Whats your opinion on what the easiest role is?

[Tekkommo]

Easiest to Carry
DPS
Healer
Tank

Hardest to Master
DPS
Healer
Tank

[Lotus Victoria]

In normal PvE, probably DPS.
In raiding, healing, I guess.
And in PvP, doesn't matter!

[Deleted]

Do bad dps as a dps and you may get kicked/benched. Do bad dps as a tank and no one cares.
On the other hand, tanks usually have more mechanics to wrorry about.

[Deleted]

Will make a slight differentiation to the poll options.

Ranged DPS > Tank > melee DPS > Healing

Easiest to hardest in the grand scheme of things, ofc in specific fights one role or another has it easier because of having to deal with a specifically for them designed mechanic

[Aphrel]

Depending on what demands you put on yourself, dps could either be easiest or hardest. If you wanna master your class and optimize your dps then id say dpsing is the hardest role. But if your one of those "as long as the boss dies" ppl then dps is the easiest.

[OneMoreTime]

As a 581 Tank, 576 DPS, and 557 Healer... Tank Tank TANK!

[mittacc]

Early on I think DPS probably is the easiest since the enrage timers are kinda long. Later on it's a close run between tanks and healers but healers take the cake there since the better your teammates get the easier it is for you, and if you have a boss on farm it'll be easier both stat wise and the group will make less mistakes -> easy to heal.

Early: DPS
Late: healers

[Larynx]

Early on I think DPS probably is the easiest since the enrage timers are kinda long.

What raids have you been doing...?

[Acelius]

I personally think DPS is the easiest role.

[Gaman]

I voted DPS, but that's just because I have not tried anything else, and after playing DPS for a long time, things ain't really that challenging anymore in a scripted event.

[nekobaka]

Varies on the difficulty of the content you are playing. With stuff like LFR it is heavily skewed with IMO tanks having the most responsibility and effort input then healers and DPS a far last. As difficulty picks up the roles start equalizing in responsibility and tasks that tanks have to do dont change as much as the other roles. I havent done heroic this expansion, but last expansion the DPS role IMO edge out as the hardest overall then flip flop between healers and tanks depending on fight.

For the lower difficulties especially the bottom will have Blizzard babying the DPS with only a few having any responsibilities as Blizzard likes to limit responsibilities to tanking and healing roles, but that has changed over the years with many bitching DPS who obviously dont like group based content. Would be nice to see more leveling out between the roles in lower difficulty content. Hard to get people to tank even those who like it when the other roles can slack off so much.

[Kavorka]

I voted DPS. If tanking and healing was so easy, then I would think my DPS queue times would be lower 'cos more people would be taking up a tank or heals role ^^

[Deleted]

Healing is easiest by far. Just spam your chain heal and you'll be a star.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

Healing is easiest by far. Just spam your chain heal and you'll be a star.

Says someone who clearly doesn't play all roles.

[Deleted]

Says someone who clearly doesn't play all roles.

I will take from this that while you do cast an unfounded aspersion on me you do not disagree with what I said.

[TEHPALLYTANK]

I will take from this that while you do cast an unfounded aspersion on me you do not disagree with what I said.

Sure, whatever makes you happy.

[Valsh]

Tanks get encounter immunity to most mechanics, generating threat was made to be a complete joke early Cataclysm so outside of the few fights where they get some special mechanics directed at them(Siegecrafter) they're very easy to play.

[Adsertif]

Tanking has increased in difficulty, but it's still probably the easiest role, it's not selfish like DPS, but it is very boring unless you're tanking cutting edge content where every boss's swing needs to be mitigated and healed through maximally.

DPS is probably one of the hardest to be prestigious in, given you are a class that isn't particularly overpowered that tier. There's a high skill cap on it -- Okay, you can press a few buttons and manage to pull viable numbers, okay, you can avoid mechanics. Now that you've done that, look at yourself. And compare yourself to someone in Paragon or Method, or another exceptional player who just can't manage to raid stupid hours. Why are they shitting all over your output, survivability, and versatility? Because they are near the skill cap, you aren't.

I heard something from someone, I forget who, when I started playing six years ago, I won't forget it:
Tanking is a job, Healing is an art, Damage Dealing is a science.

You rarely see a "chart topper" or veteran hardcore raider who isn't one of the best players you've played with -- once you've danced around at the top of the charts, and were in the cutting edge of adapting to mechanics and gaining an intuition of this game that's versatile in the sense of throwing anything at it, you've accomplished a feat of being an exceptional damage dealer. Something many people can't say, because there's probably a 3:1 ratio on other roles comparably, now fill in the shitters who say they aren't good because they have a life, but don't have the motivation to become any better than they are, the reason will always be "I have a life" but they can stay at the bottom -- now you see the percentage of exceptional damage dealers grows exponentially smaller than the other roles, right?

Raid awareness is a skill that can be highly adapted to the point you foresee a myriad of mechanics that you can act on within in a split second. There comes a point when you are ready for anything, and you're pulling a boss mob where the learning curve on an encounter is low and there isn't a lot of information. But you just intuitively play the game, you just never die though, because you're that fucking good. It exists, but barely no one has that intuition of raiding, that's why that one guy in your raid never ever dies -- he probably has this to a degree. Researching profusely, strategizing, theorycrafting, and pulling the boss in testing all augment this or compensate for this and give you intuition to use on the encounter. Even that type of player should do this, it's honestly lazy not to, and any good guild will be theorizing strategies and having conversations over fights before they're released to develop this and synergy between the raid group.

Advice I heard from another player that was one of the best I've played with, something else I never forget:
Just play the game

I've always told myself this, and maybe my brain processes that and just goes back on my subconscious for playing, and I've always done a great job of not dying to new encounters or embarrassing myself. This might not work for the average player, but it's beautiful in its simplicity, it relieves a lot of the stress from things that most players will crack under, like playing well their first raid with a new guild, or pulling a boss for the first night.

There's a whole other debate on whether parses = skill, maybe they do, but I've never taken them serious to the point of obsession. I was in a guild who did the latter, and it drove me crazy, everyone padded, and boasted about their top ten parses, they were decent players, but I remember players who had these shiny parses dying to the stupidest shit imaginable, and getting yelled at. The best guilds aren't willing to tolerate that shit on progress, they see a damage dealer not focusing a mob and that damage dealer gets yelled at. The best thing is to find an equilibrium on raid awareness and maximizing damage, the latter usually doesn't matter unless you're in settings where you're pushing tight encounters with gear levels low as fuck, like Garrosh, or Ultraxion, or Paragons, or Gara'jal, or Spine, you get the point. I thought Paragons was one of the best encounters this tier because the skill needed in each category was exceptionally high.

I'm rolling off on tangents though... increasing order!
Tanks>Heals>DD

[Keoren]

It depends on the fight and required level of performance.