This is going to sound odd, but hear me out.

We currently have an issue where healers are asking to be able to perform their primary role more, but it conflicts with the concept of tanks having agency over their own survival. I think I have a solution.

Alter the tanks.
  1. Buff tank damage potencies significantly (not enough to overtake DPS, but bridge the gap a bit) and nerf tank cooldowns.
  2. Make tank stance reduce potencies, generate much higher threat, give a defensive buff, make single-target and AoE combos provide a heal.
  3. Provide a second stance that generates moderately higher threat and increases healing received.

With this in effect, tanks not only will have better quality-of-life when soloing content outside of dungeons, but they will be incentivized to want a healer with them so they can stay in the aggressive tanking stance. It will also add more interactive gameplay to situations where you have two tanks, and allow a tank to react to a weaker party and go into a more reserved defensive mode.

Silly draft ideas for potential changes to tanks:

The tank invulnerabilities such as Holmgang and Hallowed Ground could only be usable in tank stance, and be removed if the tank leaves said stance. This would encourage gameplay where a tank can still do crazy pulls and stay defensive for a bit with their invul, then swap to their aggressive stance.
There could be a shared DPS cooldown with their invulnerability.

(Continued next post)