I'm going to start a thread that maybe everyone will love. BEST METAL GUITARIST. Go ahead and start replying as soon as possible. Thanks.

1. Kirk Hammett
2. Zakk Wylde
3. Billy Howerdel (He's really innovative in my eyes. The way he plays "Rose" is awesome.)

Best "metal" guitarist? I would have to say Dimebag. That's basically all he plays, so he has a good head for that sort of thing.

__________________
Ain't nothin' but a Gear thang, baby!

to me the best metal guitarist should be dimebag darrell. he totally rocks on his own man...he is practically PANTERA.
kirk hammet or karl logan may come in second...

Randy Rhoads all the way... the man was a musical genius.

__________________
"When you're a young, long haired guitarist, people don't take you seriously." - John Petrucci

Very true. Randy Rhoads was incredible. But he was more of a classical guitarist and that's why his sound was so unique with Ozzy. But Dimebag is all "metal". He doesn't care about being well rounded at the guitar. He just wants to make the biggest, hardest metal riffs you've ever heard, and that's exactly what he does. Check out the riff to "Regular People", "Walk", and anything else off of any Pantera album and you can see that this guy is METAL!

__________________
Ain't nothin' but a Gear thang, baby!

<<<But he was more of a classical guitarist and that's why his sound was so unique with Ozzy.>>>
I disagree, he was a poor classical guitarrist. He was a hard rock/metal guitarrist who incorporated some classical ideas (i.e. diatonic scales, arpeggios) into his playing. As a true fingerstlye classical guitarrist he was nothing special. Check out Dee, it's a nice song, but compare it to music played by somebody like Elliot Fisk, Chris Parkening, John Williams, and it sounds like the work of an amateur.
If what you mean is that his lead guitar ideas came more from classical music, well I'd still debate that (A lot of his pentatonic stuff sounds much more like it's coming from blues based rock than from bach) but I think there's a stronger argument. In that he used trills, played fast, and that he often played diatonic scales, his rock playing was influenced by classical music. Imho these are quite superficial, surface aspects that don't really make music classical, but many people look at things that way and I understand where they're coming from.

Since I think rhythm playing is more important than lead in metal, my list is going to be different.
Dave Mustaine
James Hetfield (well... maybe not now..)
Jimmy Brown