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I was hoping to start a DPS class to fool around with when I am not healing. What is the easiest dps class to play or easiest to master?

Thanks.

I was hoping to start a DPS class to fool around with when I am not healing. What is the easiest dps class to play or easiest to master?

Well, some of the easiest to play are Hunters, Paladins, and DKs. As far as mastering goes... I really don't know if there's an "easy" one, I mean Ret Paladins are extremely forgiving if you mess up 20% of the time compared to Arcane Mages (3% loss of DPS for Ret compared to 11% for Arcane).

02/07/2012 01:30 PMPosted by Sethmann

I was hoping to start a DPS class to fool around with when I am not healing. What is the easiest dps class to play or easiest to master?

Well, some of the easiest to play are Hunters, Paladins, and DKs. As far as mastering goes... I really don't know if there's an "easy" one, I mean Ret Paladins are extremely forgiving if you mess up 20% of the time compared to Arcane Mages (3% loss of DPS for Ret compared to 11% for Arcane).

Look past the numbers.

Arcane uses Arcane Blast and Arcane Missiles, with around 85% to 95% just from AB.

If you mess up 20 percent of the time as Arcane, that means 20% of the time you pressed AM instead of AB, which is a MASSIVE DPS loss. But how realistic is it for an arcane mage who has any inkling of what they're doing to mess up like that?

Ret has its damage spread much more evenly across its attacks, which means less DPS loss for each wrong button pressed. However, its much easier to press something wrong as ret than arcane, due to both a more complex priority system and RNG.

EDIT: To answer the OP's question, arcane mages use 2 or 3 buttons and mastering it requires nothing more than good knowledge of the fights.

All of them.

All of them are easy. Ulduar Feral was hard.

its much easier to press something wrong as ret than arcane, due to both a more complex priority system and RNG.

EDIT: To answer the OP's question, arcane mages use 2 or 3 buttons and mastering it requires nothing more than good knowledge of the fights.

Oh look another ignorant poster. If you mention arcane before fire you are misinformed. It is quite literally impossible to play arcane perfectly. The reaction time and variables you need to take into account make doing 100% of your potential only possible for a computer.

But to answer the OP literally no dps is hard.

All of them except Destro Lock

Fixed

Also BM seems just as faceroll as arcane:

The most basic priority for single targets will be something like this:
1. If your pet is on the target, Kill Command
2. If the mob is going to live long enough, apply Serpent Sting.
3. If mob is below 20% health, Kill Shot
4. If you have enough focus to cast Kill command on CD, Arcane Shot
5. Cobra Shot

To me that reads spam kill command and cobra shot while watching TV.

http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Spec_Score/25H/all/14/60/default/

All parses for 25m hardmodes.

Arcane is also at the bottom. Fire is easier to play at max level. These are facts.

its much easier to press something wrong as ret than arcane, due to both a more complex priority system and RNG.

EDIT: To answer the OP's question, arcane mages use 2 or 3 buttons and mastering it requires nothing more than good knowledge of the fights.

Oh look another ignorant poster. If you mention arcane before fire you are misinformed. It is quite literally impossible to play arcane perfectly. The reaction time and variables you need to take into account make doing 100% of your potential only possible for a computer.

But to answer the OP literally no dps is hard.

Why only call him out for being ignorant when the person he quoted was just as blatantly wrong?

02/07/2012 01:30 PMPosted by Sethmann

I mean Ret Paladins are extremely forgiving if you mess up 20% of the time compared to Arcane Mages (3% loss of DPS for Ret compared to 11% for Arcane).

I'm not going to comment on Arcane because I've never played one, and you should probably give other specs the same respect. And if you do play a Ret, then it's clear you're not very good at it. Rets are cooldown based. There are many ways to mess up as Ret. It's an easy "rotation", but it's also very easy to mess up because every time you delay your Crusader Strike, it adds up. And at the end of a fight it amounts to a lot of potential TVs that were lost. It's a lot more than 3% damage loss.

For my 2 cents, Arcane mage is by far the simplest class to play and I have 5 toons at 85. Leveling is extremely fast and easy (with BOA gear), took me less than a month of casual play to get to 85. Ceratisa is correct that it takes some talent to get 100% of your potential (true of every single spec in the game) however all but complete failures can master the arcane rotation enough to get 95% of your potential regularly which, as of the latest patch, does more damage then most other classes/specs with similar ilvls.

I have to agree the 2 button wonder of Arcane is by far the easiest dps to play. Just like every other dps you still need to learn the fights and when to move.

Anyone who says arcane is an easy spec, much less the easiest mage spec, has not played it substantially or at any sort of a decent level. Period.

Fire is far easier to max the dps. Arcane, especially with its tricky 4p, is tough as nails to get down. This is coming from a mage that regularly hits top 5% on fights. I'm good, but I still don't feel comfortable with arcane. Probably never will.

Again, look at this link:

http://raidbots.com/dpsbot/Spec_Score/25H/all/14/60/default/

Arcane is near dead last, and fire is near top. And yet they sim very similarly. Meaning realizing fire's max potential is way easier for dedicated raiders to hit than arcane. I would imagine it's even harder for someone looking for an "easy" class.

Mediocre/inexperienced players think arcane is good because it's faceroll easy to hit maybe 60% of the classes' potential. But squeezing that last 40% is where it gets pretty tough. The numbers don't lie.

Anyway, from my experience, the easiest dps classes are enhance shaman (low amount of cds, pretty simple priority rotation), boomkin, fire mage, and all three hunter specs. I would not put retadins up there, as someone else has. It's not a hard rotation, but it's more than a little awkward.

Hardest classes to max out are destro locks, arcane mages, and sub rogues.

My experience with Arcane is that it's conceptually very simple, but correct management of mana and cooldowns is not easy. Anyone can handle 'spam AB until at 40% mana, Evocate, maintain 90% mana until Evocate is off CD', but that's not the best cycle, and there are all these little tricks with the CDs that I never bothered learning that make all the difference (my mage is alt #5, and aside from a short dalliance with Arcane has always been Fire). Fire is a little trickier in the basic rotation, but mostly it's about twich reactions and having a decent addon to track Ignites so you know when to hit Combustion (though timing it all for good AoE is an art). Both raiding specs are pretty easy to get decent results with, but neither is that easy to get maximum potential results with.

Elemental is pretty straight-forward, IME. The main thing is reacting quickly to a proc, and managing the interacting of a stacking buff, a linked CD, and a DoT, but it's not hard if you're paying attention.

Retribution has a simple priority list that is not always at all easy to follow in practice. Getting it mostly right is, again, pretty easy. Getting it perfect is, OTOH, very hard. On top of that, because almost everything is on cooldowns, you need good twitch, and you need to be decisive - any delay in hitting buttons is a solid DPS loss. Also, while cooldown management is simple in theory (hit one, DPS for 10s, hit the others), in practice it can be a little tricky (timing it with Inquisition refreshes and Holy Power generation), and the DPS penalty for mistakes here is very high. Again, 'simple' but not 'easy' (and IMO ret is less simple than either mage spec, or shadow).

The orginal post was

02/07/2012 01:20 PMPosted by Sulphur

What is the easiest dps class to play or easiest to master?

There are max DPS threads if you want to be rude to other people Terrorific or rant about which spec does more damage. Calling people

02/07/2012 06:20 PMPosted by Terrorific

Mediocre/inexperienced players

because they share thier opinion and it is not the same as yours only shows your lack of character and respect for others. I am happy with my play style, its simplicity and DPS. If your not happy when you play then something is wrong and I hope you find a better outlet for it then insulting others. I took a quick look at your character, you are both experienced and very well geared. From what I saw you are the top dps in everything you do, but then you also have the legendary staff so I would hope that would be the case.

Anyways back to the orginal question, Hunters can be fairly straightforward with 3-4 shots making up most of your rotations, if you don't mind managing resources in rapid cycles then I would recommend that. They also have high survivability.

Boomkins are also straight forward, it is very fitting that they are the "balance" tree since you spend your time balancing your attacks (spamming 1 attack while keeping up DOTs) back and forth to achieve your eclipse's. Unlike some other casters the standard rotations never have mana issues and if you don't like the play style as you level then you can try one of the other trees for a completely different experience. Just be careful not to give yourself with the name "_Chicken".

I have heard that Shadow preist is fairly easy though I've never rolled one so I can't speak from exerience. Good luck finding something that you enjoy.

Okay, sorry about starting the flame wars that was not my intent. I should have been more specific but there is a lot here to go on, thanks.

I was asking for easy to play/easy to master. I mean once I have gear I will play raid with the toon once in a while (when I am not healing) so I need something that doesn't require a huge amount of time to master. Sounds like I should try a mage.

I cannot dps on this shaman because of raid locks and when I try on a raid dummy I can pull like 18-20k but there is lots of buttons and cooldowns to monitor. Obviously, if I played enh all the time the cooldowns will be second nature and I would not have to think about it and raid mechanics at the same time.

I want a DPS alt that I can jump in (with decent gear of course) every once in a while and not score last because I am having to think too much about cooldowns and priority.

Thanks for the input.

Mage would be hands down the easiest, fire and arcane both have very few skills in their single target rotation, fire does have one of the more complicated aoe rotations though. I also found ele shamans and dk pretty easy to get the hang of.

Doesn't surprise me to see mage saying ret is easy to play, people can't seem to get over wotlk it would seem, I suggest actually playing one to those that think we are easy, simply watching holy power and keep inquisition up along with two swapping priority lists based on our cooldowns and procs is much more difficult then any spec a mage has, I personally have a mage (arcane) and though it does involve a bit more then people give them credit for with mana management and burn/conserve phases it is still by far the easiest of all my alts.