Best 3 classes for a DPS player looking to push CEs

[Gaidax]

Just what I was thinking. I have seen plenty of rogues, demon hunters and warriors doing very well on the meters. People really don't raid mythic here I think. One thing I love about melee is that you can move out of stuff while dpsing the boss on a lot of fights. While as a caster you have to stop casting most of the times.

Problem with melee is not output, but that eventually you reach bosses where you simply need good pile of Ranged simply because it makes everything easier.

Melee are dime a dozen and I have yet to see a recent encounter where you actually want to be melee heavy, while the opposite is all over the place.

[Veox89]

Mage (granted I'm biased) because:

1 of the 3 specs is always going to be viable (fire excels for CE right now because of timings and burst damage, has an execute, cauterize for covering mistakes and high mobility when learning fights)
Depending on spec/build very good at ST, cleave or AOE
Roots/CC
Heroism
Raid buff
Immunity (2 for frost)
Blink to negate lots of mechanics

[Levogames]

Hey, I'm returning to the hardcore scene

HaRdCoRe

[ryklin]

I miss when ranged bias meant like literally 1 or 2 melee out of 25. Or it meant that there were phases where melee just couldn't contribute in any meaningful way.
These days it's like 6-8 out of 20 is the max recommended and people act like it's tighter than ever and there's not any mechanics that force you to sit out of range of the boss for more than a few seconds.

[czarek]

Mage. I play and ive played mage in vanilla time :P

What i can say. All specs are good there for raiding and dungeons. Not that much depends on gear in early end game (its no melee who needs good weapon). Good for farming and lvling. Low cost on repairs (cloth and good survivability). Very good and steady dps. Portals own water and food. Polymorph. Arcane talents for bursting instane single target damage. Its just fun to play a mage.

[ymn]

I miss when ranged bias meant like literally 1 or 2 melee out of 25. Or it meant that there were phases where melee just couldn't contribute in any meaningful way.
These days it's like 6-8 out of 20 is the max recommended and people act like it's tighter than ever and there's not any mechanics that force you to sit out of range of the boss for more than a few seconds.

Ranged DPS: 11 specs
Melee DPS: 13 specs

It doesn't help the fact that all new classes (Death Knight, Monk, Demon Hunter) have only melee specs (plus Hunters got a melee spec) and that raid tiers that are VERY melee-unfriendly (such as Uldir) can exist in the future.

But to answer the thread:
The best answer is really Warlock, Mage and Rogue. If you are solely looking to be competitive, those are the classes you would want.

Then again, my answer is to play something you really find fun playing, but that's really been an issue for everyone in BfA where specs are a few buttons away from becoming joystick-able to play.

[Fastlane_hellscream]

Ranged DPS: 11 specs
Melee DPS: 13 specs

It doesn't help the fact that all new classes (Death Knight, Monk, Demon Hunter) have only melee specs (plus Hunters got a melee spec) and that raid tiers that are VERY melee-unfriendly (such as Uldir) can exist in the future.

But to answer the thread:
The best answer is really Warlock, Mage and Rogue. If you are solely looking to be competitive, those are the classes you would want.

Then again, my answer is to play something you really find fun playing, but that's really been an issue for everyone in BfA where specs are a few buttons away from becoming joystick-able to play.

The sad part of this entire conversation is how shit melee is for raiding...while ranged in mythic + is just as shit. No balance at all.

[Marrilaife]

Rule no.1: don't play a melee dps or tank

If you wanna play a healer, it's a bit better, but balance has been off - in EP paladin / disc priest dominated, but they're both getting nerfs while mistweaver is getting buffs, proceed with caution

Best option: play range dps. Average range dps will find more guilds than good melee. Period. Yes, a god of melee will probably find a guild. Still you have better chance to find a good guild with 90% parse as ranged than 99% as melee.

Lots of mythic raiding includes such amazing and innovative mechanics like spread, soak, and run away from people if you get this debuff. These all fuck melee more than ranged. You have to spread regularly? Can only slot as many melee as the boss hitbox allows (including tanks and melee healers: monks / palas). You have soaks in the back of the room? Prepare to either lose dps as melee to run there and soak, or be benched for a ranged that can cover that quadrant of the room before the soaks even spawn.

So yeah.

Don't. Play. Melee.
At least not for mythic raiding. For mythic+ dungeons you can play melee, as long as they're named Rogue or Demon Hunter. Anything else and prepare to have hard time getting into groups or have to make your own one every time.

Anyway from ranged, for raiding your best bet is Warlock. It's been fotm since Nighthold, it has always at least 1 viable spec often 2, gateway is a staple of many boss strats, soulstone is both a combat rez and a wipe recovery tool, healthstones are second health pot and don't share cd with them, not even mentioning bosses like Helya or Azshara that utilized imp dispel on progression.

If you for some reason don't think Warlock is the best option, next best is Mage, Frost is getting small buffs and Fire is untouched while already good. Meanwhile boomkin and shadow priest are getting nerfed.

Your third best option is boomkin or hunter, they haven't been "dumpster tier" for a long time, but hunter hasn't been top tier either, and boomkin is getting nerfed. Spriest is getting nerfed more though. Tbh Ele shaman is untouched so should be ok as well.

So TLDR: Warlock > Mage > any other range dps > anything else.

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One thing I love about melee is that you can move out of stuff while dpsing the boss on a lot of fights.

and then you have a barrier on mythic Azshara you cannot move through but can pew pew cast spells through just fine. Also every raid tier there's that boss where you don't want to bring more than handful of melee (4-5 tops). There was only 1 boss where this rule applied to ranged (mythic Gul'dan).

[szandos]

If you only want to raid, go Warlock. If you also want to do m+ go Mage or find a set m+ group and go Warlock (cause you will struggle to get invited to pugs).

[Ange]

If you only want to raid, go Warlock. If you also want to do m+ go Mage or find a set m+ group and go Warlock (cause you will struggle to get invited to pugs).

Everything but DH and ROGUE will struggle just the same. Its even worse as it sounds, because getting invited to more groups gets your more R.IO rating over time and thats gets you even more invites to groups...

Just check your own server R.IO class rankings, the average rogue/dh player got about 400-600 rating inflation simply because of this.

And thats the melee friendly expansion for mythic+, because LEGION was a range-only shitshow for its full duration with again, rogue as the only exception. Its allways range>melee since blizzard decided to not punish range DPS anymore with ressource or movement raid mechanics. Raid design got complicated overtime but it was tailored to tank/heal/range only with here and there 1 (ONE, O-N-E) melee friendly gimmicky fight every few raid tiers.

[Donatello Trumpi]

Melee: Warrior, DH, Rogue
Ranged: Mage, Lock, Hunter


Every other dps ist just a second tier afterthought/one trick that exists as fodder and to make the above look good in pve and pvp.
If they happen to be top tier dps, its rarely for longer than 1 raid tier (shadow being the exception)

They can still top the meter but a 90 percentile havoc often beats a 99 percentile enhancement shaman for instance.

[cface]

Why are elemental not mentioned so much? They are king ranged in m+ and very decent in raids. Gear trading sucks though. I'd much rather be elemental then firemage in m+, less dependent on combustion and making tank do pulls on that. And even on big pulls with combustion shaman does well enough to be on pair

[Wildpantz]

Why are elemental not mentioned so much? They are king ranged in m+ and very decent in raids. Gear trading sucks though. I'd much rather be elemental then firemage in m+, less dependent on combustion and making tank do pulls on that. And even on big pulls with combustion shaman does well enough to be on pair

Cause mage warlock is way better for raiding

[Thelxi]

Moonkin is imo the smartest spec to go if you want to find a good raiding guild. It's not always topping the meters but a good moonkin is pretty much always in demand.

[cface]

Cause mage warlock is way better for raiding

What makes them so much better?

[Kaver]

What makes them so much better?

Simply because they each have 3 dps specs. Elemental is great right now, but when it’s not they don’t have any other options. Mage and Warlock are simply the safe choices for ranged dps.

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Cause mage warlock is way better for raiding

In general, yes.

This tier and last tier, no.

[Violetti]

What makes them so much better?

Warlock brings heathstone whichs kinda requires you to have atleast 1
Usually multiple specs viable = wider range of strength
Unlike ele has a history of always being top3 ranged


Just check the last bosses of bfa

[Marrilaife]

Simply because they each have 3 dps specs. Elemental is great right now, but when it’s not they don’t have any other options. Mage and Warlock are simply the safe choices for ranged dps.

Basically this. Ele has a history of having some tiers good some tiers garbage, same as spriest but spriest is actually op when good, while ele isn't, and if they get hit with a nerfbat (hello Uldir) they are just bench material as they can't swap to another range dps spec within the class. Enhance has been a joke of raiding even more so than ret / feral, and nobody recruits a dps to heal. Most guilds will want healers with dps offspec rather than the other way around. Don't ask me why, it's how I experienced it.

If you wanna play a range class that is not fotm, but not crap, easier to pick a hunter, it has 2 dps specs and some good cheese capability with turtle / feign death. Shamans only have ankh and unless you wanna do method's Uunat strat with porting to proving grounds every pull, it's waaaay too long of a cd in comparison to other class perks (like mage's iceblock that can be used every pull).

Lock also provides gateway that nearly every raid will use to beat some boss somewhere. Or even 4 of them, like on pre-nerf Ghuun.

[Jastall]

Ranged DPS in general.

Warlock in particular, they provide unique utility (can't count how many mechanics were cheesed by gates) and I'm pretty sure they've had at least one very good or outright broken spec per tier since Mists, without fail.

That said, CE is perfectly attainable as any class. I got all of mine on a DPS Warrior. Hall of Fame is of course another matter.

[Netherblood]

Simply because they each have 3 dps specs. Elemental is great right now, but when it’s not they don’t have any other options. Mage and Warlock are simply the safe choices for ranged dps.

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In general, yes.

This tier and last tier, no.

Fire mage is the best spec in EP, they can do everything burst specific targets with cds, do high overall ST, burst AoE, sustained AoE, have immunity, blink, cheat death.

Warlock is quite good too, a lot of defensive power and good dps. Gateways and pet utility are really great too.

Also what's good for a tier is defined by last 2-3 bosses that are hard not wcl statistics or something, warlocks were great for last 3 and fire mages were amazing for last 2 in EP. While warlocks weren't the best dps on Azshara, gateways and imp dispells were really good on the fight. Warlocks were also huge on delirium add as demo on Zaqul.