Class Roles: Tank, Healer, Damage

A role is your job inside a group. The balance of roles is what makes a group work in dungeons, raids and battlegrounds. Your role comes mostly from your specialization: each one is built for a single role, and playing a role your specialization was not made for rarely works well for long.

Tanks have high health, strong armor and many defensive tools. In PvE their job is to hold the monsters' attention so they do not hit weaker allies. Tanks often lead the group and decide which packs to fight, so they are expected to know the dungeon layout and mechanics, which makes tanking one of the more demanding roles for beginners.

• Main tank: spends the most time holding the boss.
• Off tank: in a two-tank setup, holds the extra enemies and takes the boss when the main tank needs to recover.

Raids may bring two tanks who often take turns on the boss. Tanks are less common in PvP, but tank specializations can still be very effective there, for example as flag carriers and defenders.

Healers heal wounds, reduce incoming damage and dispel harmful effects, often while watching their mana. Some also give lasting buffs, such as a paladin's auras or a shaman's totems. A five-player group has one healer and a raid can have four or five. In the modern game every healing specialization can handle any content, so there are no fixed healer sub-roles; most healers cover both the raid and the tank.

Damage dealers are the largest group and carry the least responsibility for keeping the group alive, but they still need to focus the right targets and dodge danger. They often also interrupt spells and control enemies. DPS stands for damage per second, the usual measure of how well they do. There are three kinds:

• Melee damage: must stand next to the target, for example a Retribution Paladin.
• Ranged damage: attacks from about 25 to 40 yards away, for example every Mage specialization and the Balance Druid.
• Damage support: does its damage mainly by strengthening allies. Only one specialization works this way, the Augmentation Evoker.

This follows the official class list. Every class can deal damage with at least one specialization; Mage, Warlock, Rogue and Hunter are pure damage classes. Each class is explained in Classes Overview.