How is Dragonflight solving shortage of tanks and healers problem?

[potis]

/shrug

As a R Shaman I always tell my group not to worry about Explosive since Frost Shocking them is incredibly easy and I can do my entire heal/DPS rotation while still killing every single one of them. If I can remove an entire affix from a key as a healer then I consider that, by nature, a healer affix.

As with everything in the game, higher skilled players adapt.

Explosive remains a group affix, but at higher skilled groups (key level doesnt matter), you know <insert person playing X here> can handle it, depending what you pulled you know "Game is broken, 15 explosives inc in 5 seconds" and everyone will deal with them, etc etc versus "I literally pulled 3 mobs, 2 explosives came out and no one even moved".

[Shockzalot]

I was extremely disappointed with BFA and SL. Played MW Monk in BFA and Resto Druid in SL. I'm liking the new trees and leaning towards playing Resto Druid if I can build myself up to resub to this game after not playing since the first content patch of SL. I always preferred playing Heals I view it as a challenge and it's easy to find groups.

[Scrysis]

That statement is wildly wrong. At the extreme, you can go into LFR as a dps who has literally never played the game before and doesn’t know what buttons do, and you will still clear it. Can’t do that as a tank.

In normal raiding it’s less extreme, but after the first week or two you’re never going to hit an enrage so dps is irrelevant. Again, tanks not know mechanics means a wipe.

Heroic the gaps starts to close, but it really only fully closes once you get to mythic bosses where there’s a dps race.

Similar dynamics exist in dungeons.

There are skills required of a pug tank as well that makes it harder than running with a set group and means routes are more dynamic. Maybe someone pulls an extra pack by accident - it’s up to you to adjust (and by the way, there’s not time to stop and explain during the dungeon when other dps are criticizing you for timing being off).

Certain groups are way better than others as far as coordination. Healers play differently - some are very aggressive at doing dps, which as a tank means you need to be more conservative, and others mostly just heal. As you go higher, “the route” that worked at +15 is too conservative for +17, and dps get mad at that too.

So pugging isn’t just about following “the route” - it’s about having a sense of place and making judgement calls that no other role is expected to have to do. And dps have no idea what’s going through your head and again, there’s no way to explain, so they just get mad at the tank.

/shrug

As a R Shaman I always tell my group not to worry about Explosive since Frost Shocking them is incredibly easy and I can do my entire heal/DPS rotation while still killing every single one of them. If I can remove an entire affix from a key as a healer then I consider that, by nature, a healer affix.

Your tank could probably pull more. Also, if you don't have an instant cast that works on them, it becomes problematic.

Additional thoughts --

This viewpoint of orbs being a healer job is going to cause issues in DF. The M+ dungeons have a lot more unavoidable damage that needs to be healed through. Overall M+ tuning is going to be higher than it is now in terms of incoming damage.

[Nymrohd]

This viewpoint of orbs being a healer job is going to cause issues in DF. The M+ dungeons have a lot more unavoidable damage that needs to be healed through. Overall M+ tuning is going to be higher than it is now in terms of incoming damage.

YEah there is a lot of passive damage in the new dungeons. Every other boss has some pulsing AoE.
I'm happy that Halls of Infusion are not in the first season for sure. That place is gonna be punishing.

And since many more groups will be trying to get to 20s people will indeed have to adjust their pulls a lot. Usually you can do a 15 with good dps even if pulling conservatively and playing it safe (you can definitely do a 10). 20s though do require that the group coordinates their cooldowns for big pulls.

[Auxis]

If the tank or healer spec is fun to play, I'll play it. Prot Pally and Disc Priest, for example, have piqued my interest in pre-patch.
Of course, my mood also affects whether I will play tank/heals or dps. I'm far less likely to be stressed out or get involved in drama/toxicity if I'm a dps because I'm so passive. If I'm playing a tank or healer and someone decides to get snarky I'm more likely to get worked up and NOT want to tank or heal.

[Relapses]

I hard agree with this. Anything the healer and/or tank can do to allow dps to just concentrate on dpsing should be their affix to worry about as a default for groups imo.

I will caveat that R Shaman's kit is kind of designed around the idea of being able to do a lot of things while healing so I understand why other healers may struggle with Explosive as an affix. Having played other healers though, I can't say I struggled that much. Each healer has some kind of instant cast which you can easily dispatch the Orbs with. The only healer that is straight ass at it is H Pal and even then there's a build you can run for Explosive weeks that makes it easier. (This was before the talent rework and I haven't bothered to play H Pal since so that build may no longer exist.) I think they should be prioritized by a healer but everybody should be aware of them. There's really no excuse for them to go off in melee when you have a tank who can tab target them, for example.

[Lordofbelbol]

If the tank or healer spec is fun to play, I'll play it. Prot Pally and Disc Priest, for example, have piqued my interest in pre-patch.
Of course, my mood also affects whether I will play tank/heals or dps. I'm far less likely to be stressed out or get involved in drama/toxicity if I'm a dps because I'm so passive. If I'm playing a tank or healer and someone decides to get snarky I'm more likely to get worked up and NOT want to tank or heal.

wow.... oke i guess

[Nymrohd]

Honestly this discussion about explosive shows the main social issue with M+ that leads to the tank/healer problems. It's more about player communication ahead of a run (because the timer makes communication during the run a lot more problematic). If the group takes a moment to discuss who is going to deal with explosive the issue is settled. It's the same with the group potentially sharing a route so they know how things will be run, the group sharing their talent builds or at least their choice of cooldowns (especially with DF talents you cannot assume; two different people can be playing the same spec and one running 2m CDs while the other is running 3m ones) so that the tank can plan when to pull bigger etc. The important point here is DISCUSS; not just let all the effort on the tank and healer (or in the better cases on their weak auras) but have everyone actively contribute on planning the run.

So this is clearly about how the community approaches runs; yes M+ is a speed run but the prep phase does not have to be (because if it is as dps you implicitly throw all the leadership effort on the tank). It also shows that there are small things Blizz could do to help things (I shouldn't need a weak aura to track major cooldowns of my party members, be it on a party or a raid). And no, the answer is not to remove the timer (you absolutely could have a mode without the timer for those who'd enjoy dungeons far more that way but that is a very different issue); the gogogo mentality existed well before M+ was a thing.

[Flame6]

It'd a be huge ask, but I wish Blizz would implement a M+ routing feature. As a tank routing almost always falls to me and without extensive research on every M+ it's just not possible to be very efficient. Let me import / export routes into the dungeon map. Let me see the % complete by selecting / unselecting mobs mid run.

Making raids have more than 2 tanks for an entire raid would help. Have the # of players scale up tank requirements too. It really sucks that it doesnt matter if a raid has 10 people or 25 but still only has 2 tanks.
Additionally keep raid tanking interesting. The last raid I did attempted this but it's just mostly "taunt at x stacks", and pick up adds. I guess the flip side of this is when tank mechanics get complicated it's an instant wipe when it fails vs just playing 1 dps down.

[exochaft]

I hard agree with this. Anything the healer and/or tank can do to allow dps to just concentrate on dpsing should be their affix to worry about as a default for groups imo.

The flipside should also be the DPS doing everything they can to make the lives of the healer/tank easier. It all depends on the mentality of the players, what's going on, and the dynamic of the group.

When it comes specifically to explosives, it really depends on everyone knowing the situation. Whenever I was playing as a moonkin, I'd tend to tell everyone to let me handle explosives unless I said I needed help... because depending on the situation (whether it's mechanics or they spawn a ton/frequenly) you can potentially fall behind. Downside is that could mean spending a lot of time spamming moonfire/sunfire and tanking my DPS, but unless we were doing a super high key it didn't matter much. Whenever I was tanking as a bear, I definitely asked for assistence more often because Blizz in their infinite wisdom flagged a lot of bear's abilities as AoE for the explosives for the longest time to where even targeting them with an AoE ability didn't hit, although one could resort to Moonfire spamming... but you run the risk of resource starvation if there's a bunch of explosives or a streak of them. If I healed on my druid, again it really depended: nothing to heal makes it easy to deal with explosives, but if there's massive damage going out where I needed to be hard casting/channeling getting explosives gets much harder.

Ultimately, communication is always key even if you plan out who does what, whether it's explosives or routing/cooldowns/etc. However most players probably don't want to communicate a single word if not forced to, and the game's designed in a way where it's not necessarily encouraged or players themselves get combative towards people who try to offer advice or lead. I've had my days where I did my 'charity' runs by doing random PUG M+ and I wouldn't say a word, but after playing for so many years at a high level I could sort of tell what people were doing and how they'd react to certain scenarios... also when you reach a certain gear/skill level you can brute force a lot of keystone levels that are likely being pugged, affix dependent of course. Expecting an average player to accomplish the same sort of performance is a fool's errand, although it can be done.

Best you can do as a player is take the initiative and offer advice or ask questions of the group that leads them towards the right answer if you think they may be resistant to 'someone bossing them around.' Favorite thing I did when doing random pugs, whether raid or M+, was to play the idiot who didn't know anything, so even if another member told me "The first boss does this, make sure you do X and Y" or anything relating to a strategy/plan I didn't scoff or get combative (unless it really was stupid, but even then I'll try everything once). Usuaully by the end of the run I'd get positive feedback from those taking the initiative which should allow them to keep doing it, even if technically I didn't need the help as it's very easy to give up taking the intiative when players don't listen or get combative when being asked to do something. If things went badly, I'd usually step in and help out as to not let anyone get discouraged, but the extent of something going badly was usually one player doing something that gets them killed that's avoidable or accidentally aggroing too many mobs.

When it comes to tanks and healers in general, it's being the focus of attention that's probably the most daunting for players. Some of it is historically how players tend to view the roles, some of it is there's just so few tank/healers in a group that it's easy to spot them messing up. Regardless, I'd still view the WoW playerbase as becoming increasingly anti-social in the way they play, and such a mindset does not make the role of tank/healer attractive at all for group content. Best Blizz can do is make the lives of tanks/healers easier and more fun to entice people to take the plunge and less stressful if possible.

[Lathspell]

Explosive is explicitly NOT a healer mechanic (Grievous is the healer affix); it's a dps responsibility mechanic. Good healers can recover if one explosive orb goes off every once in a while and there aren't any really severe aoe mechanics happening simultaneously. But having more than one orb go off at a time will wipe a group. You could try to argue that healers should try to dps the orb instead, and while that's a nifty idea, a healer choosing to dps an orb rather than a dps has the potential of wiping the group by not healing. One dps player swapping to take out orbs, on the other hand, won't directly cause a wipe (And if you wipe to a timer because one dps had to stop every now and then for orbs, then the group's dps is way too low). I HATE explosive because none of the dps actually want to take charge of the orbs, and if no one does them, the run is a no-go. I've been in groups where the tank had to take out orbs because the dps wouldn't.

Atleast as shaman or druid healer (maybe others too) you can oneshot them from range with instant cast spells so you are just griefing the group if you make dps lose damage on them. There is almost never a situation where one gcd from the healer is the only thing between a wipe and living.

[Relapses]

Honestly this discussion about explosive shows the main social issue with M+ that leads to the tank/healer problems. It's more about player communication ahead of a run (because the timer makes communication during the run a lot more problematic). If the group takes a moment to discuss who is going to deal with explosive the issue is settled. It's the same with the group potentially sharing a route so they know how things will be run, the group sharing their talent builds or at least their choice of cooldowns (especially with DF talents you cannot assume; two different people can be playing the same spec and one running 2m CDs while the other is running 3m ones) so that the tank can plan when to pull bigger etc. The important point here is DISCUSS; not just let all the effort on the tank and healer (or in the better cases on their weak auras) but have everyone actively contribute on planning the run.

So this is clearly about how the community approaches runs; yes M+ is a speed run but the prep phase does not have to be (because if it is as dps you implicitly throw all the leadership effort on the tank). It also shows that there are small things Blizz could do to help things (I shouldn't need a weak aura to track major cooldowns of my party members, be it on a party or a raid). And no, the answer is not to remove the timer (you absolutely could have a mode without the timer for those who'd enjoy dungeons far more that way but that is a very different issue); the gogogo mentality existed well before M+ was a thing.

Communication is important but there's also some unwritten rules you'll find as you climb higher. In my experience, once I started healing above the +20 range it was just expected that I'd do the Explosives. It didn't need to be typed out because it was simply understood. At lower key levels when playing other roles, however, I noticed a lot of people expecting the healer to do Explosives followed by that healer either refusing to do it or blaming "arrogant DPS" for not bothering with it. I've seen a decent number of keys disbanded over this so I try to communicate ahead of time to make sure everybody's on the same page. Even said, there's only so much you can do as sometimes you can type out instructions or expectations and people will be so locked into tunnel-vision that they just click Ready when the Ready Check comes out, the key starts and they promptly do the exact opposite of what you had tried to clarify ahead of time.

c'est la vie, it's why PuG'ing everything in WoW is a recipe for self-loathing.

[Ashana Darkmoon]

I assume explosives are my responsibility when I'm healing, my globals are the least valuable in the group lmao.

That's said, I am looking forward to higher incoming damage, this has been my hobby horse for a while, dungeons are boring as hell when you never have to heal or figure out how to min max heal output. This entire expansion was figuring out how to optimize DPS and it's pretty lame

[Lordofbelbol]

Honestly this discussion about explosive shows the main social issue with M+ that leads to the tank/healer problems. It's more about player communication ahead of a run (because the timer makes communication during the run a lot more problematic). If the group takes a moment to discuss who is going to deal with explosive the issue is settled. It's the same with the group potentially sharing a route so they know how things will be run, the group sharing their talent builds or at least their choice of cooldowns (especially with DF talents you cannot assume; two different people can be playing the same spec and one running 2m CDs while the other is running 3m ones) so that the tank can plan when to pull bigger etc. The important point here is DISCUSS; not just let all the effort on the tank and healer (or in the better cases on their weak auras) but have everyone actively contribute on planning the run.

So this is clearly about how the community approaches runs; yes M+ is a speed run but the prep phase does not have to be (because if it is as dps you implicitly throw all the leadership effort on the tank). It also shows that there are small things Blizz could do to help things (I shouldn't need a weak aura to track major cooldowns of my party members, be it on a party or a raid). And no, the answer is not to remove the timer (you absolutely could have a mode without the timer for those who'd enjoy dungeons far more that way but that is a very different issue); the gogogo mentality existed well before M+ was a thing.

yeee nobody shares route or their cooldowns in anything less than 22 maybe, the way you described this shows you haven't done any keys higher than 12

- - - Updated - - -

If the tank or healer spec is fun to play, I'll play it. Prot Pally and Disc Priest, for example, have piqued my interest in pre-patch.
Of course, my mood also affects whether I will play tank/heals or dps. I'm far less likely to be stressed out or get involved in drama/toxicity if I'm a dps because I'm so passive. If I'm playing a tank or healer and someone decides to get snarky I'm more likely to get worked up and NOT want to tank or heal.

This sounds like the sort of thing you share with your friends, not total strangers on forums

[Nymrohd]

yeee nobody shares route or their cooldowns in anything less than 22 maybe, the way you described this shows you haven't done any keys higher than 12

We are not really talking about high keys, are we? I mean the ecosystem there is very different. I don't expect to PuG Mythic Raids so I don't expect to PuG high keys; I did my teleport runs with guild members. I think we are largely discussing keys at 15 and below here.

[Spiffums]

Nothing they can do short of making tanks and healers do as much DPS and be viable for PvP can solve the "shortage". And even if they did make tanks and healers into gods it still wouldn't fix the shortage because you can't force people into a role they don't want to play. Sure everyone wants to lead and tell people what to do and what to pull but they don't want to do it themselves because they don't want the "responsibility" that comes with it.

[paxen]

We are not really talking about high keys, are we? I mean the ecosystem there is very different. I don't expect to PuG Mythic Raids so I don't expect to PuG high keys; I did my teleport runs with guild members. I think we are largely discussing keys at 15 and below here.

Both mythic raids and high keys are often pugged; those pugs *do* rely on a lot of "meta knowledge" and informal rules to get people on the same page.

I don't have much knowledge of it myself, I mostly prefer guild/friend runs because I like talking to people I know on discord while I play. But occasionally I run into them when we pug as a smaller group.

[Scrysis]

Atleast as shaman or druid healer (maybe others too) you can oneshot them from range with instant cast spells so you are just griefing the group if you make dps lose damage on them. There is almost never a situation where one gcd from the healer is the only thing between a wipe and living.

If I'm in the middle of a heal on a tank, and I have to cancel the heal to try and take out orbs, it can 100% cause a wipe because the tank could die. Believe me, this situation has happened before. If I can safely take them out, then sure, I'm going try to. I'm not going to sit there and twiddle my thumbs if no one needs healing. But the dps should not rely on the healer to take out orbs, especially when there are so many dps specs with instant cast buttons and cleave. Hell, if dps are using cleave buttons, the dps loss is going to be negligible. In Dragonflight, there's going to be so much more unavoidable aoe damage, and your healer will 100% not be able to get those orbs unless you vastly outgear the instance. Even that druid is going to be using every global they have to keep the group alive. No one else in the party can keep the group alive. But there are at least three people who can go after orbs.

- - - Updated - - -

Communication is important but there's also some unwritten rules you'll find as you climb higher. In my experience, once I started healing above the +20 range it was just expected that I'd do the Explosives. It didn't need to be typed out because it was simply understood. At lower key levels when playing other roles, however, I noticed a lot of people expecting the healer to do Explosives followed by that healer either refusing to do it or blaming "arrogant DPS" for not bothering with it. I've seen a decent number of keys disbanded over this so I try to communicate ahead of time to make sure everybody's on the same page. Even said, there's only so much you can do as sometimes you can type out instructions or expectations and people will be so locked into tunnel-vision that they just click Ready when the Ready Check comes out, the key starts and they promptly do the exact opposite of what you had tried to clarify ahead of time.

c'est la vie, it's why PuG'ing everything in WoW is a recipe for self-loathing.

I mean that's great that you could do that, but prior to talent revamp, Holy priest didn't have any instant cast damage spells. Taking out orbs involved a +1 second cast time. I literally had hunters watch me try and smite orbs out of desperation while the tank and other dps went without heals. It's arrogance on the part of the dps to think that everything revolves around them. If the orbs don't go away quickly, it means that the tank or healer can't get to them, so someone else needs to. And like I mentioned before -- there's going to be a very rude awakening in Dragonflight for dps relying on healers to do orbs all the time. There's a lot of unavoidable damage that will need to be healed through.

[Relapses]

I mean that's great that you could do that, but prior to talent revamp, Holy priest didn't have any instant cast damage spells. Taking out orbs involved a +1 second cast time. I literally had hunters watch me try and smite orbs out of desperation while the tank and other dps went without heals. It's arrogance on the part of the dps to think that everything revolves around them. If the orbs don't go away quickly, it means that the tank or healer can't get to them, so someone else needs to. And like I mentioned before -- there's going to be a very rude awakening in Dragonflight for dps relying on healers to do orbs all the time. There's a lot of unavoidable damage that will need to be healed through.

I haven't healed on H Priest since S2 but when I did, I'd just SW: P them and they'd die instantly. SW: D worked, too. (Hell, Chastise works too lol) You have 6 seconds to kill each one and very rarely do you get overwhelmed unless the tank is pulling huge. Constant ticking damage is relatively rare in keys and if DPS are dying while I'm focusing orbs it's almost always because a kick had been missed or they stood in some kind of avoidable mechanic. I never felt pulled too far away from my job because I ran the Flash Heal Legendary and kept my 5 stack pretty much the whole key. Explosives never stressed me too much and barely impacted my rotation. Annoying at times, sure, but never more than I could handle. If I knew an upcoming pull/boss would be healing intensive I'd just type out, "hey, please help out with the orbs." (The worst offenders were the 2nd boss in Mists and the 3rd boss in Sanguine Depths.) This was around the +20 level.

I don't think it'll be that much different in DF unless Blizzard decides to bring BfA explosives back. (They scaled with keystone level back then which made the affix suck way more.)

[Tyris Flare]

I mean that's great that you could do that, but prior to talent revamp, Holy priest didn't have any instant cast damage spells. Taking out orbs involved a +1 second cast time. I literally had hunters watch me try and smite orbs out of desperation while the tank and other dps went without heals. It's arrogance on the part of the dps to think that everything revolves around them. If the orbs don't go away quickly, it means that the tank or healer can't get to them, so someone else needs to. And like I mentioned before -- there's going to be a very rude awakening in Dragonflight for dps relying on healers to do orbs all the time. There's a lot of unavoidable damage that will need to be healed through.

SWP one shots them?

Unless it is a period of heavy damage, it's incredibly easy to snipe them as a healer since your globals aren't as important. And with a nameplate mod like Elv or plater they show up as a different color so its tough to miss them.

Also there's no way you are casting a heal to kill an orb, heh. The explosive cast is long; there's plenty of time.