Most high skill - high reward dps class atm?

[isadorr]

Feral dps is extremely good, we had one feral druid in our guild during T14 and he was topping meters(we are not bad players) and during few bosses in ToT heroic before he quit he also were top3(25man) in meters.

Why would you gear a feral when you can gear a rogue that does more dps? Maybe we see raiding differently but we only have feral as tanks, boomies and resto, maybe next tier.

[Manhands]

Not really, no.

I feel like clearing this up, because I'm in a mathy mood.

Range of possible dps outputs:

DPS_SPEC_1          [---------------------------------]          
DPS_SPEC_2                    [-------------------]

Edit: Note that these have about the same average, they just have quite different ranges (standard deviations).

Meleti, the spec that plays decently when screwed up is DPS_SPEC_2. The OP is looking for DPS_SPEC_1, in this case: The one that has the highest return when played well.

@OP
http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/ is one place to look. This shows the MEDIAN (middle number, not the average) dps for the top 100 ranks in each spec. You can also adjust it to show per fight, so you can see the best specs for (1) fights with dmg increase mechanics, (2) adds, (3) important burn phases, etc.

[isadorr]

Feral is quite low on that chart.

[Cocobutters]

Warlock, though Demonology is much more forgiving than Affliction and Destruction.

Not if you want to do good dps with it.

[Deleted]

Why would you gear a feral when you can gear a rogue that does more dps? Maybe we see raiding differently but we only have feral as tanks, boomies and resto, maybe next tier.

Nah, he was equally geared to our rogues and he was doing more than them, he did as much as me(warlock) or our DK who usually top meters. I think feral dps is extremely underrated and propably least played of all specs/classes.

[Deleted]

heh, no

sub rogues are pretty awful and punishing atm with positional requirement and bosses spazzing out (council, primordious, iron qon, lei shen) and does overall way less damage than combat/assassination

heh, no

You didn't get the point of OP's question.

I feel like clearing this up, because I'm in a mathy mood.

Range of possible dps outputs:

DPS_SPEC_1          [---------------------------------]          
DPS_SPEC_2                    [-------------------]

Edit: Note that these have about the same average, they just have quite different ranges (standard deviations).

Meleti, the spec that plays decently when screwed up is DPS_SPEC_2. The OP is looking for DPS_SPEC_1, in this case: The one that has the highest return when played well.

@OP
http://www.raidbots.com/dpsbot/ is one place to look. This shows the MEDIAN (middle number, not the average) dps for the top 100 ranks in each spec. You can also adjust it to show per fight, so you can see the best specs for (1) fights with dmg increase mechanics, (2) adds, (3) important burn phases, etc.

Thing is, that's not completely true. There are specs that are very easy to learn and to masterize that provide very high DPS but the gap between 100th percentile players and, say, 50th percentile players is very small. On the other hand, there are specs that do crap damage when badly played, and still do somewhat crap damage when godly played.

The rate of return has nothing to do with max DPS compared to other specs.

To take the rogue case, with your "mathy graph":

Assa                                     [--------]       
Sub                  [-----------------------]

Edit: And, because I have to study for my last final and cba to:

[Ilnezhara]

As a long time feral druid player (since BC) I can vouch that we are, most likely, top 3 hardest to play specs at the moment. For that guy that said we are no longer "John fucking Madden" complicated, I would like to point out that all we lost was Mangle and instead we gained DoC procs to manage which is, if I do say so myself, so annoying/hard it's not even worth it in 90% of situations. But yeah, in addition we lost duration modifiers on our bleeds (I do NOT have the new tier 4 piece yet, neither will this guy judging from his post), we lost glyph of Rip AND clipping got way more complicated with the power of the new trinkets.

So yeah, feral #1 hardest IMO, definitely top 5 hardest. (This is to say, hardest to play at a top 100 parsing level)

---------- Post added 2013-05-17 at 04:33 PM ----------

Nah, he was equally geared to our rogues and he was doing more than them, he did as much as me(warlock) or our DK who usually top meters. I think feral dps is extremely underrated and propably least played of all specs/classes.

Q F T.

We've always been rare and good ones even rarer. I've been being forced to play Moonkin for so long but then I quit. Can't wait to jump back into it. ^_^

[Washuwa]

spriest has a really small skillcap is the easiest class atm for dps and is hard to obtain more damage at certain point.... demon warlock must be the most rewarded class atm

[Bigbamboozal]

As far as I'm aware you can't really go OOM anymore as any dps class when playing properly. So probably Energy/Rage classes

I think it's a little tongue in cheek to say that while wearing a voidheart set on your avatar. I'm getting at the idea is that you are not just balancing mana anymore, but balancing mana against demonic fury/shards/burning embers. And that additional balance played against the mana pool, is what can make thinks a little sticky if you miss something. (of course teir set bonus makes that so silly to say, but before you get a 2set/4set, I stand on the above statement)

OT I have one of each class, and have tried all specs, playing lock has been by far the most challenging and interesting for me.
Given that, using affdots clears up MOST of that, but lining up snapshots in aff, and absolutely 'getting it right' every time, in demo, is at least 'enough' to keep you awake and thinking. Destro feels pretty straight ahead to me.

[Birkhoff]

there's no such thing as high skill - high reward here, this is not League of Legends.

The classes have also been dumbed down too much.

[BananaHandsB]

I think you have it backwards. All classes have high rates of return if you play them extremely well. The bigger question is, which class & spec will still perform best even when you're playing poorly

Wow you must not have understood OP's question at all. It was completely valid, you didn't have to invent ur own just to give an answer. Start a new thread for that.

As to the OPs question...sticking strictly to dps specs as he mentions in his post....I think ret pallies have the highest reward for playing well. Between utilizing the different hands (BoP, sac, freedom, sacrafice) and other utility spells like sacred shield, along with the occasional clutch heal, you can really be difference between an wipe and a kill, especially on a shakey encounter.

[Cocobutters]

there's no such thing as high skill - high reward here, this is not League of Legends.

The classes have also been dumbed down too much.

So, basically what you're saying is that a fresh level 90 can come in and do max theoretical dps?

[Thelxi]

you could just use WL instead of spriests in your post cause they are almost completely the same if you want to max dmg. Maximizing dmg on Affliction,Spriests and boomkin is maximizing dot dmg cause lets be honest all of them are really easy to play.

And this thread is not about how easy or hard a spec is or how good one is. Its about which class gains more dmg from playing near perfection if compared to a good player. Warlocks gain alot of dmg if played correctly with his dots but since its already so easy to do good dmg if player good or normal the gain you get is not so high as on some other classes.

Warlocks have embers.. spriests have... orbs? WOW! 3 = push button now!

To be fair though maximizing insanity is not braindead easy, but it is a semi optional talent choice and not comparable to other clunky skillcap spec mechanics.

[Deleted]

If the question is, which class gets the biggest improvement from playing good to playing near perfection, that is something that raidbots can kinda tell.

Now I am not saying that this is hard evidence, or the only truth. Just saying that people said stuff to incline that the question is if you play a class good or perfectly, which gives the highest reward for the extra skill?

Comparing the difference between the 75th and 99th percentile on world of logs between classes.

Demonlogy warlocks had the highset dps % increase of all dps specs 64.4% from 75th to 99th percentile.
Feral Kitties was second being on 62.13% dps increase.

Lowest was BM hunters at 43.13% increase. Frost DKs second at 46.23%

[Deleted]

The answer is Arcane / Frost mage. Correctly using time alter (a whole new mechanic no other class has), mana competency (the dmg from mastery is directly based on how much mana you have). Not to mention full rotation, buffs, and the fact that they both have insane theoretical DPS.

You tell me what exactly is difficult about frost. What exactly is difficult there. Use cooldowns and hit the button that lights up! The only way to better your dps as a frost mage that is not trivial is minimizing movement (most classes need to do that, lol@warlocks) and maksimising the damage from your procs (saving them for trinkets).

I might be a bit biassed against frost because they really ruined that spec in MoP. It was great fun to play in cata even though it wasn't very viable. Then they make it the most faceroll spec there is (i've heard assasination rogue competes, but I haven't played one).

Feral is quite low on that chart.

That is because there is little reason to bring a feral over any other dps besides the fact of having one. They are not ranged. They are not flavor of the month. This means that the number of BiS geared ferals is very very very low. This means that the top 100 isn't a REMOTELY accurate means of checking their actual dps. Just take a look at worldoflog 's numbers of ranking ferals in heroic raiding!

[Tramzh]

If the question is, which class gets the biggest improvement from playing good to playing near perfection, that is something that raidbots can kinda tell.

Now I am not saying that this is hard evidence, or the only truth. Just saying that people said stuff to incline that the question is if you play a class good or perfectly, which gives the highest reward for the extra skill?

Comparing the difference between the 75th and 99th percentile on world of logs between classes.

Demonlogy warlocks had the highset dps % increase of all dps specs 64.4% from 75th to 99th percentile.
Feral Kitties was second being on 62.13% dps increase.

Lowest was BM hunters at 43.13% increase. Frost DKs second at 46.23%

I think this could be something I could agree on aswell. I believe warlocks, mainly demo and feral cats are the hardest to play, and are the most rewarding class if you manage to do so. The fact that UVLS is so overpowered as Demo might inflate the dps differences a bit as the ones without it are at a major disadvantage though.

[KCguy]

You tell me what exactly is difficult about frost. What exactly is difficult there. Use cooldowns and hit the button that lights up! The only way to better your dps as a frost mage that is not trivial is minimizing movement (most classes need to do that, lol@warlocks) and maksimising the damage from your procs (saving them for trinkets).

I might be a bit biassed against frost because they really ruined that spec in MoP. It was great fun to play in cata even though it wasn't very viable. Then they make it the most faceroll spec there is (i've heard assasination rogue competes, but I haven't played one).

Most classes/specs have a pretty easy rotations now though.

[Deleted]

I think this could be something I could agree on aswell. I believe warlocks, mainly demo and feral cats are the hardest to play, and are the most rewarding class if you manage to do so. The fact that UVLS is so overpowered as Demo might inflate the dps differences a bit as the ones without it are at a major disadvantage though.

Well like I said, I am not trying to say that it is hard evidence. Just pointed out what the logs say the difference are in dps output between top 25% and top 1% of each class.

A full list from high to low.

Demonology Warlock
Feral Druid
Combat Rogue
Destruction Warlock
Fire Mage
Windwalker Monk
Balance Druid
Elemental Shaman
Fury Warrior
Shadow Priest
Affliction Warlock
Retribution Paladin
Assassination Rogue
Unholy Death Knight
Frost Mage
Arms Warrior
Survival Hunter
Enhancement Shaman
Frost Death Knight
Beastmaster Hunter

Still, not it is not a good evidence. Rather a guideline.

[re1gn1te]

I think some people here as missing the point of the question, but probably hunters/ locks *maybe* feral druids. People's answers are all over the place some of the classes answered are near the top charts but they aren't that hard to play...

---------- Post added 2013-05-17 at 05:57 PM ----------

there's no such thing as high skill - high reward here, this is not League of Legends.

LOL what? Mechanically LoL is on par with Minesweeper....

[isadorr]

You tell me what exactly is difficult about frost. What exactly is difficult there. Use cooldowns and hit the button that lights up! The only way to better your dps as a frost mage that is not trivial is minimizing movement (most classes need to do that, lol@warlocks) and maksimising the damage from your procs (saving them for trinkets).

I might be a bit biassed against frost because they really ruined that spec in MoP. It was great fun to play in cata even though it wasn't very viable. Then they make it the most faceroll spec there is (i've heard assasination rogue competes, but I haven't played one).


That is because there is little reason to bring a feral over any other dps besides the fact of having one. They are not ranged. They are not flavor of the month. This means that the number of BiS geared ferals is very very very low. This means that the top 100 isn't a REMOTELY accurate means of checking their actual dps. Just take a look at worldoflog 's numbers of ranking ferals in heroic raiding!

I have been and there isnt one in the top 10 yert rogues are so what real progression guild would give gear to a cat rather than the rogue who does more dps? Sure we bring in players who arent in on progression to gear them in case their class gets buff next xpac but that isnt the point of this.

Raiding guilds put in the best for progression which is why feral isnt included and yes, range is preferred by everyone, which is why our 3 feral are all boomies.