Are class roles outdated?

[Zka]

Without tanks, it's all dps with selfheals. Doesn't sound very interesting.

[Varabently]

From a "realistic" perspective, I doubt a tank, no matter the skill would be any better equipped to withstand a huge dragon hitting him. Shield or not, you're still going to be overpowered. But that's not really good gameplay.

What I'd like to see is bosses who just hit so freakin hard that you have to constantly keep all hots, shields, etc. on the tank or they will die. Like if he doesn't get heals for a few seconds, he dies. I think that would be better. Healing would be harder, but that's OK.

On the other hand, it's not really useful to think about what's realistic because there's no magic or healing really on the battlefield. I like the idea of a GW2-esque game where everyone sort of fends for themselves. That feels more real to me. Having healers who just stare at action bars and stuff seems like shitty gameplay to me.

[Deleted]

I like the idea of a GW2-esque game where everyone sort of fends for themselves.

That is exactly the opposite of what an MMO should be. If you want to roll around dodging enemies attacks, you are way better with games like Dark Souls, there is no reason to play a cheap version of it as an MMO. An MMO is supposed to be a teamwork of multiple people, meaning an organised combat, tactics, strategies.

Having healers who just stare at action bars and stuff seems like shitty gameplay to me.

That is a matter of personal preferences and since you are not forced to be a healer it isn't a reason to deny this role to people who enjoy staring at health bars.

[Zka]

What I'd like to see is bosses who just hit so freakin hard that you have to constantly keep all hots, shields, etc. on the tank or they will die. Like if he doesn't get heals for a few seconds, he dies. I think that would be better. Healing would be harder, but that's OK.

That was how healing worked in BC at some bosses/heroic trash. Stuff were often swinging for 1/2 of tank health at 1.6 or 2.0 attack speed and if your healers had to move a bit, you better dodged. How I loved it both as tank and healer.

[Vaelorian]

The holy trinity is something that like cannot be removed. However, what has happened to it in WoW?

Vanilla:
you need a tank else you are dead!
you need dps else it takes ages!
you need a healer else everyone dies!

fast forward:
if you are a tank you do not really need to hold agro much, you just hit it once and it sticks to you like glue - and if you are not there pff some plate guy or dpsmonk can tank for you instead, just spamheal

Also feel that tanks these days get yelled at a lot more. But I might just not really experienced it until Cata really that tanks have it so bad. It is also very boring these days to tank because it is so easy imo. (not talking heroic raids)

So if agro-management (yes we used that term in Vanilla etc) would be brought back where dps could potentially outagro the tank if the tank sucked, it would be a step in the right direction
So if tanks would have fun abilities - perhaps there would be more tanks

The holy trinity is also something that I enjoy really. I like being a healer myself. I like healing a tank that takes the most of the incoming damage. I like that dps usually does not take most of the damage unless shit hits the fan and that can be fun too.

[smokii]

how long til blizzard introduces NPC "heroes" as tanks for LFR, with a little bit of AI and task sequencing it's totally possible

it'd be a queue busting technique - hmmm, LFR queue is an hour long, loads of dps, a few healers, no tanks - queue pops up with a random hero NPC to tank for you, who knows where and how to position the boss as well as perform a flawless rotation, also pulls trash mobs at a relative pace and never loses aggro.

they might even do something dumb like add them as an unlockable option from garrisons - seeing as you'll be able to gear up people in your garrison to send them on their own raids to get you gear, you might as well be able to take them with you when you go raiding if you can't find enough people. if everyone who commited some time to garrisons could have their own personal healer/tank/dps npc to bring into a raid that was short of numbers, WoW would suddenly become a small group mmo and it would break down the need for guilds even further.

do i think it'd be good for the game? not really
do i think blizz would ever do it? not really

is it plausible that blizz might do it one day? totally.

[Deleted]

These days, at least in a raid environment, the DPS role basically involves optimizing DPS output whilst dealing with mechanics.

Everyone is dealing with mechanics.

The difference is that: Tank has responsibility, Healer has responsibility, DPS happy button mashing

[-Superman-]

Well, aside from a misleading title, and an anti-tank agenda, I would have to say, No. They are not outdated. For centuries, armies have used special teams to complete tasks. Each team member had a role to play and a task to complete. In the more modern world, you have a squad leader who takes the point, support troops, a medic, a communications expert, and a demolitions expert.

I understand comparing real world to fantasy world is always a stretch, but the example remains. Without specific parties playing the role they signed in for, you have Scenarios. Not Dungeons or Raids, but Scenarios. I think you will be hard pressed to convince Blizz, OR the players to replace ALL content with Scenarios.

[jellmoo]

No they are not. Roles make a ROLE playing game.

This is why GW2 fell so flat on it's face.

The Role in Role Playing Game has nothing to do with class role. The concept of it didn't even exist when the term was coined. Role simply means assuming a different role: i.e. that of your character. It has nothing to do with tank, healer or DPS.

The reality is that even without mechanics defining a role, players often find ways of introducing their own. GW2 is an example of that. While it technically did away with the holy trinity, players min/maxed their way into finding which class excelled the most, and created their own "meta" for optimal play. The big issue here is that the end result excluded a lot of classes from being considered for high end content.

At the end of the day, WoW is simply too entrenched in the class role idea to change. Another game could launch without class roles and be a success, but I can't see how an established game could make such a change without drastically overhauling the combat system. The closest we have for this are scenarios, and those are pretty much just a zerg rush through the thing.

[muto]

Nah we don't need roles. I face tanked Megaera on my Warlock.

[Keiyra]

Taking away roles would take away some of the "working as a team" aspect of raiding. If everyone is tank/heals/dps rolled into one it becomes more like 20 people fighting independently side by side, rather than 20 people fighting as a unified team.

[judgementofantonidas]

True. Scenarios are the first real attempt at this. Look how much people like those....

yep. i love them as tank, cause i need no one else.

[MoanaLisa]

The outlier in the trinity is tanking. Taken at the simplest level, you want to kill an enemy with damage, while having healing around to keep the people doing the damaging alive. It doesn't matter much if it's self-healing or from someone else. At the same time the group uses cc, taunts (another form of cc really) and other skills to control mobs and bosses to put them where you want them to the group's best advantage. There is a skillful game to be had by managing threat and control in such a way as to keep a boss busy while damaging him. And it doesn't necessarily have to involve someone standing there and being beat on, i.e. tanking. But that game isn't currently World of Warcraft as it sits now. I don't think it's GW2 either. I largely disagree that tanking introduces strategy to a fight. If anything it reduces the need for people to co-ordinate because everyone is put into a box and knows what they need to do.

The game is designed in another way but it would be interesting to speculate on a more D&D style design where roles are more spread out.

As far as WoW itself is concerned there's a problem with tanks and tanking right now, one that is largely community driven (although the role of tanking in itself is more thankless than the other two) and as a practical matter it's something that Blizzard needs to think about. If it comes down to scripted tanks I'm fine with that although I would prefer a human being in charge. But I really do think that the role of 'roles', as it were could do with a serious "let's step back and really look at this" assessment on the part of developers.

[Hyve]

No, but a wider variety within them would be really awesome.

[Failmuffins]

I could maybe see this extending to 5 mans in a purely hypothetical situation, similar to how it works for scenarios (except with the requirement for a healer, and not for challenge mode difficulty). That said, I think that tanking should definitely be a thing for raids. I don't think that turning every fight into a Faction Champions experience is the way to go.

If you really hate the dps queues, and can't find something to do in the meantime while waiting, I would suggest picking up a hybrid and healing with your loot specialization set to dps. It significantly speed up queue times, and you don't need to know much about healing to get through 5 mans/LFR. I do feel a little sorry for the mages/rogues/hunters/warlocks out there though.

[hrugner]

They are a little outdated, sure. There are tons of problems that seem to crop up when designing encounters due to desired changes in the amount of people brought along for each role. Should all roles be done away with? Probably not, but having the high level of specialization required for roles in WoW at the moment is probably too much. Any melee should be able to tank in a pinch, and most ranged should have some kind of healing, snaring, shielding ability to help keep those getting hit alive; but knowing exactly what your role in each fight will be before the fight starts makes the game boring fast.

[Mazinger-Z]

The holy trinity is something that like cannot be removed. However, what has happened to it in WoW?

Vanilla:
you need a tank else you are dead!
you need dps else it takes ages!
you need a healer else everyone dies!

fast forward:
if you are a tank you do not really need to hold agro much, you just hit it once and it sticks to you like glue - and if you are not there pff some plate guy or dpsmonk can tank for you instead, just spamheal

Also feel that tanks these days get yelled at a lot more. But I might just not really experienced it until Cata really that tanks have it so bad. It is also very boring these days to tank because it is so easy imo. (not talking heroic raids)

So if agro-management (yes we used that term in Vanilla etc) would be brought back where dps could potentially outagro the tank if the tank sucked, it would be a step in the right direction
So if tanks would have fun abilities - perhaps there would be more tanks

The holy trinity is also something that I enjoy really. I like being a healer myself. I like healing a tank that takes the most of the incoming damage. I like that dps usually does not take most of the damage unless shit hits the fan and that can be fun too.

What you're describing is an evolution of the model born out of a very binary pass/fail system. If there were even the slightest chance of failure, class balance would shift to the class with the smallest percentage of failure.

There's actually a good discussion (or was a good discussion, now it's just one idiot blithely yelling against the storm of logical discourse) over at GuildWars2 Guru about the necessity of role interdependency and very specifically how Guild Wars 2 lacks that interdependency (aside from trivializing content by bringing classes with very specific mitigation mechanics like reflect shields).

WoW's kind of evolved to this weird point largely out of a desire to make sure people aren't being excluded or minimized based on their choice of class to fulfill a role.

Its the part that eventually created hard divisions in terms of Specialization that destroyed a lot of cross-role mechanics each hybrid brought.

Roles aren't outdated, but WoW might've evolved them to a place where people are largely seeing roles and not classes and therefore little differentiation between Rogue DPS vs Warrior DPS vs Enh Shaman DPS.

The goal of any future game will be to figure out how to promote team interdependency without defaulting to the concept of a check/balance system amongst roles. Its not just going to require a fresh look at roles in general, but the concept of designing encounters that can be dealt with in a variety of ways.

The concept of roles is a 'control' mechanism... the foundation that theoretically allow WoW to create different encounters and new content. Without it, you end up with a hodge podge of contribution in game like GW2... where boss control (tanking) is almost impossible and where support (healing) through mishaps is almost impossible... so every man for himself and DPS it down. We'll rez you crappy no-dodgers (the only sign of being a good player is lasting through the encounter... whether or not you're actively contributing to the group's success) after the fight.

[Blufossa]

I've played games without the holy trinity and none of them have very fun PvE.

That's your opinion.

I thoroughly enjoy GW2 without the trinity. Everyone has to pull their own weight to get the dungeon done.

(Though I wish healing classes had a little more muscle to them in that game.)

[Mazinger-Z]

That's your opinion.

I thoroughly enjoy GW2 without the trinity. Everyone has to pull their own weight to get the dungeon done.

(Though I wish healing classes had a little more muscle to them in that game.)

Not me, I just lay down particle effects and as long as I don't fall down, I'm considered a 'GGG.'

[Chingylol]

That was how healing worked in BC at some bosses/heroic trash. Stuff were often swinging for 1/2 of tank health at 1.6 or 2.0 attack speed and if your healers had to move a bit, you better dodged. How I loved it both as tank and healer.

This. Used to MT in BC and as a prot warrior, pretty much every boss took 30-40% of your life per hit even if you blocked. If you didn't get heals for 5 seconds especially against Gruul, Mag, T5 and T6 bosses, you were finished. Freaking Teron Gorefiend would hit for like 50-60% of your life with decent gear.