10. The Enhancement Shaman

Shaman DPS is a little bit of a meme in the WoW Classic community. However, thousands of players have logged their raids' meters. The numbers don't lie. Shamans are doing okay damage. Not the greatest, but neither of the damage specializations are worse than a Balance Druid.

• Shaman DPS may not be the highest, but it is above the damage most tanks are doing. Beats the hell out of a boomchicken too.
• Shamans add DPS for the melee in your raid. It doesn't show up on the meters under your name, but elemental/enhancements are adding hundreds of DPS to your raid group overall. It's also going to be unreliable for a healing shaman to twist totems for maximum raid DPS. An enhancement or elemental shaman would have a much easier time doing this for the raid.

9. Retribution Paladin

Perhaps the most commonly mocked DPS right now in game is the Retribution Paladin. It's hard to blame people for not liking the specialization. Almost all your damage comes from auto attacks.What the class lacks in interactivity, it makes up for in being statistically the 9th best choice for damage.

• Similar to the shaman, paladins provide more raid damage than is attributed to them directly on the meters. It's a utility class. Maybe your raids' paladin shouldn't be Retribution, but there are worse options.
• Decent for beginners. It's much easier to focus on mechanics when the requirements to play this class are quite low.

8. Shadow Priest

Shadow priest is a class most people think of as only being viable for raids after the Burning Crusades. The DPS logs for WoW Classic are showing a much different truth. In current raid content, there are Shadow Priests competing with Warlocks. No one really expected that, and a lot of things we expected from those who have played private servers over the years have proved to be a little different in practice with official Blizzard servers.

• Competitive damage. With proper mana management and consumable use, Shadow Priests will do plenty of damage. Especially in longer fights.
• Shadow Weaving debuff gives both the priests and warlocks in the group more damage.
• Great in PvP and no need to respecialize for raids.

7. Assassination/Subtlety Rogue

Rogues in all forms do great damage. Not all specializations are created equal. The logs we have show rogues in two categories. Everyone has reasoned the category with the higher damage is Combat Rogues. The other two specializations of rogues fall behind, but they're still perfectly fine for casual guilds doing raid content. 

• Don't want to respec for PvP? You don't have to necessarily. Your subtlety rogue that does insane burst damage in PvP is still going to hit hard enough for raids.
• Open ended gear options. You don't have to get the best swords like you would as combat. Assassination rogues use daggers. Subtlety rogues use any weapon they feel like using.

6. Feral Druids

In the heyday of World of Warcraft, Feral DPS was considered completely unplayable. With years of experimentation on private servers, players discovered two low level items that gave the kitties competitive DPS in raids. Feral druids will not scale well as the content progresses and everyone else is getting new gear. Feral is solid enough to take to any raid still.

• Not reliant on gear at all. Your best-in-slot weapon is a level 27 mace from Gnomeregan. You're going to be farming those maces for their On Use effect, but you won't have to worry about competing for gear in raids.
• Feral Druids are versatile, annoying, disruptive machines in PvP. You can sit solid on the charts, and be unkillable in PvP if you like both aspects of the game.

5. Destruction Warlock

Aside from the problems warlocks have with acquiring enough spell hit to avoid too many resists in raids, when they hit their target, they hit hard. Those issues are going to be solved in the next content patch with more spell hit gear dropping in Zul'Gurub. Warlocks aren't the most tantalizing DPS right now, but they scale well and can become arguably the strongest spellcasters in Naxxramas.

• Heavy burst damage. Creates problems with keeping your threat levels low, but it's very satisfying to get big critical strikes with shadow bolts.
• Strong instant damage over time spells that are useful for fights that allow cleave damage. Warlocks can fill their screen up with damage.

4. Marksmanship Hunter

Hunters are competing at a very high level in the current content. They're extremely simple to level. Their skill ceiling is through the roof with the current trend of "melee weaving" or getting in Raptor Strikes between Multishot/Aimed Shots. And even without doing the complex mechanic, they're beating the classes below them on this list.

• Ranged damage. Great for fights where you might have dragons flying around or enemies that blast molten lava out of their bodies. Both of these are pretty common in Classic WoW.
• May not scale great with gear, but you'll always have a raid spot for your Tranquilizing Shot.

3. Frost Mage

Fire is right around the corner when they release Ahn'Qiraj, but the Frost Mage is currently averaging out to the third best DPS in the game. It's fairly complex to gear, very easy to play, and always guaranteed a spot. Scaling will be amazing for mages as the game progresses, so it's never a bad time to make a mage.

• Strongest area of effect damage in the game.
• Your rotation is literally spamming Frostbolts. If you're very new to the game and want to be at the top of the damage meters, there's not a better class than a mage for you.

2. The Combat Rogue

Rogues have power, speed, a fun rotation, and basically endless damage. Long fights don't stop rogues. There's no need to manage a resource when your energy keeps replenishing. Rogue gear is itemized so well, they are strong at every point in Classic. Rogue is currently strong, and it gets stronger at a more than fair rate.

• Consistent, steady damage. Not as reliant on random chance as other classes. If you keep your Slice and Dice buff, spam Sinister Strike, and hit an Eviserate when you have the spare combo points, you'll always be at or near the top of the meters.
• Raid groups want a lot of rogues. It's too hard to pass up a rogue.

1. Fury Warrior

In 2004, only the best guilds would even consider a warrior could be a strong DPS class. With years to learn how the gear works, how classes scale, ect. -- warriors were found to be potent damage sometime in the Burning Crusades. With all this knowledge collected on Fury Warriors, they are doing better on the meters than any class.

• Enormous critical strikes. When enemies fall under 20% health, Execute will give you the highest damage of any skill in the game.
• Stocking up with plenty of hit percentage gear gives you the consistency for a normal rotation. A class that was thought to be unreliable can be consistently good and has a chance to be insane with critical strikes.

You may also be interested in:

• [Top 10] WoW Classic Best DPS Class
• Top 15 WoW Classic Best Addons Every Player Needs (2020 Edition)
• [Top 10] WoW Classic: Best Classes for PvP
• [Top 10] WoW Classic Best Classes (Most Useful)