Most stress filled position to play.

[Keimier]

Person's most played role > Person's second most played role > Person's least played role

WIN!

For those tanks who say that tanking isn't stressful, you ain't doin' it right.

And for those that say DPS is the most stressful, you're just saying that cause you have a 40min que time. And that would stress anyone out. LMFAO

[Deleted]

DPS is so relaxed I almost fall asleep during a few encounters.

Healing can be stressfull if your gear isnt up to scratch. Even when it is it can still be very stressfull.

Tanking is kinda cool if you have decent AOE abilities. Tanking a heroic pug as warrior. Thats hell on earth when people start attacking everything and your taunts have 8 sec and 3 mins CD and nobody stops nuking to allow you room to breathe and then you wipe and its... yupp... YOUR fault for not tanking properly. So you mark up and politely ask the healer to not heal people who attack the square when cross and skull is still up and so on, hoping it will send a hint to the dps. Ofc it doesnt send a hint. Still your fault when someone dies. So you leave the group muttering something about idiots and requeue and what do you get? Another identical group, only this time you are back at the start of the instance again. Wohoo! *suicide*

So. Tanking>Healing>Dps. At least if you ask me.

[Mixxy]

Interrupter > Healer > Melee DPS > Tank > Range DPS


To the people saying tank - you aren't fooling anyone. In the majority of encounters so far this expansion, tanking is mind-numbingly easy.
The only time Tanking can ever possibly be stressful is if you're partied with complete and utter freakin' retards. But that makes anyone's role stressful.

[IIamaKing]

Healing used to be LOL I cannot comment on it in cata as I havent healed yet. Tanking as gotten considerably more stressfull. Dps is as always totaly lol.

[Mixxy]

Because this is not true for all other roles?

That's right it isn't. When's the last time you had tanks bragging about their threat per second? How often does a raid bring up the subtle differences in their healers' HPS numbers as long as everyone's being kept alive?

[Shammywan]

Unless you got a very good guild:

healers: unpredictable thing to do with wipe if you mess up
tank: predictable thing to do with wipe if you mess up
dps: fairly predictable thing to do with no cost if you mess up once in a while

so, my vote goes to healer

[Daedius]

Raid-wise, Healer for sure... then tanking:

DPS just DPS, keeping an eye on timer bars for those things to interupt, and avoid fires...

Tanking, being aware of positioning while keeping an eye on timers and taking actions accordingly. Their attention is primarily on the boss, needing to keep their threat up 100% of the time, and taking adds when they crop up [or the off tank].

Healer, Constantly keeping eyes on people's healths, positions, timers to take actions, mana management, knowing when to use CDs, etc. [i.e. - Healer's eyes are all over the place].

If a tank doesn't get sufficient heals and dies, causes a wipe - that's what rests on a healer's shoulders. A DPS dying doesn't cause a wipe in most situations.

Funny thing is, in most cases... healers are the silent heroes that get no praise, while the DPS they can easily point out their DPS to show "I'm in top 3 DPS!", etc.

[Mixxy]

Unless you got a very good guild:

healers: unpredictable thing to do with wipe if you mess up
tank: predictable thing to do with wipe if you mess up
dps: fairly predictable thing to do with no cost if you mess up once in a while

so, my vote goes to healer

Enrage timers and crucial interrupts are a alien concepts to you, aren't they?

[Verdris]

None of them are particularly stressful, I've just noticed that I can basically AFK while I dps, yet healing requires me to look at the screen most of the time.

[anmblack1]

dps > tank > heal

because dps you gotta worry about rotation for max dmg and move outta shit, healers are prepared to move outta shit because they do nothing but use 1-3 spam spells

tanking might be stressful depending if u need to interuptt also doing a good rotation to max dps as well, healer is least stressful because you sit back and let ppl do the work, all you do is hit 3 buttons click some grid. healers have it easy when moving outta shit, sometimes you can just sit and do nothing (out of combat regen) as dps and tank is more constant.

or maybe healing is just easier for me in general, i play druid moonkin rotation can be stressful, as well as the bad aoe tanking bear does. healing on druid you can preheal stuff i think other healers are more reactive then spamming something to cover the raid even thou they still should "spam" like chain heal during aoe and prayer of healing also.

the game is mostly design so the tank just sits there and dps, and usually the spells hit other dps on most encounters the tank just "sits there" this is why its less stress then certain dps

[Deleted]

Some of you are implying that DPS doesn't matter in raids? Not much logic there..

Imo, DPS is definitely stressful, not necessarily more than other positions, but messing up your rotation can be real off-putting.

[Felaful]

No true tank would ever consider their job stressful. Thankless? Oh hell yes, but stressful not in the least. You know the entire encounter and what you will do from beginning to end. Rarely are you targeted by mechanics in the fight. Often times from start to finish where the fights begins for the tank the fight will end there as well. Healers are really the only ones who can really complain about the stress.

Healer > DPS/Offtank > Main Tank

ANY true (Role) will say their job isnt stressful because they have absolutely no issues playing it. It's when you jump into a different role that it becomes difficult. As far as my opinion goes, as much of a pain as it is keeping my dps at a decent number, it still doesn't matter if the encounter dies. I could be dead and it doesn't matter. I'm a tank with a dps offspec and yet the one role I hate is healing simply because I just can't do it. I will say that by no means is dps a harder role in general compared to healing and tanking. The reason most people are dps is because they don't want to play one of the more difficult roles. The only challenges I see behind being a dps is:

1) avoiding things in the encounter, and
2) topping my last dps recount meter. As long as im in the top 10 it doesn't matter.

Also, as far as the whole "tanks know the fight" excuse, that bs because any decent raider no matter what their spec, should know the fight before they join the raid group. It's not the tanks or raid leaders job to explain how to do it to people who blatantly chose not to study up on the fight.

Healer >>> Tank >>> Dps

[grayscale-warfare]

Tank>healer=dps

[Miedo]

Having healed and tanked raids in cata and heroic raids, i'd def say healing then tanking then dps.

[fung]

interesting that people think healing's the hardest!

i'm so darn comfortable at it, and to me there are so few surprises. even on new fights i don't yet know, healthbars tend to have predictable rates of decline and i have a general faith in the tunings of the dungeons as to how possible they are at a given gear level. if a healthbar DOESN'T have a predictable rate of decline, it's usually not my fault, and therefore i don't get the blame, don't stand in that next time =)

tanking however, to me is like leading the dance. far harder to cruise-control or even just get the chance to ash my smoke as often. usually SOMEone's been focusing off-kill-order mobs forcing me to keep tab-whacking them all to assure threat. or the positioning of cc, or... just whatever, i need to know where everybody is and what everybody's doing. which i guess is true in healing too, but at least it's not simultaneously my job to control all the mobs too. in the end tanking & healing are fairly similar, but the tank gets the spotlight and the blame, while the healer is more backstage and is graded pass/fail rathern a thru f.

to throw in a word for dps cuz they get no respect, there is every so often the dps role that's just as hard if not harder... offtanking lanathel is something a golden retriever could do, while dps getting bites off and all's certainly more. as it can be hard being the only dispeller in baradin hold and trying to maintain your dps rotation. or some fight that's got the positioning-heads-up requirements of a twin valkries fight with the punishment of a 10 second silencing interrupt... keeping any kind of respectable dps in those circumstances can be as stressful as anything tanks & healers do.

[Pseudosavior]

I think tanking and healing are about tied for stressful. Though I really love tanking because of the fulfillment I get from doing it.

[Noreck]

heal>dps>tank

some hc modes require a lot dps concentration while the tank is just.... tanking.

At least my opinion

[UunaPriest]

Memorizing a rotation and not standing in stuff sure is stressful. Hey, I can over-generalize other roles in the game too!

What classes allow you to memorize a rotation anymore?
Every DPS class I play now has a priority of spells which varies greatly depending on situation. So I'm not sure what DPS you are playing.

The difficulty and level of involvement is healer > dps > tank. For most encounters. (A notable exception would be phase 3 adds tank for Nef. there might be some others I can't think of atm)

[Deleted]

For me it's tanking. I started as a dps Mage and just got bored of avoiding the fire and nuking, then rolled a healer and enjoyed it, then finally went tank, as much as I enjoy it - it requires constant focus on multitudes of subjects, for example;

Threat, rotation, adds in the room, keep an eye on the bosses tactics, your health and more
Healer feels like it's just watching your raid bars and conserving mana while watching where you're standing
Dps is just nuke and watch where you stand.

---------- Post added 2011-02-27 at 05:23 PM ----------

heal>dps>tank

some hc modes require a lot dps concentration while the tank is just.... tanking.

At least my opinion

Guessing you've never rolled an 85 tank xD

[Deleted]

In WotLK it was tank=healing=dps in Cata it's heal>tank=dps. Experienced in all roles.