Decrease in the number of raid capable healers in Cata?

[Deleted]

Being on a EU server with Horde dominating like 95% of the pop, it seems like Cata has made it alot harder to find capable healers for raiding. I know that the issue doesn't only lie in the fact that the healers have been changed alot and has gotten harder to play well. Also the new raid system has made alot of new 10 man guilds with potential good healers pop up - way too many imo.

Anyways, after 3 months of Cata I see guilds looking for healers constantly. Not tanks, not dps but healers. When thinking back, I've never experienced this big an issue getting healers all around. Could be just my server that lacks decent healers but could also be something others have noticed? I mean did healers get nerfed too much, are enounters harder for healers than in previous tiers or what?

Either way it's so frustrating to spam trade, post on forums etc. non stop - only to see 10 other guilds looking for healers as well

[Iyotanka]

My guild is recruiting all roles at the moment. We have specific requests in terms of class and spec...but we've had a hard time finding everything. It seems to me its less about specific roles and more about the harsher consequences of switching guilds constantly. People are putting more thought into decisions which involve guild reputation etc.

That being said, healing is more difficult these days but I think in this instance it's just your server. We have no trouble finding competent healers, but are having a particularly hard time finding tanks.

[Deleted]

It's kinda funny though, cause on my server ppl change guild more often than they change underwear.

Also, while it could be just my server, it still seems weird that with that many hordes on a bigger server, healers are in that big demand. Logic tells me that with 95% of a server playing one faction, it should indeed be easier to recruit just about anything.

Ps. It's not that there aren't healers at all, it's that there's so few skilled healers. Healers you would actually bring to your raid

[Choda]

This is a server specific issue, and varies a lot even among factions, regardless of whether or not the faction is in the majority or not.

[Deleted]

Well you say that Choda, I'd just like to see some more comments on the matter. Cause as I said, I can't help but wonder, if the changes to healers have indeed made alot of them go dps.

[Iyotanka]

That's interesting. Barely anyone changes guilds on my server, at least that's how it seems as someone recruiting. The only time, it seems, is when circumstances force their hands like when they aren't allowed to raid, etc.

It's always been my belief that a larger population only means larger numbers, but the same ratios. You may have more healers, but you have more guilds as well. You'd be lucky if you had more healers but the same number of guilds as a low pop. server. Guilds pop up as the demand for them rises. People who can't raid will make their own guilds and take more of the potential raiders with them. It doesn't work the other way though. More healers won't miraculously pop up just because everyone needs them.

My advice is to PuG the spots as you recruit and maybe you'll befriend a competent PuG and he'll be interested in joining. It's what we've been forced to do in the past and some of our best raiders started out as PuGs.

[isadorr]

We took some of the lower dps and had them respec to heal. They want to see the heroic content so they were fine with it. Fact is that not everyone in raids is pulling big numbers so we took basically 2 sp and had them go disc/holy solving the healing problem. They were going to lose their raid spot as dps anyway with their numbers so they healed and now still have a raid spot.

[Deleted]

I see your poing Iyotanka. But I still don't think my thoughts are that ilogical.

Let me put it another way; would we see more healers, if healing was as easy as in Wrath?

[Choda]

Well you say that Choda, I'd just like to see some more comments on the matter. Cause as I said, I can't help but wonder, if the changes to healers have indeed made alot of them go dps.

Well really, is that a bad thing? Anyone that gave up on healing after it started requiring more than 2 brain cells wouldn't really be that useful as a healer in the first place, no?

[Iyotanka]

I see your poing Iyotanka. But I still don't think my thoughts are that ilogical.

Let me put it another way; would we see more healers, if healing was as easy as in Wrath?

Maybe. I've only ever off-healed when necessary...but those healers that came with me from Wrath into Cata have only said that healing got more interesting. I think those that enjoyed it before enjoy it more now. Those that did it out of necessity or because it was easy...maybe not so much.

[Mammoth]

Its true that some healers have quit, but some have also picked it up because it is more fun.

Raiding guilds have never had trouble finding tanks. Tanks queue very little for HCs, but when it comes to raiding there are always lots of tanks. Healers however have always been the hardest role to fill. I don't think anything is new, but now its more fun hopefully there'll be less healers rerolling dps.

[RedHeadWolf]

My server is only looking for healers and ranged dps it seems like.

[Deleted]

Well really, is that a bad thing? Anyone that gave up on healing after it started requiring more than 2 brain cells wouldn't really be that useful as a healer in the first place, no?

Fully agree, don't want ppl with zero awareness and no skill in my raid lol.

But that's not my point however. I like the fact that healing isn't boring and faceroll as it was in Wrath where mana was never an issue, where AoE healing or spamming 1 ability was the way to roll.
All I'm saying, is that while the hardcore healers stayed or came back to healing, alot of decent healers might have lost the urge to heal. I mean it's a fine balance of making it more challeging and fun and making too chaleging that ppl just cbf struggeling with it.

[TheRedTerror]

I've raided as Resto Druid, Resto Shaman and I'm going to reroll to my Holy Paladin this week since I feel my time as a Druid has come to an end. On my server there's been quite a lot of healers before but after Cataclysm it's obvious that only people that love healing stuck with it since almost all of the top-guilds are on constant look-out for healers, heck since I know pretty much all the officers and GMs of them since I played with most of them from time to time I've been asked several times if I'm interested to join them. This is speaking entirely of my own experience but most good healers have stuck with their guilds for several years and are reluctant to leave, in my time of soon 4 years I've only been in three guilds and in all of them I got to know the healers best since they stuck with it until the very end. Heck I'd still be left in the second guild had I not been asked by my friends if I was interested in running 10-mans in Cataclysm.

[Choda]

All I'm saying, is that while the hardcore healers stayed or came back to healing, alot of decent healers might have lost the urge to heal. I mean it's a fine balance of making it more challeging and fun and making too chaleging that ppl just cbf struggeling with it.

My point still stands regardless. And in the current raid environment, healing is no more difficult than tanking or dps-ing, keeping in mind that each of the 3 roles have a varying difficulty from encounter to encounter (e.g. Healing - Chimaeron heroic, DPS - Cho'gall heroic, Tanking - Maloriak Heroic to some extent)

[Mammoth]

All I'm saying, is that while the hardcore healers stayed or came back to healing, alot of decent healers might have lost the urge to heal. I mean it's a fine balance of making it more challeging and fun and making too chaleging that ppl just cbf struggeling with it.

I would rather be the guy with the most challenging role, rather than the guy doing everything perfect but having to wait for someone else with a harder job. Thats why Chime is so frustrating for the non-healers.

[Deleted]

Healing was VERY different during the start of Cataclysm, you had to watch your mana so much and were OOM extremely fast. That changed very quickly though, and by time I started heroic raids healing felt the same as it always has (with maybe a bit more emphasis on mana conversation, but not much)

My guess is by the next teir of raiding all the healing "nerfs" won't exist anymore and if some healers stopped healing because of them maybe they will decide to spec resto/holy again.

[Strakha]

I think a lot of people that were healing in WOTLK were discouraged due to the non stop craziness that was ICC style healing where you were just bombing heals all day as fast as you could. and now you kind of have to plan things a little more.

The difficulty is not so bad now though, but I think a lot of people gave up early on before they had the gear.

[Deleted]

My point still stands regardless. And in the current raid environment, healing is no more difficult than tanking or dps-ing, keeping in mind that each of the 3 roles have a varying difficulty from encounter to encounter (e.g. Healing - Chimaeron heroic, DPS - Cho'gall heroic, Tanking - Maloriak Heroic to some extent)

I don't agree with you. Cause the healing changes had their biggest impact way before anyone was geared to do heroic raids. I still find that while changes has been made, classes have been nerfed and the overall recquirement to awareness in the beginning of Cata was higher, healers are still the ones who had to adapt most.

I agree with Strakha though, I too think that several healers got discouraged, before they got the gear to raid.

[Dameondark]

Not to surprising.

The start of Cata kind of weeded out those that wanted to heal from those that did it because no one else would in WotLK. It simply got harder and there were some HUGE mechanic changes. I hate using the term but I think a lot of the "WotLK babies" went away and it hurt some servers more then others. The good thing is that Blizz has had some time to work out the kinks so I hope that some of those that went dps will be more likely to go back to healing.