I only have Paladin at level 90 so I won’t claim to have any skin in the game here lol. But doesn’t tank suffer from the same issues as healer in regards to encounter design?

Incoming damage and easily resolvable mechanics in most content mean that abilities that ‘defend the party’ in one way or another - those traditionally associated with the role - end up being functionally redundant and near-valueless?

Things like an in-combat raise or more/continued personal healing for tanks are the most egregious examples. Raise for a Paladin sounds cool and it’s certainly thematic, but healers are already so bored with how infrequently allies die that it would almost never see use on a Paladin, because they’d be last on the priority list to use it.

Likewise with Warrior’s self-healing. It’s a cool idea and Warrior has always had the ‘heals self through damage’ / ‘Lifesteal’ sort of theme going, so it makes sense. But incoming damage is so low that the healing a Warrior can produce is practically enough to nullify the need for a healer completely. And that’s not to mention the healers themselves have so many abundant, powerful oGCDs that the Warrior wouldn’t need their self healing anyway

Personally I believe that addressing this issue of encounter design should be what they focus on with the next expansion, as anything else is simply going to compound the issues. I.E giving them more party healing and defense skills when they’re already barely necessary. Or trying to just sweep it under the blanket by plying tanks full of damage combos and abilities, at which point they play more like dps with overpowered defenses