Whats your opinion on what the easiest role is?

[DechCJC]

A poor tank can wipe the raid easier, but it's harder to perfect the art of DPSing by a long shot. Having played all of the roles, i'd put it (hardest to easiest) - Healing>Dpsing (mostly ranged, melee negate too many mechanics)>Tanking. Also, it depends on the fight, some fights have annoying mechanics for each role; Each role is also effected by the effectiveness of the rest of the group, if the rest of the healers suck and you're tanking then you're gonna be scraping for survival, if the tanks are losing agro or not taunt swapping fast enough, the healers are gonna have a problem and everyones gonna be running around like headless chickens trying to lose threat, and dps just generally have a hard time playing perfectly through-out high avoidance type fights (siegecrafter, Ragnaros etc). I put tanking as easiest as although you can very easily wipe the raid, there's usually not much more to it on any fight than stand in position A, occasionally move to position B (or kite him endlessly, even while backpeddling), occasionally taunt swap and use defensives at the appropriate time for each fight. I mean, that's basically every single fight in existence for a tank, once you've done a few fights the only real 'learning' part of it is figuring out when the most effective time to pop CD's is and what the best time to taunt swap is (which will usually be something you can find online anyway).

[Greendog]

From easy to less easy

Tank > Healer > Dps

[Mormolyce]

Threat isn't the difficult part of tanking anymore though. You are letting tanks of really easy if that is all which you evaluate their skill on.

I personally dislike the idea of tank performance being measured on DPS. If I wanted to DPS I'd play DPS. It'd be nice if tanks were judged by their use of active mitigation but unfortunately that's very hard to track and separate from healer performance.

[Deleted]

I personally dislike the idea of tank performance being measured on DPS. If I wanted to DPS I'd play DPS. It'd be nice if tanks were judged by their use of active mitigation but unfortunately that's very hard to track and separate from healer performance.

That's just another sign of tanks having nothing else to do really. How do you compare tanks if their real task is so mundane that basically everyone that knows the bosses and has some experience can do it on the same level. Same goes with Healers suddenly being interested in healing meters and rankings instead of reliably keeping players alive. Healers are suddenly in a position where "smart heals" do most of their job for them and the deaths of players are no longer much they can do about. Either the other guy does everything correct, he won't die and smart heals are basically the auto-pilot, or the other guy makes a mistake.. and just dies without the healer being able to do much about it. So what do you do? You just try to heal faster than the other healers and compare your dicks on healing rankings, despite the fact that those healing meters don't really matter at all. If somebody would have bragged with healing meters in bc or wrath raids.. people would have just laughed at him and probably kicked him from the raid.

[IxilaFA]

You never need to use healthstones..Most of the time you can skip using personals just because you can heal yourself and make sure you are on full health. You can never really blame the healers.

Umm this is false. I use Healthstones all the time as a healer. It's a free instant heal that doesn't cost mana and doesn't require a target. I also use personal CDs pretty often, for example, during Swelling Pride or Empowered Whirling Corruption. If you aren't using your own personals then you are wasting mana and healing by other healers (and even yourself) on taking more damage than you needed to. While yes, healing is probably the easiest role, it still requires you to actually think about using abilities like personals and healthstones. And if you aren't thinking about that, you are probably dying to stuff a lot more often than healers that are smarter at using their CDs.

That's just another sign of tanks having nothing else to do really. How do you compare tanks if their real task is so mundane that basically everyone that knows the bosses and has some experience can do it on the same level. Same goes with Healers suddenly being interested in healing meters and rankings instead of reliably keeping players alive. Healers are suddenly in a position where "smart heals" do most of their job for them and the deaths of players are no longer much they can do about. Either the other guy does everything correct, he won't die and smart heals are basically the auto-pilot, or the other guy makes a mistake.. and just dies without the healer being able to do much about it. So what do you do? You just try to heal faster than the other healers and compare your dicks on healing rankings, despite the fact that those healing meters don't really matter at all. If somebody would have bragged with healing meters in bc or wrath raids.. people would have just laughed at him and probably kicked him from the raid.

I disagree. You can easily tell the difference between a good tank and a bad tank, especially if you're a healer. Good tanks don't need to be watched all the time. Bad tanks take huge amounts of spike damage.

As for healing meters, they've always been a way for healers to epeen about during end-of-expansion content. Yes, even in BC or Wrath. Once you get to a certain level of gear as a healer, the encounters become a joke and the only way to really differentiate yourself from the rest is to get some top rankings. It is true that during progression anyone who flaunts healing meters is an idiot (as I like to say, if the raid dies then healing meters don't matter), but they can still be a useful tool to see where others rank on the fight and how your healing is doing. If I'm pulling 50% less than other Paladins on the encounter, for example, I'll look into it and maybe shift some things around to try and get better numbers. Better numbers during progression means less chance of wiping. So the meters still matter, it's just not a competition at that point.

[sweepdeepsPL]

If we measure a role by the consequences of screwing up, dps is by far the easiest role to do. If one dps is lagging behind, its no big deal. If a healer or tank is lagging behind, the raid can easily spiral out of control.

[Lightwysh]

Dps gets boring fast IMO. As far as difficulty. Each role has it's unique challenges. Tank = having to know wtf you are doing or you're gonna get beat on/yelled pretty bad by the people in raid, because there are generally 2 tanks, your mistakes easily are the most noticeable. Healing = knowing the fight and how to be efficient with your gear levels, IMO this is hardest at early gear level and becomes the easiest at higher gear levels. Dps = follow mechanics, top meters, win.

[Rosencrantz]

I personally think healing is the easiest. The hardest part is using your peripheral vision to not die as you're playing whack-a-mole on your raid frames.

Do not get me wrong, I enjoy healing, and it definitely requires a LOT of responsibility, but in the end it's a very simple role. I may also be biased because I've been doing it for nearly ten years.

While dps has next to no responsibility, I personally think it is the hardest role to master. It's simple to be average. It's hard to be great. You are constantly competing with yourself and there is *ALWAYS* room for improvement, unlike with healing where you're pretty much limited to "can I get through this fight without anyone dying?". Once you overgear something, it just becomes easier. In *some* cases, being a great healer means..... dun dun dun .... another healer can be sat to bring in another dps to speed up the fights.

I dunno if I explained that well, but it's my two cents.

[Cantwingrr]

Healing is the easiest for me personally, but then I've always had an affinity for that and melee dps. But let me add, being an off tank is the most thankless boring job anyone can ever have in a raid ever, period.

[Ezekiah]

I've always been of the opinion that as the spectrum of challenge changes, so does the difficulty of the roles. At the easiest levels, LFR and such, tanking is the hardest role. They have the best chance of wiping you if they don't know a fight or can't play, and they have the most pressure put on them. Healers come next, with DPS generally able to skate by with weak performances.

As you reach heroic content, particularly when it is new and cutting edge, I find that this reverses entirely. Healers are still in the middle, but tanks are now the easiest role, since the difficulty of their job has the least demanding "jump" from LFR. There are exceptions, and CD usage and survival are obviously much more pressing, but it is nothing compared to the jump DPS have.

To maintain enough healers and tanks while overcoming exceptionally hard DPS checks to skip certain mechanics or beat hard enrages on progression while undergeared becomes the hardest job, imo. There, a really great DPS that works well under pressure and never lets their damage output be stymied by mechanics really shines.

Also I play a healer.

[Bluesftw]

whatever you dont play at the moment obviously^^

[WanderingBreezes]

DPS. Always DPS.

A tank has to focus on their rotation just like a DPS while managing cooldowns that they'll die without and most of them have to manage self-healing like a semi-OoM healer. Anyone who thinks DPS has it hardest is either tremendously experienced/skilled at tanking so that it just comes as a second-nature or plays one of the more complicated DPS specs and has a hard time with it. (feral/enh/sub/demo)

[IxilaFA]

DPS. Always DPS.

A tank has to focus on their rotation just like a DPS while managing cooldowns that they'll die without and most of them have to manage self-healing like a semi-OoM healer. Anyone who thinks DPS has it hardest is either tremendously experienced/skilled at tanking so that it just comes as a second-nature or plays one of the more complicated DPS specs and has a hard time with it. (feral/enh/sub/demo)

Personally I think the question is hard to answer because it doesn't take into account what the person is trying to achieve. If we're talking about just "getting by" without dying or wiping, then DPS is probably the easiest since most enrage timers aren't strict after the first couple kills. Meanwhile, a bad tank or a bad healer will noticeably slow the raid down and force a lot of effort onto the other members of that group.

But if you're asking which class is easiest to play "well" then DPS is harder because you have to manage a rotation complete with CDs and planning for procs and everything. Not only that but you have to learn which parts of the fight are more favorable to use cooldowns on, etc. Meanwhile, tanks and healers, once you get a hang of the "getting by" part, there's not much else to succeed at. (Unless you're a meter whore as a healer).

[Notshauna]

I'm going to go with DPS solely because you can become great out of the raid, whereas tanks and healers need to raid in order to gain that experience. Though it's really apples to oranges, with DPS having a very numeric goal (doing the most damage possible), healers having a very tangible but nonnumerical goal (the survival of the group), and tanks having an intangible nonnumeric goal (ensuring the fight goes smoothly).

[Sindile]

Ranged dps for sure...melee dps have it hard

[Deleted]

This is a really hard question to ask to be honest. Depending if you're talking on hc progression fights or on farming content, Class is also something that has to be considered. I can't really say that a smiteing priest is hard to play, but that aint really how it works on hard fights with bad gear.

During progress of harder fights it's usually a matter of trying to push the numbers with bad gear, to not fail on basic mechanics.

Everyone is relying on the healers keeping a tank up and the rest of the raid as well. To maintain usage of cooldowns in the correct situations.
Tanking is not really a hard spec when it comes to mechanics, it's more about the usage of the correct spells all the time, to mitigate as much damage as possible while maintaining a high output of healing and damage.
DPS is easy overall, but pushing heroics in blues aint usually the easiest stuff to do, as you're trying to crunch the numbers that are required. Meanwhile you also have to remember to not take any unnecessary damage due to very low hp and no damage reduction.

If I have to choose, I'd say dps is the easiest one if you never take any extra jobs during fights. Such as kiteing stuff etc and no raid-cds.

[frymastermeat]

In my opinion it depends on the skill level of the group.

DPS is probably the least demanding role at the LFR/Flex level but in high level Heroic progression I think tanking is fairly easy compared to maintaining a near perfect DPS rotation while dealing with half a dozen mechanics.

[MetroStratics]

Tanking is by far the easiest role except on probably 3-4 Heroic encounters.
The one reason I would say tanking can be difficult is because there is no way to make up fro a bad tank.

But in terms of tanks skilled enough for 25 man heroic, there is very little to worry about besides your active mitigation.
There is typically very little room to expand on your role in the encounter.
Where as healing and dpsing can ALWAYS be expanded on, usually in a very important way.

[Deleted]

Im going to go out on a limb here and say DPS is the hardest.

Healing and tanking both have a 'good enough' skill ceiling, where any better reaction / skill / playstyle wont matter outside cutting edge heroic content. I does not matter if you pick up the adds in 0.1 or 0.5 seconds, as long as you are standing in the right spot, mitigating as good as your healers need you to. Same goes for healers, as long as everyone gets topped off before anyone is killed it doesn't matter how fast you are or who you prioritize. I would say that healing is a bit harder than tanking since you need to stand in range of everyone and this could mean moving yourself.

Now DPS is asymptotic linked to skill, assuming equal gear levels AND very easy to measure and compare.

I have been out dps'd by someone with less gear and I have out dps'd people with better gear on occasion. I have been kicked from Garrosh normal kills for not doing enough DPS as a mage. Am I a bad player? Maybe... but after reading strategies on my class, changing around key bindings, installing an addon or two I noticed my dps going up by 10-15%. I have never had to do this on either my tank or healer. I just knew what to do, did it adequately and got compliments for it

Now this goes for me, playing flex / normal in a judgemental pick up group setting. I am sure that a close knit guild running cutting edge heroics has a whole different experience

[Deja Thoris]

It's interesting to see peoples points of view on this. The only PoV I think is stupid is people still bleating on about tank threat 3 years after is ceased to be an issue.

My opinion is this: Different encounters challenge different roles. For example, protectors challenges healers more than others, SC challenges tanks and dps and so on.