MegaThread:Top DPS Per EQ Expansion

It's hard to compare classes as a whole because there's no way to control for who has avatar/savagery, who has a bard in their group, who has a Necro casting mind wrack, and who has what gear. The difference between a Ranger/Rogue/Monk on Coirnav appears to be more about disc timers, skill, gear, buffs and songs rather than the actual class itself. Properly constructed raid groups make a HUGE difference.

Based on my parsing on Coirnav, I've seen the top DPS classes in Velious and Luclin to be (in no particular order):

Chanter: Obviously king DPS until Velious, then taper off as Velious wears on into NToV, and now do nothing in VT besides buff.

Ranger: Mediocre in Velious, have taken off in Luclin. Steady DPS that spikes when true shot is up and can easily top parses. Add in the fact they can out-range most/all AEs and they truly shine now.

Rogue: Consistently are top dps in both expansions.

Monk: See Rogue.

Wizard: Top DPS when spells land and they have time between fights to regen mana. Useless on fights like Khati Sha or mobs that are back to back to back.

Mage: Parse very well, especially when agro isn't an issue due to pre-fight build up.

Necro: Parse well on longer fights when other casters go out of mana, so mostly early in an expansion when overall guild DPS is lower.

SK: Every 36 minutes they can lifetap burn for Top 5-10 DPS (maybe #1 on short fights), but the mob must not be magic immune and the fight must be short so the disc lasts most of the fight duration. Sweet spot seems to be about 2 minutes because that's how long it takes to dump ~5k mana casting lifetaps.

Ok, like no-one listed like he asked. I'll do my best with what I know, otherwise I'll leave it blank. I have pretty good logs to back up monks dominated, and we're not scrubs, people min max. I probably spend more time maxing my rogue than any other toon, they just don't keep up on a full burn, period. If your talking a period where noone is using discs mostly, Rogues are usually ontop, through DoDh.

The Ruins of Kunark - Monk
The Scars of Velious - Monk
The Shadows of Luclin - Monk
The Planes of Power - Monk\Wizard (if wizard had mana, raids moved so fast they never did though lulz)
The Legacy of Ykesha - Monk
Lost Dungeons of Norrath - Monk
Gates of Discord - Monk
Omens of War - Monk\Zerker
Dragons of Norrath - Monk\Zerker
Depths of Darkhollow - Monk\Zerker
Prophecy of Ro - Not sure yet
The Serpent's Spine - Not sure yet
The Buried Sea - Not sure yet
Secrets of Faydwer - Not sure yet
Seeds of Destruction - Not sure yet
Underfoot - Not sure yet
House of Thule - Not sure yet
Veil of Alaris - Not sure yet
Rain of Fear - Zerker
Call of the Forsaken - Zerker
The Darkened Sea - Zerker
The Broken Mirror - Zerker
Empires of Kunark - Zerker most consistently but lots of classes can put numbers up
Ring of Scale - Zerker most consistently but lots of classes can put numbers up
The Burning Lands - Not sure yet

Necros can easily be top 3 dps in Velious/Luclin because of how long the fights are...

I'd say that in PoP era, Rogues are best if played well. Rangers are probably the 'easiest' class to DPS with: you can probably be top 10 while just afk auto firing. Dmg output vs effort required I'd say would be ranger, monk, rog for melee... wiz for caster. Necros can still do well in PoP but they need to be really active.

Most people do.

Classic: Monks and necros were tops raid DPS followed by Wizzies/Rogues/Mages. Chanters ruled the group game.

Kunark: Monks/Wizzies/Necros were tops raid DPS with the occassional Rogue burst. Gore fight was necros all the way(AE slow). Chanters....still ruled the group game, except for Howling Stones, where Necros controlled the grouping/PLing camps(not anymore thanks to the constant complaining about named being charmed).

Velious: DPS becomes a bit more fight dependant. Monk/Rogues/Wizzies were tops on alot of fights. But on certain long fights, necros really could go nuts like on AoW and NToV. Rangers start showing up in the top 10 on parses here and there along with Mages.
In NtoV, necros were top 1 to 3 DPS on most fights because they simply took so long. On Vulak, the top 5 were all necros, then the rest of the classes (thanks AE melee slow).

Luclin: Monks/Wizzies/Rogues ruled (thank you insane buffed DPS AA's). Ranges start spiking here and there. Due to hard resist on spells and the complete lack of any real DPS AA's for Necros, they begin their decline. Melee DPS buffs make fights shorter and that just means less ticks of Necro dots furthering their decline from here on out.

PoP: Monks/Rangers on most fights with Rogues/Wizzies/and Mages spiking into the top 5 here and there. Necros again get no decent DPS AA's and fall further behind. Raid mechanics start to involve target swapping and quick burns.

GoD: Monks/Rogues/Wizzies/Zerkers are tops here. Beastlords start getting into the parsing game. Rangers drop off slightly. Mages are sitting usually 7-10 on the list again with occasional spikes. Necros finally get their Crit DoT AA and start competing, but at this point they are competing with the Warriors and Mages for the 7-10 spots. Though with all their burn clickies going, Necros can now top the DPS charts for one fight thanks to lifeburn. Usually, this was the first Tunat fight or the Second Tunat fight. More and more fight mechanics become complex, though there were still a decent amount of burn fights.

OOW and beyond: Monk/Wiz/Zerker are the top 3 depending on who has the best group setup in the raid, with Rogues sitting on their heels. Bards eventually start doing insane damage. Mages start getting crazy later on around SoF. ADPS is a must at this point to reach the top of the parse. In a vaccum with noone having ADPS boosts, Necros probably would top the parses, but alas this really is never the case if your raid knows what their are doing.


Anyone notice a trend here? Monks are at or near the top of the DPS charts in every era of the game. The melee buff deffinitely skewed the numbers. Even with the semi-recent nerf to the melee buff, they continue to outshine every other class in DPS. Nice balancing there Daybreak.

Monks - most consistent dps through most of a TLP lifecycle, you want to be the best overall from classic through to omens and beyond roll monk.

Wizard - Situational depending on resists, can top parses on the right fights and be useless on others.

Rogue - Forever the bridesmaid, never the bride will only top a parse if everyone else is asleep.

Necro - King of Vulak and some other long fights, depends on resists and duration.

Rangers - strong in Luclin/PoP, can top parse with trueshot, otherwise just fairly competitive.

Zerkers - Will defer to others opinions as my raid experience between GoD and SoD is somewhat limited. Suspect they are very strong from when they catch up on gear/aa though.

Does anyone have any information for the following expansions?:

1. Depths of Darkhollow
2. Prophecy of Ro
3. The Serpent's Spine
4. The Buried Sea
5. Secrets of Faydwer
6. Seeds of Destruction
7. Underfoot
8. House of Thule
9. Veil of Alaris
10. Rain of Fear
11. Call of the Forsaken
12. The Darkened Sea
13. The Broken Mirror
14. Empires of Kunark
15. Ring of Scale
16. The Burning Lands

In my opinion, EverQuest actually gets better in the latter expansions. It seems there weren't too many people actually playing them, however. Would be nice if we could get some information about what to expect on Ragefire/Lockjaw in the coming months/years.

Thanks for all the input so far everyone! Remember, there is no right or wrong way to share your information in this thread. All posts containing first-hand experience is welcome!

Well mages are #1 in SoF and SoD. Monks #2 and then it seems pretty close with Rogue, Zerker and Wizard depending on what burns are up.

Very curious about TBL. What classes are topping meters? I've heard druids, necromancers, zerkers but would like more sources.

It is so dependent on the fight. With how insane DBG changed melee dps, monks reign near supreme for the first 14 expansions. There are always exceptions. Rangers start going real hard in SoL and fall off hard after PoP, forever. Wizards get a little lost after PoP for a while. Any person that is very good at their dps class can be present in parse. Necros/Mages are always present. Rogues pop their heads in sometimes. Once Zerkers are around they will nearly always be in top 10 but don't really start producing crazy DPS until later expacs.

The Ruins of Kunark - Monk
The Scars of Velious - Monk/wizard
The Shadows of Luclin - Monk/wizard/ranger
The Planes of Power - Monk\Wizard/ranger
The Legacy of Ykesha - Monk
Lost Dungeons of Norrath - Monk
Gates of Discord - Monk
Omens of War - Monk
Dragons of Norrath - Monk
Depths of Darkhollow - Monk
Prophecy of Ro - Monk
The Serpent's Spine - Monk
The Buried Sea - Monk
Secrets of Faydwer - Monk
Seeds of Destruction - Zerker/Mage - this is where it starts to get really interesting. Monks still OP but zerker and Mage burn starts to get insane

So when does Beastlord get good?

SoD iirc was necro/wizard/zerk/rogue taking the T1 spot.

Zerkers can beat monks starting in Omens. There's just a LOT of really bad zerkers that don't understand the rotation order because it involves more than 2 buttons.

This doesn't seem to be the case based on my experience on DODH. Can you elaborate as to what this rotation is? We have very knowledgeable and intelligent zerkers in guild with numerous BiS items who get curb stomped by monks consistently.

I don't have access to my full writeup anymore, and the full thing is too detailed to bother rewriting since I'm done playing the class.

The TLDR is basically abusing discs like Blind Rage / Cleaving Anger and shaman epic / Savage Spirit and knowing when to build up stacks of Untamed Rage to take advantage of burn phases. Zerkers have a lot of stacking issues with other classes so it's really easy to burn AAs suboptimally.

Bump. Need more data. Share your knowledge with us, please!

Garbage early, competitive in 70s-75s era (would reliably make top 10 parse from like DoN through TBS, somehow managed to always top a couple events in Solteris), midrange from there through SoD. Highest I think I've hit in SoD is 11k DPS, which only beats the actual melee dps classes if they're doing something wrong.

Also clarification: a requirement for a beastlord "getting good" is keeping a fero rotation going. All y'all excited about moon cats on Selo's aren't DPS.

I'll update on TBL when we raid Sunday-Tuesday.

Much appreciate, I've been interested in how the DPS outlook is on Live! Can't find this information anywhere!

If only there were an addon to check how much ADPS Beast Lords provided to a raid. . .With all the buffs they bring, I wouldn't be surprised if their indirect damage was topping the parses.