Why are healers more populated than tanks?

[BillyKaplan]

Source: I'm a WHM main since launch and my friends who haven't healed think it's difficult or scary but once they try it, they discover I'm doing nothing but reading or watching stuff on my other monitor whilst throwing DoTs and rocks between heals.

I can chat well enough on my tanks once I build enough agro and the fight isn't too bad, every role can find ways to shirk their duties if you really try. Being bad isn't exclusive to any one role.

[Ultima]

I can chat well enough on my tanks once I build enough agro and the fight isn't too bad, every role can find ways to shirk their duties if you really try. Being bad isn't exclusive to any one role.

Ah, but I've never seen a role with more offenders than the Healer role. It feels like the majority of Healers all took lessons from a certain blonde haired little brat...

[BillyKaplan]

Ah, but I've never seen a role with more offenders than the Healer role. It feels like the majority of Healers all took lessons from a certain blonde haired little brat...

Then they haven't been learning well, because Sylphie learned to cast offensive spells well enough by the end of that questline. All CNJ NPCs have been joggling healing and dps.
If there's a class questline that's an issue, it's MRD, which sells it more as a DPS, vs. GLA's where you're actually taught to keep agro off your healer with Flash.

[KisaiTenshi]

Then they haven't been learning well, because Sylphie learned to cast offensive spells well enough by the end of that questline. All CNJ NPCs have been joggling healing and dps.
If there's a class questline that's an issue, it's MRD, which sells it more as a DPS, vs. GLA's where you're actually taught to keep agro off your healer with Flash.

None of the job questlines teach you how to do the job. The Pugilist and Monk questlines are basically nothing but "fetch and fight" quests. The Conjurer questline is about Sylphie using her life force to heal rather than the elements. The White Mage, Scholar and Astrologian quest lines don't ever have you heal during combat while some other NPC fights, because the NPC's are basically awful. Especially during the Scholar quest line because your companion is a MRD and every quest is basically go somewhere and fight something. The Monk storyline doesn't even have you interact with the Monk, you're instead sent all over the place by a guy in the Goldsmith guild and he insults you and him at every opportunity.

But the common storyline among all the class quest storylines is that you're a newbie and this character the guildmaster introduces you to is supposed to teach you things, however some other NPC butts their nose in and calls you and that NPC worthless, and they will keep butting in until level 30, and then it's off to the job quest which and you'll never hear from these NPC's again until level 50, if that (Sylphie doesn't come back until level 60.) Go back and watch the second cutscene for any class, and that's basically what happens in all of them.

And people still point to Sylphie as an example of a bad healer, when the entire point of her storyline is that if she did exactly what her mom did she was going to end up dead. It has nothing to do with DPS.

[kikix12]

Personally there are two major reasons why I avoid tanking, especially of any content beyond dungeons.

1) Not really relevant in boss fights or trials, but I have qualms about the way that enmity is shown. If I want to see enmity of a mob, I need to target him specifically. So the HUD related to enmity management is the major reason why I never were much into tanking. If there was a bar under a mobs name in the enemy list that did show the highest enmity within the party (regardless of who have it), I'd tank more and more comfortably. This is somewhat less of a problem for Warriors, seeing as their AoE enmity generator is also the most efficient attack in large packs, but at the same time, I really dislike warriors lack of damage reduction in their tank stance...
2) Abuse of instant-kills and tank-busters with AoE effect. Especially bad if they are combined with some troublesome dodging right before or during it. If a tank positions Shiva or Titan or a lot of other trial bosses poorly for just a second, the entire party might be instant-wiped due to fan-shaped tank-buster that will kill anything but a tank. Makes tanking quite a lot harder seeing as tanks still need to dodge other attacks and deal with melee's (and even casters/ranged/healers) that like to surround the bosses spreading out throughout the battlefield, cutting on the space.
And seeing as I don't tank enough (see point 1), I don't put enough effort to learn those horrid tank-busters or similar skills that I don't really come across as a healer/ranged/caster.

[Keridwyn]

Ah, but I've never seen a role with more offenders than the Healer role. It feels like the majority of Healers all took lessons from a certain blonde haired little brat...

It's because they come from other games where there is next to no need for healer dps outside of soloing. They see Sylphie's storyline as just that, story. I mean I am a big advocate of throwing rocks at mobs but a lot of people just have a heals only mindset and it takes a while to overcome that.

[SargentToughie]

It can be for quite a few different reasons, honestly.

- Highest skill floor role, pushing away newcomers
- Lowest skill ceiling role, veterans getting bored of it and leaving
- Extremely unforgiving playstyle; often the first role complained at by people that don't know what they're doing
- Needing to pentameld crafted accessories for BiS
- Almost constant interference from the developers

For me, it's a mix of 2, 3, and 5. With 4 as a big reason for why I don't want to go back. It feels like every expansion, there's something new that the developers are doing to try and obstruct tanks that want to actually deal damage, and causing dedicated tank players to basically need to complain incessantly until their voices get heard, and SE slaps a bandage in place.
See: the way that tank players started wearing STR gear, necessitating their damage formula to need to be made a split between STR and Vit.
See: the way they took that away at the drop of SB and expected tanks to wear fending gear again.
See: the state of Warrior when SB dropped.

It almost feels at times like the devs have actual, legitimate contempt for tanks that optimize their play in this game. I personally got sick of dealing with it.

[Ultima]

The Conjurer questline is about Sylphie using her life force to heal rather than the elements.

And people still point to Sylphie as an example of a bad healer, when the entire point of her storyline is that if she did exactly what her mom did she was going to end up dead. It has nothing to do with DPS.

It's a meme you dip, that's why we point at her.

It's because they come from other games where there is next to no need for healer dps outside of soloing. They see Sylphie's storyline as just that, story. I mean I am a big advocate of throwing rocks at mobs but a lot of people just have a heals only mindset and it takes a while to overcome that.

Well I come from WoW since the Vanilla days and I never had a problem with being a DPS Healer. There's an entire healer in recent years that heals via DPS aka Disc. Priest.

[Renato]

Coming from someone who main tanks and have recently just got into healing. I can tell you that Healer is significantly more difficult to get into compared to a tank. Yes, you do lead the pack when doing content but your main objective is to pretty much hold hate and keep attention off of the rest of the party. You also depend ALOT on the healer. If the tank goes down, the whole party pretty much dies. (Same thing with healer) Sure, DPS is important too and you need to know the mechanics of a battle or dungeon but tanks have a high HP pool and cooldowns that enable us to pretty much eat attacks with little repercussion in normal content. I've played DPS as well and I even feel like they're harder to play mainly because you need to focus on dealing as much damage as possible but also avoid the enemy attacks. Often times, it seems like the more dangerous attacks are targeted towards DPS characters over a tank who can literally stand in one area for a majority of certain fights...

With that said, there is a lot of stress being a healer...your job is to keep everyone alive and you're also expected to learn/do mechanics AND do damage. I gave it a go to try something new but man, the headache of scrolling through party members to heal them then switching to the enemy to dish out damage, watching the screen for boss/enemy mechanics and also trying to keep an eye open for party HP bars gets hectic. Like....I have a lot of respect for people who play them because it's not easy. And I only did the lower level stuff...I can only imagine how the harder stuff is.

[Ilan]

'Tis something I'd been curious about for a while, and I couldn't find any answers on reddit or here on the forums. Why are healers more popular than tanks? Just my personal opinion, but it feels to me that healers have a more demanding job, especially in 24-mans and end-game raiding, but again, that's just from my own personal experience. Forgive me for my lack of MMO knowledge, but this is something that has been something of a curiosity for me.

Because some players have a god complex and want to decide if people in their group live or die, some others prefer healing over tanking and others again (pretty often female players) have this urge to take care of people (might sound weird but i've heard it from several female players who play healer). Not to forget the players who prefer to run after someone instead of infront of the group.