Why are healers more populated than tanks?

[MoroMurasaki]

I haven't read through this whole thread yet but I know for me personally I like to queue as a healer because there is nothing that can carry a bad party better. You could be the most competent tank in the world but if both your healers are asleep at the wheel you aren't going to be able to salvage an awful run where as on WHM I can more or less keep anything in trials/normal raids/24 mans afloat as long as I don't wind up taking (too many) auto attacks.

[Schan]

I haven't read through this whole thread yet but I know for me personally I like to queue as a healer because there is nothing that can carry a bad party better. You could be the most competent tank in the world but if both your healers are asleep at the wheel you aren't going to be able to salvage an awful run where as on WHM I can more or less keep anything in trials/normal raids/24 mans afloat as long as I don't wind up taking (too many) auto attacks.

In my opinion both roles can carry. I've had runs where both healers were dead and I still managed to carry that fight on my PLD... but then again.. Clemency is a thing even if it costs a ton of MP.

[TheMightyMollusk]

I prefer tanking over healing because I have anger issues and I like to hit things with giant weapons.

[Meillquei]

Tank was the last role I tried because of what has been mentioned in this thread. I was scared of being criticized for making a tiny mistake or tanking something incorrectly. I can imagine tanking is off-putting to new players for the same reasons, especially ones who have never played an MMORPG before. It's harder to lead a group when you are brand new to this game and this genre.

I think with healing, you have a general idea of what to expect, even if you don't know the dungeon, where part of tanking involves knowing the content. So healers definitely have a lot of responsibility, but not to the same degree as the tanks.

Personally, after trying tanking, I found that it is the most rewarding role since it essentially made me realize that I was the one setting myself back with the misplaced fears, and that the majority of this community is actually very nice and forgiving of mistakes.

[KaivaC]

Thank you to all who shared their responses. It was enlightening and definitely resolved this question of mines. Obviously, I have nothing else to actually contribute, but nonetheless, thanks for sharing. Maybe next time, I'll throw up a survey, see how it looks in the form of a poll that extends out to our half-cousins on reddit.

[Elamys]

Also, Disc. Priest is a bit special and unique. I haven't played WoW in some years but I do remember if I had tried to go hard on DPS as a Resto Druid or Holy Priest I would have run out of mana pretty quick and done a whole lot of nothing much.

Holy priest DPS was INSANE in Mists and still really good in Warlords, if you knew what to glyph and talent. By the end of Mists I would go into Siege LFR and top the DPS charts as Holy, to great amusement. Smite was actually mana positive in Warlords, so if I was running on fumes, I would spam that to proc Surge of Light and still put out heals. My raid group for Blackrock Foundry took way too many healers, but still insisted I be Holy, so I would just set up for DPS and do that the entire time. I did most of the first Brawler's Guild as Holy, and Holy's DPS made my challenge mode golds a lot less awful, considering I was doing it on the worst class for them.

It's a bit erroneous to say that WoW has always had DPSing healers outside of maybe a few randos that just always enjoyed it. Eminence Monk was really good for Mists and Warlords but doesn't seem to exist anymore. While Disc has had Atonement since Cataclysm, it was never the core focus of their playstyle and it wasn't until Legion that they decided to actually push it and make it their playstyle. They've struggled with Atonement balance issues since its first incarnation. Healer DPS in WoW outside of these three exceptions (Eminence, Atonement, and a really weirdly set up Holy) has always been kind of mediocre. You still spend almost all of your time actually healing in that game. Not once have I seen a healer get yelled at in that game for not DPSing. It's just not really on the radar there. Challenge Modes were the only time people really worried about it. DPSing healers didn't exist in any serious content until Wrath (some high end guilds had their healers just DPS the first phase of Lich King) and it's still extremely rare today. As you mentioned, most healers would have just been wasting mana because it was that worthless, and while that's not the case today, you're still spending a lot more of your time actually healing. Nobody's really expecting healer DPS there like they do here.

Anyways, back on topic...I don't play tank because I don't like to take the lead. And I'm not always the best at watching cast bars. Knowing when I have to use a cooldown? It's information that I struggle to keep track of.

[KaivaC]

Anyways, back on topic...I don't play tank because I don't like to take the lead. And I'm not always the best at watching cast bars. Knowing when I have to use a cooldown? It's information that I struggle to keep track of.

I hear ya. I didn't really get the fundamentals of tanking until Susano Ex, which was something of a wake-up call for me. I'm not exactly leadership material myself lol, but tanking doesn't bring as much pressure as being a healer or a DPS would. Of the three tanks, DRK is the one that feels most natural to me. Healing isn't too bad for me, but I don't feel engaged enough as a healer to stick with it on a consistent basis.

[Ilyrian]

Holy priest DPS was INSANE in Mists and still really good in Warlords, if you knew what to glyph and talent. By the end of Mists I would go into Siege LFR and top the DPS charts as Holy, to great amusement.

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

[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.

[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.