[Lindalind]

Originally Posted by greatdane [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Wizards: the only nuker class that really thrives, and still I wouldn't call them great. Lure spells will land on raid mobs, but they have horrible mana efficiency and wizards bring literally nothing but damage. Melee still out-shines them, raid mobs get so many HP that you can't burn them down, and there isn't enough flowing thought gear in the game until Luclin/PoP for a wizard to really be able to provide sustained damage throughout the entire fight. There were still places where coordinated burst damage has value, and it's nice to avoid AoEs, but casters weren't truly on par with melee until AAs.

Rogues: best DPS, though if you can't get one of the very high-end daggers from Vulak, Tunare etc., you don't actually get much better between Kunark and Velious. Goes to show how insane of a boost 51-60 and Ragebringer was for rogues. You should have max str/dex without Avatar anyway.

Monks: insane class until the nerf hits, which isn't until Luclin/PoP. The vast amounts of 100HP/20+AC items in Velious makes this class absurdly strong, able to tank much better than a DPS class should while doing great DPS and retaining the critical role of best puller. They lose all of that in later expansions which probably made Furor jizz his pants, but in Velious, raid-geared monks are just too good.

Bards: still a fine class, and crucial on raids for their resist songs, but many of their songs lose value as people easily hit caps with the wide variety of 41% haste items and +20ish stats/resist gear in Velious. I personally think this class goes downhill after Kunark and descends from superb to good. It's only because songs are limited to your group that they don't end up at the enchanter status of "just need one or two for the buffs". They also don't benefit much from gear, lacking the incentive to optimize melee DPS and having no use for the flowing thought items that appear in Velious. Can do silly things solo, but a lot of mobs start summoning by then.

Wizards though are great to burn the raid mob down fast along with the rogues and monks in the last half or so when they won't get much or perhaps any agro. A couple groups of wizards will add a ton of firepower and the fight will go a lot faster since they can go all out at that point.