IMO the issue with the scarcity of tanks and healers comes down to 4 things.
Difficulty - Seasoned tanks will say it’s not hard, and I agree. However, that doesn’t relate to friends, family members, or other rando’s that either want to try tanking or w/e. Having to know routes, how to gauge healer ability in knowing the size of pulls, what spells to interrupt, and mechanics as a tank can be a bit much for non-seasoned tanks. Look at dungeons like Dawbreaker lol how many times I’ve been in groups and the tank doesn’t know where to go… It’s confusing. Look at eco dome, while more straightforward, it still can get confusing at times. Tazavesh has multiple routes too.
Toxicity - If you take the wrong route, which, let’s be honest… these places have many routes you can take. However, go the way 1 of the DPS doesn’t know or feel is right, and its WTF tank, where are you going? Pull too big by accident… tank sucks. Mess up a pull or boss mechanic, and a DPS will be sure to explain the entire fight and what to do. lol…
Specs - Warrior, Druid, DH, DK, Pally, and Monk. Maybe those don’t appeal to players. IMO there aren’t enough choices. Each tank plays pretty differently from the other, but what if you like shaman, loc, hunter, evokers? All of which can easy get a new spec. Same goes for healers, where is the other plate healer? There is just so much missing. BTW shaman tank should have been made already…lore is there, abilities there and been tested.
Race Combos - I can’t speak for a lot, but belf druid? why is this not a thing? Human druid? So can be warlocks and mages but nature magic eludes humans? lol
So it’s NOT that tanks and healers are having a hard time finding groups… its that there are 4 blaring issues. Blizz can’t fix issue #2 but seriously, we got the 1 button and spellflash built in… make a route arrow above your head like NFS has when racing that players can use a basic pug route. Get a few more tank specs and more race combos. Blizz makes enough and has the skill to do it, so no need to make excuses.
You could give every class a tanking spec, it won’t move the needle much in terms of tank participation, we have more tanks in the game than ever and it hasn’t changed anything.
idk guys, I disagree. Look at void-hunters. How many are saying they are re-rolling simply because of the new void-hunter spec.
So you mean if they made a tank loc, some dps wouldn’t give tank a shot? If shaman got a tank spec, your saying some of the dps population wouldn’t give tanking a shot?
It’s not going to be some massive increase, no. But, it will at least add some additional tanks to the mix
I feel Delves has allowed players to play at their own pace. Players have found a comfortable spot and are unwilling to go back to unrewarding Dungeons and Raids. Why would a tank or healer go to a dungeon or raid that has tons of baggage and the possibility of zero items when they can do a bountiful delves and get gear 100% of the time?
What could help (for m+ at least) is to allow a new tank to use a follower mode to practice m+. Let them take Ai followers in a m+ dungeon (let them pick the difficulty), experiment with routes, how to tank, how many they can pull/etc.
Dunno about raiding but being able to practice in a “closed” environment and learn things before going public would reduce some anxiety with folks wanting to do it.
I think if existing classes got tanks specs, there would be a small increase in tanks. Not enough to solve anything, but some increase.
For example, one of our dedicated hunter mains enjoys tanking and will do it occasionally on his paladin alt. But ultimately loves his hunter so will never main tank. Its not because he wants to main dps specifically, its hunter. If hunter had a tank spec, he’d tank on his hunter.
Yes, that one single anecdote means nothing. But I’m sure there are a number of class mains, not role mains.
Too many players do not want responsibility of any kind.
They want to shut their brain off and faceroll pew pew. And that’s FINE, but it doesn’t mean they should expect to tackle difficult content with that mentality.
Adding more tank classes won’t change things. And the tank/healer shortage only exists in the pug scene.
For me, the biggest deterrent to tanking is learning routes. I’m not interested in doing homework to play the game, so I just tank for guildies/friends who don’t care about going mach 10. Or, I’ll just heal/dps until I know the route and then tank.
haha see… you guys all understand. The issue has nothing to do with going to the LFG screen and having a hard time finding a specific group like Blizz is trying to say the issue is.
Tbc pallies and bear being made viable did make a noticable uptick in tanks, lots of people who liked the class but didnt want to play support, which was all druid and pally really did vanilla, where happy to have another option and people who did like tanking were happy to not have to be warrior for everything. Them being near mandatory certain fights also helped.
New classes take away from players since its not like people are gonna pick up wow just for one class, but adding tanks or heals to classes that can only dps would definity boost the numbers at least temporarily as people try them out and want faster queues early in the season, and if they like it theyll stay.
This has never meaningfully increased tank numbers. They added 4 tank specs over the life of the game (5 if we want to count paladin becoming at all competitive) and it didn’t have an impact.
Had nothing to do with bears which also got a noticeable uptick. And alliance only got shamans but also had an influx of tanks so there were plenty of already exsisting holy pallies who went prot or ret since they were made playable.
Levelings definitly faster now but people still get attatched to a character and its progressions, i occasionally tank only because druid can already do it. If i was a warlock or a mage i would never tank and add to the problem.
New classes with tanks i dont think do much, old classes getting tanks i think could help, not fix it though, nothing will fix it.
Imo it’s about rewards first. Players will do things they hate for good rewards. But with the introduction of bountiful delves many players can get rewards without the stress of dungeons or raids. Plus those rewards are guaranteed. Why would anyone want to tank or heal in a unforgiving setting to come out with nothing?
Endgame tanking and healing is only done at this point because it’s the only way to obtain mythic gear outright without having to level up hero gear. Again goes back to rewards. I would say a very low percentage of players tank or heal endgame for the “Challenge”.
It comes down to lack of options to play as tank or healer.
Be it race/class combos or just specs for classes in general.
Last few specs they’ve added or are adding to the game have been DPS.
No one can change that but the Devs.
A lot of people would roll forsaken (as example) druid, paladin, or shaman. Option isn’t there.
A lot of people would love to tank as a Shaman, or Warlock, or even heal as a Mage or something through Hero Talents or the SoD Rune System. Option isn’t there.
. Why would I play a tank and have huge responsibility? Especially when DPS has the same rewards with waaaay less stress.