How is Dragonflight solving shortage of tanks and healers problem?

[BraveNewWorld]

I'd play a healer again if I didn't have to DPS in Mythic+ runs. I don't like doing damage as a healer personally.

What would you rather do when everyone is at 100% hp? Sit around and wait?

I understand not wanting to try to weave in as much dps between heals, but if everyone is topped off and there's mobs to kill...

[Perkunas]

What would you rather do when everyone is at 100% hp? Sit around and wait?

I understand not wanting to try to weave in as much dps between heals, but if everyone is topped off and there's mobs to kill...

I didn't play a healer to do damage I have multiple other toons or specs that I can play to do that. What do DPS do when they aren't doing damage during a phase? They move or CC or do something else. There are other things to do.

[Ludek]

How about giving something back for healing/tanking. Achievements, items, mounts, pers, etc.

Tanks/healers already have some benefits - insta ques, ability to more or less choose M+ group/key they want to do. Also Call to Arms satchel is pretty lucrative before the renewable rune is being added in the last tier.

WoW and other games tried to incentivise tanks and healers via additional rewards of many different varieties yet it almost never works - mainly because the online community is what it is, and can be pretty stresful to take up on an important role, being afraid of potential backlash if you fail.

[chrisisvacant]

Agreed, but top 100 mythic progression is 2000 players and what, 200 tanks? For the other hundreds of thousands of players, the tanking role requires more responsibility than dps.

Obviously at the top end everything is hard.

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The argument is it's gotten worse recently as mythic+ has gotten more mainstream but also harder, and blizz could do something about it but is choosing not to. They're actually going the other way - seems like it's going to be harder to get the best gear in m+ in Dragonflight than ever before, a decision I find mystifying.

Dude, as a lifetime tank since the days of Vanilla, I can assure you that those tank bags or short queues aren't attractive. They weren't back in the day either, after you discovered that the chance to receive something worth a shit was no better than solo farming old raids with my spare time instead of schlepping thru Mythics that fall apart for a gazillion different reasons.

Tanks have to be dungeon SMEs but also have to defend their ways to asshole DPS, smug healers, or worse yet other bruised and battered tanks who spent an hour in the queue just to experience the taste of sitting back and talking shit to the captain. It's a miserable experience.

Blizzard needs new players. They need to make the entire game more appealing to people in a major, dramatic way that shakes the cobwebs out of the millennials' hive mind and we get people willing to stick thru a whole raid.

And everyone that says "they choose not to" never actually has an idea that sounds good. I'm a tank. If it sounds shit to me, I reckon it's going to sound shit to many others too. That's just how statistics work.

I haven't been subbed to wow for the last 4 months and didn't play much in the 6 months prior to that but kept the sub out of the hopes that it would turn around sometime. But it doesn't. Wow is an awful experience a lot of the times and the only thing blizzard can actually do is get more butts in seats to correct the issue of a horribly shitty playerbase.

[Flame6]

I wanna see them scale the # of tanks up on raids so the ratio with 5 mans stays the same. It really sucks to tank in a guild for M+'s, but not be able to tank in the raids.

[Rathwirt]

I think a passive redirect ability on a ranged class would be nice so it's not always on the tank to pull and know the route. But I don't think they'll ever do that.

[chrisisvacant]

I think a passive redirect ability on a ranged class would be nice so it's not always on the tank to pull and know the route. But I don't think they'll ever do that.

You're right, and that could be an interesting change, except for the fact the playerbase sucks donkey balls and would abuse it in beta much less live. Blizzard does have a problem on its hands - the way the game is today is extremely attractive to lazy gamers with no self esteem who come to talk shit and act a fool.

That's the elephant in the room, too. The only way to really balance these features is to break them in a way that changes the personality and overall play of the game itself. And they would hate to do that because it runs the risk of scaring a few too many MAUs for investors to back. But I'm serious - a full on FF14 style redo of WoW. No idea how toxic the FF14 playerbase is but I know Blizzard has metric tons of data around player habits and that it's a serious topic of discussion internally.

If they aren't already planning the reboot, I would not only be shocked but I'd be really disappointed. The game, as it is, will continue the slalom downwards until the playerbase is a trickle because you can literally do anything in wow in tons of other games that you don't pay for monthly (or grind for coins in game monthly). And since the new lore team has made it a pretty clear point that they are closing the books on the existing lore to create something brand new, there is not much left to cling to, bb.

[ZazuuPriest]

the issue with tanks and healers in M+ is that tanks are tanks, healers, and dps and healers are healers and dps and the dps can honestly be nearly worthless and you can still hit the timer.

[Gorsameth]

The argument is it's gotten worse recently as mythic+ has gotten more mainstream but also harder, and blizz could do something about it but is choosing not to. They're actually going the other way - seems like it's going to be harder to get the best gear in m+ in Dragonflight than ever before, a decision I find mystifying.

The reason is incredibly simple. The difficulty-reward scale was completely off.

M+ was to easy for the level of rewards it gave, completely crowding out other paths of progression like raiding. Blizzard had to step in and work to equalize it more or, outside of high end Mythic, raiding was going to die off eventually.

[kenn9530]

you most def can heal without vuhdo. server second mythic kills, and routinely time 25+ keys without using it.

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yeah same here. saying healing isnt possible without vuhdo is the dumbest shit ive read on here in a long time.

Do you have mouseover macros, addons that show party debuff and your hots and healing buffs, because if you do then its pretty much the same as using an addon like vuhdo it just skips most of the setup you have have to do with other methods, addons are essential in maximising healing output especially in a raid.

[Celement]

The reason is incredibly simple. The difficulty-reward scale was completely off.

M+ was to easy for the level of rewards it gave, completely crowding out other paths of progression like raiding. Blizzard had to step in and work to equalize it more or, outside of high end Mythic, raiding was going to die off eventually.

I can't really agree... the weekly chest was to much but 15s-20s are on par with heroic raiding.

[sponge5307]

To be fair, the pugs were probably wrong.

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Second week? Try first day. Here was my BFA tanking experience: I tanked all mythics week 1 and week 2, got basically full purples, then m+ comes out. I join a pug, on the second or third pull I had a druid healer (yes, I remember the class and spec) say to me, "What are you doing killing this pack? Every group skips it." Then he said, "I'm sorry guys, but I just don't want to waste my time on a key where the noob tank doesn't know the route, good luck" and dropped.

Second day of m+, I was called a noob for not knowing a route. I had played through legion mostly figuring out routes on my own, occasionally getting too many mobs, occasionally not enough, and it was fine because everyone was new. When BFA hit, the "weekly Dratnos route" meta had already set in and I didn't know it. I logged out of the game and unsubbed. Never tanked another dungeon in BFA - when I came back later in the expansion, I just healed, and I had no idea what I was doing but it was usually fine.

LOL yup this happen recently. I was leveling a new alt for DF since there is the exp buff. 3rd or 4th dungeon was freehold and the tank is a new player with no heroiom gear. Even mention he just started the game. One dps cuss him for not skipping adds and left the group. I try to apologize and mention freehold is not the easiest dungeon to start as a beginner. The healer also mention is not biggie.

[mickybrighteyes]

LOL yup this happen recently. I was leveling a new alt for DF since there is the exp buff. 3rd or 4th dungeon was freehold and the tank is a new player with no heroiom gear. Even mention he just started the game. One dps cuss him for not skipping adds and left the group. I try to apologize and mention freehold is not the easiest dungeon to start as a beginner. The healer also mention is not biggie.

freehold might be the WORST dungeon to throw at new players. Open areas that are totally optional and too many paths to choose or mess up via positioning.

I like the place and it's technically not that bad... but I also have horror stories about fresh lvl 10-15 tanks with missing skills trying their hardest to manage aoe pulls or players that entirely skipped BFA and don't know the routes to get to the boss or pulling multiple packs because of poor positioning... or straight up thought the first boss was bugged because they refused to get into the ring to fight.

There are a lot of 'better' dungeon examples to use for starting out.

[Raisei]

What would you rather do when everyone is at 100% hp? Sit around and wait?

I understand not wanting to try to weave in as much dps between heals, but if everyone is topped off and there's mobs to kill...

Pretty much this yes. However. The higher you go in M+ the less often you have those downtimes since even medium DoTs or randomly targeted abilities (that hitting the dps instead of the Tank) become so threatening that you can't stop healing for more then a few seconds. Random hits are especially ugly in that regard (take those blaster gnomes in Junkyard), since they might hit hard enough to do more then 50% damage to a dps, so if you are not healing that quickly the dps might die from the second hit.

If you are lucky like me and you have a great Tank that does not require much handholding to survive, you have more downtime whenever these things aren't happening tho and all damage is focussed on the Tank.

In this regard I have to say that I really like that the Holy Priest has gotten a lot better in dpsing. The new Empyrial Blaze ability combined with Power Infusion now always buffing yourself along a DPS is making it a lot more fun to deal damage. You can actually burst a bit like this.

I didn't play a healer to do damage I have multiple other toons or specs that I can play to do that. What do DPS do when they aren't doing damage during a phase? They move or CC or do something else. There are other things to do.

Tanks aren't there to do damage either (it is just a tool to keep aggro), but in higher keys every bit of damage counts, hence why both Healers and Tanks get access to DPS Cooldowns.
Tank + Healer together can do about as much damage as a full dps, that is a lot of numbers, depending on the situation.

Using your utility is important too ofc, but there really isn't that much that is useful during combat. Some Healers have stuns, which is nice, but usually has a big CD so you won't be using it more then once per fight, probably only every few packs in an M+.
Speaking for Holy Priest, there really isn't much I can do during the fight, having lost my CC (that only worked on Undead anyway) and my knockback. Mind Soothe isn't doing anything when the mobs are engaged. Mass Dispell only helps sometimes.

DPS also should not stand around doing nothing. Many DPS classes have a heal they can use to supplement what the Healer does or they can eat to recover / counter Grievous).

So the trick really is to know when to do what. The Priority goes about like this:

1) Stay alive by evading mechanics and using survivabilty and healing yourself, you cannot heal anyone if you are a corpse.

2) Heal

3) Use utility IF it is useful. Dispelling a debuff or reducing damage taken is generally better then healing through it.

4) DPS, every bit counts. Some healers even gain some useful buffs or other benefits for casting a dps ability. For example, HPriest gets procs to make Flash Heal instant and free from Smite casts, which itself costs less Mana then you recover over the cast. So you can deal some damage while recovering Mana and gaining a very powerful proc. There really is no downside here.

Mistweavers are even healing by dpssing (depending on the speccing) and they can Talent into recovering Mana directly by executing their DPS combo.


The idea isn't that you stop being a Healer, but that you make use of your entire spellbook. A good player is marked by their knowledge of all aspects of their class, Healing, Utility, DPS.

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you most def can heal without vuhdo. server second mythic kills, and routinely time 25+ keys without using it.

You can. Been healing for years before I started using it. But arguably you are making your life harder then is needed. Especially if you also aren't using mouse-over macros either. It's an extra click that is unecessary, plus the re-targetting of an enemy is a bother.

Plus the option to click-cast (that works a lot better then the ingame stuff) is worth a lot. Allowing you to bind a heal and dps ability to the same button and trigger depending if you are on the group frame or not, has allowed me to keep all my buttons in easy reach of my hand without having to reach over the keyboard.

Vuhdo give a lot of quality of life for healers.

[Schwert]

Them making M+ harder isn't going to change the fact that me and my friends are now working more hours than ever, usually with less control over our schedules at that.
It's easier to organize 5 people from a larger group in general together at various times than to schedule 2-3 nights a week where we need 20, with almost all of them having high skill levels to deal with increased personal responsibility difficulty. Something something Wildstar comparisons.

I'm not going to raid no matter what they do to M+, but they're certainly going to ensure that I might not do M+ if it becomes too much of a headache to do with my friends.

Current 20's - especially earlier in the patches - also feel as difficult as the first few mythic bosses, which aren't exactly hard either and never really have been.
People need to stop comparing the last few bosses to the first few in difficulty, and they need to stop comparing M+ mid-tier difficulty to those end raid bosses.

[sponge5307]

freehold might be the WORST dungeon to throw at new players. Open areas that are totally optional and too many paths to choose or mess up via positioning.

I like the place and it's technically not that bad... but I also have horror stories about fresh lvl 10-15 tanks with missing skills trying their hardest to manage aoe pulls or players that entirely skipped BFA and don't know the routes to get to the boss or pulling multiple packs because of poor positioning... or straight up thought the first boss was bugged because they refused to get into the ring to fight.

There are a lot of 'better' dungeon examples to use for starting out.

If you don’t start the expansion at the same time as everyone else, you can basically forget about becoming a tank. Everyone else makes the learning process too miserable.

LOL tanked Uldaman first time last night god that place is like freehold. I got lost there and not to mention to many adds to pull..... such a mess. Got cuss out by you guess two evnokers for not knowing where to go and I miss the 1st boss. Told them they can leave at anytime their dps are helping the group and I do more damage they do on my alts with just auto attack. They left so me one other dps and the healer finish the dungeon by ourselves.

But yea if that's how the new dungeons are design like Uldaman cut me out from tanking I will just dps and there is one less tank. I was planning to tank in DF even got all my tank gear up and testing them right now.

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freehold might be the WORST dungeon to throw at new players. Open areas that are totally optional and too many paths to choose or mess up via positioning.

I like the place and it's technically not that bad... but I also have horror stories about fresh lvl 10-15 tanks with missing skills trying their hardest to manage aoe pulls or players that entirely skipped BFA and don't know the routes to get to the boss or pulling multiple packs because of poor positioning... or straight up thought the first boss was bugged because they refused to get into the ring to fight.

There are a lot of 'better' dungeon examples to use for starting out.

If you don’t start the expansion at the same time as everyone else, you can basically forget about becoming a tank. Everyone else makes the learning process too miserable.

Them making M+ harder isn't going to change the fact that me and my friends are now working more hours than ever, usually with less control over our schedules at that.
It's easier to organize 5 people from a larger group in general together at various times than to schedule 2-3 nights a week where we need 20, with almost all of them having high skill levels to deal with increased personal responsibility difficulty. Something something Wildstar comparisons.

I'm not going to raid no matter what they do to M+, but they're certainly going to ensure that I might not do M+ if it becomes too much of a headache to do with my friends.

Current 20's - especially earlier in the patches - also feel as difficult as the first few mythic bosses, which aren't exactly hard either and never really have been.
People need to stop comparing the last few bosses to the first few in difficulty, and they need to stop comparing M+ mid-tier difficulty to those end raid bosses.

I hate raiding. I don't have time to set schedule to raid 2 to 3 nights a week for several hours. I like m+ since I can login when I want run a few m+ which takes 30mins and be with it. WoW is not work I play when I feel like it not when I HAVE TO.

[Felfaadaern Darkterror]

I love tanking M+, but rarely pug. I have a group of friendly regulars that aren't elite but that's ok. We wipe together, learn together, and time keys together. We laugh at our screw-ups and help each other get better. That's what makes it fun.

[Al Gorefiend]

Blizzard has acknowledged in the past, even during the Monk development, that it is completely impossible on their end to solve the tank and healer problem. Additional loot bags for completing dungeons still wasn't the ultimate solution. Their hands are tied, its entirely up to the community.

[jeezusisacasual]

Most of the replies are generally the time investment or schedule that raiding at a decent level requires and yet blizzard is doing nothing to address that at all, by lowering the gains from mythic plus they act as if players will be like okay i guess its time to raid instead but will just unsub sooner rather then later and as i have said before more pick up and play with less scheduled events.

Fixing the tank problems would be a bit easier since you can make the role easier or more forgiving in a few different ways. Design the timers around going straight without the use of pots, make threat barely matter and put more tank health recovery on the healer ( i would not be as happy about that ) but it would allow people more screwups without punishing the player to much. Streamline the tanking differences a bit more so that way the delta between the greatest and worst is a bit equalized to not make them feel " pressure ".

[Lordofbelbol]

LOL tanked Uldaman first time last night god that place is like freehold. I got lost there and not to mention to many adds to pull..... such a mess. Got cuss out by you guess two evnokers for not knowing where to go and I miss the 1st boss. Told them they can leave at anytime their dps are helping the group and I do more damage they do on my alts with just auto attack. They left so me one other dps and the healer finish the dungeon by ourselves.

But yea if that's how the new dungeons are design like Uldaman cut me out from tanking I will just dps and there is one less tank. I was planning to tank in DF even got all my tank gear up and testing them right now.

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I hate raiding. I don't have time to set schedule to raid 2 to 3 nights a week for several hours. I like m+ since I can login when I want run a few m+ which takes 30mins and be with it. WoW is not work I play when I feel like it not when I HAVE TO.

i'm sorry but how can you mess up the new uldaman ? its linear except for the dwarf bosses, the map is easy to follow