Why are healers more populated than tanks?

[Aana]

A lot of tanks just tank in their FC/Raid groups and play other stuff in dungeons. Personally I just avoid dungeons all together because they are boring as hell and multiple other ways to get tomes. Dungeons have had the same trash>boss>Repeat3x formula since 2.0. I'm way over another dungeon grind for yet another set of weekly tomes. The last dungeon I ran as tank was the last story dungeon months ago. I havent even done the side quest dungeon that came with it.

Generally, tanking for pugs is really annoying after hanging out in your well oiled static so much. This year I have basically only tanked in my raid group and nowhere else.

[Nicodemus_Mercy]

'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.

I think its a matter of responsibility.

In order of "level of responsibility" I rate the roles as:

Tank
Healer
DPS

The tank has the most responsibility. They are expected to lead the party through the dungeon and set the pace. In higher end content they are also expected to contribute a certain level of dps. Not everyone is comfortable with being in a leadership position, I know I'm certainly not. I can tank, but I prefer to heal. I like being in a more "advisory" role backseat driving rather than in the front behind the wheel. Tanks are also melee and not everyone is comfortable in melee.

The healer has the next most responsibility. They are expected to not only keep the party alive and healthy, but also generally expected to contribute some level of dps in most content. This is the level of responsibility I am comfortable with. I prefer being at range with a clear view of the battlefield so I can accurately assess whats going on and make the best choice I can to adapt to it. I like being able to sustain and support my party and allow them to take on threats none of us could on our own. I also like that while I contribute dps, I am not scrutinized with a magnifying glass about it. I prefer not to engage in pissing contests about dps.

The dps has the least responsibility. That's not to say they have none, but rather most of their responsibility is personal. Stay out of the fire, be at the right spot for the mechanic, click the thing at the right time. Obviously the primary responsibility of the dps is to deal damage which is also the easiest metric to measure thanks to 3rd party parsers. Many like seeing their name on a meter with big numbers and especially like others seeing their name at or near the top of that meter. Barring clutch resses from certain jobs, the dps basically don't have to do much that's different from what they do solo, blow stuff up and stay alive. Generally speaking, they aren't responsible for leading or controlling mobs and they don't have to worry about keeping someone else alive. They just have to pew pew, do the mechanics that everyone else has to, and stay alive.

Being dps is the "easy" choice. Not to say that being good dps is easy, it certainly isn't for everyone, or even most people. I believe healers end up outnumbering tanks because they are at the sweet spot for "responsibility level" and also don't have the same kind of complexity or pressure to perform as dps do.

There's also visibility/impact. When a tank can't hold threat, or gets destroyed by certain pulls/mechanics you notice, especially if it causes a wipe. When a healer can't keep up with incoming damage, or fails to avoid mechanics and dies thus stopping all the healing and causing a wipe, you notice. When a dps does a crappy job and/or dies, yea you notice but just grumble about it while the healer and tank slowly whittle down whats left while giving the dead dps the stinkeye. Or worse in high end content where dps checks are prevalent, the whole raid will pour over the meter to find out who the "weak link" is.

[Elamys]

Have to pick your brains about this. Hyperbole aside ( I mean, even in LFR the DPS in your would have to be dead for you to be at the top as a Holy Priest - unless you literally just mean a few trash DPS aoe spikes?).

What were the spells back then... top of my head - you would have had Halo (with a damage component - either it had it or it was glyphed in?) Smite (single target) Chastise (single target - long cool down) Holy Fire (single target - long cool down) Holy Nova (?)... - what am I missing? I was Shadow during Siege so you'll have to remind me

No, I mean literally all the time Trying to work from memory here - while my mythic gear certainly helped a lot, as did the fact that my actual chart-topping was in LFR, even without it on my other priest alt, my damage was significant, beating a number of DPS, and it's on my non-mythic alt that I did my Brawler's run. The damage itself was Holy Fire, Smite, and Chastise, and the level 90 talent I picked would be Divine Star if I wanted to contribute a bit more to healing, or Halo (both had a damage component baked in). I can't remember if Holy had Shadow Word: Pain still or not. For AoE you would use Mind Sear - due to horrendously bad scaling, Mind Sear did more damage for Holy priests than shadow! Sit in Chastise chakra, which increased your damage overall, and blast away.

Pick up Power Infusion as a DPS CD, Glyph of Holy Fire (made it instant) and Glyph of Smite (increased Smite damage on targets with Holy Fire). You'd also get Glyph of the Inquisitor which increased your damage further in exchange for having some dealt back to you. Once they changed how old raids were scaling partway through Mists, I very handily killed myself with this glyph in Icecrown Citadel.

If you wanted to make it sillier, you could reforge and gem and enchant for all Crit and Haste, no Mastery. I was also a shadow main in my actual raids, but that expansion made me really like Holy.

[Pastahnak]

I'm totally on auto pilot through any dungeon at lvl 70 and healing is the only job that let's dungeons have the potential to be different imo. If everyone is good I can do spam, but if a tank sucks I can have more fun healing them while also trying to push damage and if I do is going to screw a mechanic I can shield them or clutch rescue. With tanking all I can ever get for difficulty difference is a crappy healer and that ends in death 9/10. I do enjoy doing brand new content on tank though.

[Zarkovitch]

It pending what content tbh
if you re talking on savage level of play they have to put trust on healers/doing there duties as tanks & work with the team to maximize stuff.
On 4 man dungeons its ez you can play turtle no one cares.
on ultimate same as savage with more cordination.
on extreme primal it it below savage with less teamwork tbh.
I didn't apply learning curve because it pending on what fight.

[Mahrze]

It's the outcome of not being "in the spotlight". People don't wanna be "in the blame" over a wipe or a poor run and tanks have the most involvement in that regard.

Tanks have to:
- keep mob aggro/attention.
- make sure they are using CDs to mitigate.
- know how much they can get away with DPSing

Healers have to:
- keep asses alive
- make sure they are using CDs to mitigate/buff damage.
- know how much they can get away with DPSing.


Healers have a way to "undo" a mistake with raise or being raised and if the tank knows how to keep him/herself alive, no biggie. Tank dies and there is a higher chance everything goes south. That "pressure" is what drives people away from tanking.

Everyone "knows" how to tank because you always know someone who trash talks tanks they stumble upon in DF. But its pretty often that that person doesn't play the class because its "not fun" as an excuse, but the reality is, its not easy being in the spotlight as often as tanks can be.

[Lyshell]

Because tanks are the leaders of any group. They need to know all the mechanics of a run before hand and be able to handle them almost instantly or else the group wipes. Healers are reactionary. Healers are supposed to know the mechanics as well but a good healer can get away with not knowing and compensate with their actions and be able to recover. Not everyone is comfortable with that kind of responsibilities. I like tanking but I do need to know the mechanics before I feel confident enough to do it. Also, tanks have the disadvantage of always needing the top gear (or close enough), or else you will be a burden to the party, both to keep alive and to be able to maintain hate.

I believe all of this adds to not that many tanks being chosen. I'm sure people don't want to have the burden on them and just want to relax and play. People just find the other jobs more fun and less stressful. Of course shout out to all those players who enjoy it and are good at it because we'd never get anything done.

[AmemeAmeklin]

*charges in shrieking war cries into every duty roulette PUG ever*

I'm one of those people. I don't like it when other people are trying to steer and getting it wrong. Case in point, spent a lot of time in Halatali as RDM watching my groupmates run off into dead ends for some reason...despite me leaving place markers throughout the whole dungeon...and going straight to the right spot...

I'm also terrible DPS because I will run ahead of you a lot and tend to forget to mitigate enmity, although I won't pull things early. Hopefully I make up for that with my obsessive manashifting >.>

[Ilyrian]

No, I mean literally all the time .

Forgot about Holy having Mind Sear. Was it removed and locked to Shadow in Legion? I've been away too long it seems.
Anyway, that does sound fun;(without wanting to derail more) it does make me miss that kind of customization.

[Deceptus]

In order of "level of responsibility" I rate the roles as:

Tank
Healer
DPS

The tank has the most responsibility.

I disagree here. Healers main job is fixing people's mess ups (nicely put). And in this game people mess up a LOT because their's not much punishment for messing up that can't be easily fixed.