WoW Game Director Morgan Day Talks HUGE Changes Coming in 11.1 & MORE World of Warcraft NEWS

So this is actually a misconception i hear parroted a lot that there's a shortage of healers. There's always been more dps compared to healers and tanks, we all know that, that's how it's always been and why lfg offered incentives to fill this role going a long way back. The thing is that there's not shortage of healers in HIGH keys, right. The shortage for healers is in low keys. This is the opposite for tanks, there's not really a shortage of tanks in keys below 12, but there's a shortage of tanks in keys over 13. Quite frankly it's not fun to be a pug healer in keys below 12 (arguably now below 15 because the skill ceiling keeps moving and people are getting carried up without prog'ing the hard way.) And quite frankly it's not fun to be a pug tank in high keys.

This is simple.

Low keys: DPS Don't kick, they press defensives after taking damage instead of before or never, they don't have any idea what's going on, and of course, like you said, healers have to keep most tanks alive. The party doesn't utilize its utility, they don't know what does what, so spam casting by ads is happening which is causing tons of unmitigated damage. Being a healer in a +8 with low xp pugs is harder than being a healer in a +14 with moderate to high xp pugs, because you just literally can't get to that point without being carried or without learning "that keeps killing me/us/them, maybe i should kick it," and reading their class guides and on and on. Just today in mist 10 a mage argued with me that decurse doesn't remove the affix and me and our 2nd mage told them repeatedly that it did. The pug mage said it was healers fault, that i didn't top the affix, dude I am a top healer on main and have timed this key +++ what are you talking about??? I even sent him a link to his wowhead class guide for m+ that tells him decurse removes devour. So healers have to deal with silly people like that, they have to trash everyone's defensives, they have to heal the tank, spam casting enemies, tons of tank busters, ninja pulls, no help with utility from anyone else, etc.

Nobody wants to heal that.

Ok So low keys for tank: Tanking low keys is fun. There's gaps for mistakes and a little help from healer if you know your basic damage mitigation (shield block+ip, SotR+CG, DS+Meta, etc.) then you're gonna get by find until about 9 or 10. Some specs easier than others cause they're more self sufficient like bdk can actually be fun cause you are just in charge of your own destiny and have kicks and ranged kick and a stun and on and on. You could say it feels good to tank keys below 12. It feels like you are a tank.

But high keys?

I legit know lots of healers this season swapped from tank to heals to get away from tanking because this season was so offensive. And a lot of life long healers swapped from heals to dps. I know many many prot paladins that went ret. I know one that went as far as to swap to shaman. Many many many mages went warlock. And on and on. Not just to play the meta but to get some relief from the nightmare spam ability vomit and lethal mechanics with minimal agency. The third boss of CoT should just be deleted. It's designed to kill players at 100% through a defensive, because it does too much damage and the heal absorbs are too much. It's designed to kill them through that even with big heal pumps because it goes too long. And on top of that every hit from the boss basically threatens to kill the tank. If tank isn't topped or close to top for the tank buster hes toast even with a most defensive options, even with a critical block.

So healing is easier than tanking high keys and a lot of people ran from tanking to healing. They still get a somewhat desirable role without playing the dps meta roulette game and besides sv and cot, especially as disc priest, you aren't responsible for wipes to missed kicks and all sorts of goofy stuff. That's someoen elses fault/problem.

So what about tanks? Everyone wants a good tank. Not everyone wants to relearn the game to be a great tank. High keys are super punishing for mistakes. Depletion and toxicity make it worse. There's so much weight on the tanks shoulders that before used to just be a matter of personal choice that now is every single pull is lethal without perfect play.

Which brings me to my last point. Because the bar just to scrape by is so high skill wise, it's just expected of you. Only 3 times this season has anyone said to me "good heals/great heals." I used to hear it all the time. People USED to respect their healers and tanks, because they knew the role was challenging but they also knew an amazing healer/tank when they saw one work. I've done some insane things, even just today, to get us through a pull against the most nightmarish odds that nobody should survive in a million years, I out healed it and kept people topped. Most people would have panicked and fumbled. What I did was so incredible that even I knew when I was doing it that I had to admire for a second the level of experience and suffering and learning that went into being able to get to a point that this is possible to do with minimal thinking about what I need to do. And nobody said anything or noticed. You know what? The bar is so high for basic pulls that even if you play like a god, that's just expected of you. It's the same deal for tanks. Yes we expect them not to die but the steps and problem solving and millions things to track and do is the hardest its ever been for tanks and healers. But because that's the minimum to get by, that's what's expected. So there's no appreciation.

I spent some time on one of my dps alts late into the season just trying to get him rated up for next. I was absolutely stunned and flabberghasted how easy it was to play dps compared to my healing main toons and tank alts. Dear lord your job is interrupt, dps, and press defensive (maybe occasionally utility.) And coming from the perspective of healing and tanking, I know exactly what my tank, healer, and team need me to do, so I look like a mfkin GENIUS as a dps, because most dps are sleeping on everything or just reacting to things they're not running omni, they're not tracking boss timers, they're not holding cds for burn phase, and on and on. Literally kick/stop/cc, defensive, dps. It even makes me not want to tank and heal, tanks and healers have to do all that same stuff plus have this huge front load of responsibility to repair the mistakes by the dps who have like 1 job 90% of the time: interrupt/cc.

So yea there's your explanation. I'm not coming from nowhere with this either. I have a toon of every class and I pushed many to ksh throughout all stages of the season since before the paladin rework. If you think about it tank and healer difficulty was already factored in by not only what they do, what they need to do to beat the timer, how half their role is fixing dps mistakes, but really, it was already cooked in, infinite scaling already meant that at a sufficient key level tanks needed to know how to rotate defensives to stay alive cause even just the autos truck. Healers needed to plan cds and improvise and how their kit works internally for cdr, mana, utility, externals, ramp, etc. But you felt like it was the same thing always at every key level just that it got harder every key level. This seasons not really like that. In low keys you're punished by bad players, affixes, and as a healer you want to get out of sub 12/14/15 keys asap, because there's a point you get to actually start playing the game and optimizing it and it's not when you're trying to keep people alive through web bolt spam that nobody is doing anything about for like 2 min straight until they die to a swirly their addon told them to dodge 20 times. Tanks in low keys have a fun time playing the game like how being a tank should feel in the opinions of the majority of the player base.

So you have this problem at both ends and blizzard can fix it but they won't. This problem is the reason the meta is the way it is, too. If there's a tank that can keep themselves alive with minimal help from the healer and also has an aoe silence? That's the meta tank. If there's a healer that can 2 times in 8 min put a 40% damage reduction on someone or the tank, THAT'S THE META HEALER. The synergy they have is no mystery. The meta is no mytsery. It stems from the same problem.

does it hurt blizzard to make classes fun again , i dont get it whats the problem in making the classes fun and lovable , if im wrong here plz correct me.

O shit imma use those follower buffs for zekvir

Shadowlands was peak m+ experience. Ignored the story and just played, had a great time.

The only healer I've ever enjoyed playing was the Disciple of Khaine in Warhammer Age of Reckoning.