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The latest patch 5.4 newsBreakfast Topic: What roles do you play?
by Allison Robert 
Jan 22nd 2010 at 8:00AM
Right now my main spends her time tanking and healing at an even 50/50 split. Healing's made me a more observant tank; I have a better appreciation of what a heal team goes through to keep my furry rump alive. Tanking hasn't exactly made me a better healer -- the two roles are so different that I even wind up redoing a portion of my UI while jumping between them -- but it's made me more forgiving of tank mistakes, and also left me in a better position to gauge whether a problem is the result of the tank or another group member. Damage-wise? Oddly enough, playing as a tank/healer for so long has made me into a hesitant DPS at best. I hate losing aggro to anyone as a tank, and hate healing oblivious DPS who pull it, and that's made me incredibly paranoid about my threat as a DPS. I watch Omen way more than I worry about my rotation.
So what role do you normally play in the game? If you change roles at all, do you notice experience from one role having an effect on how you play others?
Filed under: Breakfast Topics
Reader Comments (Page 5 of 7)
Blondies Jan 22nd 2010 9:40AM
Also, in ICC, I am usally elemental unless we need 3 healers.
jdryner Jan 22nd 2010 9:47AM
My main characters have been DPSers, I tried a full-on holy priest...kept getting my butt kicked, then I tried a full-prot pally, but dislike tanking outside of a small group of regulars. I am considering the idea of creating a warrior just to see how it varies from a prot pally...this should be fun.
-Rathwyn/Coldmeiser (Drenden)
visitingl337n00b Jan 22nd 2010 9:52AM
I play nearly every role with nearly every class, and I feel it is very helpful to know these roles when leading raids. It's hard to assign tanks to jobs if you don't know what it feels like when adds run in and Death and Decay is on cooldown, for example.
I think it's worthwhile to have an appreciation for every role, particularly if you are going to criticize those that play it. Warriors who charge/bladestorm to start pulls and complain about getting aggro obviously don't understand how tanking works, but I think that tanks and healers who ask dps to throttle their damage in heroics may be failing to understand how dps works and why people play it. When I'm tanking and have an extremely high dps person in my group I tend to see aggro as a friendly competition. Sure, I'm trying to win, but good on them if they can beat me. If it's just a heroic, pulling aggro means taking a swing for 8k, which doesn't really mean much.
I think the role I have the least sympathy for is the one I play the most. I raid as a healer most of the time and I personally think that in Wrath healing is the easiest job (well, main tanking is the easiest job on a lot of bosses, still, but there are plenty of bosses that bring challenges to tanking). If a healer needs some time to learn Sarth+3, Freya+3, Firefighter, Algalon, heroic Anub, etc., then they can easily be forgiven. But for heroics usually all you have to do it target the guy with the lowest health and cast any heal you like, and having healers who are unable to do that is very frustrating.
Fletcher Jan 22nd 2010 9:57AM
I played about with a variety of different classes before I hit twenty, and eventually took off with a Draenei ret pally. Got her to 80, tried healing a bit, was terrible at it. So I switched my offspec to prot, and now that's mostly all I do on her.
I also levelled a rogue to 80 as combat, before switching to mutilate recently.
I've tried most every class, but I'm a melee DPSer at heart. I'm working on levelling an enhancement shammy right now.
Angel Jan 22nd 2010 11:14AM
5 healers one of each classs, 2 Holy AND disc priests, resto druid getting a Feral tank Off spec and prot paladin off psec.
Dps is rly boring for me, the on ly 2 dps specs i like are enhance and Shadow but barely raid as dps.
I'd rather play 5 healers than try to get a healer that most of the time is a fail ._.
JC Jan 22nd 2010 10:10AM
Has anyone seen that's the world of warcraft that you play? Yeah, Im the priest in that movie even though I'm an ele sham. QQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQQ
Jason Davis Jan 22nd 2010 10:16AM
i play prot/arms DPS on my warrior and Blood DPS on my main DK/unholy PvP
Tim Jan 22nd 2010 10:17AM
I mainly tank. I get nervous about DPS, always feeling like im not doing enough. Whenever I don't tank I always think about how the tank could do better.
I just tried healing on my uber lvl18 resto shaman. I have all of the skills to pay all of the bills. It is fun, until you get a druid in your group that want to do everything all at once.
mcnadeau Jan 22nd 2010 10:22AM
Although I have one of every class, I like DPS the best. My first 2 level 80's were a Survival Hunter and a Fire Mage, and I really enjoy the mage the most. I just recently finished leveling a shadow priest to 80, and when I hit level 40 with her, I dual-specced in disc to try out healing.....I'm still learning a lot of things as I go along with it, but I've been pretty successful so far in healing 5-mans. I still don't think it's as fun as straight-up blasting something from a distance, but I am growing quite fond of healing.
I'm pretty sure I won't be doing much tanking any time soon. Although there are some fun aspects of the melee classes, I just gravitate more towards the DPS classes.
WoWie Zowie Jan 22nd 2010 10:25AM
i got my main, baller dps mage that i spend the most concentrated effort theorycrafting and giving him the best so he can be at the top of his performance.
then i got my paly who's geared up in 232s from the heroics, dual specced into tank and heals. i'm comfortable with both but i prefer to tank if i had my choice.
then i got a lol dk who thinks he's a dual wield tank but he's happy mostly collecting herbs and mining nodes.
i gotta say, with these new ICC bosses, every role has to up their game. healers no longer bear the burden of a successful kill alone. they don't let tanks go afk anymore, and dps certainly needs to bring their A game or its wipefest.
Candina@WH Jan 22nd 2010 10:48AM
Primarily, I play healers. I prefer healing over DPSing in general. It takes a lot more thought and is a bit more challenging. Though, sometimes, my shammy healer devolves to 'spam chain heal FTW'. I hate fights like that.
I am leveling a Bear tank. I don't like tanking on my Prot/Ret pally at 80. Bear tanking is more... direct to me.
I have two healer/DPS spec toons (priest/shammy). DPS Hunter, Tank/DPS pally at 80.
I have a handful of DPS toons scattered between 60 and 80, with little interest in leveling them.
My bear tank is now 47 and coming on strong thanks to the LFG tool.
Csilla Jan 22nd 2010 10:54AM
I primarily Heal in raids, but I've done the whole gamut in WoW: Heals, Tank, and DPS. I'm least comfortable tanking, but I can DPS pretty good across different classes, and I can heal like a fiend on my Druid :)
Grendalsh Jan 22nd 2010 11:10AM
I started off as a healer. It wasn't till I tried tanking that I figured out why I was drawing aggro as a healer. Then a friend started to play, and tanking for her showed me how not to dps.
My main is a holy/disc priest, and I heal. But I miss just bashing on things and trying to top the threat meter.
Xenn Jan 22nd 2010 11:17AM
As a druid I played all roles. Until very recently tanking and healing where my roles, but since (shock horror) our guild was full of healers I didn't get to do my favourite role, healing.
Since we lost some melee dps I decided to re-spec my tanking fur to kittie purr. Now my time split Healing/DPS is at a happy 50/50 and I definitely learned a lot in each role to perform better on mine. I'm the dps that saves the clothie by transforming to bear to taunt for one sec, keeps a watchful eye on all casters mana for a innervate at the right time and basically use better all my skills to support the team. Most DPS only worry about getting at the top of recounts, and while I do like to top them (shamefully feeeels gooood) I prefer to focus on being the perfect support for the rest, if I top the ranks, even better.
omedon666 Jan 22nd 2010 11:19AM
I started as a rogue 4 years ago, (who has since been deleted at 64 to "become" a death knight) and have since tried every class, most of them to at least 60. Grouping, specifically 5-man content, is what makes me love WoW, so much so that I abandoned my beloved ranged dps (I have two 70+ warlocks) for tanking and healing characters, just to enable groups for myself, and for my friends.
Two things happened to this long-running status quo with 3.3 and the DF.
1) I got to dps again! Everyone that thinks a hybrid queueing to dps is crazy due to wait time clearly has a short memory to forget pre 3.3, where instance-leveling as dps of any kind was laughably time-inefficient. I'll take 15 minutes of ps3 any day to use my dk's blood spec, or my priest's shadow spec. Which ties into the second point.
2) The community accepted performance/gear expectations for healers and especially tanks, particularly in the "covering for irresponsibly horrible DPS" category, are ludicrous in randoms. I accept my 15 minute queue times hapilly to not live under that microscope, to not have to cover for "captain aggro", and gladly bring my considerable tank/healer experience to my dps role to remain effective, efficient and low maintenence.
Tanks and healers doing randoms *well*, you have saintly patience, and I will repay you in kind, for continuing to do what I refuse to tolerate any more, by being a responsible dps.
Hendrata Jan 22nd 2010 12:38PM
This is very much true which leads to a vicious cycle
1. Tanks and healers are rare, which means
2. DPS wait times are ridiculously long, which means
3. By the time DPS gets into a dungeon, he/she is a. impatient to get it done, and/or b. frustrated over waiting and have higher irritability
4. Irritable and impatient dps expect A+ game from tanks and healers in A+ gears just to make the run smooth and fast, otherwise their 15 minutes waiting time is wasted.
5. Irritable and impatient dps gives tank a hard time by pulling aggro, gives healer a hard time by getting hit by things that he/she pulled, and says tank and healer are bad.
6. Tank and healer are fed up, decides to only dps from now on, because 15 minute wait is so worth the lowered blood pressure and higher IRL life expectancy
7. go back to step 1
alpha5099 Jan 22nd 2010 11:20AM
My main (and only 80) is a shaman. Before 3.3, I would've said he was Enh/Resto, but since the Dungeon Finder it'd be more accurate to say he's Resto/Enh. I don't even bother to queue for DPS, and it's gotten to the point where I'm honestly more comfortable healing than DPSing. Aside from a handful of guild runs where we've had healers to spare and I've gone Enh, the only time I'm in my so-called primary spec is to do dailies.
sherekhan88 Jan 22nd 2010 11:27AM
In TBC, I played the role of dedicated tank/off-dps with a feral druid. For me personally, I found it a great accomplishment to be a good tank. The idea of being the wall that protects everyone else really appealed to me, and I read up and learned what it meant to be a bear tank. Being a bear tank also gave me a little more slack since in the end-game content, I was happy being the OT and switching to full on DPS when needed (and for feral DPS, I was pretty good).
Being a tank in 5-mans and 10-mans like ZA really thought me about being aware of my surroundings, understanding boss mechanics (especially relating to positioning), about aggro, and most importantly IMO, about how to lead. Even then though, I admit I would never be comfortable leading a raid even if I had complete knowledge of the instance.
Now in WOTLK, the tank disparity is never more obvious, what with Paladins or Warriors being the de facto best MT. Bear tanks aren't horrible. I admit I had the impression to the extreme at first but trips through the LFG have shown me that excellent bear tanks exist and that bear tanks STILL have their place.
But the world of tanking feels a lot more stressful now, especially if I roll anything other than a prot Paladin. I retired in TBC for personal reasons, and I have no desire yet to return being the one pushing for highest aggro.
So instead, I chose the most famous aggro machines in WoW, and rolled Hunter. Like a mage, I CAN'T dual-spec into some other role, and while it's more boring when you don't really need to worry about your own survival, I'm happy that having been a tank, I can be a better DPS (i.e. I make MDing mandatory for myself in instances, UNLESS the tank is CLEARLY geared out and generates aggro by just TARGETING a mob lol). I'm happy that I don't have to hold multiple sets of gear like I did back in TBC, and I'm happy that I still can have soloing capabilities like I did back in TBC.
One of those roles I've yet to try though is caster DPS, and healing. Caster DPS because I'm just not used to the cloth armors, even though TBC druid gear was pretty much thicker-looking-cloth that is leather. Healing because it feels like a weird mix to me. The whole wait-and-see or frantic spam extremes healing can take, and how healing in raids appears to be essentially pressing colored squares with the appropriate key clicks. I'm just more used to STAYING alive, then KEEPING people alive.
Cap Jan 22nd 2010 11:29AM
@ Tyr
"So everyone should stick to normals until they know their class fully and completely before entering a heroic? Jeez, by that logic almost no-one would ever set foot in one. I like to think i know my class, but I still suck at taunt-speed if someone manages to aggro the one mob I don't have massive aggro on. Does that mean I'm not qualified to tank heroics?
There's NOTHING wrong with making mistakes in a heroic; if you're worth your salt you won't make em again and if anyone tells you differently, they're wrong."
Well yes and no. One of the biggest "mistakes" I frequently encounter is with tanks that come to the dance a little underdressed.
As a healer (resto druid/disc priest) who has been on quite a few runs with tanks that were nowhere near where they needed to be in regards of defense cap for heroics, it does make my job harder. If the tank is getting 2 or 3 shot because they are too squishy and I am exhausting my mana pool trying to keep them up and ignoring the dps, it does make me look bad, because the initial reaction is "OMFGHEALERYOUSUCK!!11!!!QQ11!!1!"
Most of the time I've found the tank didn't even realize there was a magic number they needed to reach to be an effective meat shield. They hit 80 and BAM! Insta-que for heroics as a tank so they don't have to wait the 20+ minutes as dps. As you stated, it becomes obvious fast when something is wrong.
Those cases are prime examples of players that should take the time to build up a proper gear set (or at least gem, chant and use food or potion buffs to get them where they need to be) before trying to perform a role they are not ready for. It's a waste of time and money for the other 4/9/24 people that you are playing with.
Priestess Jan 22nd 2010 11:36AM
I AM a healer. Period. No matter what class I ever play, at heart I am a healer.
When I began playing, I hated to kill things and I didn't want to get hit. This kept me as a healer for my first year and a half. Then my guild persuaded me that I would be more helpful at that point as shadow. I cautiously changed over, with a LOT of help from my tank/dps husband. This allowed me to transition much more easily than I believe many people are able to.
Upon changing to dps, I did immediatly notice a difference. It took me a long time to accept that I was NOT to watch raid frames, that I was now to target the tank's target and not the tank or other random things, I was to kill mobs and not avoid them, and what Omen was. I had to learn threat mechanics for real (constant Fade and Shadowmeld kept me safe as a Holy priest). I had to play real Whack-a-Gnoll instead of its reverse. But my dps times were limited, my love is healing. I can do it one-handed with my kids in my lap, it's so second-nature. I always felt like my comfort with my class was a great asset to me, while I was still able to benefit from my husband's extensive knowledge of playing every other class in every other role, when I needed to work with other players.
Having played exclusively my priest, as Holy, for over 3 years, I recently leveled an Elemental Shaman to 80 and am only dps. Without an aggro dump, I'm trying hard to learn how to NOT be that dps I hate, who by pulling forces a healer to use their resources to increase the dpser's damage by saving their butt while they nuke away oblivious to the damage. And I don't forget that if I pull, I'm the person my husband hates since he has to mess up his pulling/kill order strategy to save me. As the healer, I never felt it was a fair trade, my mana for someone else's dps, and as a dps I'm finding out how much skill and understanding it takes to be a truly good dps player in a group.