FALSE. Black bears are the best. Fact: Bears eat beets. Bears. Beets. Battlestar Gallactica.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ctTVcKNx8Rk
HAHAHAHA best comment of this entire effing thread.
Ok, and just my two dollars worth...
I have:
Enchanter, Shadowknight, Cleric, Monk, Mage, Wizard, Necro, Shaman, Rogue, Zerker.
All high end, all with their own custom macros to make sure they don't seem like anyone else since I seem to get reported 24/7 by other hackers (since no one else is around me)...but that's another story.
All have CotF T1 Group Gear and some Raid Gear - SK is my main and fully raid geared.
I've been using Gameparse on them over the entire summer tweaking every bit of dps juice i could get out of them, and bribing the crazy high parsed guildies to share their secrets. Here's where they tend to end up for me.
Shadowknight holds down 10kdps avg. It's basically nothing, I can do 15k with 2her, but really I give up too much not having the shield. I personally like having a tank and not using a pet, yes pets tend to have more HP but trust me they can't take a named with 7 dark blue adds all at once.
Clerics have their benefits to mercs- lots don't see the reason to box one, but one finely tuned cleric is equal to 2 cleric mercs easily. No one can dispute this if they have ever grouped with a good cleric. They never run OOM, never get agro, and can twincast group heals and DD/Heals all day long. Their sustained DPS is pathetic at a whopping 5kdps - so definitely understand that this is mostly the type of class to run if you like to get into heavy shit, not about dps efficiency for XP (that stops being useful once you're maxed aa's after 4 months and don't want to just powerlevel toons).
Shaman's are beasts. AoE Slow lands 80% of the time in my experience (on each mob), and closer to 93% if I landed mage Maloe just before hand once i got that tweaked right. The Leopard claw is great if you use a lot of meles, but for SK/Mage Pet/Necro Pet (what I'm testing right now) its not impressive in the least, but their buffs, crowd control (along with necro) for root/push abilities, and twincast AoE rain Heals makes them easily able to be main healer in any group situation that isn't pushing the limits. I haven't played a druid yet at level 100, but that being said, this is by far my favorite healer class. Sustained DPS including Leopard I partitioned out to being roughly 7-10kdps depending on how I use pet swarms, Dots, heals etc. Fatigue trigger is also amazing (defense proc slow that stacks with clerics defense proc stun - they both fire quite often with eachother, its awesome).
Ok - now for actual DPS.
Monk - This was my favorite for a long long time. Many here know me as someone who purchased many monks, had them custom made, banned and PL/ed them again just to have more fun. I loved the idea of monks. Note, its past tense now. At the very very best I can hold 25-30kdps and that's with raid weapons and the stupid duke aug and everything else I put into him. Also, IMO, no mater what you do - Monks look botted when they are being botted. Monks have this interesting flow about them with their flying kicks etc, simply sticking to a mob makes them look stupid with how obvious and large their movements are. Meaning anyone watching worth their grain of salt knows what you're doing. Also, note that this DPS is with full raid buffs as well, not just group buffs. AVERAGE dps for this monk without chain burning is closer to 15kdps sustained. Because lets be honest, yeah we see the 25k dps on one mob, but its also because we got the powerup from killing the last mob and are pulling hoards so burns stack etc. Monks really aren't the dps class they should be IMO.
Wizards - fucking ridiculous. Using Petes macro and a quick search on this forum even in 10 minutes at level 100 with less than 7,000 aa's you can sustain 25-30kdps easy. Simply turn it on, and start going. This isnt raid buffed, or modded with bards or chanters, this is just Wizard being a wizard. Id like to note I don't use burns normally during group situations, If I setup pulls and burns to be for xp use only I can sustain 50kdps doing the same types of padding Id do to make Monk sustain 25-30kdps. And when I get lucky, I can even hit 100kdps on a mob or two in a row. This is the biggest baddest pure DPS class out there right now. NOTHING compares in group situations (except at T2 CotF, Rogues/Zerkers get damn close timing burns as well.) Lastly - you get porting and evacs and translocations...combine that with fellowship portal and at least 1 wizard I believe is necessary in any boxing situation. (Note: This does NOT include any Enchanter Twincast Aura or any of those toys, these parses are strictly based on the individual class. All modifications are what they are, Modifications.)
Mages are very fun. Any level 100 well geared mage with a J5 merc can kill any group level named mob to date (minus ArginHiz/Rott). Even with pet nerfing and all that, if you have the pet heal aa's and all the right toys and tricks, you can kill _ANYTHING_. As a solo class, they are my favorite. As a group, if you learn spell cooldown timers and how to pull groups of mobs not singles and use AoE taunting of tank along with mage Rain spells mixed with bolts and every once in a while the free AA, you can sustain 15-20kdps on spells and roughly 3-10kdps on pets (depending which pet). These are with mage and shaman buffs or mage and enchanter buffs, both for the pet equal out roughly the same. (Note: This does NOT include any Enchanter Twincast Aura or any of those toys, these parses are strictly based on the individual class. All modifications are what they are, Modifications.)
Necromancers are also amazing solo classes. I haven't spent as much one on one time with the necro as I've been far more concerned with grouping lately than soloing to get everyones AA's maxed before next expansion - but I know enough Necros that I've watched them do the exact same things Mages do, just in different ways. For instance, they often use Wizzy mercs to ping-pong mobs back and forth between themselves and wizzy for DPS instead of relying on Pet tanking like Mage does. Sustained DPS is poor in a group situation where the mob does in less than 30 seconds. Between Cast times and death youll only sustain about 15kdps (grouping with wizard anyway, since they are such beasts). BUT what I started to do was put Necro on Ads, while Wizard assists tank, and Mage does AoE.....That allows Necro to hold down roughly 20-25kdps without wizard interferance and Mage to hold down 15-20kdps as well using Rains. So its quite often about the group setup and knowing what to do, where and when.
Rogues are awesome and super easy - great little scouts, amazing for farming collection items and getting easy money that way (woops, did i say that?). And their DPS is by far higher than Monks or Zerkers. Again, I have raid weapons because they rot all the time (T1 CotF anyway) so my sustained DPS if i do what I do for monk, is closer to 40kdps. On burns, ive hit 85kdps. This is with Shaman in group with Leopard on, never used rogue any other way. I love the dps, but I just never fell inlove with the class as a whole and what it brought to the group. Monks at least brought 10% defense with them in an aura. Mages bring tons of mana with modrods and unlimited food/drinks/petweapons/damage shields and offtanks (pets)...so even though DPS was higher, for me it just never was worth the extra 10-20kdps id get, mobs already died so fast I can't ever pull enough. Also the lag of a mele auto assisting and getting on mob was much slower than a caster assisting and casting that I found if I didnt maintain my attention on rogue window from time to time, the lag would reduce DPS by 20-30%.
Zerkers can be cool, they run about 25kdps with a burst here or there into 30ks with Raid weapons and group gear as well. Im not a big fan of zerkers, I played it for a couple months and stopped. It sits there now. This is even less to me than Rogue, and with less benefits. Also note, this dps was again modified with Shaman Leopard on and full buffs just like rogue was.
So after that, I've setup my group as:
Shadowknight, Cleric, Shaman, Necro, Mage, Wizard.
If I did it over again, I might not do Necro. Even though I enjoy the DPS on 2ndary mobs, I can't always have more than 1 mob with me, so the DPS just isn't always on par. The only reason I kept him is I have high hopes for full burn DPS which I have yet to find a mob that meets the criteria for LOL. If you pull multiples, Mages are great, singles only they drop to 10-13kdps on and that's pretty pathetic as well.
In summary: If you're purely looking for DPS. Wizard is the clear answer for easy to use, setup, and functionlity. Also, as someone else previously stated - they don't need to med. (Nor do Necros for that matter, never run OOM....mages on the other hand basically LIVE at OOM and constantly need Quiet Miracle from cleric to maintain DPS with the way I pull).
Utility is what you want to consider next though. I kept Mage because Call of Heroes and an offtank pet is really useful to me for what I like to do - which is kill hard named mobs without clearing and being careful. I like to walk in, own it, get what I want, and leave - feeling all Badass lol.
My necro can go in with mage corpse, pick a non agro spot - rez mage, mage uses AA gather and CotH's everyone in. Cleric puts mage back to full mana and we quickly rebuff and I'm able to do whatever wherever - even in harder areas like PoWar. Also, if group dies, Necro has often times Flopped/Pet Tanked and finished off a mob and rezzed me when I went in over my head. Quite useful, even though its about 10kdps less than a mele choice - a mele choice would be sitting afk while i ran cleric back to the camp hoping I dont die to whatever roamers while getting corpses etc.
And that's my two dollars...
I want my two dollars...
