If we're just talking your average vet dungeon, then I found playing a healer generally to be more forgiving. I used to do vet dungeons with my warden healer and a dps stamcro friend and they were some of the most chill runs I had.

DD is relatively easy to me now just because I play it 95% of the time. Still, it took me a long while to really get the hang of sustain, timing, etc.

Tank is difficult for me simply because I need to be aware of all incoming threats, and I personally just don't have that amount of focus. As a DD I can afford to ignore certain adds or boss attacks; as a tank I cannot. Part of it is also that, generally, a tank making mistake has a bigger impact on the group than a DD making a mistake.

PVP is a bit of the odd one out. I will say that the learning curve to PVP is a lot steeper at least. You have to be constantly aware of your surroundings, of 'trends' in Cyro (like proc sets this patch), know how to actually outsmart enemies, and be able to recognize and deal with a wide variety of constantly evolving threats.

In the end it just depends on what you're used to and which content we're talking. Depending on the trial, either DDs or support might have a much harder time.

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

pihlaja wrote: »

CrashTest wrote: »

I play all 3 roles.

The following rankings are in order from easiest to hardest:


Difficulty based on rotation: heals, tank, DPS

Difficulty based on gear (number of sets needed, upgrade costs): DPS, heals, tank

Difficulty based on ongoing cost to play role: heals, tank, DPS (pots are expensive!)

Difficulty based on learning role: heals, tank, DPS

Difficulty based on mastering role: heals, tank, DPS

Difficulty based on situational awareness: DPS, heals, tank

Difficulty based on finding groups: tank, heals, DPS

I agree with this. Healer feels easiest to play in terms of completing content when the rest of the group knows what they are doing, but learning to play healer really well feels quite complicated, because there is no simple single number or value (like dps for DDs) which you can just stare to evaluate whether you are doing really well or just barely hanging there and doing the bare minimum. I’m quite new as a healer and I’m struggling to evaluate if I’m having good enough uptimes and coverage for buffs and debuffs, giving enough orbs and resources and at the same time having good enough uptimes for heals. And for the sets; some lightning staves don’t really seem to exist (hollowfang, olorime...), which limits the support potential, but that’s more about how hard it’s to obtain all of the needed gear (as a DD main, I’m actually quite surprised how many sets a well equipped healer needs), not the player skills. And yes, I see the role more as a support function for resources, buffs and debuffs on top of the heals.

I always wanted a Maelstrom for healers and Tanks. A place to learn how to perform your role in a solo setting.

Could be escort missions for tanks where you have to pull in adds before they touch "the king" and taunt bosses for said amount of time before the soldiers defeat it. Put in different mechs with timed roll dodges, blocks and capture points.

Healing could be a reactionary healing in a 360 degree where you have to apply a hot to tank, burst heal a DPS to the left of you, apply orbs/shards to another target while avoiding moving red circles as well as help doing damage (because yes, healer don't just have to stand still when everyone is healed)

Something interesting. FFS we got 2 solo DPS dungeons give something to support!!

This would be awesome! I’ve actually said that there should be a training dummy or a dummy setup for healer to check if you can provide decent amount of heals, buffs, debuffs and resources.

It’s weird seeing people say heals is the easiest, when tanks and heals are the hardest roles to fill when forming a group. If heals was easiest, then we would see tons of healers waiting for groups, and that is not the case.

BlueRaven wrote: »

It’s weird seeing people say heals is the easiest, when tanks and heals are the hardest roles to fill when forming a group. If heals was easiest, then we would see tons of healers waiting for groups, and that is not the case.

that's because as a healer you get blamed for just about everything going wrong, even when the issue is with dps being too low, or tank not holding a taunt/not using their cooldowns. and as a tank who actualy cares about tanking - not only the toolkit that ESO gives you is... not the greatest, but if you build for survivability and buffing/debuffing - your damage output is awful and you cannot compensate for group's potential shortcomings as much.

most people do not care to subject themselves to almost inevitable abuse and frustration.

and yes i do get frustrated when healing pugs sometimes. it can be a bother to try buffing your group that scatters like headless chickens, debuffing a boss, throwing heals at dps that stands in crap they shouldn't be standing in WHILE also trying to help with damage. however. in a good group - healing is often relaxing. dps is NEVER relaxing, at least not for me. tanking is... it depends on individual fight mechanics.

I've healed in multiple MMO's. many of them do not require variety of support activities that ESO healing does. BUT. when you heal in many other games, you HAVE to perform triage. you have to manually chose who gets healed 90% of the time, you have to target them and heal them. in ESO - so much of your healing is either smart, area of effect or both, that triage and decision making that comes with it - is virtually nonexistent, not to mention with all the one shot mechanics that there is nothing you as a healer can to about. and buffs/debuffs are on a cooldown cadence. and - i don't have to light attack weave as a healer, since when I do basic attacks - they are heavy attacks.

also. from my personal experience at least. tanks can be hard to find for trials, dps are the hardest to fill and there are often slots still available, when other 2 roles are filled close to trial start. healers fill up almost immediately. this seems to be consistent, again in my experience - across both casual and semi-hardcore trial runs.

Depends on the person really. I play dps because I personally find it the easiest. Lots of people find it the hardest. Depends on your personal capabilities, really.

Main tank. Off tank is another story.

GrimTheReaper45 wrote: »

1) Pve healing is by far the easiest.

2) Pvp is more difficult that pve as healers tend to get targeted but they are also able to have higher damage mitigation.

3) Tanking pvp. Its very easy again to just build a wall off a character that requires several players to beat.

4) Pve tanking takes a good bit of skill. Requires a lot of mechanic knowledge, resource management, attention.

5) Pve dps is the hardest. You have to perfect your rotation, do it perfectly in real settings. Manage your resources, your self buffs, mind what stupid you are standing in, keep track of dots and aoe timer, constantly move your aoes, execute mechanics that are most times more important that mechanics the tank has to follow. Hardest to build for, hardest to stay up to date with.

Pvp dps has to many factors to rank it. It could be the easiest or the hardest.

Most of the dungeon mechanics are hardest for tank. Most of the dps mechanics are just learn a rotation and don't stand in stupid. And the last part applies to everyone. All the classes have to maintain buffs/debuffs and not stand in stupid.