Who has the most important/stressful job.

[YigiBareTank]

It's somewhat dependent on the fights, but 80-90% of the time the healers job is the most stressful.
On fights where aggro is touchy and/or there are important adds to be picked up immediately, tanking can be more stressful, but for the most part, healing is the hardest.

[Jamsters]

I think tanking and healing go hand in hand. Tanks get put on the spot in some situations like heroic anub or various fights like that, but at the same time there are fights where all they do is pretty much mash out cd's and position boss correctly. Healers do have to be aware at all times, but they have a little more room to slack just because there are plenty of healers in a raid that if you screw up for a split second, sometimes someone can pick up your slack.

I Don't really think DPS is too stressful just because messing up your rotation doesn't wipe the raid.

[Esja]

I ignored the "important" part 'cause IMO they're all equally important.
However being someone who has done all of the roles for quite a while I'd say tanking is the most stressful. It's also the role I love doing the most! <3

[toat]

I would put Healing at the top for being the most stressful. But the most important i would give to the people who have the odd jobs in fights. example- Algalon star killing, Snaplasher kiting, Orb soaking, Firebot/bomb bot people on Firefighter. I give them the most important cause if you lose them it can snowball very quickly. Though losing a Tank can snowball quickly as well, where a healer dosn't always turn into a wipe.

[Onahail]

Actually I would say that DPS has an equal amount of stress if not more.
DPS has to fight against enrage timers (hard and soft)
Good DPS need to max everything they can to do more damage, make sure they survive, move in and out fire and various other obstacles, DPS and switching quickly and efficiently to adds and back to boss (something like twins stands out)

Being a healer back in TBC i can honestly say healing is the one thing that stays constant, you fill up the health bars, manage your mana and survive the fight you the next thing.

Being a melee dps i think of a lot of fights that puts stress on me more so then healing, but i am not going to get into comparisons.

All in all its a personal thing, also i have played a tank but i have an understanding for all classes and class roles and i think you have over simplified the role of a tank and dps a little to much, i think anyone could continue to add a load of things that could say "my role is harder", and someone can just reply back with "no mine is harder because of this".

/shrug?

Fighting the enrage timer really doesn't make a valid argument behind why DPS is the most important. That's a group effort, one person isn't going to single handedly cause the fight to be over quicker or beat the enrage timer. Aside from watching where you're standing, the biggest thing on your mind is keeping your rotation going smoothly.

As a healer, if what was constantly racing through my head while healing was able to be put on paper, you would see a lot of quick decision making, self arguments, and reasoning, and all of it being decided and filtered out in seconds. We don't have a set rotation, there's no guide on how to heal properly. There may be some tips or tricks but all in all you can't teach someone how to heal effectively. Knowing what ability to use, when to use it, deciding who needs the heal more, and being able to think about possible outcomes for your actions, all comes with experience and time.

Having to be able to think on your feet, I think, is a huge reason why healing tends to become so stressful. Your decisions can very well make or break an encounter.

[blahism]

I occasionally heal on my Pally / Druid, and I play Solitare sometimes during the pull (Depending on how geared the tank is / what we're doing), paying some attention to the health boxes behind the application; and I have yet to wipe.

so you publicly admit that you're guild & friends carry you during raids? nice

[LemonJuice]

As far as importance goes, all of them are the same, you can't kill serious boss only with tanks and healers, as you can't with tanks and dps and... you got it.

As for stress, after playing the whole vanilla PvE content as a healer with my paladin, i wanted to try some tanking in TBC, so i leveled my druid, specced him for this role (lvl 64-65, nothing too serious) and tried tanking in few dungeons. We cleared them all, but i was so stressed during the runs...it was all new to me. For me having done a lot of healing, moderate dps (in PvE, PvP is another story) and almost no tanking, this role seems to be most stressful.

Healer is most often blamed for wipes, unless it's obvious error of the others, but i would still choose to be healer in instances, because this is what i can do best, don't call me if you need a tank :P

[Phenetix]

All are needed to get the job done right. I have had the pleasure of doing them all & I must say that Tank/Healers catch the most flack for minor mistakes etc. It's absurd how rough some of you are on them. WoW players are far from forgiving.

[Deimien]

so you publicly admit that you're guild & friends carry you during raids? nice

I don't have a raid guild / lots of friends playing after the 4th time quiting and returning; it's all pugs.

And as I said before, it depends on what I'm doing. I heal in H UK, more often than not I can just pop up my Solitare tab until I feel like it's necessary to unload a 17k Holy light crit, or to refresh a Lifebloom stack. Every healing class has an, "Oh shit it's time to heal" button. With lots of tanks running around in Conquest gear / VoA drops, it takes awhile for them to lose HPs.

[Onahail]

I would put Healing at the top for being the most stressful. But the most important i would give to the people who have the odd jobs in fights. example- Algalon star killing, Snaplasher kiting, Orb soaking, Firebot/bomb bot people on Firefighter. I give them the most important cause if you lose them it can snowball very quickly. Though losing a Tank can snowball quickly as well, where a healer dosn't always turn into a wipe.

You do have a point with various jobs being important, and like I said earlier, there are various exceptions to importantance/stress in a raid but in the grand scheme of things I still think healers have it the hardest. Losing a healer may not turn into a wipe but every healer lost drastically increases the difficulty factor and stress upon those healers still left standing. In the average 25 man raid there's usually 6-7 healers but on a lot of fights, even with 5 or 6 other healers backing you up, it still feels like you're alone. Looking at healing meters at the end can proove this. When you see every healer doing damn close to the same amount, you know they are all being put to work.

[Netherinfern0]

Being a GOOD DPS is on par with healing.

[Nosotros]

I'd have to say tanking, like a lot of people, i've played all three
but healing I would find myself skinning or minimizing during fights, really wasn't stressful at all
more relaxing, and dps obviously doesnt even come close to the stress of the other two,
the only thing dps have to stress about is having to roll against more people for their epics

[KhameleonN]

teh only reason tank isn't winning is because there are less tanks to vote "tank"

[Onahail]

Being a GOOD DPS is on par with healing.

Can you clarify? I would like to know the reasoning behind this lol.

[Onahail]

I'd have to say tanking, like a lot of people, i've played all three
but healing I would find myself skinning or minimizing during fights, really wasn't stressful at all
more relaxing, and dps obviously doesnt even come close to the stress of the other two,
the only thing dps have to stress about is having to roll against more people for their epics

Then you haven't healed any hard-modes. Minimize during any one of them and people are gunna die.

[blahism]

Being a GOOD DPS is on par with healing.

Not at all..

Being a good DPS is fixed to sticking to best practices.. being a good healer is knowing best practices but being able to critically think on the spot and pull spells out of your ass to save the day.

THey're drastically different.. I can roll a mage, get geared out in t9 and faceroll 7-8k in raids without much effort other then knowing what procs what and when. Healers dont' have that consistency at all.

[Onahail]

Not at all..

Being a good DPS is fixed to sticking to best practices.. being a good healer is knowing best practices but being able to critically think on the spot and pull spells out of your ass to save the day.

THey're drastically different.. I can roll a mage, get geared out in t9 and faceroll 7-8k in raids without much effort other then knowing what procs what and when. Healers dont' have that consistency at all.

WTB Ability to faceroll or have a set rotation

[Nosotros]

Then you haven't healed any hard-modes. Minimize during any one of them and people are gunna die.

I didn't have a healer very long, got hacked and lost my priest and blizzard refuses to give back.
so no haven't healed hard-modes

[syanid]

Being a GOOD DPS is on par with healing.

DPS classes have rotations. DPS classes never face "OH SHIT" situations when someone is on 500hp and about to die. You can miss an ability in your rotation, in grand scheme it won't be remotely the same as forgetting to cast Guardian Spirit / Divine Guardian when tank is about to die from the next boss hit. There are numerous situations like these, healers are the most stressfull to play sort to say because they don't have a rotation and have to react / adapt to the situation. DPS doesn't have to adapt to the same extent.

Played dps and healer, healer is more difficult no doubt about it. Can't say anything for tanking.

[Dreamless]

I'd have to say tanking, like a lot of people, i've played all three
but healing I would find myself skinning or minimizing during fights, really wasn't stressful at all
more relaxing, and dps obviously doesnt even come close to the stress of the other two,
the only thing dps have to stress about is having to roll against more people for their epics

Your guild, then, is bringing way too many healers to encounters.