SUPPORT ROLES ARE DYING

Dem_kitkats1

Scrolling the forum threads I noticed a trend in both PvE and PvP content that support roles are becoming less and less impactful in game play. In a game designed for team play, content and skills are being more and more catered to solo players. So much so that DPS toons can deal out so much damage and healing combined that the roles for healers and tanks have become so diminished that they are rarely needed for group content. It's to the point where experienced, well built DPS players can duo or even solo vet dlc content. People que as fake healers and tanks because they can get away with it as it's not imperative to have support roles filled (especially in normal content).And players find support roles boring to play until they play vet hardmode content.

In PvP support roles lack the abilities and skills to be more than trolly unkillable toons. Aside from that many players believe tanks are not necessary to be successful. Healers are powerful almost Godlike because there is also so much off hand healing and self healing on every dps toon on top of it. So players call for nerfs on them constantly.

I think it's a shame that support roles are diminishing because they simply no longer have as much of an impact as they should. If I would like to switch it up and play a support, gameplay should be just as engaging as when I play a dd, just in another way. But as of now gameplay is reduced to throwing out a couple of buffs and extra heals and then switching back to dd playstyle the rest of the time. Or support roles expose the imbalances of the game and are blamed and nerfed and dps remains untouched or perhaps even stronger. I think this unfortunate for people who really want to play more of a support role.

(This is coming from someone who has multiple healers and dds)

Dolphinsgal

I agree on the pve side that tanks and healers aren't as needed as they once were and are looked down by the dps community. They are really only asked for in trials and some vet dlc content I'd going for achievements.
However I still see a ton of healers and tanks (though not as many tanks as healers) being played in pvp. I have dps, healers (yes more than 1), and a tank I bring into pvp during different campaigns and depending on what my group needs more. Healers and tanks are very needed and asked for in pvp, I'm talking Cyrodiil and Imp city.
Healers and tanks aren't as welcome in battlegrounds groups, unless you make the team ahead of time, pug groups seen to despise both roles.
It may be different on different platforms but that's what I've seen on Xbox NA server.

hafgood

Healers and tanks are certainly not looked down on in PvE. Try doing vet trials without them. Good healers and tanks are worth their weight in gold and should be cherished lovingly.

dem0n1k

Healers & Crowd Control support builds are heavily used in PVP. If my PVP guild is playing in Cyrodiil we will always try for at least one dedicated healer & CC support is very handy.

A lot of the builds that are low damage 'tanks' can just be ignored until the squishies are dead.. then can be dog-piled.IMO, true 'tank' builds in Cyrodiil are just for trolling. prove me wrong XD

Ksariyu

As far as PvE is concerned, I think the devs kind of want players to have the choice to not have dedicated tanks/healers. Part of the idea of having a variety of build options is that you can also have a variety of group compositions, which may or may not include a typical trinity. Ultimately, I think this is a good philosophy.

In PvP, you'll be hard pressed to find a competitive game that has real trinity-type tanks, and while healers do exist, even they are being phased out for more independent supports. In a mode where taunts don't exist, every player has to be able to both survive and kill on their own, or it ends in a very frustrating experience for anyone not DPS.

Personally I rather enjoy playing a more DPS/Healer hybrid, because I find sitting back and just keeping up buffs with the occasional heal is boring. That said, I do understand that in PvE especially there are people who want to play pure supports, and I hope they don't eliminate that style altogether.

I would argue that part of what is killing the viability of pure supports is the limitations on pure DPS. Realistically, the only way to play a pure DPS is to just stack your bar with 9 DoTs, which is incredibly restrictive even by current ESO standards. But everyone can already get insane DPS even with a couple heals/shields, and the safety of having access to those skills yourself outweighs the small DPS increase, especially considering spammables are a thing.

It's a strange spot ZoS has put themselves in. A lot of their early design choices seem counter to how they want things to work today, but they seem reluctant to change some of the core elements of the design. Whether or not they get it sorted out remains to be seen.

RedBranch

Main healer here… ESO has always required healers to go beyond healing but I have to agree that healing in dungeons is less and less impactful to the outcome. I’ve had to adjust to increase my dps output and stay relevant but I’m a healer first and foremost. I’d like to stay in my role more often but it’s just not the most efficient thing to do anymore.

Iron_Warrior

These days i only tank vet dlc dungeons because the normal dungeons and base game vet dungeons are a snoozefest and are not engaging for a tank. there is hardly any mechanics and attacks that are threatening for me. A dps can replace me,slot a taunt and also deal a lot of damage while tanking the boss. Vet dlcs are the only place that i can feel the danger of dying. The only other place that is left for me to go are the trials but i simply don't like the 12 men content. You can thank the power creep for this mess because over the years a lot of challenging content became a lot easier.

endgamesmug

I played a tank then a healer as main, proper gear every kind of set that may be needed. I enjoyed it alot learnt alot had a good go until it was as unfun as possible then hung it all up for dps and its alot better. That period of time in those roles made me a bit more well rounded or mechanic/environmentally aware. Just gotta get the numbers up now 😀

Cryptical

They say "play the way you want" and want everyone to be able to complete the content.

However... they go beyond that and balance the various character options so that the difficulty levels are similar for those various character configurations. Just look at the ability branches for the classes. Look over how the constellations don't force people to make hard irreconcilable choices between being competent at damage or healing or defense.

People aren't forced to abandon healing competency in order to reach a competent benchmark of DPS or Defense.

There used to be class representatives, and those were relevant when the classes had solid thematic roles such as dragon knights having a solid thematic grip on tanking and templars having a solid thematic grip on healing.

One of the worst things they did, in my opinion, was how they went about the removal of level-ranged areas. Those provided a standard benchmark that everyone could see and compare difficulty content across the game. It was easy to measure your own character's growth, and the developers had an easy guideline for new content difficulty.

I haven't played in much of the past year. I used to focus mainly on healer and tank characters. The microsoft gold subscription just self-renewed and that reminded me that I haven't checked the forum in a couple months for if they have made any real progress toward the issue of fakers taking my roles.

And THAT is the other half of the solution: ROLES. Dump the idea that "Play the way you want" means that it must be just as easy for any character, and INTRODUCE ROLE REPRESENTATIVES instead of class representatives.

Once they have a team with members that advocate for roles, they will have the beginnings of movement toward group balance that requires actual healers and actual tanks fulfilling their roles instead of dps fakes.

Edit to add: Overland is fine as a single player easy difficulty. Plenty of people whine over how easy overland is so that's in no danger. It's the GROUP content that matters, and desperately needs a team to advocate for the group roles, because this IS AN MMO GAME.

Sawbones194

In FF14 I love playing support tanks. It just may be my experience but the first time I tanked in ESO I got insulted and changed to DD. As I said: it may be just my experience but according to that experience you just have to be a game with a good community to support support-roles.

Vulkunne

Dem_kitkats1 wrote: »

Scrolling the forum threads I noticed a trend in both PvE and PvP content that support roles are becoming less and less impactful in game play. In a game designed for team play, content and skills are being more and more catered to solo players. So much so that DPS toons can deal out so much damage and healing combined that the roles for healers and tanks have become so diminished that they are rarely needed for group content. It's to the point where experienced, well built DPS players can duo or even solo vet dlc content. People que as fake healers and tanks because they can get away with it as it's not imperative to have support roles filled (especially in normal content).

In PvP people rarely dare to build support tank or healing characters for they are deemed ineffective in combat or just annoying to others. Where in fact support roles could be game changers in Cyrodiil or IC and they would add a diversity and spice that is lacking in PvP at the moment.

I think it's a shame that support roles are diminishing because they simply no longer have as much of an impact as they should.

It isn't that they don't have much of an impact.

It's that their function is being replaced by better gear. So in other words, things like Ring of the Pale Order are replacing what a healer used to train to do.

This is why the group cohesion is fracking up because players have 'everything' they need to go in there solo so the group working collectively is no longer required.

Thraben

I can't speak for PvE ( but I suspect you are right),

but PvP is utterly dominated by healing tanks and tanking healers.

VaranisArano

I really don't feel like support roles are diminished, even in normal dungeons. What everyone ignores is that normal dungeons have a lot of new and low level players who benefit from support roles playing properly.

When I get a fake tank, I'm immediately struck by how less smooth the run is because someone else has to facetank the boss (usually my healer). When I get a fake healer, I notice how much more I have to cover for the lack of heals - on my MagSorc, suddenly, I'm the tank and DD and emergency healer. While I can cover for it on my max level characters, it's noticeably rougher on new or low level players. "Fake" support roles do those players a disservice.

Tanks and Healers are always useful, even when they are not strictly necessary.

Nanfoodle

The big decline in support classes was about 2 years ago. When running as a healer would be coincidered a downgrade of a full team of DPS. I play a healer and I even got kicked from Vet teams for healing. I was told I was not needed. Many of my friends that played support classes left the game over this. A real imbalance of support roles not even being needed but the community looking at support classes as a disadvantage to a team. I did leave ESO for over a year because of this and becouse of the lag in Cyrodiil. My hope is Zen starts to fix both problems.

Dem_kitkats1

hafgood wrote: »

Healers and tanks are certainly not looked down on in PvE. Try doing vet trials without them. Good healers and tanks are worth their weight in gold and should be cherished lovingly.

Why is it that in only vet dungeons and trials are support roles useful? Even in some vet content I'm not actually healing people that much because they are so self reliant. So like I said before even in vet dungeons you could get away with 3 strong dps and be fine.

YoureWrongImRight

They say "Play the way you want", except you can't actually do that due to the way you want being ineffective. By playing the way you want you would simply be handicapping yourself.

As long as you're playing a hybrid burst DPS what you want is fine. 80+% of the sets/poisons etc in the game go unused and are considered trash because the playstyles they would support are not viable.

Supports have been replaced by the wave of hybrid dps that can do any and all required in almost every facet. Tanks and healers are required only in the most difficult content. But then when you get one many times they don't actually know what to do because literally nothing has been even remotely challenging until the extreme end game. There has been no skill development in the lower end content leading up to vet hard mode.

sajackson

As long as I can continue to queue for dungeons as a healer and I don't get kicked for doing so then I don't see my role as dieing.

Arthtur

Well...

If we talk about random normal dungeons then those are just boring on a real tank. At least for me. I dont see any option to change that as it would make dungeons just bad for new players.

If we talk about vet dungeons then it was said 101 times already. Support roles prefer to queue with friends. DDs in dungeon finder often cant pull even 10k DPS which makes dungeons... Not fun. But every time ppl talk about it there is discussion what is bad and what is fake. Because DD who cant do more DMG than a full support tank in vet dlc is just bad dd not fake... Anyway...

If we talk about trials then i'm doing those only when my friends needs help. I have a rule of not skipping adds so a lot of ppl in pugs doesnt like me

In PvP i dont know. Last time when my friend was leveling up skill line on a healer and asked to be invited to the group he was healing for some time, he was ignored. When he left the person who ignored him started complaining that nobody wants to play a healer on the zone chat. So i guess everything is okay there.

If we talk about content difficulty... Weaker players are complaining - zos nerfs dungeon fight so much that its becomes just boring - vet players are complaining that this is overnerf - casual players blames vet players for gatekeeping content - etc etc...
Vet players ask for more challenging content - not worth the investment, better add content that will be good for more ppl etc.
Also we have power creep. With each year older content becomes easier. So much easier that u can survive some HA without blocking in older dungeons...

Do i feel like im dying? Well... Could be better. Some QoL changes, more support skills and weapons... But i still have fun doing stuff with my friends so its okay.

What would make me play with randoms? Probably nothing. Im kinda sick of ppl. Every time there is a fake tanks thread we get: force stuff on tanks, destroy current tanking system and create new, add aoe taunt, make tanks do DMG, some kind of respect system, i like pizza, everything except addresing real tanks problems. So sorry but why should i even care? Ppl just want to destroy my fun from tanking because there is no tank for theirs random dungeon run... Also im happy because i play with my friends. My friends are happy because they have a good tank. Im happy because "I play how i want". Did i forget anything...?

There is my idea from some time ago. So we can make fun of me. Like how i dare think about making ppl life easier :x

Random Dungeon Reward - 5 (10 without opt out from DLC Dungeons). You get it always on completion of dungeon or after 15min so u dont loose too much if group isnt able to beat dungeon. If u get kicked u dont get the reward. Also you always get this reward for doing randoms so u dont need to change to a diffrent character. The only daily reward for randoms would be 100k exp.
Base Game Dungeon Reward - 5. You get it on completion of dungeon.
DLC Dungeon Reward - 15. You get it on completion of dungeon.

So if u get a base game dungeon in random you will get 10 (15 without opt out) transmutes. If u get DLC then its 25. And yes u can just spam nFG1 for those 5 transmutes all time if doing this after Undaunted Celebration still isnt boring.

With this you can add option to opt out from DLC dungeons.

So you can just solo nFG1 to farm transmutes and u dont need to speedrun in randoms and you can just queue for only DLC and get 15 stones when its done. Of course its not ideal but well... there is no such thing that is always perfect.

Some thoughts:
The reason you always get full reward for random dungeon is simple. You dont get punished for playing a tank. You can just queue 10 dungeons in a row with 1 character and you will get the same reward as the person who is fake tanking on 10 diffrent characters now.
I prefer rewards for completing the dungeon because it adds more freedom. Some ppl prefer doing DLC dungeons and some would rather do only base game. There is still reward for helping others so i think its okay.
Changing how random rewards work make it less punishing when u get a bad group. Right now there is a lot of ppl who leave just because they see a DLC dungeon without even trying. Not long ago i queued with 2 of my friends for vet Cauldron. The 4th player insta left. The thing is the 3 of us have a trifecta in here so there was pretty high chance that he would get it too if he wouldnt leave.

I think this would also encourage real tanks to queue for dungeons with randoms as it wouldnt be too punishing to get a bad group.

I think thats all.

I could write a lot of ideas how to improve some things without destroying anything but its not like anyone would listen to a tank main xD
Also complaining is easier.

Araneae6537

RedBranch wrote: »

Main healer here… ESO has always required healers to go beyond healing but I have to agree that healing in dungeons is less and less impactful to the outcome. I’ve had to adjust to increase my dps output and stay relevant but I’m a healer first and foremost. I’d like to stay in my role more often but it’s just not the most efficient thing to do anymore.

I’m also a healer main and I focus completely on support — heals, resources, buffs, cleansing and shields where they can help. My own DPS is irrelevant. I pretty much never run normal dungeons because there’s no need for heals. Vet dungeons can be frustrating when it’s nothing or one shot but there are still many dungeons and groups where I know I’ve contributed to the success of the run. I would be glad to see more mechanics that aren’t one shot but that good heals can help you do more easily even as high DPS allows skipping some mechanics.

Tanks are still essential for a lot and certainly great tanks make a run easier and smoother. It’s a tough job though and I wish ZOS would make it easier to read from enemies what can be blocked as versus what must be avoided altogether for one thing.

If this post is most about normal difficulty content, well, that’s to be expected when people run content much below their level. Maybe the rewards need to be adjusted accordingly? I guess the transmutes are to fill the queue, but from what I see in forum threads, it seems more likely to place new players with one or more players who are anything but helpful and just want to get their reward as fast as possible. Vet queues seem to go fine most of the time.

NarutoUzumaki24

My instant queue in vet Dungeons say otherwise...

But in all seriousness, there are some good points written here, and it would be great if ZOS fixes them, alongside the much needed fix in PvP.

sajackson

I can't really speak for vet dungeons yet because I'm still working on some gear items before I queue for those but I think this is all you need to know:

NarutoUzumaki24 wrote: »

My instant queue in vet Dungeons say otherwise...

I agree that healing normal dungeons is actually pretty boring mostly - I don't mind when we get a tank thats afk or doesn't appear to know what they're doing because it gives me something to do. For the most part, though, I just put down HoTs and then switch to my shock staff. I suspect I should probably be running vet dungeons already as I do feel like I outgear normal dungeons both in terms of healing and even my dps output.

I feel like the issue is probably one of tuning. @ZOS when was the last time you actually tuned any of the standard normal dungeons? Probably 5 or 6 years ago if I had to guess. There's definitely some scope to tune up the normal dungeons to make them a bit more interesting without putting off new players, cause right now they feel like a joke.

All that being said, unless ZOS decide to remove the tank and healer options from the dungeon finder tool there will always be a need for tanks and healers, for anyone using the dungeon finder anyway.

MindOfTheSwarm

Go into battlegrounds with no healer vs a team that does have a healer and see how well you do.

umagon

Part of the problem is the support sets are often less powerful than the offence sets. For example, many of the offence sets will hit all targets in range while many of the support debufing sets are limited to 5-6 targets or if they do effect all targets the range is really small and/or the debuff strength is minor.

A good example of this is Dark Convergence vs Fasalla’s Guile. Dark convergence can be cast at range and in relative safety can pull players off 2nd and 3rd floors of buildings and when used right deal a high amount of damage to all targets in range.

Fasalla’s Guile requires the wearer to be right in center of the conflict and deal with a multitude of hostile elements attacking them at same time to maximize the amount targets effected. Taking the maximum amount of risk in order to be effective only to apply a weak debuff to the targets which has minimal impact to their healing output.

And then there are the heavy defense sets that are eclipsed by light armor sets. A good example is Alessian Order vs Almalexia’s Mercy. Almalexia’s Mercy has nearly 3 times the amount of hps at ~32k resources than a maxed out Alessian Order and that’s not including the crit heals it can deal now.

BalticBlues

I agree 100% with the OP.

At release, I started as healer, later also got a tank, and it was fun playing these roles,
but nowadays good DDs can do almost all content alone - except trials.
Moreover, you do not even 4 DDs, 2 superb DDs are enough for most group content.

This is caused by three problems:

1. Skill in this game has been replaced my Mythic items
2. DD self-heals are too strong with modern gear and good CP
3. Older content is a joke with modern gear and good CP

Let's be honest:
Since Mythics are in the game, ESO IS PTW.

YoureWrongImRight

MindOfTheSwarm wrote: »

Go into battlegrounds with no healer vs a team that does have a healer and see how well you do.

People are getting the same effect with straight mixes of magsorc and DD Templar. No dedicated healer required. Sorcs are putting out over 1M healing by just spamming matriarch. It is not uncommon to see teams of 4 sorcs with matriarchs on one team these days.

starkerealm

YoureWrongImRight wrote: »

They say "Play the way you want", except you can't actually do that due to the way you want being ineffective. By playing the way you want you would simply be handicapping yourself.

As long as you're playing a hybrid burst DPS what you want is fine. 80+% of the sets/poisons etc in the game go unused and are considered trash because the playstyles they would support are not viable.

Supports have been replaced by the wave of hybrid dps that can do any and all required in almost every facet. Tanks and healers are required only in the most difficult content. But then when you get one many times they don't actually know what to do because literally nothing has been even remotely challenging until the extreme end game. There has been no skill development in the lower end content leading up to vet hard mode.

It's worse than that. The best way to learn to tank in ESO, is to go back in time and start tanking around 2015 or 2016. Right now, if you want a very skilled tank, your best option are those of us who've been playing the role for years, and internalized how to make it sing.

EDIT: And also didn't abandon the game after the last two and a half years of balance changes.

Except, we've also got 7 years of nerfs, designed to slow us down. Those nerfs make learning the role in any serious content, absolutely brutal.

Tanking vet trials is easily one of the hardest things you can do in the game. But, the path a player needs to follow to learn that role simply doesn't exist in the ESO of 2022.

NerfSeige

I mean, on pve, most healers are soft carried anyway. But yeah no, tank and healing are not dying anytime soon.

Same as pvp, there’s a lot of tanks now (bomb baits and seige removers) and heal bots. I’d argue that support dps (snares, PA, negates) are also increasing.

Tra_Lalan

When we speak about 4 man PvE content, I think tanks are still very much needed, unfortunately can't say the same thing about healers.
After all the changes, its just much easier to do most of dungeons and arenas with a 1T 3DD group. There are only few places where healers are necessary.
This is kinda sad, because there is just no reason for new players to learn healing and it will be harder and harder to get good healers for end game content in the future.

Facefister

Tra_Lalan wrote: »

When we speak about 4 man PvE content, I think tanks are still very much needed, unfortunately can't say the same thing about healers.
After all the changes, its just much easier to do most of dungeons and arenas with a 1T 3DD group. There are only few places where healers are necessary.
This is kinda sad, because there is just no reason for new players to learn healing and it will be harder and harder to get good healers for end game content in the future.

Every 4-man trifecta can be done without a healer.

Parasaurolophus

teso is a good example of the disadvantages and pros of separation of roles. This thing became interesting to me some time ago and I thought:

1) Fighting bosses in dungeons and trials, did you get the feeling that each role seemed to have its own life? As if in one battle there are 2-3 completely different games that hardly intersect with each other?

2) Huge dependence on dps. DD are the kings of the game. However, I'm not sure if this is really a teso problem or a tank / heal / dd triad problem. But I like how it works in pvp, when we really have to butt not only about our damage but also about survivability. This makes the gaming experience more varied and more fun.
Also, I liked the armor system of the companions. This allows for more fine-tuning of the build, while the player in pve just is locked in one type of armor.

3) Search for a group. Finding tanks is always much more difficult than dd. Sometimes I wonder how wonderful it would be to just call any of your friends and go to conquer the content. Now in teso, this problem is not so acute for old players, since many have tanks or heal alts. But for new players, casuals, and everyone who uses the group tool, long queuing times are a big problem right now.

4) Impossible to balance content for everyone. This is one of the reasons for the overly casual and easy overland content in the game. Heals are not relevant in dungeons in teso. Solo arenas require a complete rebuild from such and healers, which is very inconvenient.

The general idea is that the tank / heal / dd triad only separates the players. Rather destructively rather than enriching the gaming experience. Previously, I also did not understand the tendency of modern MMOs to get rid of different roles. But now I can see it. Yes, such a system has its drawbacks:
1) Characters lose their identity.
2) Developers are likely to find it more difficult to develop content without the principle of separation of roles.
But still, it seems to me that these are not such significant disadvantages.
3) Synergies of different classes can also lead to the requirement to play for a certain class in group content.

Jaimeh

RedBranch wrote: »

Main healer here… ESO has always required healers to go beyond healing but I have to agree that healing in dungeons is less and less impactful to the outcome. I’ve had to adjust to increase my dps output and stay relevant but I’m a healer first and foremost. I’d like to stay in my role more often but it’s just not the most efficient thing to do anymore.

This ^ in most 4-person content, a 3rd DD/off-healer is usually preferred, and with good reason, since a pure healer wouldn't have much to do. In trials, both healers and tanks are essential, though in the top-end groups, healers spec for damage in some trash packs fights.