I hear more complaints from healers than tanks.

[Deleted]

I like to tank

That's deep o.O

[Arrowstormen]

I think a decent part of it is the responsibility and how obvious a tank's screw ups are. People for the most part in the lfd expect you to mark and call out who does what, along with carrying the occasional not so smart dps who breaks cc constantly and then gets flamed by them for their death. Also people generally expect the tank to have a good understanding of every fight (which everyone should have anyway) and a good understanding of most people class mechanics. These mechanics include things like repentance has a 1min cd, and you can't poly or hex dragonkin. The tank has to know a decent amount about other classes and I think most people aren't willing to learn.

i think that its silly to ever expect the tank to be the know-it-all type, why is it "lawl fail" when the the warrior tank who never have had a mage dont know that polymorph doesnt work on elementals? why is the tank supposed to know that the healer druids Resomethingnaturestuffy was a ability which did that he used his Last Stand for no reason on the same time as Resomethingnaturestuffy got used? marking makes sense that its the tank who make them because his gonna break CCs and know the order to do it, but i always wonder how you can see what to kill first, i just live with "that one looks bigger, more powerful and is a drake compared to the cultists around him, lets beat him first and CC that guy called "Instant Wipe Bringer Crazed Cultist".

[Deleted]

Tanking: must have knowledge of all encounters and control over all 3 aspects of awareness as well as manageing threat and cd's...often in raid situations, the offtank is the hard worker, running around picking adds up ect ect, while the MT sits there bashing away. (go thank your guild OT, he's most likely underappreciated for all he/she does)

after complained once, the MT said that he had the toughest job in the guild blah blahblah, this can he get right back in the face lol
sorry for being OT btw

[yomyom]

wow...okay, here's someone with no idea wtf they are saying.
ALL tank classes had a MAJOR overhaul. DK even had a tree change for it's tank spec, druids, palli's (holy fuckin moly it's HOLY POWER!) and warriors all had change to rotation and a new mechanic (vengence remember?), so yah...guess you missed the interoffice memo huh?
/derp

Many classes got changed, had new abilities added, and some new mechanics to play with, but fundamentally tanking has not changed much from wrath to cata. Healing on the other hand has had a "massive overhaul" and not just some new spells and mechanics. Healing now for every single class is completely different to what it use to be. Not just new spells and changes to spell costs and effects, but way in which a healer must approach the situation has changed. So when he (she?) said massive overhaul massive is the key word.

As for healer complaints tanking isn't any harder right now than it was before. In some ways it is easier because you are not fighting aoe aggro from over excited dps, however healing has been changed, which means there is something that can be complained about, so they do. Personally I am not sure if I like the new healing, at least dispriest, shammy and pally all feel like they are the same thing just different aoe heals, which means when I get bored of one healer I can't just change class >.<

[BlartyBlart]

Tanking is fun

[Bleachi]

First- The onus is on tanks to succede in a random group. They are (unfortunately) the most important person. They make or break groups.

Second- There are way more healers than tanks. Cataclysm has thinned tanking roles because heroics are not faceroll and neither is tanking.

Third- Consider that a lot of tanks probably stop grinding heroics once they have everything they can get outside of the daily valor. I know if it wasn't for the valor points, I wouldn't be tanking at all.

The third point is the most important. Tanks tend to gear up faster than other roles, since they're in higher demand, due to the other reasons. So it's a vicious cycle. Heroic queues are only going to get worse and worse for nontanks until the next tier, where heroics will be made easier with gear, and JP will give epics.

[Herrenos]

I think the difference between tanking and healing, difficulty-wise, is that tanks are sort of masters of their own destiny, whereas healers are completely at the mercy of the other players. Tanks have the ability to cover for other's mistakes, to decide when and where the group will go and can be self sufficient for more than 10 seconds.

If you're the healer though.... you can delay the inevitable with heals, but unless the tank or alert CC'er fixes the problem, someone is going to die, and you're likely to get blamed.

The difficulty doesn't necessarily lie in the skill required, but rather the responsibility. Like, heart surgery doesn't take more skill than complex electronics repair, but if you mess up your soldering, no one is going to die.

[KeyserSoze]

Because tanking didn't go through a massive overhaul while healing did.

This, mostly. Also, the few tanks that are around understand their job, man up, and do it.

For those that like directness: Yes, I'm calling for healers to quit bitching, man up, and heal.

Btw, my main is dps. Tee-hee.

[Deleted]

I'm still a healer despite the overhaul and the changes because I like Healing. And once you get the right mind set, it's really not that bad at all, it's actually a lot of fun. Yes, I need things CC'd and people not to stand in fire, but that's how it should be, really. I think tanking is very different to healing, I'm not sure which is harder or anything, but I think they suit different people. I don't like tanking so much (I tanked on a bear, blood DK and paladin at 80) because I don't like melee. I like healing because I like casters and I like something a bit more challenging than dpsing. To be honest, most of the good healers I know aren't really complaining anymore. There's still the odd gripe about the odd spell or mechanic, but most of us are at peace The one's I see complaining most are DPS rerolls for faster queues. I even got told by a guildie someone was trying to heal HoO hc as Balance. Yep

[seam]

Keep in mind, Cata isn't a fresh wipe on the number of tanks and healers.

There were more healers in Wrath due to healing being, for some, much easier than tanking.

Now there are still more healers than tanks due to the fact that people aren't going to switch from healing to tanking, atleast not in they are in a raiding guild.(Not counting people who are needed to.)

[Xuany]

Bad tanks make healers QQ, Tanks stuck in Wrath make healers QQ. Some people can't handle the responsibility of either of the two roles that's why they stick with DPS.

[Liesarra]

CUZ!!!!!!! Green is a pretty color!

[souplix]

wow...okay, here's someone with no idea wtf they are saying.
ALL tank classes had a MAJOR overhaul. DK even had a tree change for it's tank spec,

So you had never seen a blood tank before now?

druids, palli's (holy fuckin moly it's HOLY POWER!)

Yep, huge change between casting SoR on ever cooldown versus casting it it moments later in the rotation for a slightly bigger hit, I have no idea how prot paladins are dealing with this massive overhaul.

and warriors all had change to rotation and a new mechanic (vengence remember?), so yah...guess you missed the interoffice memo huh?
/derp

So all dps have the same rotation that they did in wrath? And how exactly did warriors rotation change? Or dk's? Do you now add your two diseases after death strike? And lastly vengence, I'd say that all healers now using spirit is a far greater change than doing more damage after being hit.

[Bluey111]

Then why does it seem the majority of complaints are about healing, not tanking?

I mean, personally, I enjoy both roles and I have classes that I will always heal and tank with. But I just notice the trend of complaints don't match up with actual results.

its because tanking will stay constantly difficult whereas healing is only hard at the moment and will get a lot easier as we progress through a few tiers

[Evolixe]

I have tried all three roles too, on different characters too.
Trust me: DPS is easier than any other role.

Just BS. Its different, but not easier. There is more load on the healers usually, but that doesnt make it harder. And there are plenty of fights managing dps is more important than managing healing.

[CreativeInstitute]

Because no matter how good I am, if the healer is retarded, we're going to wipe.

I have a healer and even if the tank is not super good or pretty averagely geared, I still manage to keep him and the group up.

[Deleted]

Because as a healer you dont have every single DPS failing on CC and blaming..well..the tank ofc

[Herrenos]

Just BS. Its different, but not easier. There is more load on the healers usually, but that doesnt make it harder. And there are plenty of fights managing dps is more important than managing healing.

This is true.

Also imo:
it's much easier to get to the 75% percentile, skill-wise as a DPS than as a healer or a tank. However, getting to the 99% percentile as a DPS is far, FAR more difficult.

For most players (i.e. 75% of them), healing or tanking is going to be much more difficult. For the best players out there, DPS is a more difficult role.

[Shakari]

Then why does it seem the majority of complaints are about healing, not tanking?

I mean, personally, I enjoy both roles and I have classes that I will always heal and tank with. But I just notice the trend of complaints don't match up with actual results.

you will find if you think about it that the trend of complaints to match, there are more pug healers = more complaints, less pug tanks = lesser no. of complaints. You will always get the most complaints from the largest group of ppl.

[Pascal]

because tanking is boring.

also a lot of people want to whine about healing, get sympathy, and then keep healing, so that people keep giving them sympathy and kiss their ass.