Top DMG/DPS classes

[Eizen]

Just curious...what classes are top dmg/dps in your raids?
Or is it hard to tell since it changes from fight to fight in Uld?

Is there a definate answer to: If I want to be #1 in the dps charts what class should I role?

In my guild it's been (in no specific order):

Feral Druid
Rogue
Mage
Ret Paladin
Hunter (on occasion)

[TzumaNew]

DK
Feral Druid
Ret Pally
Mage / Hunter

We dont have a consistent rogue, and this is not the typical order in a high end guild. Ive found it really depends on type of guild and skill of player, moreso than the class itself.

If youre talking potential dps of given classes, druids and rogues seem to to hold the most potential at end-game, from what Ive noticed. Your best bet is to check wws parse uploads from end-game guilds.

[amh]

http://www.wowmeteronline.com/rank/classrank/7

Class-rankings per fight. Matches our own parses (regarding classes compared to each other, not necessarily how much dps we're doing:) pretty well.

[Fedaykin98]

Really depends on the fight. I've seen pretty much all classes do great damage. Well, actually, Boomkin seem to be hurting right now, imho.

I top a lot of fights, but anything with adds makes that easy.

Our Rogue GM tops a lot of single-target fights.
Our Hunters often top meters.
Our Enhance Shaman is one of our top DPSers.
In PUGs I've seen awesome DKs and Fury Warriors.
I've been beaten by Warlocks and Mages.
Seen Feral Druids do great damage.
Seen Shadow Priests do awesomely, as well.

I think Boomkin are the most challenged DPS class at the moment, really. Almost any class is a good choice. This was supposed to be Blizzard's goal, so imho buff Boomkin and we're there.

[Spectrum]

Sad thing is, these meters change, particularly when a new tier of content comes out. Some classes will scale better than others, and so it depends a lot on your gear as well.

Honestly, if you play any class with a strong DPS role and then theorycraft on optimal gearing/spec and are good at it, then you can do great on the meters when against other people with similar gear. The theoretical edge you get from the various classes is really quite minor when playing optimally.

All that said, rogues seem to be on top, and it appears Blizzard is happy with that. DKs, mages, hunters, and warlocks will always be competative as well. Feral druids seem to have a very complex rotation that can be really bad on certain fights. Other classes seem to yo-yo based on the buff/nerf cycle.

[fafhrd]

It varies from fight to fight, but the ones without major RNG usually display the same patterns each week.

Top of the meter by type of fight:
Constant melee and/or aoe (XT, auriaya, thorim, kologarn): rogues
Constant melee single-target (XT, Ignis): ferals
Steady incoming damage + multiple targets (kologarn, thorim): fury warriors
Single target, infrequent movement, no spell-pushback, no pet death (council, auriaya, razorscale, ignis): hunters
Damage modifiers (hodir, vezax): mages, warlocks
Single target with aoe phases (auriaya, ~freya, kologarn): hunters, rogues, locks, mages

Some of the fights lists multiple classes above, those generally have the top 5 spots very close to each other - ignis will be 3 hunters closely followed by a feral/lock, kologarn will be some mix of rogues, hunters and warriors, vezax and hodir will be a mix of mages and locks, etc.

Hodir is always a crapshoot depending on who gets what uptime on which buffs - we've had mages break 16k dps, we've also had hunters and rogues break 13k.

[Joanadark]

How much of a skill-cap are you looking for? Some classes are easier to push the maximum DPS out of than others. For some, the difference skill makes is massive. If you dont believe that, look at the nihilum shadow priests compared to average shadow priest damage.

[Eizen]

I think Boomkin are the most challenged DPS class at the moment, really. Almost any class is a good choice. This was supposed to be Blizzard's goal, so imho buff Boomkin and we're there.

I believe it's actually elemental shaman the ones that are suffering the most.

[Barathorn]

I think Boomkin are the most challenged DPS class at the moment, really. Almost any class is a good choice. This was supposed to be Blizzard's goal, so imho buff Boomkin and we're there.

I believe it's actually elemental shaman the ones that are suffering the most.

Its all about the gear and the fight on an Elemental Shaman, you can go from top of the table in Naxx10 to mid table Ulduar10 very easily. Once you regear from Ulduar you are back up there again, although rogues, ferals and Warlocks definately have an edge over you.

They remain my favorite ranged DPS class and bring a lot to the party buff wise as well as being good fun to play.

Barathorn

[uke]

First off, answering a question like "I want to be number 1 on all dps charts" is impossible being that:

1. with the great variety of styles of fights in Ulduar currently, different fights will cater to different dps classes. You might top out on Iron Council, but find yourself middle of the road on Kologarn due to the different mechanics. For some reason, my ret pally is usually in the top dps spot for Kologarn, but middle of the road for the rest of Ulduar.
2. I hope you're not rerolling to be the "top" dps class, because that title changes every major and minor content patch. The "top dps" class you reroll to today, will likely be knocked down a peg or two by the time you get them to 80. And even then, like mentioned before, some of the current "top dps" classes have a VERY steep skill curve separating great numbers from poor numbers (feral druids come to mind).
3. In today's WotLK raids, people who care only about putting out top dps numbers and nothing else suck at raiding:
- Hunters cranking out dps on Maexenna (sp?) while ignoring web wrapped people in order to keep their top dps spot...fail
- dps who focus on Freya while ignoring both the healing trees and the bombs on the ground they need to run out of and not die on in order to keep their dps numbers up...fail
- dps who nuke down the exploding adds on Freya as fast as they can faster than the healers can keep up...fail
- dps who attack only Hodir instead of freeing the friendly NPC's from iceblocks...fail

People who only care about being "NUMBER ONE DPS BECAUSE I AM THE GREATEST!!!" have no place in my raids. I have no patience for the immature egos, and their inability to help the raid win, even if it's at the expense of a top dps spot.

I might suggest you rethink your goals, as they're rather short sighted.

[kanst]

Ours doesnt vary as much as everyone else. Pretty much ever fight is won by a mage, a lock, a rogue, or a feral druid...and all four of those players are in the top 5 every fight

[Fedaykin98]

I believe it's actually elemental shaman the ones that are suffering the most.

I thought about mentioning them, but we essentially have no regularly raiding Ele Shaman in my guild, so I don't have enough data. I will say that I would be very happy to see them buffed, as my alt is an 80 Ele.

Ours doesnt vary as much as everyone else. Pretty much ever fight is won by a mage, a lock, a rogue, or a feral druid...and all four of those players are in the top 5 every fight

We certainly have the usual suspects who are almost always in the top 5.

[Nikachelle]

Of course, it varies by skill (and gear)... but our top is always a rogue by about 600-700 dps regardless of whether or not it's single target or an aoefest. Nobody comes even remotely close unless he dies on a fight. (And he's my boyfriend! Wooo!) Close on his tail are a hunter and a dps warrior.

[semp]

Our rogues top the DPS/DMG meters on just about every fight except Hodir, Vezax, Yogg, which is where the mages/locks can take over.

[Spectrum]

It is definitely gear and skill related, as a little advantage in those two can easily swamp out differences in class.

That said, averaged the numbers across all fights from that data above (not normalized) and came up with the following:

Code: Select all

"rog"  7479
"wrl"  7090
"dkt"  7022
"mag"  7018
"drd"  6829
"sha"  6751
"hnt"  6613
"war"  6451
"pri"  6348
"pal"  6222


You can figure out the three-digit codes, as that's all they had in the file denoting the different classes.

As you can see, rogues have a good margin, followed by warlock, deathknight, and mage. Then it sort of drops off from there.

I'm surprisd to see hunters so low on average...