I think it’s the same reason as tanking, not many have as much fun on healing and tanking as on dps.
Some of wierd anxiety about it but I think it’s generally seen as a less enjoyable role.
In all my experience in mmos and other games, the supporting roles are the least popular.
This ^
Why I hate to heal pugs often times is how many players have no idea how to deal with mechanics. Furthermore many are Over their head, have to little health and get one shot repeatedly. Neither is good for trying to complete a key.
Just my opinion but it’s boring in this game. I’ve played games where I really enjoyed healing. This game though is kinda meh.
When 8.3 came out and I got my first corrupted item and the eye spawned GTFO went off each time it hit me, I hate the sound of GTFO that’s why it’s so good 
Oh, but I vendored my corrupted gear and bought a green off the AH and have been happy ever since 
Oh? Just let them die. They’ll figure out eventually not to stand in the all seeing eye of tentacle aids.
You see the mechanics-ignorance thing a LOT in timewalking. I don’t know if its new players or people who never played that expansion or simply others who have forgotten and don’t care to remember - but so many times I’ve seen stupid taken to a whole new level in TW. It isn’t that the TW instances are so terrible; its often just that the players are.
And the old “can’t heal stupid” very much applies.
They are random people on the internet you will never see again, they are just words, there is an ignore feature if need be.
I’m not being insensitive I just never understood why some people take offense to what people say in a video game.
Seriously who cares what some random says about you. Keep playing.
I never felt as much pressure as a healer than when I am trying to tank. For some reason it’s just most chill hanging out in the back of the group. Sometimes people do blame the healer but there isn’t much use arguing with anybody who would do that anyways because they aren’t going to hear you out lol!
Maybe I am just used to it, I’ve played enough or just rolled a hunter enough times that I’m used to getting blamed for something I didn’t do. But I don’t mind it as much as I used to. At first it bothered me a lot!
Healing is a lot of fun actually because I can deviate from a rotation and make choices on what is the best spell for every situation. I have to react quickly but when I know the place and the damage I can even react before it happens. I like feeling like I am able to predict the damage and see the group, where they are standing and how to handle the moment.
Sometimes people stand in the bad stuff and sometimes the die or they make it and heal themselves, sometimes I can use my leap of faith on them and that is always fun. You get some mixed reactions with that one.
But yeah healing is pretty great when you get the basics down and don’t mind the blame so much. Plus faster queues are great!
Two weeks ago, I struggled to keep a Prot Paladin alive through an M+12. His HP would continuously dip from 100% down to 10% within a second, and we had more than 40 deaths.
Despite not being my fault, I felt like an absolute failure. And no doubt the DPS wanted to blame me for it.
Every single trash pull, I’d be blowing CDs and pumping heals into the tank - and not being able to stop the DPS from dying or else the tank would die and we’d all die.
Not a fun experience.
I think there is a balance between “avoiding self-doubt” and “dps standing in garbage”. I totally agree with your point, but there is a certain threshold you reach that it should not be your responsibility to heal people taking unnecessary damage. I admit as a warlock I have a lot of mitigation and self-healing that I eat a lot of bad random damage and I know healers prob hate that - BUT - when it comes to stuff like grievous, necrotic, fire or aoe ground effects etc, I will get out of them. I know what damage I can safely eat and what damage I can’t.
Healers have this ridiculous expectation to be able to keep the group afloat during both planned and ad-hoc pulls. While really geared / experienced ones can, this should NOT be the norm. DPS should be self aware to a certain point where if we are on a boss fight and a a dps get hits by a mechanic and you have the heal the tank at the same time, healers will prioritize tanks (or they should, situations will vary depending on the healer / tank) but more often then not this is the flow.
I have a simple undergeared resto 120 RDruid and while I love healing and my gear isn’t like the total pits if I noticed I am having to heal one dps considerably more then I start to take note of why. If I find they are standing in bad stuff I will mention it, if they do not listen they die.
If a DPS keeps dying to bs everyone in the group should know and be aware it is not the healer. A lot of times the healer may get blamed but they stick it out for completions sake, The healer knowing the truth in my opinion means a lot more than the dps claiming they knew the truth. It’s a tricky situation for some, and I am am aware being a healer is a thankless job so I make sure to compliment my heals at the end of every [completed / good] M+, pay it forward!
You have to wonder if your prot tank was a ret in disguise.
I’m conflicted…
On one hand my adventures in XIV as a healer made me despise healbots. Whenever I got one as a cohealer it was just sad, sad and frustrating to witness. Although its a different game I still find these healbots in WoW, the sorts that want to just press a heal occasionally and all other skills just don’t exist while they whine about doing anything more than the bare minimum.
On the other current corruptions are pretty rough on them with people randomly blowing up and a lot is stacked on them in high end content. I know the pro healers don’t mind if you stand in the eye since its slow ticking, easy to manage damage VS a sudden chunk with TFB but I still feel a little guilty taking it (though I do love to turret).
In the end I respect 80% of my healers and do agree that some of the corruption negative effects should have revolved around losing dps.
Yeah, it doesn’t matter as much as a warlock. My lock can stand in stuff for awhile and still be last in the amount of healing received from the healer by a good margin. So the meter of avoidable damage taken isn’t the complete story.
Healers are rare because they take the brunt of the blame when something goes south, and there is a wipe.
DPS pulled something extra and it caused a wipe.
HEALERS FAULT
Tank got over zealous and pulled too much and it caused a wipe.
HEALERS FAULT
No one really wants to play a Healer knowing that no matter who screws up, it will be their fault for it.
Healers are punished the most when players are bad.
That is 100% the reason outside of people just not enjoying the role.
That happened to me too lol I’m like how hard is it to not hit the dude with lightning
Even in OW there’s a lack of Tank and Heal roles. I think people just like to DPS man xD.
Because Tanks like to pull the whole room
To be honest, I started as a healer in Classic, and have played a main Holy Paladin healer up to MoP, before switching to Ret. This is a large issue of Blizzard’s own making by continually nerfing healing efficiency and abilities PRIMARILY due to PvP considerations, while detrimentally affecting PvE content.
This has been going on since Cata, where healers were more and more homogenized and mana efficiency/recovery was squashed further and further. Just like tanking, healing ends up being a rather thankless job in dungeons and raids, versus where DPS are gleefully mashing buttons to actually enjoy killing stuff (if they’re not standing in the ever increasing deadly bad stuff).
Keeping my group alive is my “fun” as a healer, and when they make it ever more stressful and painful to do (especially already dealing with the idiocy of random PuGs), the rewards are simply not worth the effort. Everybody cries about long queues and tank/healer performances, and scratches their heads wondering why no one wants to play them. Because Blizzard and the player base have made it that way.
Either play one yourself, or learn to be more patient and work with them to survive.
try healing necrotic as non meta healer and the tank doesnt know what kitting is… 
I really feel for some healers, they pay the subscription to allow dps and tanks clear content.