Question time: What role—tank, healer, or DPS—do you actually play in MMORPGS, and why?

Question time: What role—tank, healer, or DPS—do you actually play in MMORPGS, and why? | PC Gamer Skip to main content Open menu Close main menu PC Gamer THE GLOBAL AUTHORITY ON PC GAMES US Edition UK US Canada Australia Subscribe Sign in View Profile Sign out Search Search PC Gamer Games Hardware News Reviews Guides Video Forum More PC Gaming Show Software Movies & TV Codes Coupons Magazine Newsletter Affiliate links Meet the team Community guidelines About PC Gamer PC Gamer Magazine SubscriptionWhy subscribe?Subscribe to the world’s #1 PC gaming magTry a single issue or save on a subscriptionIssues delivered straight to your door or device From$1Subscribe now Don’t miss these MMO Blitzball is alive and well in Final Fantasy 14, and I spoke to the community of passionate fans who built an entire 140-page D&D-like system to play it: ‘Once you start playing, you just can’t stop’ Third Person Shooter Let’s settle this: Should Arc Raiders add a PvE mode? 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Games MMO Question time: What role—tank, healer, or DPS—do you actually play in MMORPGS, and why? Features By Harvey Randall published 14 February 2026 Party finder. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Square Enix) Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter PC Gamer Get the PC Gamer Newsletter Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. You are now subscribed Your newsletter sign-up was successful Want to add more newsletters? 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Every other week, I’ll be sharing my thoughts on the genre, interviewing fellow MMO-heads like me, taking a deep-dive into mechanics we’ve all taken for granted, and, occasionally, bringing in guest writers to talk about their MMO of choice.Ah, the Holy Trinity. An institution that has stood for time immemorial. That is, since MMORPGs have existed. So more like roughly 25-30 years.The healer, providing succour to the whole party, and also the first to be blamed when someone dies; The tank, shielding their allies, and the second to be blamed when someone dies; Lastly, the DPS, who get to cosily hide until someone looks at the meter.The Holy Trinity is something seemingly inescapable unless you’re Guild Wars 2, and even then, there are still support builds backing everybody up, or tankier builds to help smooth things over. You have some variants on it—MMORPGs like City of Heroes slap on ‘controller’ to that number, FF14 has the Dancer, which gets a huge chunk of its damage from buffing others, and WoW has the Augmentation Evoker with the same gimmick. Related articles Confession time: How long do you stick it out before you abandon a terrible MMO dungeon/raid group? Debate: What is your objectively correct keybinding setup for your current MMO, and why is everybody else wrong? The modern MMO’s biggest enemy is difficulty, because pleasing everyone is basically impossible—and yet, they must But for the most part, someone’s gonna be hitting hard, someone’s gonna be taking the damage, and someone is gonna be standing between the party and an untimely death.I myself have history with all three—and in my current MMO of choice, FF14, I play just about everything in casual content because hey, I might as well mix th