SUPPORT ROLES ARE DYING

Mushroomancer

As a healer main, and a frankly mediocre tank (and quite bad DD), I mostly agree with OP's sentiment when it comes to PvE. I say mostly because I think this only really applies to "full-fledged support only" healers, and by that I mean, healers that do not or cannot go beyond their syndicated support role of healing and buffing. On one hand, it really has felt disheartening to not be able to play my role, as, in general, even when I go hybrid (doing my support job and dealing some damage), a proper DD is just more efficient in terms of clear times, when it comes to most 4-men content. On the other hand however, I can't really see a way to change things that wouldn't be incredibly disruptive to the playerbase; as disappointing as it may be to be "discarded" in favor of a DD, I don't think the solution for it is to force roles. The only thing that comes to mind, really, is to add dungeons that genuinely require a healer to be present to clear them, and not just slap some BS mechanic in the HM of the last boss that suddenly might make you consider getting one. The real issue, to me at least, is that most 4-men content is way too easy or has very simple and inconsequential mechanics that make healers obsolete or undesirable, and yes, that is gonna sound elitist or whatever, but I think that really is the crux of the issue here.
Tanks are a whole different story; while I will agree that they are barely required, to the point that they could be considered a convenience at best, in most base-game dungeons and in DSA, they are still very useful in most DLC dungeons.
Not to mention that this really doesn't apply to trials whatsoever. Healers are always required, with, at worst, them needing to contribute to the damage, and I think only top-tier endgame players (the top of the leaderboard score-pushing types) can deal such ridiculous dps to the point that they can get away with just one tank in some DLC trials, and I'm not even sure about that.

I think a big problem is that a majority of new players seem to gravitate towards DD as a role, and I can see why, since it is generally a more active and involved playstyle when it comes to most PvE content, especially the earlier, easier stuff. Add to that the fact that both average and maximum dps seems to get more and more insane, to the point that it can completely override mechanics in a lot of content, and you can see why a lot of people prefer 3 or even 4 DD configurations. In short, they may think it's more fun, and make whatever activity they are doing go that much smoother. And to be honest, I'm not particularly inclined to disagree either, I think what is really disappointing is that ZOS considers it ok that a role which should be a staple of any MMORPG is relegated to very specific content, that most players don't even engage in, just because the majority of the playerbase likes to play something else.

Now, I do think that we need to make a distinction between casual play and more serious play, because really, this is a problem only in more serious contexts, and mostly when it comes to pre-made, organized groups for 4-men content. I think not only is the average casual player very likely not to care about this, or even realize that this "support death" is happening, but I also think that the fact that support roles are not required in the majority of the content they engage in is not really an issue. That player most likely doesn't care about meta and just wants to play the game how they want, and I can appreciate that the game allows them to do just that, besides, I think at this point we can abandon any pretense that normal dungeons are an effective tool at teaching new players about mechanics, roles, and so on.

BalticBlues wrote: »

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

While I do agree with your other points, I think this is oversimplifying things a bit. While I won't deny that the current meta certainly shows that some mythics can exacerbate the problem, I don't think mythics completely replace the skill of the player. A bad DD is still gonna be bad, even if they have the best gear, they are just gonna be slightly less bad than they would be, and I can say that because I'm one of those DDs.

Also, I cannot comment on PvP, because I suck at it, it's broken, unrefined, and I kinda despise it and find it unfun. Although from some of the comments I can tell that the issue doesn't apply there.

tl;dr: healers are underrepresented, pls ZOS fix.

sajackson

Before we completely condemn healers to the rubbish pile also keep in mind that a major part of a good healer's job is to bring important buffs & boss debuffs to the fight.

Even if the amount of actual healing required in normal dungeons is trivial a well played healer can still facilitate a fast run by increasing the effective overall DPS of the team. Plus most geared healers tend to bring a pretty decent damage switch bar with them as well.

YoureWrongImRight

sajackson wrote: »

Before we completely condemn healers to the rubbish pile also keep in mind that a major part of a good healer's job is to bring important buffs & boss debuffs to the fight.

Even if the amount of actual healing required in normal dungeons is trivial a well played healer can still facilitate a fast run by increasing the effective overall DPS of the team. Plus most geared healers tend to bring a pretty decent damage switch bar with them as well.

This is only the case due to the sets they are forced to run and not the actual skills they bring. It is expected if you're playing a healer that you are running the required gear sets to actually bring major/minor courage etc that the dps won't bring themselves. They only have access to these buffs via their gear which leads to every support being forced to use the same gear.

You are basically just a bot to bring these buffs and throw out some bubbles to help the dps sustain. Which often times they are throwing out bubbles for each other anyway.

notachik

Create something like battle spirit that restricts only tanks and healers..now the fakes don’t do as much dps and they will quit taking the purpose of a healer and tank away

mickeyx

Dolphinsgal wrote: »

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.

I don't know what game you guys are playing. Tanks and healers are always needed. Even for normal trials and vet dungeons can't be done without tanks and healers. Seriously why do you guys exaggerate so much?

VaranisArano

umagon wrote: »

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.

It's also worth noting that older support sets have gotten nerfed over time when ZOS realizes how powerful they are in the hands of organized groups.

Fasalla's Guile used to be better. Then there came a patch when the organized raids started using it and other Defile sources on their tanky brawlers backed up by the raid's healers...and suddenly ZOS had reasons to reevaluate the strength of Defile effects.

sajackson

mickeyx wrote: »

Dolphinsgal wrote: »

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.

I don't know what game you guys are playing. Tanks and healers are always needed. Even for normal trials and vet dungeons can't be done without tanks and healers. Seriously why do you guys exaggerate so much?

I think there can even still be genuine use for a tank and healer in normal dungeons as well. It seems that a lot of the people promoting the death of non-dps specs are assuming all dungeon groups are running full meta-builds, but if you're using dungeon finder to run randoms my experience has been that the makeup of groups is actually quite a mixed bag. You do indeed get very well geared groups who likely could clear the dungeon with just dps roles, but you also get plenty of groups where the other players are less experienced and/ or less well geared and its those groups where having defined tank & healer roles are still very useful.

For those running meta-pushing groups, I would have thought that it would make more sense to use premade groups where possible anyway. That way you're running the content with people you know and you can be a lot surer of the capabilities.

Mumbles_the_Tank

starkerealm wrote: »

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.

I was nerfed? Sure they went for dodge roll cost and speed but almost every single fight today is far easier than it was even a year ago.

CP 2.0 completely trivialized most of the skills we acquired back in those days. No one Guards MT on Nahvi HM anymore, you can basically phone it in between trash stacks. Halls, Cloudrest portals, Falgravn - all shadows of their former selves with the amount of stacked mitigation we have on hand. Damage is so high you won’t even see half the stuff that would have killed you back then anymore, even in an average DPS group.

Everything besides Bahsei is easier to straight up face tank and the barrier to entry is simply a gear check and a couple smart CP slots respective to the encounter.

Whether or not making the role more accessible is a good thing or not - it’s certainly far more boring and none of the survival skills I acquired back then are really needed today outside of Rockgrove. I don’t see where learning the content would be harder today if you just go in setup correctly.

However, constantly being told your role unnecessary right up to the point where you’re not is hardly an environment made to encourage more tanks overall.

Araneae6537

notachik wrote: »

Create something like battle spirit that restricts only tanks and healers..now the fakes don’t do as much dps and they will quit taking the purpose of a healer and tank away

No, I am completely opposed to forcing something like this on roles even though it should minimally effect me as I mostly play full support anyway. But I 100% support play as you want SO LONG AS in PUG groups you fulfill your role. In non-DLC vet dungeons and all normal, you will probably have more fun if you cover the basics and then focus on damage beyond that and players should not have that option taken away.

Plus, the goal of faking is to cut in queue and get their reward faster. They don’t care about the rest of the group of they would at least be prepared for the role they queued for and check with their group before going full dps.

BXR_Lonestar

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.

Its all fun and games until you try to do something very difficult w/o a tank AND healer LOL. There are just certain encounters that go so much more smoothly with a tank, and even in those encounters where 1 tank, 3 DPS will work, sometimes they just go that much smoother with a dedicated healer who can buff the group.

Araneae6537

NerfSeige wrote: »

I mean, on pve, most healers are soft carried anyway.

Wow, Spaulder of Ruin is illustrative of how many see our role, apparently. I do everything I can to maximize my teammates’ damage and sustain and will even sacrifice my own for it, yet at the end, some may just pat themselves on the back and view the support as expendable.

Of course I’m not arguing that you can’t do content without people in dedicated roles…

As I said in a previous post, it would be great if ZOS implemented dungeon mechanics where the most efficient way to get through them entailed strong support, including damage that could be healed through. In GW2 there were fractals (dungeons) that would require someone to periodically disengage from the fight to remove a damage effect like poison gas. Being able to say, “Stack and trust your healer,” was very satisfying! Of course I bring a lot more than heals, but people tend to notice and appreciate most when their health bar is involved!

SpiritKitten

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 used the armory to do the dps/heal hybrid for all normal content and swap to full heals for vet and trials.

Fennwitty

When I group with random PUGs and get new players -- they *need* the trinity even for normals. They don't know what they're doing, so they take a ton of damage and need a lot of help.

It's the higher end/higher skilled players who continue spreading the (true for them) narrative that support isn't necessary, and that's permeating the whole community now to where even new players believe it when it isn't true for them.

The game's skill gap has never shrunken. If you're new and wearing whatever sets dropped overland you *need* absolutely tanks and healers to get through a dungeon. Partly because yes, damage is lower also.

But when you have players who know the game, have meta gear and CP, and tons of experience, the game ceases to *need* most of the support since it's easy enough to build self-sufficient or skip mechanics entirely.

Skill ceiling keeps raising despite stated efforts, and the floor hasn't moved an inch.

Skilled players skip mechanics, they don't need to play them. And the game hasn't updated any older content for this new reality. Only with newer content we're getting dungeons with "repeat 3 times regardless of dps" intended to prevent skipping but the issue is player damage is insanely high at its highest, and incredibly low at its lowest.

Harry_Toes

The importance of true tanks in dungeons depends a lot on who else is in your group.

I've recently tanked a few normal random pugs and found in most cases that most if not all of my team mates were sub CP160 (I'm just over CP1300). To them, even base game dungeons can be challenging - I've had to revive the entire team during boss fights. Which is fine - the point of the game is to collaborate for group success, not be a jerk and leave the team behind to solo content because "I need stickers!"

I've also had experience as a DD playing random normal DLC dungeons with fake tanks, who couldn't hold aggro to save anyone.

Tanks are still needed - just not so much when you have 2 or 3 CP1000+ players running on the same team.

This isn't the first thread I've seen lamenting the same concern. If I had to guess, ZOS will eventually address this by either increasing relative level difficulty or somehow handicapping high CP players in group content.

ixthUA

I can understand why tanks are most rare. While a healer, in full support build, can do 15-17k DPS and carry the group, tank can push 5k at best, and if DDs are bad - even base game veteran dungeons may fail. Tank may survive a lot, but it's not fun killing a boss solo with 5k DPS.

YoureWrongImRight

Does the solution always need to be to use battle spirit nerfs, or nerf CP for higher level players, or increase difficulty of the content relative to the team playing?

There's no sense of accomplishment if things are not challenging, and there's no point in gaining CP if your stats are just nerfed back down whenever you enter a dungeon in order to keep it challenging.

Is the only concern here scaring off new players? Do they also not want a sense of accomplishment for completing challenging content? What is the issue with having dungeons tuned to have more CP brackets going all the way to 2000+ recommended level.

It is easier to have new players want to rise to a challenge and want to stay than it is to try and keep older players around who are bored with doing the same easy junk over and over.

starkerealm

Mumbles_the_Tank wrote: »

I was nerfed? Sure they went for dodge roll cost and speed but almost every single fight today is far easier than it was even a year ago.

Legitimately, the first thing that came to mind was stam recovery while blocking.

Bosses having full CC immunity was another nerf to tanks.

Nord's damage mitigation perk being converted to a conventional +resists passive was a nerf to Nord tanks. Argonian, and Imperial tanks have shouldered similar hits over the years.

The 1.5 Werewolf change, and the Vampire rework with Greymoor were both nerfs that affected tanks (though, to be fair, both of those also affected all three roles.)

Sustain changes with Morrowind were intended to affect DPS (and they did), but they also hit tanks hard.

Like, if I sat down and actually catalogued every nerf tanks have suffered over the last seven years, we'd be here all day. It's not a trivial list. A lot of things we take for granted now, didn't used to be the case. (And, yes, there was a time where the tank's job was to stunlock the boss, for the DPS. That got changed around 1.1 or 1.2.) Tanking has gotten progressively more difficult, especially introductory tanking. You can (kinda) see that every time you find a thread where people are asking for AoE taunts. (Yeah, some of that is about people coming from other MMOs with soft-taunt mechanics, where AoE taunts are the norm, but some of it is coming from players who don't understand how to get the job done.)

The big nerf, and really this is hundreds of small nerfs over the years compounding together, is that resource management for tanks has gotten exponentially harder. It's much harder for a new tank to learn, not because they can't take the damage (I realize I'm responding to your next comment), but because they don't have the stam and magicka to effectively learn how to play their role.

Mumbles_the_Tank wrote: »

CP 2.0 completely trivialized most of the skills we acquired back in those days. No one Guards MT on Nahvi HM anymore, you can basically phone it in between trash stacks. Halls, Cloudrest portals, Falgravn - all shadows of their former selves with the amount of stacked mitigation we have on hand. Damage is so high you won’t even see half the stuff that would have killed you back then anymore, even in an average DPS group.

Everything besides Bahsei is easier to straight up face tank and the barrier to entry is simply a gear check and a couple smart CP slots respective to the encounter.

Yeah, 2.0 dropped the floor for a lot of content. It also created enormous improvements to durability for DPS, which is a good thing for everyone. However, it didn't fix the onboarding, and it created a situation where people, litterally, did not know how to deal with mechanics in new vet content.

The biggest problem with CP2.0 is that it has made resource management more difficult. We've lost the recovery stars, and the new recovery star we got was nerfed into the ground (I think with Deadlands.)

Mumbles_the_Tank wrote: »

Whether or not making the role more accessible is a good thing or not - it’s certainly far more boring and none of the survival skills I acquired back then are really needed today outside of Rockgrove. I don’t see where learning the content would be harder today if you just go in setup correctly.

However, constantly being told your role unnecessary right up to the point where you’re not is hardly an environment made to encourage more tanks overall.

Yeah, and the big issue there, is when you are needed, you walk right into a wall.

Jimbru

I have four toons. Of their main builds, three are DPS, one is a healer. Believe me, I notice when the tank or healer in groups are fakes, and I wish I could ban them on the spot. Now that we have the armory, there is no reason why everyone can't have group and soloing builds. As an old school MMO player, I want the traditional roles in groups. In fact, I wish classes were more like traditional RPG classes from the start.

Nanfoodle

Games Iike WoW let tanks do really good damage so they can level and feel useful in a team even while being a meat shield. No reason healers and Tanks can't enjoy that feeling in ESO.

BalticBlues

Jimbru wrote: »

Believe me, I notice when the tank or healer in groups are fakes, and I wish I could ban them on the spot.

All normal Dungeons (except where an artificial gateway requires two, three or four players) can be run by just ONE good DD. No tank or healer required.- All vet non-DLC-Dungeons also can be run by just one good DD. In vDLC-Dungeons, 3 DDs and Tank usually are more effective than a healer setup. Nowadays, ONLY WEAK DDs require a healer in Dungeons - SO OP SELF-HEALS ARE.

btw: Believe me, I also notice when the dds are fakes, and I wish I could ban them on the spot.

Nanfoodle wrote: »

Games Iike WoW let tanks do really good damage so they can level and feel useful in a team even while being a meat shield. No reason healers and Tanks can't enjoy that feeling in ESO.

There was a time Tanks could do good damage in ESO.
But this brought tears to PvP DD Streamers,
so they pressed ZOS to nerf Tank damage into the ground.

There was a time pets could do good damage in ESO.
Especially Sorc healers could rock this way.
But this brought tears to PvP DD Streamers,
so they pressed ZOS to nerf pet damage into the ground.

There was a time healers could do good damage in ESO with proc sets.
But this brought tears to PvP DD Streamers,
so they pressed ZOS to scale proc damage sets with raw damage,
so today only Stam DDs can fully use damage proc sets.

There even was a time healers could heal in PvP.
But this brought tears to PvP DD Streamers,
so they pressed ZOS to nerf Healers into not being able to heal outside of a group.
But this finally was so absurd that even ZOS realized how SELFISH DD Steamers are.
So at least that crippling healer nerf was reverted.

However, Tank damage still sucks, and Healers are not really needed.
In fact, you do not even need a Resto staff to have great heals in ESO.
DDs are kings for a reason in ESO. Because in PvP
DD STREAMERS MADE SURE THEY COULD DO AND HAVE EVERYTHING
AND OTHER ROLES ARE WEAK - AND MOSTLY NOT REQUIRED ANYMORE.

peacenote

Fennwitty wrote: »

When I group with random PUGs and get new players -- they *need* the trinity even for normals. They don't know what they're doing, so they take a ton of damage and need a lot of help.

It's the higher end/higher skilled players who continue spreading the (true for them) narrative that support isn't necessary, and that's permeating the whole community now to where even new players believe it when it isn't true for them.

The game's skill gap has never shrunken. If you're new and wearing whatever sets dropped overland you *need* absolutely tanks and healers to get through a dungeon. Partly because yes, damage is lower also.

But when you have players who know the game, have meta gear and CP, and tons of experience, the game ceases to *need* most of the support since it's easy enough to build self-sufficient or skip mechanics entirely.

Skill ceiling keeps raising despite stated efforts, and the floor hasn't moved an inch.

Skilled players skip mechanics, they don't need to play them. And the game hasn't updated any older content for this new reality. Only with newer content we're getting dungeons with "repeat 3 times regardless of dps" intended to prevent skipping but the issue is player damage is insanely high at its highest, and incredibly low at its lowest.

Yep. There are people now who bang their heads over and over in an instance when they don't even realize what they need is a good healer and tank.

A lot of normals and some vet dungeons can be soloed or duoed. Given this, I'm not sure ANY role is always necessary but it's not good that people are saying support isn't needed. It is. I would like it to be more relevant than it is, but I think it's not accurate to say the roles are dying.

PvP_Exploiter

Healing being scaled off of Spell/Weapon damage almost completely removes the identity of a healer.

You don't need healing buffs because you just use full spell damage and can make a player go from 1% to 100% in one button.

So since you're basically full damage, a few skills take care of everyone's health then you just do DPS like the rest. Mostly in sets that buff DPS because no one needs shields or more raw healing.

The amount of healing is so crazy it's halved in PvP and people can still go from 1hp to full in two skills.

HyekAr

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).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)

I ve been playing 1 year, and since I am in this forum, every month someone opened a topic abt this, me inclusive

HyekAr

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.

U are right,the most problem of that it is healing skills amd buffimg skills, if those would be in exclusive monopoly of healing classes, then everyone would want a Healer-Buffer and NO-party could live without them

theslynx

I'm a casual tank with a healer alt who plays from Asia with high latency. That means vet content is a bit of a mess with networking, and spell weaving is only successful half the time, so I stick to normal pug dungeons and support roles.

When I started tanking, it was reasonably rewarding. On occasion, people would thank support players in particular for an easy run. It felt good.

In the last year, I've had several groups complain that they had an actual tank on their team instead of a DPS queued as a tank, and have seen a similar complaint about the healer on our team. One player told me I was being selfish, and that if I wanted to tank, I should make a private group instead of clogging up the Dungeon Finder. Not all groups are like this - some still can use healers and tanks - but enough that it's vexing.

Perhaps things are different in vet content, but a non-trivial number of people have open scorn for two-thirds of roles now in normal content. I've flat-out stopped doing dungeons at this point. It isn't rewarding or fun.

I'd love to see some small changes to bring DPS importance in line with support roles. For instance:

- Slightly decrease cheap survivability value in Champion Points, and slightly increase outgoing monster damage in all non-Overland content
- When a player has a taunt on the active bar, increase armour and health
- When a player has a Resto Staff bar equipped in either current or offhand slot, increase healing done

Or similar measures that would achieve the same thing. The goal would be that healers and tanks keep similar healing and durability respectively, while DPS need to either invest a bit in durability at a cost to damage, or rely on existing healers and tanks. Nothing enormous, just a tweak downwards to DPS being king in all content.

YoureWrongImRight

Some of these mechanisms already exist via glyphs and traits and/or would break PvP even further than it already is.

If you are sword & board you can use defending trait with a health glyph and you have higher armor and health.

If you have a resto staff you can use a powered trait and it increases your healing output. Increasing it on both bars would just break self healing even more as tons of people run resto staff back bar and would have even more carry over onto front bar healing which is already too powerful.

Self healing is already way too strong and needs a huge nerf to make dedicated healers desirable. People should at least need to kite to avoid taking too much damage if they do not have a dedicated healer whereas right now you can literally just face tank it wearing light armor, shields and self healing is more than strong enough to overcome basically anything that isn't a one shot mechanic.

PvP is the same story, damage shield with rapid regen spam even in light armor will make you almost impossible to kill even with someone spamming executioner on you.

Dem_kitkats1

BalticBlues wrote: »

[Because in PvP
DD STREAMERS MADE SURE THEY COULD DO AND HAVE EVERYTHING
AND OTHER ROLES ARE WEAK - AND MOSTLY NOT REQUIRED ANYMORE.

This is ironic now considering they find everything too easy and want harder content. Then jump ship when new content is out.

Cryptical wrote: »

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.

Yes I have also had thoughts that this is why support play is so less engaging and doesn't have as much as an impact as it should and why the balance greatly favors dps play. Characters can do everything and far too much of it whether it be damage, healing, and defense. Characters have access to all of it without a need to make a concession on even one. People forget that this is an MMO and is meant for team play. The only really solo content is overland, quests, and a couple of arenas. Even PvP is meant for teams. Yet characters are able and encouraged to be built as if the majority of the game solo content. So support roles are much less relevant, a second thought until end game content where they make a clear easier and more faster to do. Yet if people had the time and a team of very strong dps they could still achieve it.

I don't think it would be that hard to balance in order to bring some diversity and difficulty back into the game. ESO has a really solid base already it just needs a couple of tweaks. Like separating healing from damage would be a good start, reworking some of the skills that could be put to better use by tanks to make them more engaging to play.

ForeverJenn

Support is needed in most vet content. If you are upset that your support chars are boring in normal content, then challenge yourself to more endgame stuff.

And I'm being sincere about that. You can't just stand there and heal because that isn't needed 100 percent of your time. Try debuffing the boss, buffing the group and healing. Work on your uptimes. Wear helpful proc sets. You'll find ways to make use of your time.

That's the kind of support you should be offering.

YoureWrongImRight

ForeverJenn wrote: »

Support is needed in most vet content. If you are upset that your support chars are boring in normal content, then challenge yourself to more endgame stuff.

You can literally solo the majority of dungeons on vet hard mode. The only thing that discourages you from doing so is that you can do it faster by bringing more people.

All the vet solo arenas are basically a joke especially with Pale Order ring.

You could probably even solo many stages of vet group arenas it would just be a waste of time.

And usually the solution to your problem is not that you need more supports, you just need more damage to reduce your clear time.

ForeverJenn

YoureWrongImRight wrote: »

ForeverJenn wrote: »

Support is needed in most vet content. If you are upset that your support chars are boring in normal content, then challenge yourself to more endgame stuff.

You can literally solo the majority of dungeons on vet hard mode. The only thing that discourages you from doing so is that you can do it faster by bringing more people.

All the vet solo arenas are basically a joke especially with Pale Order ring.

You could probably even solo many stages of vet group arenas it would just be a waste of time.

And usually the solution to your problem is not that you need more supports, you just need more damage to reduce your clear time.

Then challenge yourself to Hard Modes and Trials and coordinate your support role with your friends.