As the Topic says, which class is actually best for DPS?

I've seen a fury warrior do over 2000 damage per second, and warlocks ain't bad either...

But what do you think?

rogue>all in my guild, fury warr and locks are high but nothing beats a sword spec combat rogue

THat's true, rogues are inzane when it comes to dps.
What I love about rogues and warriors, are that they have no limit of their dps, since they don't have to  care about mana. That's why I will say that this are the best classes for long time dps. Okay, warlocks have their life tap ability to recharge themself with mana, but for how long can the healers keep up with that?

Locks can Life tap-DOT-DOT-DOT-DOT-DOT-Life Tap-Life drain and so on.  I always tell the healer don't heal me unless I am getting hit on. I can also take mana from my pet who regens at 35mp5. 

It really depends on what raid you are doing. 

Many scenarios take away from DPS, as you are stuck on Kick Duty (as a rogue) or Banish Duty (as a warlock) or Trap/Tranq Duty (as a hunter).

There is also the topic of what the group make-up is.  If you have a good raid leader that knows what classes are best to group together, a lot of times you will have a larger advantage over others of equal standing.

In an all out DPS match up with no aggro issues, and assuming that gear and group make-up is not an issue, nothing beats a Combat Sword Rogue.

Warlocks, Shaman and Hunters would be next in line; with Mages, Warriors and Shadow Priests nipping at their heals.

Im surprised, but then again not really, that no one mentioned druids. I know that they may not be the BEST at dps, but a properlly spec'd balance or feral druid who knows how to gear can put out insane numbers, keeping up with the best of them.

I agree with shopebay, no way can a pady (for example) match the dps of a warrior! Healers are ment for instances and helping the tanks/dps's, not killing! The only exception would be a druid who can kick "butte" in bear form and still go back and heal, other then that, don't expect a healer to do major dps...

Im a rogue.  My current build is 31/25/5.  Sounds kinda shakey but it works very well.  I usually hang right above or right below hunters and loks.  really though to answer your question, theres no answer.  If you want to go into specifics then single target DPS would have to go to combat rogues (dagger or sword). Overall raid DPS I would have to say Warlocks because they can damage a bunch of mobs at one time.  Thats the only reason they beat me on DPS meters.

Retadin Has Great Burst Damage
Only problem its not worth a shit unless u have good gear

[url]www.wowwebstats.com[/url]

just search for a fight and see who consistently hits the top 3 dps. 

i can give you one hint, they never run out of mana cuz they just life tap... 

rogues are great but in real raids that require 25 people a lot of encounters force melee to move out of range.. even trash pulls..  other encounters make the ranged dance around (see voidreaver)

there is only one class that can damage on the run and it isnt a rogue :-/

Finally a forum where more people make sense then people that obviously dont know what they are talking about. Warlocks and rogues are best dps imo. ignoring the possibility of pulling aggro rogues are best for single target and warlocks are best at mutliple targets. its best to have one or the other on different fights so i think it comes down to whether or not u personally prefer to be ranged or melee, but in any case warlocks and rogues both have the bragging rights

btw mutilate spec roges are def not best dps! i once was a stubborn assassination rogue and have seen the difference that a simple spec change can make

ye locks and rogues for sure im assassination atm coz i cant find swords working on getting merciless x 2

Try a 0/21/40 warlock.  They can be 900 DPS on single targets without any buffs or consumables, with only Fel Armor on and the Succubus sacrificed.  The problem with it is that you lose damage on say Gruul and Maiden when you have to move around or you get stunned (the spec makes you lose DoTs, but with 1000 shadow damage, you put out 2400 non-crit Shadow Bolts, and they can reach up to 8000 crits when stacked properly and using buffs and consumables).  I have yet to try it with a shadowpriest on the raid, but I'm sure the Shadow Bolt crits will reach a LOT higher.

It's a great raid spec, great burst DPS for soloing, but the survivability of it soloing against more than two mobs can be painful.

http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Hellscream&n=reldor

That's my warlock built as 0/21/40.

beast mastery hunters or survival.
arcane mages with lightning capacitator trinket do preety good with arcane missles too

If you have an arcane mage, getting The Lightning Capacitor is nice and useful, and up to having the 2/5 tier 5 set bonus combined with a Mystical Skyfire Diamond would make the arcane mage top DPS lists hands-down because Arcane Missiles would proc the meta (have a chance to every hit of it rather).

Upcoming in patch 2.3, Arcane Missiles will not proc the Mystical Skyfire Diamond, so it puts arcane mages back to the backburner for raiding.

arcane missiles cost the entire amount of mana up front and when you have to run out of rain of fire or blizzard or when you have to run away from arcane orb or when you get surrounded by toxic spores, you will have to move interrupting your cast and wasting that large amount of upfront mana you spent. 

during trash sure, great, arcane missile your butt off... but who cares about trash?  bosses are where the damage meters matter and like i already said.  in so many encounters you have to run around out of effects or you become a bomb and have to run out of range of your allies.  so many fights have you on the move and are so melee unfriendly.

there's only one class that can do serious damage while continuously moving.  the same class that never runs out of mana.  the same class that has so much health it dominates in pvp.  the ezmode class with the iwin button on a 2 minute cooldown. 

you want to be top dog on the damage meter?  roll a warlock.

[quote]
As the Topic says, which class is actually best for DPS?

I've seen a fury warrior do over 2000 damage per second . . .
quote]


I am a little confused, a fury warrior can't do 2000pts of damage per second on me (moonkin) and i am not even a raid boss. I am not sure, but I think most bosses have more armor then a moonkin (around 14500 ac). I guess the other question is what do you do when fighting bosses like "prince" do you still do 2000pt/sec when running. Last question how do those fury warriors drop threat again in raid?

he's highly exagerating on the amount of dps a warrior can put out.  anyone can go to wowwebstats.com and look at the top guilds and see how much dps every one of their members do in hyjal/black temple gear. 

lets look at an illidan kill:  http://wowwebstats.com/3qggaevvl4h2u?s=6111-7125

the dps warrior had 1356 dps... not quite 2000

but yea lots of moving around on illidan well lets look at a fight that's easy mode for melee and tough on casters...

lets look at a kaz'rogal kill: http://wowwebstats.com/nczypwhyqwzbs?s=4575-4732

dps warrior had 1559 dps there... and on that fight melee just stays outside of warstomp range and burns nonstop... 

so yea 2000 is kinda... overstating it...  and i doubt the op would ever get enough t5/t6 go see the amount of dps you'd see in some of the top guilds on wowwebstats... 

also i'm pretty sure raid bosses don't have much armor..  pretty sure after 5 sunders and a faerie fire they're close to no armor at all.  if they had an incredible amount of armor, then melee would get pretty ticked off since casters don't have to deal with incredible amounts of spell resist.. 

Now let's talk about raiding IF or SW, i.e. real raiding. Experience says it's between locks and hunters, rogues are out of the game too often, either dead or stealthed and awaiting CD on vanish. Mages are always targetted for quick kill. Warrs aren't bad surviving is everything. Locks aren't taken too seriously in real raids, big mistake by the enemy, and hunters just stay out of the way firing DOTS, arcane and aimed shot when possible, extra dmg from pet.

Fact is in real raids cloth is always targetted hard, locks have good ability to keep the dmg away and they (should) have loads of sta.

All the above assumes the allies know how to face a raid.

I don't have a definite answer as which is the best, just what i've played with.

I prefer my hunter over the other classes for dps, much like a rogue but more cc abilities if aggrod.. high powered, steady dps, high crits, aspect of the viper for extended boss fights, bonus power from trueshot, bonus damage from pet.

Also my lock is quite good, even if i'm killed the dots will often finish off a raid mob. Cloth just lets it down.

i am not really far into raiding i am 0/21/40 lock and i am still seeing 6k crits. i love how everyone assumes all locks roll affliction. the only thing from that tree i use is curse of elements. i know when my damage hits not from the pretty number on the screen but when i see something the tank has been sitting on for 30 seconds run straight at me in three casts.

Well i have read all off your commends and i miss the most important thing in a raid.. Every dmg class can be on top off the dps if you give him the right buffs. exsample: a warrior can do allot of dps but he does a whole lot of dmg more if he has a shammy in his group for the windfury, the same goes for a warlock, if he has a shammy he wil get the 101 dmg and if you give a mage a shadowpriest and a shammy he will top the dps aswell. My point is that it is more important to select the right people in a raid for a certain fight. some bosses are made for melee and some are made for casters so at one poit they will be top dps.

i am a rogue (70 ofc) had battleshout bom bok and a windfury totem :P plus hourglass from BM i had like 2.2k AP ALL the time plus windfury added some nice crits

I think that mage is the best dps class. He always hits u.I have warrior,and always miss creeps or something like that. I like mages for dps.

You can not compare dps in PVP to dps in Raiding, I do not know the calculations that are used but you should have noticed by now that you hit a lot harder in raidds than you do anywhere else. 2000dps for a furry warrior isnt that much Ive seen some with a lot more dmg ouput than that. And yes one of the bad things right now is that the only for a warrior to drop threat is to stop attacking or die. The next patch though will  help the raiding furry warrior a lot as for the first time we will have a talent that reduces threat so you should see furry warriors topping the damage meters once again.

Interesting posts - but I think you guys are fixated on two or three classes.

I am a deep arcane mage who has concentrated on spell crit, spell damage and spell hit in that order - but only AFTER maximising my intellect/mana which curently sits at 12K (with 8K health btw) with only my own buffs and Kara level kit.

I am always top of the damage meter and we have Kara on farm.

The only item I get exceeded on (temporarily) is Illhoof by the Lock who is on the Imps.

The only person to ever beat my damage on the meter was a Rogue (now left the game) who had better kit than me.

It's funny - my build isn't popular - but with the new evocate I am having the last laugh. The only fight I need to use a potion on now is the Prince and Aran - the rest of the time gems and evocate does it - and I spam AM all the time. Generally I do ~25% of the raids total damage - and like I said, we have Kara on farm - so we have good enough people.

So I have to disagree with most of you - been on enough heroics etc with out-of-guild Locks and Hunters to know I beat em regularly.

Be interesting to know if any other deep arcane mages have had the same experience....

yep mages are nice in kara alot of aoe parts before moroes and at illhoof
but my rogue was first on dmg on part after curator till chess... trash mob part but hey was 3rd on illhoof fight cant beat the seed of coruption the 2 locks were spaming

IMO the best dps classes are the ones that never run out of wat they need to dps i.e. rogue warrior warlock
warrior not as mush as warlock and rogue but yea when i go into gruuls we bring a fry warrior

also in gruuls highest 4 dps goes as folos
1: Affliction Warlock
2: Combat Sword Rogue
3: Destruction Warlock
4: Fury Warrior

these are the usual listings tho the other day when we downed him fire mage took number 2 spot so i geuss they r good as well

Best DPS class.... depends on who's playing the char. I see all you guys certain on those particular classes. That doesn't mean anything. It all depends who's playing the char. I've seen it all. It all depends on the player... not the class. To many variables. Just because in your guild run a rogue and warrior have the highest DPS... doesn't mean in every guild run the have a rogue and warrior with highest DPS. Our guild has completed threw The Eye. Our best are hunters, mages, and locks. We got a couple flimsy rogues that die when they are looked at wrong. But can be good when they are on thier game. I'd say in our guild... It's gotta be Warlocks that are overall the best DPS. I'm a hunter so it's not because I am a warlock that I say that.

enhancement shams are ok not gonna be in the top but their totem makes them very good for raiding

also as of the other day id like to mention boomkin to this equation dont ask me how the heck this happened but when we faced HKM in gruuls boomkin came up number 3 dps and no it wasnt a gear thing he is jus as well geared as the rest of us he must jus no how to play his boomkin well because number 3 for a boomkin is great

ps for getting number 3 we gave the boomkin the shoulder that droped tho only 4 other ppl needed them

well my fury warrior with an enhace shammy and feral druid and all in blues was >= all casters and yes warlocks with over 1k shadow damageincluded in a gruuls fight even though i had to dodge things all fight and watch my agro I was 1% less then our epicced fury warrior but since dw got moved i dont know anymore locks clearly are op for dps but ive seen some mages/boomkin do some good damage but ive yet to see a rogue do all that much they're common and for all ive seen cant keep up the damage a fury warrior in blues used to be able to.  SO my answer is warlock/fury warrior

You all need to learn to merge pet damage with hunters on your meters, then you will see that a well played equally geared BM hunter can destroy.  Thats half the problem most ppl think hunters suck because they never merge or look down the list and add the pet to their totals.


I ran Gruul's this week with my guild which has been farming him for months so much so that I took the t4 legs off him for 10 dkp, even though I have void reaver greaves and dont need them, just because the GM didn't want to leave them on the body.  But anyway maybe the rest were kind of lax but i went all out and had 1100 dps through the fight and did over %10 of the raids damage, followed by some rogues mages, and a shadow priest around 700 dps and 100,000 less damage.

i dont understand why u all u talk about rogues...
i never meet a rogue i couldnt out dps in ins/raid and im enhancement shaman...