Who is the Best Hybrid DPS ?

[Pottu]

Removed off-topic nonsense.

[Theloras]

In terms of a pure DPS role:
Shadow Priest
Fury Warrior

Those are the only two who fill that niche in a very effective manner. The other hybrids can fill other jobs/roles but NOT to the extent of these two as pure DPS.

Druids/Paladins:
Work best as tanks not as DPS (not considering resto/holy).

Paladins make amazing aoe tanks that can be utilized to great effect in BWL/AQ/Naxx.

Druids make amazing off-tanks in damage soak encounters.

Now, both of these will need to have healing sets as well. In fights where they are NOT utilizing their niche they are better off healing. Staying cat form 100% of a fight doesn't warrant enough DPS increase even providing LotP to be better than wearing a full set of healing gear healing. Cat is great to use when you are going to be utilizing bear form as well. If bear form won't be used during said encounter you should be healing.

That being said you only want 1 Feral 1 Prot pally 1 shadow priest for a min/max setup as well.

All the duties these specs provide can still be provided by other classes just fine, however they are wonderful and do help progression in those niches when played correctly over the course of a raid which does involve gear swaps and complete role changes at times.

This is based off a min/max perspective only.

Edit: People who say it is sub par to keep at least 1 Feral and 1 Prot pally for progression are just as wrong as those claiming Druids/Paladins are best at all roles all the time.

I can't speak for shamans as I have never raided vanilla content horde side so I omit discussion on them as I have no experience from retail progression horde side. I just lack first hand experience and prefer to give no information instead of bad information.

A good post and with the current bugs on Nostalrius affecting Retribution, one in which I have to say I do agree with. Until the bugs get fixed for Ret, it's not viable in a 40man raid:

- Sanctity Aura not working at all
- only 8 debuff slots so no Judgement of the Crusader to boost +Holy dmg
- Consecration taking up a hidden debuff slot which means it never gets a chance to do dmg

That being said, I am currently raiding with Entitled and provide Hybrid/Nightfall support with an 11/23/17 spec to maximize AoE reflected dmg as well as mitigating incoming dmg as well:

http://db.vanillagaming.org/?talent#sE0zZVhxfxZxcx0bb

When I'm not single target swinging Nightfall with Seal of the Crusader and +melee haste enchants on weapon/gear to boost all of the casters' DPS, I put on my AoE reflective dmg gear with Force Reactive Disk to help AoE tank Suppression Room and Nefarian phase 1/3 in BWL as well as Fire Imps and Core Hound Packs in MC.

PS Aethelwulf - a Paladin with Seal of the Crusader and haste enchants will have greater Nightfall proc uptime over a Warrior cheesing Hamstring spam (which will eventually get nerfed as it did on Peenix when they also took Nightfall procs away from Hunters spamming Rank 1 Wingclip) #JustSayin

[Nugeneration]

Because an Elemental Shaman outscales a Fire Mage even with Curse of the Elements boosting the Mage's damage.

I'd be hard pressed to make that claim over boss fights in Naxx. I've never ran DS/Ruin since we didn't need to sac the imp for threat. Our fire mages could rival us locks at times in Naxx though on average they were below us.

DS/Ruin is naturally lower damage as it relies on lower threat to constantly spam SB. Alliance generally has higher damage locks since we can stay SM after the -threat trinket.

If our fire mages were rivaling our SM locks without having too many threat issues that would mean shamans would be the highest DPS for horde? That doesn't sound right as I don't recall any shaman topping meters consistently in retail at Naxx.

Not saying it isn't true, but that sounds far too drastic.

[Aethelwulf]

That's not how DS/Ruin works. You would need to be MD/Ruin to get the -20% threat. Sacrificing the Imp just gives you +15% Fire damage. DS/Ruin actually deals more damage than SM/Ruin because you actually sacrifice the Succubus for +15% shadow damage instead of getting the +10% from Shadow Mastery. You still get 2/2 Improved Life Tap with the leftover talent points too.

And a Shaman's scaling is truly that absurd. People really underestimate the effect of a full second cast time reduction on DPS (including spelldmg DPS). It means +50% DPS for Lightning Bolt (and +66.6666...% for CL).

Shamans typically do not top DPS meters because they are used for Mana Tide which means Resto spec. It costs 60 mana and gives 1160 mana to the whole party on a 5 minute cooldown.

[Nugeneration]

That's not how DS/Ruin works. You would need to be MD/Ruin to get the -20% threat. Sacrificing the Imp just gives you +15% Fire damage. DS/Ruin actually deals more damage than SM/Ruin since you sacrifice the Succubus for +15% shadow damage instead of getting the +10% from Shadow Mastery. You still have skill points to spare so you still get 2/2 Improved Life Tap but at least now you also have Demonic Embrace and the like.

And a Shaman's scaling is truly that absurd. People really underestimate the effect of a full second cast time reduction on DPS (including spelldmg DPS). It effectively presents +50% DPS for Lightning Bolt (and 66.6666....% for CL)

Yes my apologies I was thinking of MD/Ruin.

DS/Ruin only wins on patchwork esque fights. Any fights with adds or add spawns SM/Ruin handily wins, also on movement heavy fights. Not sure why you would run DS/Ruin outside of maxing out damage for very specific encounters.

SM overall is more versatile especially with the increase debuff limit as DS/Ruin aren't allowed to use corruption or curses.

[Larsen]

Some of the raid content is resistant to nature damage, so elemental shamans are not universally viable DPS even if their theorycrafting checks out. It's the same reason balance druids use arcane spells.

[Aethelwulf]

Aye, it really depends on the raid encounter in question.

PS Aethelwulf - a Paladin with Seal of the Crusader and haste enchants will have greater Nightfall proc uptime over a Warrior cheesing Hamstring spam (which will eventually get nerfed as it did on Peenix when they also took Nightfall procs away from Hunters spamming Rank 1 Wingclip) #JustSayin

No, it shouldn't get nerfed. That's genuine vanilla behavior. If Feenix nerfed Wing Clip, then they were breaking away from vanilla. Evidence: Wing Clip, Hamstring, Hamstring again. Also, Hamstring spam > SotC. It can more than double a Warrior's attacks for weapon procs. SotC is only 40% more attacks.

[Theloras]

Aye, it really depends on the raid encounter in question.

PS Aethelwulf - a Paladin with Seal of the Crusader and haste enchants will have greater Nightfall proc uptime over a Warrior cheesing Hamstring spam (which will eventually get nerfed as it did on Peenix when they also took Nightfall procs away from Hunters spamming Rank 1 Wingclip) #JustSayin

No, it shouldn't get nerfed. That's genuine vanilla behavior. If Feenix nerfed Wing Clip, then they were breaking away from vanilla. Evidence: Wing Clip, Hamstring, Hamstring again. Also, Hamstring spam > SotC. It can more than double a Warrior's attacks for weapon procs. SotC is only 40% more attacks.

On Peenix every hunter in a raiding guild had a Nightfall and so did every offtank warrior - if that ain't cheesing an encounter, then I dunno what to tell you - and the devs there nerfed it accordingly.

On your other point, a warrior won't generate enough rage to spam hamstring every 1.5 sec global cd so your argument is invalid (even with Nightfall's current swing speed of 3.2 on Nostalrius when it should actually be 3.5).

Whereas with Seal of the Crusader and +haste enchants, I have +46% melee haste CONSTANTLY.

Oh and btw...

http://imageshack.com/a/img907/2569/hqsJtm.jpg

Storm Gauntlets say hi!

[Aethelwulf]

Putting aside your appeal to nerf vanilla mechanics because it makes your Paladin feel inadequate and other childishness, you can use Hamstring while your auto-attack timer is counting down, so you only need to Hamstring once per attack to double your attacks (autoattack + hamstring = 2 attacks) for the purpose of proccing Nightfall, and obtaining 10 rage per hit is trivial. If you can muster 20+ rage per swing, then you can Hamstring twice between attacks for triple hits. Anywhere inbetween and you will simply hamstring at least once, occasionally twice while your autoattack timer is counting down. SotC at +46% simply does not compete with a Warrior's spam giving him over +100%. A Hunter in particular can easily obtain tripled hits from Wing Clipping twice between autoattacks. It is actually slightly better than that since you have more than 3 seconds between regular attacks. If there is a Shaman in the party a Warrior or Hunter can enjoy a Windfury totem too for another +15% multiplier on the number of attacks that can proc Nightfall, but that is not a relevant concern for Paladins.

[Theloras]

Putting aside your appeal to nerf vanilla mechanics...

That's rich coming from you bro...

If that's the case, then why didn't every raiding guild in the world have all of their Hunters and off tanks using Nightfall ad nauseum back in Vanilla?

Likewise, then why did the Peenix Devs nerf it to the ground?

Love,

Theloras