Top raid dps classes

It looks to me as though DBG has done a really excellent (if not quite perfect) job with class balance among dps classes in LS, in a raiding context. Based on the top dps performers in our LS raids thus far, it appears that any of the following FIVE dps classes, when performing at peak levels, can reasonably expect to show up in top 5 or even top 3, consistently:

Monk, beastlord, wizard, zerker, rogue

Expanding to top 10, we see mages and necros also showing up fairly often.

Rangers seem to have gotten the short end of the stick, so hoping to see some adjustments there going forward. Ideally, all pure dps classes would be able to compete for top raid dps spots.

I don't remember any other time when so many dps classes had this kind of balance.

That said, my perspective is necessarily limited to my own guild's performance, so I wanted to solicit the perspectives of other raiding guilds in this regard.

Are we typical, or do other hardcore raiding guilds see a very different mix?

Which dps classes are consistently showing up in your top 5?

First off you have one major problem with this post. There is no set standard for testing.

So if we want to see who is higher dps monk or beast you must make sure both are max aa, both have the same gear level, both have the same other 5 classes in the group etc.

Monk / beast if you want to compare the dps but one has a bard in the group and the other doesn't then the numbers will be way off.

First step is to set the standard for the raid. Do you want T1 LS raid or T2 LS raid gear etc.

ahh, welcome to several more years of melee quest.

Monk and beastlord should not be top DPS, as both of them can tank (and heal). They should be in the ranger's DPS tier instead.

DPS wise the order should be: Monk > Ranger > Beastlord.
The current tank order is the oppsite: Beastlord > Ranger > Monk

for us necro's are still the class to beat, although with LS both rouge ( inside joke ) and beast get the top spot at times too, with a wizzie coming close as well.
but even for the same class,we see a large gap in dps between the different people, so player skill still does a ton as well.

This very much. As well, it should be literally impossible for SK to hit the top 10, yet this is leaving out how SK is very much a dps class now.

Most of this post is pretty weird and misguided.

Outside of pet tanking and using occasional, cool down having abilities monks and beasts can't tank. And of the three, rangers are the best at passive tanking, and also have their own cool downs to tank significantly better than usual for a short time.

I don't totally disagree with your opinion on what the dps order should be, fwiw. But monks should be, and are pretty high up there on the dps chain now since that's really all they're good for now.

Ranger tank advantages fully disappeared in ToV when abillity degradation hit critical mass vs content. Rangers are only better than Rogues/Bards in regards to melee DPS tanking at this point. String of Parry procs is neat but almost never when you need it vs controlled powerful abilities on small CD's which Monk/BL/Bers all have. Ranger toolkit is only better when the devs decide to finally fix it for current content. Similar to the current gulf in DPS of Rangers vs all the other DPS classes. Requires actual fixes instead of yeeting new weapons out.

We had a raid where a warrior in a DPS group was top spot tied with a rogue. If you want to use the "can tank" argument please explain that ....

This shouldn't even be possible.

Warriors in LS got a huge bump in DPS from the ones I have grouped with this are in the top dps now in most missions I do.

@Iven: Lotta 'shoulds' in there Iven - was asking for actual data - not opinions, but thanks for your thoughts

Also in case I wasn't clear I'm talking about RAIDS - and monks (ask me how I know) are barely able to pinch tank on raid trash, and rangers do little better. We like to leave that to the plated boys and girls.

@JetZ (cool handle!) - point taken - but I did specify hardcore raid guilds, which (in my mind) means max AAs for all, and gear is T1 raid from last expac mixed (at this point) with a few pieces of this expac's raid gear (crafted and dropped). FWIW, I can say this: the top dps classes I'm tracking for our raids have changed very little since expac opened, so have not seen any sort of wild (more like mild) swings as gear has improved.

@Windance and @JetZ - we tried that test as well and saw same results!

@Roxas - thank you for the data - necros then would seem to bump us to 6 classes with consistent potential for top end dps in raids (with a hardcore raid team).

What about mages?

Last year I was consistently in the top 5. This year I am generally between 7-13.

My only real complaint is when a tank makes a top ten parse. Tanks IMHO are doing too much damage and need a small scale back or two. I feel a good DPS player should do more than an excellent tank player. But that is just me.

The only way for a tank to parse top 10 is to be in a DPS melee group with full ADPS (that includes paladins), so bard / beastlord / monk / shaman, etc, which happens rarely, because where are you putting your DPS classes then ? In tank groups ? With no support, with other tanks and clerics, which is 95 % of the times, tanks are parsing badly.

The same is true of the other DPS classes. No ADPS = No top 10.

Warriors are extremely overpowered
- best mitigation
- best melee damage
- no need to switch weapons between dps and tanking

Pally/SK's can put out some impressive damage as well but it requires them to go 2H weapon which means if/when they get agro they tend to splat just as easily as others if they aren't hair triggered. SK's have it easier because of the epic but still requires a lot more work than warriors.

Been testing some parser updates and figured some recent Wiz parses would be interesting to someone. Had pretty good ADPS in both cases.

This was on Xegony during open raids where we did one event twice:
Combined (371): A visionary in 5719s, 313.77B Damage @54.86M, 1. Kizant +Pets = 15.06B@2.81M in 5369s {GMMMGMGM7GMMGM}

Then during regular ROI raids. Could have glyphed a few more times but was lazy:
Combined (252): A Rallosian recruit in 2772s, 280.17B Damage @101.07M, 2. Kizant +Pets = 9.59B@3.70M in 2596s {MGMMGM7M}

Mage, necro, zerker, beast, wiz, monk, rogue, and tanks are all doing pretty good

You shouldn't be the "best" to beat a tank. An average rogue should obliterate a warrior or SK for dps.
Quite simply tanks shouldn't be capable of matching dps classes in parses. Otherwise the dps classes should also tank as well as the SK/war do

Rampage

Warriors should be the highest melee DPS. Monks have feign death, rogues have pickpocket and berserkers have innate crafting abilities to summon axes. To balance those benefits, I think warrior's scaling with weapon damage should be increased by a healthy 50%.

It's a strange approach to divide the beastlord or any other pet class, into itself as a non-tank, and the pet as a tank, as if they are two separate players. For raid DPS parsing, the combined DPS does matter. For tanking, the stronger element does matter at most, and the capability to offtank weaker mobs is also something to consider as a bonus ability.

Raid DPS parsings are problematic because they cannot separate DPS from ADPS. Raid results are very different from single player or group situations. Using them as a tool for general class balance won't work well. I still do think that monks should not be top DPS, even not in raids. Class balance has to be done for the group game and not for raids. The whole class balance is maybe just that out of control because Daybreak and SOE had focused much to long onto raids, and thought that it is a good idea to transform most classes into DPS.

My approach is, that classes should not be optimized for raids, and that some classes should just be suboptimal or even bad options for raids, just as some classes are bad options for soloing or the group game. In the early years, the necromancer was only good for soloing, and did served in raids as a mana pump and for locating and summoning corpses, but it was the strongest solo class. What a great approach, because every class was specialized into something different, which made them unique.

Why should the monk be top DPS ? As they do tank so much better than a rogue, wizard or zerker in solo and group content, they should not be. Raids are a lame excuse. Nobody should bring a monk to raids if its about min-/maxing / efficiency. They should play a rogue, wizard, or berserker instead. Monks were meant to be raid split pullers for a long time and they are just not needed for that much anymore. Players only do bring them to raids as long as they are top DPS, ADPS, or can be handy as split pullers and offtanks. They don't have to be top DPS, as that being combined with their tanking capability, does make them OPed in general.