First off, please note, this is not meant to be a **** measuring contest, or an instigative post. I wanted to know, on the spectrum of DPS (i'd go with sustained vs. burn) where beastlords land, particularly over the other hybrids, but in general as well. So of the 16 classes, would you say they're in the top 5? bottom 5? right smack in the middle?
#1 hybrid dps, but a little behind pure melee/caster dps. the hybrid buffs & utilities are supposed to be what makes the difference up in balance.
The honest truth? A lot..and I mean a lot of it have to do with the skill of the beastlord, the RNG and the skill of the people playing the other classes. I usually come in 9th-10th-11th on the overall evening combined and that's sitting at around 55-60k ish over 4000 seconds of engaged time (not even counting tower of lag parses cuz...well...nuff said). For burns like Bonecrusher, I can be #2 one week, number 9 the next week, and then not even be in the top ten the week after. There are just far too many variables make an accurate "beastlords are number 5" on the dps scale. If you are curious about it because you're thinking about trying the Beastlord class, I can only say that they are a fun class to play. It's never boring for us on raids with everything we have to do. If you're investigating because someone in your guild isn't playing up to snuff, there are more than a few of us that help someone improve their dps.
A talented & tenacious player - with proper adps - can top parses with any class imo. Whether it's a "true dps" class, or not.
This is not true for beastlords. They are way behind pure melees and skill won't matter there unless others are completely lazy and incompetent. I have only topped parses as a beastlord when others were truly horrible at playing their class. Beastlords are 6th or 7th best when you have great skill and much worse if you suck at burning.
All I see every Sunday is Stubar, RoI's #1 dps. Wizards got nothing on this Ogre. He is Death Incarnate for a reason! (his merc so good).
The most common mistake I see people making in EQ is thinking they know it all. There is always room for improvement, sometimes a lot of improvement. To answer the original post however, there is likely room in the top 10 dps both sustained and burn dps for a beastlord. And when I say top 10, I don't mean classes I mean people. Some events obviously favor one class or another but overall this is true. More often than not it's not that the class is incapable of parsing well it's that the player is not optimizing their abilities.
Player > Knowledge > Skill > Class in that order pretty much. A good anything will beat a bad anything else. An exceptional anything will be a good/mediocre anything else. There are exceptions to this obviously, but when Lady Gragas of the Bad romance says 'wtf no RF' and is burning for 110k~ and the hybrids are at 200k+ mid burn I don't care how OP your class is. One zerk will burn for 350k, the others for 150k. One beast will do 250k while the others do 100k. One ranger will burn for 250k while others get 75k. The player makes the difference. The knowledge is that players weapon. The skill sharpens the blade that is knowledge in the hand of that player. Class is secondary to all of it.
As everyone else says. Its the player not the class. I have done more damage than wizards mages rogue zerks monks necro ranger. I have been out done by wizards mages rogue zerks monks necros and rangers. Have another bst in guild who will do 14k to my 95k. Player, not class.
Player *and* class. Take that player put them in a different class, and their dps output will obviously change drastically.
Good players have a knack for the game an affinity to find how to play their class well. These skills are transferrable in event of a main change.
I 100% agree with what you guys are saying about player, skill, knowledge, and class. However, it doesn't really answer the question. Let me put it this way: A marine with a butter knife would be more lethal than a child with a samurai sword, true, but you can still compare the butter knife to the samurai sword. In equal skill and knowledge (lets say both players have above average skill and knowledge), how would you objectively rate BST sustained and burn dps? Would they be the butter knife? or the samurai sword? or somewhere in between, comparitively? Thanks again.
So, your original question asked about Beastlords vs the other hybrids. Since the other primary damage dealing hybrid would be Ranger (hybrids: Beastlord, Ranger, Bard, Paladin, and Shadowknight), I guess I can give a comparative view of those two. Essentially, from what I've seen since rain of fear (over several guilds) is if the Beastlord and Ranger are of comparable skill, than the Beastlord's max burn potential seems (from my experience) to be higher, but the Ranger's sustain seems to be higher. Overall, our Rangers usually would beat our Beastlords on our nightly combine. Against all dps classes, Beastlords can be very competitive on burn with everyone but Berserkers (no one, these days, can really compete with a Berserker on single target burn, normally). On sustain, they can fluctuate heavily based on player skill, but I would give the edge to the pure melee classes on a nightly combine over Beastlords. They can still be competitive, and be in the top ten, but if skill and tactics are equal, they will not usually be number one.
The butter knife-sword analogy is not apropos. Devs have done much to balance the classes - or rather, class potential - over the last few years. Some players unlock the dps potential of their class, others don't. It's that simple. With adps support, I eat beastlords for dinner... and frequently out-parse most other dps classes.
I guess your other dps need to improve, then. I also beat lacking dps classes, but I do it without adps.