Investigation Into Tier Lists Reaches Concerning Seventh Layer
- Bog
- 2 days ago
- 5 min read
An investigation by The Daily Murloc into the increasingly confusing state of early-season World of Warcraft content has entered its fourth day after one of our reporters discovered a tier list ranking other tier lists that were themselves ranking class specialisation tier lists.
The investigation began innocently enough on Thursday evening when this publication's junior gaming correspondent was scrolling through YouTube while pretending to research an unrelated story.
It was there that he encountered a video titled:
THE ULTIMATE MIDNIGHT SEASON 2 M+ TIER LIST OF TIER LISTS RANKING TIER LISTS — WHICH CREATORS ACTUALLY KNOW THE META?”
Initially believing this to be some sort of clerical error, our reporter clicked the video.
It was not.
Over the following 42 minutes, the creator systematically ranked seven other content creators, who had themselves ranked other creators tier lists on the perceived strengths of specs going into the newest World of Warcraft season.
“This is bigger than we thought,” said Daily Murloc editor Glubbert Finnegan after reviewing the footage.
“We went in expecting to determine which classes were strong.”
“We are now attempting to determine which person is best at determining which other person is best at determining which classes might eventually be strong.”
"It's like I'm staring into an abyss, at one point I forgot what game the content was even referring to"
At the centre of the investigation is the rapidly expanding early-season Tier List Industrial Complex, an ecosystem believed to activate approximately six weeks before every major World of Warcraft patch and continue operating until such time as actual gameplay data renders most of its output obsolete.
By that point, industry insiders say preparations for the next tier list have generally begun.
The Daily Murloc has spoken with several players familiar with the practice.
One local Demon Hunter, 26-year-old warehouse supervisor and aspiring Mythic+ professional Illidaddyx, says tier lists provide an invaluable service during the opening weeks of a season.
“You need to know what's good,” he explained.
“Otherwise you could waste heaps of time gearing the wrong thing.”
When asked what character he had chosen to play after conducting his research, Illidaddyx explained that the situation remained fluid.
“At first I was going Enhancement because one guy had it S-tier.”
“Then another guy put Enhancement in B because apparently its damage profile doesn't suit the dungeon pool.”
“Then someone reacted to that tier list and said Enhancement was being slept on.”
“So I went back Enhancement.”
“But then there was a healer tier list where the guy mentioned that Enhancement might struggle defensively.”
“So now I'm levelling Mage.”
At press time, Illidaddyx had six level-cap characters and had completed twelve Mythic+ dungeons.
Across YouTube, Twitch, Reddit and Discord, thousands of World of Warcraft players are currently engaged in an elaborate global effort to establish a definitive ranking of 40 specialisations approximately five days into a season which will last several months.
The rankings are understood to be subject to changes in tuning, gear, trinkets, dungeon routing, encounter strategies, class interactions, player skill and information that simply does not exist yet.
Despite this, several lists examined by The Daily Murloc were described as DEFINITIVE.
Three were described as FINAL.
One was uploaded 18 hours after the previous creator's FINAL tier list.
That video was titled “NEW FINAL TIER LIST AFTER MASSIVE META CHANGES.”
The massive meta changes in question were later identified as a 3% buff to Frost Death Knight.
Experts approached by The Daily Murloc say the system may have originally been intended to help players make informed decisions.
“Years ago you'd have someone say, ‘these specs seem pretty good going into the season’,” explained Professor H. Murlington of the Silvermoon Institute for Competitive Content Creation.
“That was manageable.”
“Then someone realised you could put the classes into colourful horizontal boxes.”
“That's where everything went wrong.”
According to Professor Murlington, the discovery of the tier-list template represented a turning point in World of Warcraft information distribution.
Complex conversations surrounding damage profiles, defensive capabilities, utility, dungeon composition and group synergy could suddenly be condensed into a JPEG containing six rows labelled S through D.
“It allowed players to replace understanding with colours,” he said.
“Green good.”
“Red bad.”
“Very efficient.”
Meanwhile, ordinary players are becoming increasingly concerned that failure to correctly interpret the expanding network of rankings could have severe consequences for their season.
Local Restoration Shaman TotemEnjoyer, 31, says he had originally planned to continue playing the character he has mained for seven years.
That changed Tuesday.
“I saw Resto Shaman in C-tier,” he said.
“So obviously I panicked.”
He subsequently rerolled Preservation Evoker after seeing it ranked S-tier by three prominent creators.
On Wednesday, Preservation dropped to A-tier in a separate video.
TotemEnjoyer immediately began gearing a Holy Paladin.
By Thursday evening, he was playing Mistweaver Monk.
“I don't really like Monk,” he admitted.
“But it's S-tier.”
When informed that the highest-rated healer in the world at the time of interview was playing Restoration Shaman, TotemEnjoyer went quiet.
“Yeah, but who's tier list are you looking at?”
By Saturday morning, The Daily Murloc investigation had mapped more than 70 individual pieces of tier-list content.
Red string has now been attached between several computer monitors in our newsroom.
One wall contains screenshots of class rankings.
A photograph of a Fire Mage has been circled three times for reasons nobody currently remembers.
Our lead investigator has not slept properly since Thursday.
However, shortly before publication, the team believes it finally achieved a breakthrough.
After analysing every available ranking, cross-referencing creator predictions, comparing early Warcraft Logs data and interviewing several high-rated players, The Daily Murloc has successfully determined the most reliable tier list currently available for Midnight Season 2.
Unfortunately, before this article could be published, another creator uploaded a newer one.
Our rankings are now considered outdated.
The Daily Murloc will therefore be releasing its own Midnight Season 2 Tier List Tier List Tier List Tier List later this afternoon.
It will rank the existing tier lists of tier lists according to how accurately they ranked the original tier lists that ranked each of the tier lists diving into each WoW specialisation.
On an unrelated note, the lead investigator of this story has henceforth gone on stress leave. While he will return shortly, his family thought it best to admit him to an institution after his wife walked in on him at 2am attempting to glue his 5 children into what appeared to be a life sized, painted tier list on the wall.
Sources inform that his oldest child, a 14 year old boy who routinely makes 6 7 jokes, is still glued to the wall adjacent to a large painted box with the letter F in it.
More to come.
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