The Obsidian Armor buff that Rhyolith has will prevent you from making any meaningful comparison of cross-role DPS. Just because a cat does less overall damage in the encounter because he's attacking a target that starts out taking 80% less damage, doesn't mean his raid contribution isn't just as important as someone who is doing AOE on adds without that buff. The best you can hope for would be to look only at the melee DPS classes and compare within those. Trying to make any type of argument that includes Rhyolith undermines the remainder of your case.

oops, that wasn't meant to be a reply to this post which I agree with.

@nymrohd: I didn't look at H Shannox, just N, for the reasons outlined at the top of the article. WRT Rhyolith: I agree. As mentioned in the article, Rhyolith isn't a great comparison, but it's really the only fight this tier with mass AoE. (Beth'tilac might have been a better example, but the AoE periods are so short that it's hard to find useful data; same for Rag.)

I agree that Firelands is gimmicky, and assignments affect your DPS. The thing that frustrates me is that ranged DPS get their choice of assignment, while melee DPS are locked into an exclusive role. Put another way: 10m FL is MASSIVELY harder with an all-melee DPS team then it is with an all-ranged team.