The shortage of tanks and healers in World of Warcraft is increasing. Many in the community believe that a return to old virtues can fix this.
If you want to form a group in the current World of Warcraft to tackle dungeons, you need patience. Especially if you’re playing DPS and need both a tank and a healer. Searching for group members can easily take half an hour or longer.
But it doesn’t have to be that way. Towards the end of Dragonflight, there were relatively many healers and tanks. However, this changed in the first season of The War Within. Many in the community also believe that a return to the “old system” could be the solution.
What is the problem? In recent weeks, tanks and healers have increasingly become a scarcity in World of Warcraft – especially in the “Mythic+” category. Anyone trying to assemble a group to complete a key stone of difficulty +8 or higher can wait a long time to find tanks and healers.
The reasons for this are quite clear, at least according to the community. Because tanking and healing have both become significantly more difficult with The War Within.
While tanks still endure a lot and have some large cooldowns to bridge minor healing deficiencies, they can hardly “keep themselves alive,” as was the case in Dragonflight. Tanks were rarely reliant on healers back then.
Healers now need to perform group healing in almost every fight and protect the tank much more than in previous seasons.
Additionally, healers often have other tasks, and many of the current affixes are often dismissed as “healer affixes.”
Back to former strength
How could this be solved? Many suggestions are discussed in the WoW subreddit on how to fix the problems. A post from klingers is particularly well received. He lists the problems and reveals the underlying design difficulties that currently prevail:
I hate to say this, but I believe the only solution is to make every role a bit more forgiving. Shift a little of the responsibility onto the DPS characters. Simplify the combat mechanics. Increase the health points of tanks. Simplify the tank/heal rotation, reduce the cooldowns, or add more “Oh Shit” buttons.
To be honest, this post isn’t directed at all the people who will now comment that “they have no problems, others just need to get good.” The problem is, people don’t want to “get good,” they are completely avoiding the roles. And that’s something we need to change.
Or to put it plainly: Tanking and healing need to become easier. The burden of tasks must be reduced so that these two roles are fun and appealing again – even for new players.
This is how the community discusses: The post receives a lot of support and sparks some discussions.
- “I loved it when tanks were super tanky and could alleviate the burden of healers, as it was at the end of Dragonflight. What was wrong with that and why was it changed?” – EulerIdentity
- “It was a lot of fun when I could tank many [enemies] and keep myself alive at the same time. It was enjoyable. Now, no matter what I do, I feel weak and it’s not enjoyable. That’s the main reason I switched away from tanking. I no longer feel like a tank.” – Dbzking99
- “DPS have to watch that their feet are not standing in fire, interrupt, and deal damage.
Healers have to ensure their feet are not standing in fire, monitor the health bars of everyone, interrupt, deal damage, dispel, plan healing CDs based on the tank plus affix, plus factor in how fragile the DPS are. DPS feels like a game. Healing feels like a job.” – sammystevens
What do you think of the current state of the distribution of healers and tanks in World of Warcraft? Are you having trouble assembling a group? Or are you lucky enough to have a large and active guild or friend group where all roles are adequately represented?
The entire Mythic+ system also needs help – because a lot is going wrong there right now.
