I haven't played healer yet so can only speak as tank and dps in 4 man content, but i'd say melee dps is the harder.

Surviving and controlling adds as tank is very easy and most of the bosses require you to do very little and as a sorc tank, i'm pretty much immortal and self sustaining. The only bossesw here i actually need assistance from a healer that come to mind are Velidreth and Kena. The only thing that would make it hard is that your mistakes are more apparent and yes, they can wipe a group, but as you gain experiance the less you make them.

Also i pug a lot, i like doing random vets for the sake of it and the group can usually do ok with a bad tank or healer but if the dps suck it's a nightmare, there have been many runs cut short because the dps is simply too bad and the group isn't able to progress. And most of them are absolutely awefull.

Armitas wrote: »

I found dungeon healing to be pretty easy after all the dungeon nerfs. Last time I did vCoA I was the group tank and the group healer. I haven't healed trials though. For some classes DPS rotations are ridiculous so I had to vote for that. I tank and it's pretty relaxed and non intensive. I can use trash pots and I don't have to stare at an array of dot timers and reapply ground dots every time a boss gets frisky.

Some roles are just harder for other people. I have a guildie who is an amazing tank, but he struggles with being a DPS. For me, however, DPS is easiest, because I've been doing it so long. I can really play my magicka sorc deeps.

Smh, tank is the easiest. Just stacks health and taunts. Not enough credit is given to low health damage dealers who must output dps while trying to survive. However, the healer is the most tedious, and when they fail, others take it personal. Players are more likely to criticize the healer than any other role, however it seems too common that a tank criticizes the dps of the group, when the tank isn't doing their job which is causing the damage dealers to get killed.

damage dealer...deffinetly.

it's not easy doing their job, in order to be the absolute best you can be? that is HARD for damage dealers

tanks rely on healers and damage dealers, they job is relatively easy (i would know i ran one of the original healtank templars back in 2014-2015. two manned gold key instances just to make it difficult for me, only reason i was able to do this, was because i had a damage dealer that was on top of his ***, MASSIVE damage output, great self healing, great possitioning. i just stood there, spemmed BOL, kept buffed and taunted all while mashing block....hardest thing about my build was getting the gear...)

healers are kinda in the same boat as tanks. you don't HAVE to hit buffs...you don't HAVE to deal damage...(the goodones do...but ur not gonna wipe if ur healer isnt buffing you or dealing damage)

hardest thing about DD is the way that they have to have a rotation down in a game that wasnt designed to have one (like wow/ EQ/ GW). the gear has to be on point, the rotation has to be down, and if ur healer and tank arent doing any damage, that means you have to be on your game even more...

I have played all roles in 4 man content and found healer to be the most difficult,
Especially with pug groups,

They run around don't bunch up when they are supposed to,
don't understand the mechanics and when they wipe the healer is always to blame,

I do all three, and each one has its own set of unique challenges. That said, I think healing's the thoughest: DDs and tanks pay attention to the enemy, but a healer pays attention to the entire group, and in a 12-man trial, that's a lot of things to juggle.

On the other hand, magicka Templars are one of the classes that do really well in PvP, because they heal so fast and most are really tanky and very hard to burst. I see a lot of those builds in Cyrodiil, using the same model of heavy armor (probably a bought/dropped set?), 1H+S and Malubeth monster set. If they have both light and heavy armor fully specced it's not hard to switch. Some add-ons let you do that by the push of a button. You can be really tanky with 0 attribute points in health and all in either magicka or stamina, if you put tri-glyphs on armor. I switch my full Stamina DK from 1L/1M/5H 1H+S tank in PvE dungeons to 1M/5M/1H 2H/Bow in PvP and he has no problem. So the healer can easily swap spell power cure with the heavy armor setup described above as well and still be viable.

Dealing damage while tanking is much harder than dealing damage while healing.
- a tank has all the aggro and he will have to block most of the time having few windows to use DPS skills; he also have to swap bars because 1H+S really has no DPS skills. Of course, he can use his class skills but those are best kept on his other bar anyway.
- blocking stops stamina regeneration so he will need more shards to keep doing both - there is a trade-of for the healer between supporting more or using that magicka for DPS; it might be easier for a magicka build that tanks and he can readily restore stamina but blocking itself takes out a lot of stamina, so the pool needs to be bigger than the ~10K most magicka builds have so I'm assuming a stamina build for tanking.
- your DPS in heavy armor won't shine - you have to be beaten a lot to make wrath passive matter, and not to the level of light/medium armor passives that apply all the time - but as I said in most dungeons you can run as tank in medium armor without any issues if you know the bosses and the other mechanics; tanking in light armor may be viable when heavily shielded, but that takes up a lot of resources by itself.
- a tank that also opens up to DPS is likelier to get damaged and killed more easily so he will need more healing than normally, and take more healing, or even tie up one or more group members to revive him, if they don't wipe outright while trying because of lost aggro on a hard hitting boss.

A healer can DPS without hardly any penalty though:
- he has no aggro on him so he doesn't need to block that much
- he is surely running at least 5 pieces of light armor getting all the passives from that, and BiS sets like Spell Power Cure sets give max magicka and spell damage bonuses, which add to DPS output, as well as healing (spells scale and crit the same).
- he is most likely a full magicka build, with full arcane jewelry and magicka enchants on all gear
- he is most likely running a destruction staff on back bar anyway to apply elemental drain so he can use other skills from that line as well
- if he is a Templar it would be a waste not to throw that radiant destruction or solar prison into the fight or if he is a NB sap essence and funnel health.

healer for every reason listed above , plus have you ever tried watching life meters while keeping aware of you positioning and staying alive....then there is "that guy" who dies due to standing directly in harms way and just blames the healer. this is why I tank or dps now in trials and vet content...

Group content?

That is a wide range of stuff.... If you are talking about pledges, 99% of them are jokes which dont even need a tank. If you brought a tank they would be doing nothing but yawning and holding block after taunting one boss which can easily be blocked by any stamina DD holding right click... Hence, tank would be easiest in said content followed by DD then healer.

If you are talking about things like vDSA, vHel ra etc, I vote tanks. The axes in AA with ESO's *** tab targeting system.. god... Those things hurt. The last fight in vDSA where u need to self heal while taunting 2 huge groups of adds while staying alive long enuf so ur DPS and heals can burn boss.... vHel ra where any unblocked attack from warrior= death + party wipe...... These areas tanks I feel are the hardest and most important role followed by heals. Any1 who hasnt done said content is going to feel like tanks are the most brainless role because they have never needed a tank to do anything but taunt and fall asleep on right mouse button.

You need to narrow down the scope. Group content is too wide.

Healed Blessed Crucible last night. The round with the Incineration Beetles, Giant Scorpion and Troll King got a bit heavy, especially on the beetles when the two DPS and the tank all stood in stupid around the damn beetles, dying before they could be healed, leaving me to deal with 5 of the 6 six beetles solo. Trust me, going split DPS and heals on a templar is helpful in those situations especially with the number of AoE effects you can lay down to do damage over time.

Asardes wrote: »

In your opinion, which is the hardest role to fill in group content, including both 4 man dungeons and arenas and 12 man trials, in terms of resource management, group utility, individual skill rotation for optimum effect and most importantly knowing the mechanics and acting accordingly?

As a personal note this is my first multiplayer game and I've run as tank on my main since I started doing dungeons, so I had to learn all from scratch. Only recently, when I had enough skill points did I begin to run as DD. I've never run as healer until now since my Templar alt is not mature enough to bring her in dungeons yet.

I'm sorry but most players on here are going to have a bias, if not all of them.

However I say tank because for some content such as Velidreth's, I must combine resource management with survivability, whilst tanking a boss and adds. Im sure every clasd has their different difficult moments.

As a lifelong tank, DPS is the hardest role. Think about how much a really good dps changes a run vs a really bad DPS. A really good tank or a really good healer doesn't affect the run vs an average tank or healer. In fact, for many dungeon encounters you don't need a tank/healer if your dps is good enough.

I've been a healer since I started ESO. Although this poll shows healers taking the lead I disagree. For the few of us that heal as a main it's kind of a personality thing. I like to take care of my people. In my opinion dps is the hardest. You are always in constant competition to have the highest numbers, despite trying to avoid the same mechanics. I've hardly been in an instance where my tank wasn't good enough, but I've seen plenty of times the group said we didn't have enough dps. I feel at the edge of my seat everytime I've tried to play a dps character.