After browsing this thread I just feel bad for the devs lol

I don't think the healer role is the main issue. It's a much broader issue with player skill levels being all over the place. You have high level players who have no problem doing a dungeon without a healer but you also have players who really struggle with even simple dungeon content or players who ask you to "slow down" and pull one pack at a time in a dungeon. If you don't comply things can turn toxic pretty fast which is exactly what the dev's do not want (leads to more tickets, and upset player base). Terrible experiences in dungeons can easily lead to loss in subscribers/player base.

I also think a lot of you see content creators or high skill level players who breeze through content and think "well that isn't right! you shouldn't be able to do that!" meanwhile a lot of you probably can't perform at the same level. Just seeing that something is POSSIBLE doesn't mean that it is broken or imbalanced.

The healing role in particular has the highest variation in skill out of any role. A competent healer can drag a terrible group through content kicking and screaming. A bad healer drags down a group and slows clear rates more than any other role and can be very annoying to the rest of the group (especially when there is often unavoidable raid wide aoe dmg etc).

The issue is player skill. The game needs to teach people better how to play the game and their specific roles. In particular the healing role. Many players who main healer don't even know what a rotation is. Hall of the novice is great but it is not nearly enough and is completely skippable content. Mentor network is often full of misinformation and people just looking to boost their ego and not actually attempt to help other players to learn. The systems to teach players have not been working for a very long time.

I see the changes to tanks and dps having more self-sustain a direct response to this skill gap. It is not a perfect solution but it is easier to implement than to expect the community to self-correct or teach new players how to properly heal. This is not an issue that is fixable over night; it will take a long time. I think the biggest issue with the game during the last two expansions has been the complete lack of midcore content.

Content is either extremely easy or extremely difficult/punishing. Bridging the gap between normal content and Savage content is a much more glaring issue in my opinion and the solution is not clear.