Why are healers more populated than tanks?

[RukiaFae]

"Tank swaps”

[AngelCheese77]

When I tank, I tell people off the bat if it's a dungeon I have healed in before but not tanked. That usually helps ...

But mainly what gets me is the ...

- "You're going to slow!"
- "Pull more! We can take it!" *I do so and party wipes cause they couldn't take it*
- "That's not how you play that class!" / "You're not playing that class right." *which leads to one or more people rage quitting*
- *I ask for advice* "OMG NOOB TANK" *then the DPS or healer decides to 'lead' and ends up dying ... blaming me.*

So yeah, it's more the people being rude/you-know-whats over the tanking itself that keeps me from wanting to tank.

[CorbinDallas]

People heal because it's probably the easiest role of the 3 in doing it's primary role. That's not to say it isn't difficult to optimise, because it flips to being the hardest role (in my opinion). Learning when and where to optimise and DPS often can cost you a pull, and the repercussions of making a mistake are much more noticeable.

Back to my original point. Lazy players flock to healer over tank because it's easy. Incoming damage outside of savage/ultimate is laughable and it usually only takes one gcd to top the effected players up. This is why there's the ever present healer dps war, because healing in itself is so easy.

Compared to tanks, who are expected to lead the groups, and usually get the brunt of it when runs don't go as others want, for example dps pulling extras, petty healers, etc. Tank is more often the whipping post of roles.

[Bourne_Endeavor]

Corbin more or less summed it up. If played primarily as a healer, i.e., only scarcely using your damaging abilities, healers are by far the easiest job in the game. You will literally spent more than 50% of your time doing nothing. At lower levels, this can somewhat ease more ambitious yet still learning healers into DPSing more. Unfortunately, it also caters towards lazy players who simply refuse to contribute more than absolutely necessary. Tanks aren't afforded this same luxury. You have to know when to rotate your CDs on larger pulls or bosses otherwise they will hurt—if not outright kill you. If you get a stubborn or petty healer, you're expected to adjust for them, i.e., a SCH not properly shielding. It's an entirely incorrect assumption, but less naturally confident players aren't going to call out those healers. They're more likely to believe they made a mistake, which only worsens their tankxiety.

[BroodingFicus]

I actually played tank before I was a healer. I was a warrior for about a year during ARR and really enjoyed the jobs 'heavy' feel as well as certain aspects of the role. I had a great time running dungeons casually with my healing buddy. We liked doing the leveling roulette and meeting the sprouts or picking up a dps trapped outside a dungeon in a huge queue. I even enjoyed the 'dungeon guide' aspect of the job and didn't usually find it overly stressful. I'd leveled a bard when the game first released and if I was anxious, I'd run it on him first and see how things went before I took on tanking responsibilities. However, seeing as I've been a healer for far longer, obviously something burned me out and most of that was to do with raids and speed runners.

As tank, running the newest dungeons that were in the recent roulettes always felt like a chore after a while. Once everyone got over the first week hump of learning the place, no one had any patience. There would always be one dps trying to pull more adds to me to speed up the run (especially because I was the sort of tank to do a few small pulls before I committed to larger ones) or at the very least one complaining I wasn't going fast enough for their tastes. Essentially people back seat driving. That alone might not have turned me off but then I started trying to do 24 man raids as a tank. Nope. This was back when you had two tanks per party and it always turned into a huge mess with no one wanting to pull or saying nothing and then fighting you for aggro after you finally decide to just do it yourself etc. It stressed me out so badly, this odd tank on tank e-pen competition, that I pretty much stopped playing warrior and leveled a WHM from scratch before HW released.

I guess the other thing was that tank fell into this strange space, at least when I wasn't with my healing buddy, where you were the defacto leader and supposedly in control but also at the mercy of the healer. If you pop your cooldowns properly and maintain aggro but the healer doesn't manage their MP or gets lost dpsing, or fails to heal up the group before a big move, that is beyond your control. As a tank, I had no ability to compensate for other peoples mistakes but was saddled with the responsibility nonetheless. As a WHM? Whole different ballgame. Tank not using cooldowns right? I can probably get us through that. DPS standing in things? I can get us through that. Someone dies? Yep. Got it. DPS slacking in damage on big pulls? HOLY TIME. Even if the tank over pulls, WHM felt like I had the tools in most cases to carry the group through and I found I much preferred that sort of power vs the ornamental power I had as a tank where my life was constantly in someone elses hands.

I also suddenly enjoyed 24 man raids again. Tanks felt like some macho power struggle every run but with healers, I feel like we are this little two man team with one common goal. Yeah sometimes its like herding cats but we are in it together and somehow that makes even awful runs seem just like a fun challenge instead of anxiety inducing. Pair all that with the fact that people are far less likely to needlessly lay into the person who keeps them alive, I just ended up enjoying it more. I imagine I'm not alone in that experience.

[Zsolen]

Purely anecdotal: Some people like to harass tanks, and some tanks like to harass other people.

I don't see dps and healers fighting with each other as much. In 24 mans, I have seen tanks fight each other. Either everyone wants to OT or MT. I've also seen DPS intentionally pull and get alliances cleaved, except for maybe the few people the tanks were waiting for.

Strange thing is DPS usually don't complain more when a healer doesn't heal, after they take unavoidable damage. They die and then the healer does not rez them for a couple of minutes with no recent rezzes, within range of the healer, no upcoming mechanic, and plenty of mp. I've seen it where a healer, RDM, or SMN from another party ends up rezzing them.

[luicei375]

People don't like being "leaders" and having a "leader responsibility" where instead someone else can just set the pace. Or we call that "tankxiety".

Some others hate having to swap stances just to keep up their DPS, while as designated DPS classes they can just only focus on mashing buttons. As healers, your primary focus is to keep everyone alive and there are no stances involved.

In reality tanking is very easy, especially in alliance where if you're not MT, you basically act like the 6th DPS and only need to tank adds for 10 seconds tops. And you'd be surprised that people still fail to do that.

But hey, I'm enjoying the instant queues.

[hydralus]

Because I can't stand playing a tank when I end up with a healer who does nothing but heal. If I play as a healer I know there's going to be an extra 2-3k DPS going out. Even a 'bad' tank will be putting out over 1k, which is way higher than literally 0.

[PerrinTaveren]

I think healing in this game is more engaging then any tank job. You have to heal accordingly to unavoidable damage, you have to keep an eye on party members, raise staph dps who keeps dying to mechanics and dps as a healer as well. Dpsing as a healer does give a satisfaction to the job in my opinion. I can dps crazy as sch in aoe, which is better than any tank dps and most dps who doesn't know how to aoe. Probably whm is same. Ast has also cards which keeps the job really engaging at all times.

Tanking can be boring in this game, especially in low level content. It is a 1-2-3 combo for all tanks and it is not really fun. Also, if a tank loses agro and if healer or dps dies because of that, it is entirely tank's fault. But if a dps or tank dies because they failed mechanics, or stepped into aoes, or tank didn't use any CDs and pulled like 4-5 stacks of mobs, it is not ENTIRELY healers fault. Part of the fault lies within them as well. I know dps has enmity buttons well but idk, a well geared tank can keep agro anytime even without any enmity reduction from dps, which lets us come to the other point: Gear.

There is an opinion that healer dps isn't a must. While i don't agree for the most part - i think healers should do to contribute in every way they can - , their primary job is to heal, like tank's primary job is to keep agro. So, a badly geared healer may struggle at healing, but if he/she choose not to dps, or minimize it, tank can be kept alive and party too, so healer job done. But a badly geared tank - %90 OF THE TIME- loses agro if dps doesn't use enmity reduction abilities. THat's because enmity is based on damage entirely so a badly gear tank = bad tank. badly geared healer = mediocore if they know how to heal etc.

Because healing is -on casual content- really easy in this game. Tanking may not be easy because dps can be op (like think about a ilvl370 blm with a ilvl340 tank), and most of the dps LOVES to snap agro from tanks. So let's not put all fault to tanks, there are dps who intentionally doesn't use enmity reduction because they feel op. Or they just don't because lazy. So, in casual content tanking may be really struggling as well, while healing is at its worst, only keeps you from not dpsing at the same comparison (340 healer vs 370 tank/dps). Gear is much much less required for a healer.

Another point is, tank is the leader of the group. Yes, it depends on the healer too, if healer cannot heal that much damage, pace must be reduced (like a 340 healer trying to heal 3 stacks of mobs in ex). But still pace is determined by tank. Even if healer says "go go i can heal 10 stacks of mobs", if tank prefers a slow pace, he is entitled to tank 1 stack as well, and most parties blacklash this because "gotta go fast".

So, i think healing is more beginner friendly, more gear friendly and all in all more friendly, while tanking requires much more responsibility and knowledge about the pace, dps enmity, healer capabilities etc. Because if tank pulls so many mobs without even looking at healer's gear etc, he/she can wipe the party with that and i don't think it is entirely healer's fault.

Anyway well, those are my opinions.

[Tint]

as a healer you only have to react. react to the attacks of the boss, to the party members who take damage, to the downtime you have and throw some dps spells...

healing is a difficult job and you have to plan ahead and make decisons like wich spell for wich situation you use, who gets a raise first and so on. but in the end you just react to the situations the game and your party serves you.


the tank on the other hand has a greater impact on creating those situations. how much you pull, how you rotate your cooldowns, how you position the mobs... even dodging an aoe in the wrong direction can have an impact on the gameplay of the other people in your party.

a tank acts, while the other jobs react - often to the actions of the tank. and not many people want to be responsible of the gameplay of the other people in the party in such a way.