Why Do So Many Games Have Tanks, Healers and DPS?



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Tanks, Supports and Damage Dealers are a staple of… too many games to count – and no matter where you look this holy trinity seems to be growing more and more popular over time, but why?

A veteran of MMOs, Hero Shooters and all sorts of tactics games, The Architect has squeezed into an ill-fitting helm of domination and waded out onto the battlefield to work out why the holy trinity is so common, and what effect it has on our favorite games.

You Saw:

Overwatch- 2016

World of warcraft – 2004

Gears Tactics – 2020

Rocket league – 2015

Teamfight Manager – 2021

Guild Wars 2 – 2012

Final Fantasy 14 – 2013

Outriders – 2021

Divinity Original Sin 2 – 2017

Darkest Dungeon – 2016

Starcraft 2 – 2010

Apex Legends – 2019

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition – 2020

For The King – 2017

The Hex – 2018

Super Smash Bros Ultimate – 2018

Runescape – 2001

Fire Emblem 3 Houses – 2019

Total War Warhammer 2 – 2017

Star Renegades – 2020

Deep Rock Galactic -2020

Chrono Trigger – 2995

Spellbreak – 2020

Humankind – Not out yet

Dota 2 – 2013

Fortnite – 2017

Tabletop Simulator – 2015

Super Mario 3D world – 2013

New Super Mario Bros Wii U – 2012

Telltale’s The Walking Dead – 2012

Source

Categories N4G

37 thoughts on “Why Do So Many Games Have Tanks, Healers and DPS?”

  1. >support is almost purely Ally to Ally
    >brings up DotA/MOBAs
    In MOBAs, supports are mainly defined by being good with little to no investment (unless you're playing HotS), and loads of them are mostly focused on crowd control and other abilities that don't rely on a damage stat. CM only passively gives mana regen, and all her built in active abilities are useful for occupying enemies early and creating space for a carry, and later for setting up kills or providing essentially artillery support with her ult in team fights. Just an example.
    HotS probably the most well known MOBA (followed by obscure stuff like Battlerite) that defines supports by being healers and such, though even then you still do a lot of CC like sleep darts, Stay-a-while-and-listen, Auriel-slaps, etc.

    Unrated but still worth mentioning is Golden Sun, and I guess FFXIII/XIII-2, which let you switch classes mid-fight, as such the same character occupies different parts of the trinity depending on situation, you can start a GS boss fight with basically everybody being a support, biff up your party quickly, and change on the fly between having multiple healers to recover from bad situations and committing everybody to damage when your hp are looking better. This also means a damage dealer can take over when your healer is downed.

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  2. Here’s a way to break up the holy trinity: summoners. They should have low defenses and damage, but their selling point is they create new allies. It’s basically a zerg rush: a bunch of weak, expendable units. Your enemy can’t take them all down, and the more there are, the higher your DPS. Of course, the only thing you’re doing is sitting in the back lines commanding your small army.

    Its a blend of all the three base roles. Your summons can be devastating if you have enough, they draw attention away from the other players, and I guess reinforcements are a type of support.

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  3. To be honest, WoW might be the worst example to say that it limits design with its holy trinity, cause i think its prolly the best game to use it. I know its a meme to hate on WoW, but honestly, as an active player who does Heroic and Myhtic Raid Content, i honestly think some of these encounters could never be as good when the Trinity wouldnt exist. And while the stereotype "You only do X" is somewhat true, it actually falls appart in higher level content. Because staying alive as a Tank, dealing maximum Damage as a DPS or Healing as efficent and fast as possible becomes really hard it high level conent, and the skillgaps are visable.
    I honestly cant think how a WoW without the Trinity could work, because there are so many causes and effects that needed to be altered, it would just flat out impossible to design. Btw, FFXIV basically is the same, however they just released content that basically turns everyone into hybrids and i have some mixed feelings about it. On the other hand, interessting that it works, on the other, i could barely feel a difference to regular alliance raids.

    That doesnt mean its impossible to design games without it. Honestly Destiny 2 and Monster Hunter are perfect examples that it can work. Destiny delieved some of my best cooperative experiences in the form of raids, and MH is challenging and it doesnt have any classes or Roles.
    And im aware that support and offensive Skills exist and Destiny, however in that game your a guardian first and a class second.

    TLDR. What i want to say it, Holy Trinity, Hybrids or not, all that shit doesnt matter. I think we talk far to much about what we do when we should ask far more about what should our enemies do.

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  4. Anyone else think this video is stupid as hell trying to use word salad to make it seem like there’s actually a problem and he’s not using rpg to to condemn mmos or team based games it’s like comparing xcom to and Minecraft dungeons , maybe go after range ,melee , and spell casters next , the holy trinity of classes in fantasy games

    Lost some brain cells listening to this garbage

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  5. Lol they tried to get rid of holy trinity in gw2 and everyone hated it, so they added specific healing and tanking specs. Removing holy trinity is what people think they want, not what they actually want.

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  6. No , the holy trinity never included DPS . It was the Holy Trinity of tank healer and support and everyone else in the group was DPS. The support role was phased out because people are lazy and can't follow simple instructions like Don't attack the mob who is standing there asleep…. Stop using the Holy Trinity as a description , it doesn't exist anymore.

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  7. What do you mean tank is confusing? Tanks are forces of destruction on the battlefield, but that's mostly because they're so hard to destroy. Ergo, you strap something that puts out damage to it (the main gun/pillbox) and then it keeps them in the battle for longer than an infantryman on its own.

    If you want, you can look at a tank as an embodiment of this trinity: the body/armor is the "tank" (prevents others from being damaged) the guns are the "damage dealer" (biig ba-da-boom) and then your crew is the "support" (keeping the components operational).

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  8. The main flaw is that often times players are restricted to one of the three parts of the trinity for the entire fight. One of my favorite moments was in Rift (kind of a WoW rip off) and I could weave the specialization trees to have a healer that could kite tank by changing an enchantment (buff). I'd love to see a game give different role enchantment buffs that could be changed out, but only one active at a time. Players flowing through the 3 roles (or as many roles as you want to have) means the entire team can react more effectively. You'd TPK less overall, and let's be honest wiping is always annoying.

    You mentioned Guild Wars 2, other then the very end game Fractals and Raids (designed to be end game content), the holy trinity is nice, but absolutely not necessary. All players can provide a part each role to the party. Understanding the mechanics is more important then using a specific role. If you master the mechanics of a fight you can solo most sub 50 Fractals easily (assuming the mechanics don't require multiple players)

    I'd love to see games move to a grading system above the simple win or lose system in every game. You either kill the boss or you don't. How about rewarding players for making it past each phase? Made it to phase 2; here's a small reward. Phase 3? Here's some more, Phase 4 gets the good stuff. Phase 5? here's some bonus stuff ,6? more 7? keep on going, 8, we never expected someone to reach this, 9- we're kind of running out of rewards but the phases keep going…… Then you can get into individual rewards, Top damage dealer, Top damage mitigation, top damage taken, Top Aggro, Least damage taken. This could even allow support/buff characters to top the damage charts if their +15% damage buff is counted towards them. Top in category can get a +10% bonus to their total reward. Heck this system can even punish players that are above the encounter level for not pulling their weight.
    You could even rewrite it to do a PvP evaluation and determine the winner of a fight. You could even weigh the aggressor party against the number of people they fight. A 4 versus 1 fight could be lost even after killing the solo person.
    Instead of rewarding outcome, reward the gameplay.

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  9. Coming into this video I did not have high hopes for it being any good, but watching it was on a whole other level. How can you misinterpret almost every single thing you talk about is beyond me.

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  10. I agree with a lot of what you've said here, but I think you missed a big opportunity to talk about the constant balance struggle with tanks and supports. The majority of people just want 'big boom' so devs often have to create impactful heroes with defensive/supportive type roles – if they don't the time spent waiting in queue gets longer for most players. Overwatch totally screwed up that dynamic with Brig and we got goats (GO All Tanks/Supports) at the pro level for over a year, while they continually buffed damage heroes to try and compete with the monster they created.

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  11. star trek online tried to stick to the trinity, but you can get so much damage, and utility from abilities, only damage dealers are seen as useful.
    Mainly because of dps charts and rankings, plus dps can be so powerful you dont need healers or tanks because the mobs die before anything happens. even the bosses are doable with a little healing from damage dealt, and some basic defensive perks and you can forget the other two roles.

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  12. What is this bad rep for overwatch, people just saw that not doing damage and never dieing was a way better idea than trying to kill the enemy because objectives, great game, love it

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  13. I love the video but the only problem I have with it is it looks at The Trinity primarily from a developer perspective instead of a player or optimization perspective.
    Players naturally want to play different roles, it doesn't help that splitting up multiplayer games into different roles is very optimal this is why your Guild Wars 2 example turned out the way it did.
    I also don't like your square example that much, as a more accurate version of that is enemy vs enemy leveraging your 2 opponents against each other. I think this because your really just interacting with the environment to get the results of the Trinity (I use the environment too hurt my opponent DPS, I use the environment to control my opponent TANK, I used the environment to aid my allies SUPPORT) it really just looks like the tool you use to get the job done, bringing in environment interaction as a way for you to effect the game world in the ways you presented in the video.

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  14. Games like Star Wars Squadrons managed to break it by having 3 different types of damage to be dealt: ion damage to deal with shields (usually done by a the "flex" role), PvP damage (Superiority role) and capital ship damage + AI farming (bomber role) . Flex players then oscillate between PvP and capital ship damage! We still have supports though, but they often are tasked with debuffing and dealing ion damage as well 🙂

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  15. This Holy Trinity in not rooted in tabletop, pen&paper rpg. You cite old D&D, but nope the Thief wasn't the damage-dealer, anybody with HP and a good armor can be a sort of tank, and so on. I won't write an essay in Youtube comments, but it's really not.
    The first time I saw this appear was in videogames. I don't know the first first, but World of Warcraft was certainly the big one popularizing it.
    Two big reasons this wasn't in tabletop rpg :
    – There was no aggro, threat control mechanic. It appeared in much more recent (and post WoW) version of a very limited number of games including some D&D, but even today it's quite rare. NPC would simply target whomever was logical, convenient for them (or the gamemaster). The only common tradition I can think of, is the old adage: "shoot the mage first". Because magic-user tend to be the most dangerous, the less resistant (especially unprepared), and for short time the biggest DPS by far. Other than that, the only consideration that often existed especially in D&D because its rule mechanics pushed for it, was the presence of a healer (or its absence being felt and affecting how players played).
    – The environment and freedom of play are huge, HUGE players. Even the most railroaded pre-written published adventure of old D&D has much more freedom and more potential environment interaction than the biggest most complex combat encounter of Divinity Original Sin 2. Because by nature, it doesn't have to be designed, programmed, pre-placed and pre-scripted, and so on. It just flows from the characters capabilities: disintegrating the critical two support beams in a mine to cave in on hundreds of goblins in a single spell; a priest calling upon another priest for aid and help against specific local evil; sweet talking the local duke to get assigned a full regiment under your orders to deal with the orc tribes; a scout spying on lizardmen to hear about the critical clue and the group bypassing the whole encounter because they don't need to fight anymore. The list is literally infinite.
    Hey I'm the guy regularly pointing out on Reddit that X came from tabletop, or Y isn't implemented from tabletop and should not, or game devs don't hire enough experienced tabletop players and designers. But this one I have to give to videogames, it's all them 🙂

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  16. So the holy square is more like: Tank, DPS, support, utility. But I guess a lot of games incorporate utility into the holy trinity to begin with

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