe distance.

Best Classes for Surviving on a PvP Server

Most players on a PvP ruleset are not looking for fights. They want to finish a quest without dying three times. For them, the best class is the one with the most ways out, and the ranking looks different from the ganking list above.

1. Druid. Shapeshifting breaks roots and slows, Travel Form outruns most attackers, and Prowl hides you while a group moves on.
2. Frost Mage. Frost Nova, Blink and Polymorph turn a lost fight into a reset, and Ice Block buys a few more seconds.
3. Hunter and Rogue. Feign Death and Vanish drop you out of combat, and a Night Elf Hunter can use Shadowmeld after resurrecting to leave without being camped.
4. Paladin. You will rarely die to one attacker, and Divine Shield into a Hearthstone ends any fight.
5. Healers in general. Holy Priests, Discipline Priests and Restoration Druids can outheal most single attackers until they give up.

Escape Tools for Every Class

Every class has at least one way out, but they cover very different situations. Knowing yours before the fight starts is half of surviving on a PvP ruleset.

A few class tricks are worth knowing on top of the table. A Shadow Priest who is blinded by a Rogue can cast Shadow Word: Death on a target that will survive it: the backlash damage breaks Blind. Since the October 31 hotfixes, that backlash costs 30% of your maximum health, so use it only when you can afford the hit. A Rogue who sees enemies in a busy zone can sit in Stealth and wait, then come back five minutes later somewhere else. And a Druid who has been revealed can still shift out of every root and keep running.

Racials That Help in World PvP

Several racials were reworked on October 26 and 27, and a few of them matter more in the open world than anywhere else. Speed racials are the big change, because players walk until level 40, when Forever sells the first mount together with riding training.

• Night Elf. Shadowmeld lets you resurrect behind a tree and slip away, and Quickness makes Night Elf Rogues and Druids harder to spot in stealth.
• Tauren. Plainsrunning builds up to 60% movement speed on foot while you keep running, which is a mount's worth of speed long before level 40. It does nothing once you are mounted, and taking damage or standing still lowers it. War Stomp stuns up to five enemies around you.
• Gnome. Escape Artist breaks roots and slows and makes you immune to them for 3 seconds.
• Undead. Will of the Forsaken breaks fear, charm and sleep, but it can no longer be used while a Hunter's Scatter Shot has you disoriented.
• Human. Perception reveals stealthed Rogues and Druids, and Will to Survive removes all stuns.
• Dwarf. Stoneform removes bleeds and poisons, the main tools of Rogues and Warriors.
• Skyborne. Windshaper Skysight adds movement speed, and much more while you are Charged from an elemental convergence.

The best race for each class, PvP included, is in our WoW Forever race tier list.

What to Carry Into Contested Zones

World PvP has no rules about consumables or gadgets, so a well-prepared player can win a matchup their class should lose. A Warrior with a Free Action Potion and a grenade is a different opponent from a Warrior with an empty bag. This is what creators carried in the beta, roughly from cheapest to most expensive.

• Bandages and healing potions. Bind bandages, potions and grenades to keys you can reach without looking. Heavy Runecloth Bandage heals 2,000 over 8 seconds once you have broken away.
• Free Action Potion. The most important PvP consumable and a cheap one: 30 seconds of immunity to stuns and movement impairing effects. It does not remove an effect that is already on you, so drink it before the fight, not during the stun.
• Living Action Potion. The expensive answer to a stun. It removes existing stuns and slows and keeps you immune for 5 seconds.
• Limited Invulnerability Potion. 6 seconds of immunity to physical attacks, which also means a Rogue or Warrior can't interrupt you.
• Swiftness Potion and Lesser Invisibility Potion. 50% run speed for 15 seconds, or a way to drop out of sight before a group arrives.
• Skull of Impending Doom. A quest reward off-hand that adds 60% run speed for 10 seconds every 5 minutes, at the cost of health and mana. Rogues keep it equipped because they don't use mana.
• Nifty Stopwatch. A trinket with 40% run speed for 10 seconds.
• Greater Insignia of the Alliance or Greater Insignia of the Horde. The PvP trinket that removes every movement impairing and loss of control effect, every 5 minutes. In Forever, it works for every class and needs only Rank 2.
• Tidal Charm. A 3-second ranged stun on a 15-minute cooldown.

Engineering is still the strongest PvP profession. The Goblin Rocket Helmet charges an enemy and knocks it out for 30 seconds, which makes it a get-out-of-jail card when someone opens on you, and Goblin Rocket Boots add a big burst of speed, though they can explode. Forever also adds new gadgets: Stealthman 52 gives any class out-of-combat stealth for up to a minute, and the Gnomish Poultryizer turns a target into a chicken for 15 seconds at level 60.

Non-engineers get something too. Forever adds SAF-T devices that anyone can use, such as the SAF-T Copper Bomb, a 1-second stun bomb, and the SAF-T Nitro Boosts belt at level 55. Their effects are weaker than the engineering versions, but they close part of the gap.

How Layering Changes World PvP

Forever runs each ruleset as one world for your region and splits busy zones into layers, copies of a zone with their own players. In the beta, this changed world PvP more than any class change. Players turned in a quest, changed layers and landed in the middle of thirty enemies, or lost the Rogue who had just killed them before they could answer. A fight in Ashenvale drew several hundred players, but the people in it estimated it at about 70% Horde.

• Joining a group moves you to the leader's layer. A group invite from a friend can pull you away from a camp, and leaving a group can drop you onto a new layer in the middle of enemies.
• A World Refresh notice warns you before a layer change. Finish the fight or get to safety first, then click Refresh Now. In its October 29 podcast, Blizzard showed that forced refreshes fell sharply during the beta and stayed low from early October, but they are not gone.
• Neighboring zones can sit on different layers, so don't fight right on a zone border, for example between Tirisfal Glades and Silverpine Forest.
• Players report that logging out and back in can put you on another layer, which some used to escape a camp in the beta. Blizzard hasn't described this as intended.

Layer caps, rare spawns and the layering fixes Blizzard announced on October 23 are covered in our WoW Forever realms and layering guide.

Habits That Keep You Alive While Leveling

None of these need gear or gold, and together they save more corpse runs than any class pick.

• Group up when you leave a city. Most gankers look for a player who is alone, and a pair can fight off three or four attackers.
• When you get chain-ganked, leave. Use your Hearthstone or quest somewhere else for an hour, rather than running back into the same group.
• Many players don't attack someone at their own level who leaves their mobs alone. Don't start a fight you don't need, and you will often be left alone.
• Level as the PvP-friendly spec: Frost as a Mage and a build with escapes as a Rogue. Combat Rogues have fewer tools to get away.
• Keep Honor in mind. World kills give a small amount of Honor, so players will hunt you even when there is no quest reason.

If you plan to level with a friend on the PvP ruleset, our WoW Forever duo leveling tier list ranks the pairs that hold up best in world PvP. If you would rather skip the contested zones altogether, our WoW Forever leveling service can take your character to 60.

World PvP Hotspots by Level in WoW Forever

World PvP happens where both factions need the same thing: a quest hub, a dungeon entrance, a boat or a road. Forever keeps the Classic hotspots and adds new ones. The Riverglades is a new level 35-45 zone for both factions, nine new dungeons put entrances in places nobody used to visit, and new boat routes bring Alliance traffic through Southshore and both factions through a neutral port. There are no flying mounts, so every route runs over the ground.

The table lists the zones where creators expect the most fights, with the levels at which each zone sees the most players and the Forever change that makes it busier or quieter than in Classic.

The busiest low-level zones are the ones a single faction depends on. Redridge Mountains has no real alternative for Alliance at its level, so it draws Horde gankers first, while Stonetalon Mountains is the Alliance answer on Kalimdor. Mid-level fights concentrate where both factions share a hub or a dungeon, which in Forever means Hillsbrad Foothills and Alterac Mountains around level 30 more than ever before.

Every new zone and boat route, with exact directions, is in our WoW Forever new zones guide.

More WoW Forever PvP Guides

These guides cover the rest of PvP in Forever, from picking a ruleset to the ranks you earn in battlegrounds.

WoW Forever World PvP FAQ

These are the questions players ask most about world PvP before launch.