Least gear dependant DPS spec ?

[Smigel]

I don't have much to back this up but I think that a spec's most favored secondary stat is going to tell you how well their DPS scales with gear. Crit in particular is a more punishing secondary at lower gear levels. For example, a Fire Mage with low gear (maybe 20% Crit) isn't going to perform as well. Crits make up the core of your damage, without many Pyroblasts you don't have very powerful DoT's to spread around, and your Combustions will be less than impressive. It takes a lot of Crit to crawl up that ladder. The goal is ideally 100% crit but you won't ever reach that. I tend to be more aware of the 80% non-crit than the 20% crit. And when you're playing a spec that relies on Crit, it becomes apparent very quickly that 80% of your spells aren't jiving with the best parts of your spec.

I would choose a spec that favores Haste or Mastery, because I like that those specs seem to scale a little more linearly. It takes away the (100% minus what your gear gives you) part of the equation. Some specs focus on Haste breakpoints etc., so I can't speak to those as well.

[fangless]

OT, from personal experience I would say that Hunters and Frost DK's are good at lower gear levels. Most other melee struggle until they have decent weapons.

Frost DKs are more weapon dependent than Unholy :P Both Frost specs are better early on compared to later, though.

[Deleted]

I don't understand the people saying rogue. I found my rogue horrible to play when under-geared - I lacked the energy to do much of anything. May be it's to with spec. My experience was mainly as combat. It may just be that Assassination Rogues are very high up the dps charts overall, so put out decent numbers whatever their gear.

From my own limited experience, frost DKs seems to punch above their weight and do good damage in raids even when under-geared.

My paladin seems less dependent on gear as ret than does my arms warrior - at least, less dependent on base weapon damage.

[WillFeral]

To the idiots that say dk's are least gear dependent...you seriously have no idea how this game works.

[Normie]

To the idiots that say dk's are least gear dependent...you seriously have no idea how this game works.

Yeah, you can basically only do laughable DPS on unholy DK without some kind of good cooldowns to fiddle with. Frost is less dependent on snapshotting but frost is kind of gimped overall in the PvE world so far this expansion.

[Kazgrel]

Destro lock or frost mage, followed by ele shaman. I've all 3 at 90. Lock and mage right out the gate were doing ~50-60k in 5 mans with just the crafted pvp gear + scribe staff.

Bit skewed regarding ele because it's my main and I leveled him first before I had access to the scribe staff and other gear...that and it was also prior to the CL change. The lock has quickly become my favorite alt thus far this expansion (surpassing my warrior, who is 30% lower on dps despite higher ilvl since he is stuck with 476/483 weapons vs. the lock's h scen staff).

[bals]

dw frost dk is pretty awesome at lower gear levels but doesn't scale as great as other classes.

[fangless]

but frost is kind of gimped overall in the PvE world so far this expansion.

Expansion? It was fine last tier, and going into T15 with T14 gear it was still ok. But after people got gear (the discussion topic in this thread), they fell behind quickly.

[Rad1um]

arms warrior.

[xixixviixiiii]

I don't have enough experience with all of the classes to say for sure but Arms warrior and Frost mage sound about right. Rogues are extremely gear dependent-- not sure why people are saying rogue.

[Hrrom]

Frost Mage, Arms warrior I'd say

[Deleted]

To the idiots that say dk's are least gear dependent...you seriously have no idea how this game works.

Yeahh.. that's a bit wierd. Pretty much all of 2 hand frost's damage is scaling with weapon damage. I don't see how that spec can not, not be gear dependant.

Destro lock or frost mage, followed by ele shaman. I've all 3 at 90. Lock and mage right out the gate were doing ~50-60k in 5 mans with just the crafted pvp gear + scribe staff.

Ele shaman.. really? In order to do good dps as an ele shammy you need a good weapon or nice dps-whoring on adds. They have a lack of scaling, but they definitely do NOT start out strong.

[Smigel]

It's also worth mentioning, even though it's not in line with the spirit of the OP, that player skill is a huge part of doing good DPS. If you're very good or have practiced a spec a lot, you're probably going to perform better at that spec than one that's recommended on forums. And that's even if the one that's recommended has +10 ilvls. It takes a good amount of time to develop a solid raid-worth toon. Going from 463 to 490 isn't too hard, but past that you're going to have to spend a lot of time in ToT LFR, getting Mogu Runes of Fate (if you're low on gold), and grinding out Valor. Once you start getting rep with the Shado Pan Assault, you've got months worth of Valor capping just to round out the 522's available outside of raiding.

That's all a verbose way of saying, "pick something you like and stick with it." Class balancing is in a pretty good spot overall. That's to say that it's hard to just pick a class, get it to 490ilvl and actually compete with people at 515+.

[Kazgrel]

Yeahh.. that's a bit wierd. Pretty much all of 2 hand frost's damage is scaling with weapon damage. I don't see how that spec can not, not be gear dependant.


Ele shaman.. really? In order to do good dps as an ele shammy you need a good weapon or nice dps-whoring on adds. They have a lack of scaling, but they definitely do NOT start out strong.

As I stated, ele shaman is my main, so my view is skewed by the fact I've been playing it for years now (compared to the on/off-ness of mage and lock, both of which are alts). Anecdotal evidence and so on. The one fact that can be derived from this thread: dps IS gear dependant, factoring out the wild card of player skill.

[marklar]

Well, there are two cases.

One is a class that starts out fine but scales poorly with gear. That would be: Hunter (any spec).

Another is a class that scales just fine with gear, and starts out high to boot. Yay! That would be: Mage (frost in particular, but all specs are fine) and Enhancement Shaman. Note, however, this situation is often subject to something called "nerf bat."

Whatever you do, avoid Arms Warrior and Shadow Priest. Not sure why Blizzard is hating so hard on spriests this time around.

arms warriors do more damage than fury at entry level ToT gear levels and compete just fine with other specs in that range; not sure why you'd avoid them if you were the OP. and if you do get some gear, you can always go fury and be middle of the pack.

[Squirl]

I think "gear dependent" needs to be better defined. Does this mean the most damage at a low ilvl (and what is a low ilvl)? Does this mean the most damage without important pieces (or only with important pieces) such as trinkets and weapons?

For the former, you can find an objective (albeit approximate) answer with sims. For 463, you can look at CMs.

For the latter, you need to look at weapon damage scaling (BM hunter and casters likely scale the least) and ask "is there an OP trinket for me" (e.g. UVLS or RoR).

[Sparkidy]

I think any melee class (except maybe assassination) is going to scale the most off weapon dps, which immediately makes me think casters. Take away fire mage, which requires a good dose of crit to be effective. Dot classes usually require a good helping of haste to hit the breakpoints, so I'll take out those. I found destro locks were VERY strong out of the gate, and people seem to be mentioning frost mages, which follows that reasoning as well.

[Delath]

I would say frost mage as well, which is also very easy to switch to arcane on higher item levels since the same gear pretty much works for both. Switching to fire is a lot more annoying due to the fact that the stat priority is reversed.

[Vorret]

I did great DPS on my survival hunter when I reached 90 with crap gear. Right now with 494 ilvl (483 weapon, no epic gem) I will outdps anyone with equal or lower gear than me and people who are not trying. So I'd say hunter is a good choice.

[Tatsh]

DKs for sure. You can do pretty good damage as Frost in blues and insane damage in entry level epics. Scaling sucks later on though