Ships & Modules

Nightmare
Dominix Navy Issue
Rattlesnake

I can get over 1400 dps combined with guns/drones on my Navy Domi

Just got rid of my tengu.

Right now I use.
Golem
Vargur
Machariel.

The bottom two are awesome if you have good to maxed gunnery. The Mach is suppose to have more gank than the Var, not enough to matter. The Var can salvage as it goes, I will not come back in a noct. Better things to do. I just skip the loot in the Mach and lose considerable income. If you have the ISK and SP get one of each. Variety makes it so much more interesting.

I don't AFK so that is the least of my concern. Mission completion time is the deciding factor for me. I hate missioning so I want to spend as little time as possible. ( I just need isk because I suck at pvp )

Paladin
CNR
Nightmare
Legion
NDomi

Those have been the fastest for me so far. I do not have Minnie trained up enough for 4's.
-The Domi is exactly how Zhilia states it above. Great tank, Insane gank, sloow.
-Nightmare is some of the best gank but limited on damage type (but for my missions its not too big a deal), and weakest tank of the group.
-CNR is decent, but I think will be top of the food chain again after the update if they put in the proposed TC / TE changes.
-Legion... I do amazingly well in missions with my legion. I go through them rapidly, and rarely have any issue with them (sometimes ecms can be a bit annoying). But most don't seem to like it, so personal choice I guess.
-Paladin. I like my pally. its very similar to the Nighmare, although it has better tank and can salvage as it goes. Its not the greatest of the golems but I do feel its underrated.

Mach from all I have heard is the current king of the hill. Vargur also comes highly recommended. I can not pilot either though, so will keep my opinion to myself there. ;)

P.S.: I think people selling their Tengu's atm are making a mistake. I do not think it is going to be reduced in ability nearly as much as some people are complaining.

If your gun and shield skills are decent, the Machariel is a monster. I recently graduated from the Maelstrom, and the kill speed (and speed in general) is noticeable. She chews through ammo like a whale through krill, but it's a small price to pay for high performance. Tracking is good enough at distance to nail frigates as they burn closer, and even fighting in falloff the damage to harder targets is significant. XLSB II patches things up on the rare occasion there are enough targets to chew down the shield. But I was just running a mission the other night against Angels, and even simultaneously taking half a dozen Machs with a dozen Arch cruisers was only enough to make me mildly concerned.

I've never missioned elsewhere with it, but in Minmatar space, it kills things good.

MWD Mach is great for blitzing level 4s. The Mach's agility is a noticeable plus if you've ever had to wait on a wallowing pig of marauder to align.

Vargur is good if you want to loot/salvage, want an easy tank, etc..

Golem is Meh. I can't recommend it.

CNR is good if you can't be bothered to train up T2 guns.

there are only really 3 ships worth considering:

Nightmare
Machariel
Golem

Note that the Mach (and all Angels ships) are probably next in line for a nerf, one of the DEVS apologised for making it OP in the first place and hinted at changes. Then, with the unguided missiles/TC buff in mind, the Golem might become a powerhouse. Right now it's annoying to use due to needing tons of TPs (that won't really change too much) and having range issues.

To answer the OP's question: That depends on where you generally do missions. If you're in Amarr space then a Nightmare or Paladin are great, outside Amarr space they "suck" due to damage types. Would you do mission in gall space then you're kinda forced to use pulses but when you load Scorch you mostly do EM damage which is crap against Serp. against Guristas it's gonna be crap whichever way you look at it because thermal is secondary damage type against Guristas and it's also your secondary so it'll be crap too.

Best allround atm is the Mach (but again, expect it to be nerfed) and the Vargur and possibly (with upcoming changes) the Golem, also you can't really go wrong with a CNR apart from it being boring as fck. If you stick to specific faction space then the answer will be different.

The Mael's a good stepping-stone. Just remember that it tanks like a brick smokehouse and moves about as fast, but if you're willing to swap a full artillery rack and a full autocannon rack depending on the hostiles you're planning to face, it'll take on just about anything, from in-your-face Angels and mercs to 50-klick-kiting Guristas. (It's good to have some spare parts for mission-specific tank switch-outs as well.)

(And maybe a DC II until you get a feel for how the ship handles.)