I hear more complaints from healers than tanks.

[Peacemoon]

I've played both tanking and healing. At the moment in Cata I generally tank Normals and Heal Heroics.

I've also raided as both tank and healer.

For me, Healing is far more stressful and requires far more instense thought, at least on stuff that isn't easy. Tanking however, aslong as you have threat its a walk in the park. Pick up adds, use CD's when necessay, easy stuff!

However, if the tank hasn't done the dungeon before or doesn't know the tactics, you can feel like you are letting the team down big time. That is why even though I think healing is harder, I would rather go into a new dungeon with a random group as a healer and not a tank. No pressure on keeping everyone coordinated.

[soulfringe]

I think another part of it, might have something to do with the raid model. Take a look at the composition of a 25 man raid.

It consists of 2-3 tanks and about 4-7 healers, and the rest dps. Thats roughly 2x as many healers. Now I know theres obviously going to be more tanks in the guild and/or not every tank is a raider. But I still think the lack of open tank positions for raids has some baring on this.

[Barpig]

I agree that tanking is generally easier than healing and I've done both as well. The main frustration for me is that my main is a warrior and most folks needlessly view warrior tanks as the least preferred tank. In my opinions this is because of the great deal of tanking improvements the other tanking classes got in Wrath and this is more fresh on folk's minds than how great warrior tanks were in Vanilla and TBC.

I generally agree with the LFG comments above. DPS only wants to top the charts and it takes too long to teach them how to play along as a 5 man group. Breaking the wrath mindset will take some time and until then my bet is that the tank shortage (at least the ones queing for randoms) will not improve and possibly worsen.

[Simca]

I think another part of it, might have something to do with the raid model. Take a look at the composition of a 25 man raid.

It consists of 2-3 tanks and about 4-7 healers, and the rest dps. Thats roughly 2x as many healers. Now I know theres obviously going to be more tanks in the guild and/or not every tank is a raider. But I still think the lack of open tank positions for raids has some baring on this.

This guy/gal gets it.

The problem is that the group proportion of 1 tank, 1 healer, 3 DPS doesn't translate into Raiding at all. It was different back in Vanilla where some fights needed like 8 Tanks (exactly 1/5 of a 40-man). Now, everything is 1-3 tankable with only a few very rare exceptions.

1-3/25 vs 5-7/25... Good luck getting a raid spot as a tank, especially because a lot of Raid Leaders are already the Main Tank.

[scaredandbaked]

zzzzz really? really? REALLY? heals: watch ui boxes, wackamole low health party member whilst considering mana acd's oooooh scary tough stuff amiright? 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) Yes I have filled all roles to a fairly decent and longstanding extent, no I am not discounting how crunchy it can get as a heals, just that when you stack the two options of tank or heals together, I find PERSONALLY that healing is a walk in the park, with beers, compared to the attention you need to tank.

In my guild we dont use the terms MT and or Main Tank. If we have a paladin and a Bear Tank, we are going to the the paladin on the adds and the bear on the boss. Lets face it paladins are more of a AoE tank. We try to capitalize on abilities. If we have 2 paladin tanks. The tanks will communicate to each other to see who wants the adds. This is based on player skill at this point. If there is a new tank, who's gear does not match the other tank, then i could imagine we would have him get the adds.

Lets take Rot-face fight, we all should know that one. You have a bear tank and a paladin tank. What one will get the Oozes? The paladin tank should. He/She has the arsenal to do it.

---------- Post added 2011-01-09 at 06:37 PM ----------

Tanks were not overhauled. They got some changes, definitely, but to nowhere near the extent that healers did.

Tanks got hit before cataclysm. So we had time to adapt. I know on my warrior tank, i had to do alot of stuff differently. I will admit though, on my bear tank, not much has change. Prolly the only tank tho not to be changed to xxxcore. I feel bad for DK's and paladin tank's at the start of 4.o.1