Decrease in the number of raid capable healers in Cata?

[Pappahealar]

The reason behind the lack of healers compared to WotlK was because of the level of difficulty of heroics in the start of Cataclysm. Alot of healers said that they quit the game because healing was so hard and you had to drink after every trash pack, while puggers still pulled the next pack and shit.
In my opinion they were just bad healers. Ofcourse I whined a bit aswell. But that was mostly because the reason I had to drink all the time. It took like 2 days of Heroic farming and that wasn't really a problem anymore... And people that says that healing is harder now than it was in wotlk are bullshitters. Healing is not harder than it was.

But that doesn't explain why there aren't enough capable healers on your realm. The healers that are still in the game are the healers that made it through the heroics without quitting the game. So technically they should be better than those who quit or rerolled. Some probably rerolled to healers after the heroic nerfs and LFD buff. But the majority of healers should be those whose main is a healer, and which they leveled the 7th of December.

[Nublash]

I don't think it is so much a reduction as a higher need for healers. When 25 man raiding was the only way to really raid progress 5-7 healers for 25 people was enough, 20-28% of the raid being healers. Now with 10 mans and 25 sharing a lockout and 10 mans being vastly more popular overall this has changed as most 10 man groups need 3 healers (and I'm not sure tbh how many are required for a 25 man raid as I only raid 10 man format), 30% of the raid group to heal, especially for heroic content. This might seem insignificant but thousands of people play world of warcraft and the 2-10% difference from a relatively recent expansion ago can be huge.

[Deleted]

True Pappahealer,

However healing might not be harder (although it seems like it) but all healing classes got changed. They had to use other/new spells then what they were used to. I'm thinking that for someone who's not been a core and dedicated healer since Vanilla or w/e might be discouraged to start out as healer in Cata.

On top of that, those healers that simply rerolled don't have to be the baddies. I've heard of several healers who just found that their class was changed too much to make it fun.

[Seriss]

Before Cata came out, some of our really good healers already announced that they wanted to re-spec or reroll. So one of our best healing priests went shadow and a resto shamy went hunter...

Things like that don't necessarily mean that people stop healing because it's harder but because they've done it for a very long time and are just fed up with the same old thing throughout 2 expansions and want to try out new things.

[Deleted]

Well ofc that is a possible reason as well. But if ppl were fed up by healing, wouldn't the changes made to healing make it more appealing? Some say that healing is alot more fun and challeging now, others say that it's too much of a hassle unless you have some decent gear - which don't come (totally) free.

[Honen]

All of our Wrath core group healers are still healing (including myself).

I see the trend you're referring to though on my server too.

[Joels]

My guilds got 3 solid heals, and they do a damn good job. Tanks aswell. Its the DPS we keep having to replace..
Its basically based on your servers playerbase I guess.