Group roles: tank, healer, damage

A dungeon is cleared by three — a tank, a healer and a damage dealer; a raid or a world boss by five — a tank, a healer and three damage dealers. You choose your role when you join the queue, but it's your specialisation that makes it work.

Who can play which role

On the dungeon screen you pick your role with the 🛡, 💚 and ⚔ buttons — only your class's roles are shown, and the choice is remembered for each hero. But a role is a promise to your group: a tank needs a tank specialisation (its Class Power is Taunt), a healer a healing one. More in Specialisations and loadouts.

A group of live players goes in together or not at all, and empty slots are filled by world residents of the right role. How a group comes together — see Group and roles.

Threat and Taunt

• An enemy attacks whoever has dealt it the most damage: threat comes from damage.
• Taunt forces an enemy to attack the tank for 2 of its turns, then it has a 2-turn cooldown.
• The board shows who each enemy is targeting: a line and a reticle on the portrait. If the boss is aiming at someone other than the tank and Taunt is ready, the tank gets a "Use Taunt!" hint.
• "All enemies" attacks hit the whole group — Taunt doesn't protect from them.
• There's no threat or Taunt in PvP.

What each role does

Tank

Keeps enemies on themselves with Taunt, puts up shields and survives hits that would drop anyone else. Three of the four tank classes wear plate.

Healer

Heals and protects. Healing cards and the Class Power can be aimed at an ally: F1 targets yourself for healing, F2–F5 your allies. Healing beyond full Health becomes a shield, so the excess isn't wasted.

Damage dealer

Deals damage. The faster damage dealers bring an enemy down, the less the tank and healer have to take. A long fight is dangerous: the boss becomes enraged and hits 18% harder with every stack.