The enjoyment between healer, tank and dps

Gulnagel · November 2017

I just got an epiphany, I've been playing a templar Breton healer since start and it is fun. However I'm not really liking the concept of redistributing my champion points and switching gear and skills if I want to play solo and do good damage. So usually you just end up doing solo quest in my SPC/worm sets with puncuring sweeps as the only damage ability slotted.

I healed most veteran content and have collected a lot of gear. So I decided to roll a sorcerer dps. From lvl 1-50 I played my sorcerer as a healer for faster que in dungeons that's how I levelled him fast. Ones I reached 50 I decked him out in BiS gear instantly and respeced him to DPS, I'm the kind of player who like min-maxing.

Playing as a healer since forever I'm not used to a DPS rotation, but I practiced my rotation and DPS by soloing groupdungeons and yesterday I soloed my first world boss (the guar in deeshan with the spriggans).

Then it hit me, I'm having more fun on my DPS in solo play than on my healer, everything melts, I don't have to respec championpoints or switch gear when I want to go from solo play to trials or dungeons. My sorcerer feels like a tank, literally a tank. Hits hard as he'll, soaks up damage like there is no tomorrow and can heal himself with powersurge for 3000 k each crit. And I crit A LOT.

No wonder people ignore playing healers and tanks, this whole game is catered towards dps in solo play and it is easier to traverse from solo to group content since gear and stats stay the same.

Now I'm wondering what your thoughts are.

Did you also play a support role and tried a dps, what's your impression if you are to compare like I did?

Or maybe you played as a DPS and decided to try out a support role, what's your impression on that?

Edit: What do you think the support roles (healer and tank) need to make them more appealing for people to choose?

Edit 2: I'm on ps4 so no add-ons available or macros.

Cage_Lizardman · November 2017

I started out as a healer, but now I only heal occasional runs with guildmates. It's more fun to play with my DD's. Also never managed to get good dps on a magplar.

Gulnagel · November 2017

Cage_Lizardman wrote: »

I started out as a healer, but now I only heal occasional runs with guildmates. It's more fun to play with my DD's. Also never managed to get good dps on a magplar.

Templar has a bug atm with it's execute and sweeps not doing correct damage. It will be fixed in the near future. I know that the worlds first clear on the vetetan trial AS had a magplar DPS. So it is doable to get good numbers but it's not easy and as it is bugged atm. I will always have my templar as a healer anyway.

Flameheart · November 2017

I have a magicka build char of every class. I spec them as a DD but collected gear for tanking (Akaviri, Ebon, Bloodpawn, Swarm Mother) and healing (SPC, Worm).

I am able to play almost any vet 4-man-stuff as a DD, tank or healer as a templar, Sorc, DK and NB without ever changing my CP setup or even my Mundus by just clicking a macrokey for Dressing Room and switching gear. As a non templar healer I may change CPs for CoS (Velidreth) and the new HotR dungeons. You need some skill points for that of course to skill out resto staff, heavy armor and 1hand+shield lines in addition, but as you are able to get far over 300 skill points in that game, its not an issue.

...and yes, if you think this is one of the things, which make ESO great, you are right.

On topic: I will never understand why someone will solo/quest in this game with a healer or tank build. It's DD all the way. Sometimes you may change your skills a bit for world bosses and maybe equip a resto staff on your back bar, that's all.

Gulnagel · November 2017

Flameheart wrote: »

I have a magicka build char of every class. I spec them as a DD but collected gear for tanking (Akaviri, Ebon, Bloodpawn, Swarm Mother) and healing (SPC, Worm).

I am able to play almost any vet 4-man-stuff as a DD, tank or healer as a templar, Sorc, DK and NB without ever changing my CP setup or even my Mundus by just clicking a macrokey for Dressing Room and switching gear. As a non templar healer I may change CPs for CoS (Velidreth) and the new HotR dungeons. You need some skill points for that of course to skill out resto staff, heavy armor and 1hand+shield lines in addition, but as you are able to get far over 300 skill points in that game, its not an issue.

...and yes, if you think this is one of the things, which make ESO great, you are right.

On topic: I will never understand why someone will solo/quest in this game with a healer or tank build. Sometimes you may change your skill a bit for world bosses and maybe equip a resto staff on your back bar, that's all.

Reason to solo quest with tank or healer is that it takes time to switch gear and allocate CP just for soloing 1 hour and in the middle of a quest someone from the guild might need a healer, it's just to much work and gold switching back an forward. Especially for a new player with limited skillpoints and gold, but with that in mind I'm not surprised that 99% choose to play as a dps (maybe a little overkill but you get the point.

I'm on console btw.

neal_brasier · November 2017

I went the other way played as dps for about a year and a half, had my original character which was a stam dk just sitting doing nothing as I'd basically messed up his build as I didn't know what I was doing at the time and rerolled a mag sorc as my main (as well as a few other dps characters). Anyway due to there only being a couple of tanks in my guild decided to reroll my dk as a tank and am totally loving it at the moment.
Do you think maybe op it's just that as you are now playing a completely different playstyle that's what you're enjoying? That's what I found it was enjoyable doing things a different way

Gulnagel · November 2017

neal_brasier wrote: »

I went the other way played as dps for about a year and a half, had my original character which was a stam dk just sitting doing nothing as I'd basically messed up his build as I didn't know what I was doing at the time and rerolled a mag sorc as my main (as well as a few other dps characters). Anyway due to there only being a couple of tanks in my guild decided to reroll my dk as a tank and am totally loving it at the moment.
Do you think maybe op it's just that as you are now playing a completely different playstyle that's what you're enjoying? That's what I found it was enjoyable doing things a different way

Great that you found use for the old DK again

Yes ofcourse it can be that it's a new playstyle that makes it more fun. But it still doesn't take away the fact that it is more of a hassle to play healer or tank solo. And it is a known fact that the majority of ESO players cater to DPS. It's just not fun building a healer or tank as a low-level player and when you reach max lvl it is very rarely you make the switch to a support role from being a DPS like you did and actually enjoy it.

As a support role you feel so dependent on the DPS all the time but the truth is they aren't as dependent on you.

I'm sure that if I had 3 other sorcerers with the same build as me. We could melt every veteran dungeon, even the DLC ones with no trouble.

But you can't do that with 4 healers or 4 tanks. And if you manage the combined DPS of the 4 would probably 80 % of what 1 sorcerer put out.

When people solo veteran dungeons I call it bad balancing, this game somehow made the use of tanks and healers obsolete in 4 man content if you got 4 good selfsustaining dps. And no one want to play as a healer or tank when you are new to the game.

So where do the supportroles fit in, trials? That's all it is. That's the only place I can see my healer as mandatory. And it makes me sad in a way.

CyborgPlatypus · November 2017

For solo play I just put on warmaiden and seducer. I don't need the best dps on my own. Just enough to kill things. Plus I'm slowly filling up elemental expert for that reason.

Sometimes in dungeons though especially normal ones I feel superfluous. Because everyone can take care of themselves.

Jaimeh · November 2017

It’s a bit frustrating to do solo content on a healer/tank. You need to change skills, weapons, gears, CPs, depending on the situation, and it’s time consuming, not to mention expensive. For example, I wanted to take advantage of the recent vMA double drops, and decided to go in with my relatively new warden healer, because I wanted to learn the class better (vMA is great for that), and also get the ‘Stormproof’ title for her. I had to re-moprh skills, change my CPs, figure out gear, and when it was (thankfully, blessedly!) over, I had to reverse all that, so she would be ready for healing again. DPS characters in contrast just have to show up

Having said that, I find playing a healer very stressful interesting, at least in a group context. It gives you a whole new perspective on a fight, and I find that I generally have to be more alert on my healer, and keep track of more things, than on my DPS. But yeah, not taking two minutes to kill a mudcrab sure is great

kringled_1 · November 2017

Gulnagel wrote: »

Flameheart wrote: »

I have a magicka build char of every class. I spec them as a DD but collected gear for tanking (Akaviri, Ebon, Bloodpawn, Swarm Mother) and healing (SPC, Worm).

I am able to play almost any vet 4-man-stuff as a DD, tank or healer as a templar, Sorc, DK and NB without ever changing my CP setup or even my Mundus by just clicking a macrokey for Dressing Room and switching gear. As a non templar healer I may change CPs for CoS (Velidreth) and the new HotR dungeons. You need some skill points for that of course to skill out resto staff, heavy armor and 1hand+shield lines in addition, but as you are able to get far over 300 skill points in that game, its not an issue.

...and yes, if you think this is one of the things, which make ESO great, you are right.

On topic: I will never understand why someone will solo/quest in this game with a healer or tank build. Sometimes you may change your skill a bit for world bosses and maybe equip a resto staff on your back bar, that's all.

Reason to solo quest with tank or healer is that it takes time to switch gear and allocate CP just for soloing 1 hour and in the middle of a quest someone from the guild might need a healer, it's just to much work and gold switching back an forward. Especially for a new player with limited skillpoints and gold, but with that in mind I'm not surprised that 99% choose to play as a dps (maybe a little overkill but you get the point.

I'm on console btw.

Flameheart's point is more that for the vast majority of content you don't have to swap CP, just gear and which active skills you have. Triple spec might be a bit much but I'll bet that you have more than enough skill points to spec as dd or heals on your templar, say. Console and no add-ons does mean that changing gear and skills is slower, certainly, but if the stuff is all in your inventory it shouldnt take more than a couple of minutes (and if your guild's need for a healer goes away in 2 minutes than it wasn't super urgent).

randomkeyhits · November 2017

My preference in most games is to play as one of the support classes, I generally don't like being put down by enemies.

But....

I've learned that all MMOs are damage-centric, to complete stuff, you have to kill and to kill you need damage out. As damagers do more damage (natch...) they complete content faster so most players choose damager, its a cycle.

So I always start now with damagers.

The funny thing is in every game, you get to the end game content and there are never enough support roles so you can now complete (group permitting) content faster if you queue up and play a support role.

There is also nothing you can do to convince the run of the mill player to try to learn to heal or tank either. No matter how much its advertised that end game needs support roles they will stay damagers because in their eyes its easily the simplest option, put enemy in front, hit enemy, rinse, repeat until no more enemies. That and its massively easier for a poor damager to hide in a group compared to poor tank or healer.

kylewwefan · November 2017

Questing on a Trials tank setup is the worst. Low damage and no flipping inventory space cause I have to carry a dozen different gear sets on this toon. Also on PS4.

idk · November 2017

I would not say the game is catered to damage dealers vs the other two roles, but when solo a healer will do less damage. For OP it really comes down to the CP since his gear is not bad (not BiS) because he/she does get spell damage from SPC using sweeps.

It is really the same with any game that has a different spec for a support role vs damage. The damage build will perform better for doing damage.

Gulnagel · November 2017

kylewwefan wrote: »

Questing on a Trials tank setup is the worst. Low damage and no flipping inventory space cause I have to carry a dozen different gear sets on this toon. Also on PS4.

Haha the pain is real. You can have a 1 hour fight with a mudcrab until it run out of resources and reset.

Liofa · November 2017

I enjoy playing tank the most . Because I can control what is gonna happen next and where the enemies will take their position . Tank is basically the ruler of the battlefield . If I want something to happen , it happens . Amazing feeling but also a big responsibility . A single mistake can mess up an entire run . I think this huge responsibility feeling makes the role most awarding at the end .

Second one is playing DD . I quite enjoy easier to play classes like Stamina Sorcerer because I have this urge to look around and be ready for mechanics all the time . I just can't look at my addons for DoT uptimes . I always make a simple and easy to remember rotation . If it's not the best , who cares . Most I lose is 2-3k . I go to dummy , practice for about half an hour at most and master the rotation . Done , ready for every combat . I think being able to pay full attention to your surroundings is much more important than pushing out the highest DPS possible . Agree or not , it is a fact that you are not paying 100% attention if you are looking at your addons for buff/debuff uptimes . Only thing I don't like is , I am not deciding what is going to happen . It just bothers me when the tank on first boss MoL doesn't run to boss earlier during pillar phase and lets the boss move . Things like that .

Third is Healer . I hate playing healer . I do have one and it is total cancer . Sometimes I wish it was like WoW's target based healing . So I could let stupid DDs who stand in red die . But I can't . It triggers me so much when a DD stands in red because they know I will be healing anyways . This is simply the only reason I don't like playing healer .

About the questing and stuff as a tank/healer , I know it is a pain but there are many ways around it . If you are a DK tank , just slot a Shock enchanted Charged Lightning Staff with Blockade of Storms and spam Flame Lash . This is just one of the things that can make your life much easier as a tank

Flameheart · November 2017

Gulnagel wrote: »

Flameheart wrote: »

I have a magicka build char of every class. I spec them as a DD but collected gear for tanking (Akaviri, Ebon, Bloodpawn, Swarm Mother) and healing (SPC, Worm).

I am able to play almost any vet 4-man-stuff as a DD, tank or healer as a templar, Sorc, DK and NB without ever changing my CP setup or even my Mundus by just clicking a macrokey for Dressing Room and switching gear. As a non templar healer I may change CPs for CoS (Velidreth) and the new HotR dungeons. You need some skill points for that of course to skill out resto staff, heavy armor and 1hand+shield lines in addition, but as you are able to get far over 300 skill points in that game, its not an issue.

...and yes, if you think this is one of the things, which make ESO great, you are right.

On topic: I will never understand why someone will solo/quest in this game with a healer or tank build. Sometimes you may change your skill a bit for world bosses and maybe equip a resto staff on your back bar, that's all.

Reason to solo quest with tank or healer is that it takes time to switch gear and allocate CP just for soloing 1 hour and in the middle of a quest someone from the guild might need a healer, it's just to much work and gold switching back an forward. Especially for a new player with limited skillpoints and gold, but with that in mind I'm not surprised that 99% choose to play as a dps (maybe a little overkill but you get the point.

I'm on console btw.

Even if you don't change CPs from your healer/tank build (which makes only sense to have IF you do play that role in trials), your dps should be absolutely ok with just a skill and maybe a gear swap....and a Julianos set is quickly crafted and a Mother's Sorrow set doesn't cost a fortune at guild traders and so you can go 5/5/1. As a healer you should already have some useful stats from your healer sets which might carry a DD role too. The most important are the skills you use ...I still don't understand the issue.

Besides a DD, Tank and healer setup I even have a Sneak setup for thieving-like quests.

The remaining issue might be that you need to replace gear and skills one by one because of no addons, awkward, but possible, that's all.

josiahva · November 2017

I have no problem solo questing on my tank toon. I simply have another gear/skill set macro-ed to another key I use an add on to change in 2 seconds. It gives me acceptable sub-par DPS(22k or so), but far more than enough to do anything I need to solo(also helps a lot for those dungeons that don't really need a tank, say Darkshade II)

badmojo · November 2017

I have 14 characters, 10 of them are veterans, I have done just about every combo of class and role. Currently I am really enjoying my warden healer, but I also have a magsorc I love for pvp and recently built a stamsorc for dealing damage in PVE, and yestetday I created yet another magsorc which I plan on doing some tanking in heavy armor when he hits 50. The role I like the least has been tank and class would be DK, which is why my DK tank became master crafter.

Asardes · November 2017

I've started out as tank then diversified into all 3 roles over 4 characters with the 5th on the way. Leveling is the easy part, but for me fully training a character takes 2-3 months. And I mean everything trained and specced into. That is 300-350 SP. Each has several sets and setups. For example my stamina DK has:
- Trial DD setup 2W: 5 Hunding (can sometimes borrow NMG from my NB) with either 5 Sunderflame or 5 Morag Tong with either 2 Velidreth or 2 Mephala
Dungeon/Solo DD setup 2H: 5 VO including a greatsword I run with the 5 Hunding and 1p Velidreth (and 3 Maelstrom bows in various traits)
- Dungeon/Trial Tank setup: 5 Ebon or 5 Dragon with 5 Torug with 2 Lord Warden or 2 Bloodspawn or 1 Chocklethorn 1 Shadowrend

Sometimes I ended up changing my setup from tank to DD during content. Ex. I had a crappy vSO run where I changed from tank to DD and back 2-3 times. People were blaming me for dying to Ozara as tank because the did not pull the pins. After 3.5h we reached the boss and did the HM. By that point I'm not sure how many people had stayed in the group but I bet not many since it went pretty smooth. I've done all 3 Craglorn HMs as DD within 10 days of each other, then a couple of weeks after that vMoL. On my 1st vMoL run I went DD from start to finish, on 2nd one I off-tanked to the last boss but the run had been pretty rough overall by that point due to people missing the colors at twins. I was tired and was missing the armor break mechanic by over-taunting the add. I gave up, zoned out, swapped my mundus from Atronach to Warrior, went to my Morag Tong + Mephala combo (I was the 3rd DK) and finished it. A guy who was progressing HM had come as off-tank and we managed to finish in 2-3 attempts. I hope I will tank it end to end on my 3rd.

The main reason I fail at this game is simply fatigue. I simply can't sustain a full time job and hard core raiding schedule. I sometimes do so many mistakes I feel like slapping myself. One of my worst experiences was a first shot at vHoF on PTS: was tired from work, had a bad tooth ake and for some reason my cats were on attention *** mod - I had to physically kick them out of the room to be able to use TS. I screwed up so badly (couldn't pass the 2nd boss) I realized that there was no way I could be one of those top players. As a result I decided to abandon all group content progression for the next 4 months. I secluded myself in vMA and PvP and only came back a couple of months ago and did the Crag HMs and vMoL progressions

Alchemical · November 2017

I was a tank on PS4 but only played solo because grouping on PS4 was a nightmare. Some day I would like to revisit my old tank build, but when I switched to PC I started with a DD because I wanted to catch up to the 2 years I put into my PS4 toon.

Then I realized I hate being DPS and the only fun I really had was playing Werewolf builds, but never could find groups for them. My DD got relegated to a crafter for the most part. So I swapped back to healer, which I had been in other RPGs for over a decade, but had avoided in ESO because I hate being a stereotype.. some people are just built for certain roles though, I guess.

I don't have a lot of difficulty pulling decent DPS on most of my healers. The worst is my Templar by far, but I will EVENTUALLY survive anything with jabs. My sorc absolutely tears through things while also pumping out great heals. I can go most of a dungeon on my DPS bar and only switch during tough bosses or obligatory heal checks (like Garron), so dungeons go pretty fast.

Warden's an ok healer, decent damage, ok utility, but I think I like DK and NB healers the most though because they're different and bring some real challenge and unique utility to the otherwise stale role that is healing. My DK pretty much ONLY uses sheilds without direct heals and still manages to keep people up in most content I've tried (haven't done trials or vet dungeons yet) while also throwing out buffs and DoTs. Lots of fun, but you HAVE to pay attention to your party.

Runefang · November 2017

My tank was played as a magDK until I had all the skill points and lore books I needed. He never gets respecced now.

My two healers produce 10-15k dps with just a few skill changes. But they both wear Julianos and SPC. Worms/Mending/Sanctuary is left for trials so not usually worn.

And yeah DPS is generally more fun. Templar healing and DK tanking are the least fun support classes btw so that doesn't help.

coop500 · November 2017

I started as a khajiit templar healer and I still enjoy being a healer, I like helping others, I like filling the role that people need most.

I have numerous DPS toons but they're mostly babies, but I feel being a serious DPS is too stressful for me, all the elitists will blame me if a boss doesn't die fast enough, that is not fun at all. And it's hard to be a good enough DPS for vet content, while I have fun being a healer or tank because as long as people stay alive and I do my job, everyone's happy.

Khrogo · December 2017

Solo content (unless it’s vMA) isn’t hard enough to warrant changing CP or sets. While not stellar, DPS on my healer is sufficient. Spell Power Cure is not a terrible damage set. It has two damage bonuses. The only change I make is to swap out my jewellery for ones with damage enchants.

Zhaedri · December 2017

Over yesterdays random dungeons for the event, I actually found that in group content, I prefer the healer role.

In most games I traditionally play DPS, but in this game I find it a bit more stressful, especially when levelling as one swiftly seems to get weaker the higher level they become and tactics that worked well at level 20-25 no longer work well at 30-35 and up. I hate the feeling of 'I am so Beast!!!!!' to 'A housecat could defeat me' in a matter of a few levels. As soon as I get a rotation that works and nail it down, I outlevel it and my stats get worse. And then I reach CP levels and get inundated with 'your doing it wrong!' messages when DPS isn't high enough, gear isn't good enough, rotation isn't swole enough. My two main characters (dps) are apparently not good enough for group content, though overland, public dungeons, and delves are just fine solo.

Most of my healers have a dps/tank/some damage on the backbar for solo content and no CP changes are necessary for me (I'm CP 400-something). I guess I will have to see how they level out (they are all in mid-30s levels and feel so nice to play right now).

Shezzarrine · December 2017

I have been a tank for over a year, and had no other characters. Healing and DPS just never seem as fun to me. Eventually I got tired of tanking an hour to do any overland stuff and not getting rewards for killing a WB so I broke down and made a StamDK dps. While I still "main" my tank because I have not learned the do well yet, I have not gotten on my tank once to do overland stuff since I got all the gear I needed for my dps. Do is so much better and more efficient for overland, and I hate to say it but it is more fun also

Gulnagel · December 2017

Shezzarrine wrote: »

I have been a tank for over a year, and had no other characters. Healing and DPS just never seem as fun to me. Eventually I got tired of tanking an hour to do any overland stuff and not getting rewards for killing a WB so I broke down and made a StamDK dps. While I still "main" my tank because I have not learned the do well yet, I have not gotten on my tank once to do overland stuff since I got all the gear I needed for my dps. Do is so much better and more efficient for overland, and I hate to say it but it is more fun also

I made my sorcerer purely for farming vMA never thought I actually would favour it. But I do, for overland atleast.

Verbal_Earthworm · December 2017

i was expecting erotica

Iccengi · December 2017

This would be solved by the one click add on that pc has to instantly swap gear/cp.

You’ve got a toon fully leveled you just don’t like taking the time to swap it. And yeah things die faster when someone that does damage kills them. That seems like a logical cause and effect don’t know what you’d want different.

Gulnagel · December 2017

Verbal_Earthworm wrote: »

i was expecting erotica

Haha the templar jabs furiously with his spear and the tank just takes it. Meanwhile the nightblade cloaks and surprise the sorcerer from behind, pets stare in horror.

Warden plays with his bird in a corner.

Happy?

Camb0Sl1ce · December 2017

Ive DDed since console launch, and its what I enjoy most. Made my first tank maybe 6 months ago and for me tanking is a nice change of pace, I can't speak for everybody but tanking really put a new perspective on encounters. As far as healing I hate it, props to the good ones out there for what you do.

Gulnagel · December 2017

Iccengi wrote: »

This would be solved by the one click add on that pc has to instantly swap gear/cp.

You’ve got a toon fully leveled you just don’t like taking the time to swap it. And yeah things die faster when someone that does damage kills them. That seems like a logical cause and effect don’t know what you’d want different.

Hence my epiphany why everyone and their grandma play as a DPS. And what really gets me is that you can probably two man every single veteran dungeon with two really min-maxing dps players.

Not only is it less fun to play supportroles solo, you are not needed in grouopcontent either.

What I want? Add-ons to ps4. Content that actually need the holy trinity. Something that makes people wanting to play healers and tanks. I don't know what that could be.