Healing right now is just a pain in the butt.
Back in the old days it was plain simple… Someone got hurt so you healed him…
Again and again. Plain simple…
Now you have to know every move, every thing in an encounter to be able to heal.
This, I think, is the main reason there isnt enough healers in pugs.
It is judt to stressfull.
Every role has become more complex. If anything, I find healing competently still easier than DPSing competently, and some of modern WoW’s dps rotations are clunky, bloated, error prone and frustrating to pull off while also doing mechanics. I used to be able to play a rogue decently in the past, but there’s no way I could play Outlaw now at a level of competence where I’d not feel like a burden.
I heal because I enjoy it, and I genuinely find it easier and more engaging than doing damage. I actually find DPSing more stressful, and for some specs mechanically more challenging. People shy away from the perceived responsibility of healing or tanking. It’s true that if the healer dies, or can’t keep up, it’s often a wipe, but if a healer can’t keep up, it’s frequently because the group doesn’t play well. People take too much avoidable damage, don’t interrupt, don’t play mechanics well, don’t do the damage that they should be able to do with their gear, and so on.
Once you realize this, it’s much less stressful. I feel that a great DPS player can carry a group better than a good healer can, though ultimately it’s always a team effort.
I think it’s indeed one of the main reasons I’m put off from healing is there is just so much more going on compared to tanking or dpsing.
I was tempted to make a resto shaman, then decided not too. It’s just one of those “yeah, but maybe, ummm no!” kind of situations that plays through my head, when I had that urge to try and make a healer.
Maybe I’ll make one in TWW.
The gap from skill floor to ceiling on all roles is very high atm. Mostly it tells me rotations are slightly above the normal comfort zone. Simplification would help.
Yes, it is. The competency gap between doing your DD rotation well and target 1 red mob via tab targeting vs knowing about every mechanic which deals damage to players + dealing with the group mistakes, working with 5+ targets simultaneously are not comparable skill requirements.
The DD cope about their role being just as hard is an obvious gaslighting in a misguided attempt to manipulate you into treating their easiest and overpopulated role of dd with the same reverence as overburdened role of the healer or tank.
Roles from hardest to easiest:
WoW has gone off the deepend with Healing, the initial designs being that it was simple enough that there would be plenty of healers around in order to never be short.
Now, no one wants to do it.
I healed 480ilvl ppl in 18-20 m+ in 460 gear, with the knowledge of a dps it was bearable until i hit my hp cap in tyrannicals. this is to say healing isn’t the hardest thing in the world, it take skill. there should be a clear distinction between raid and m+ as well since raiding is more old simple style healing as you say it as well as tanking is raid is faceroll.
and about numbers there are so many dps that even having alot of healers won’t make it up for dps numbers (dps specs alone are more than healers)
that’s boring imo, but most of the times it’s still like that
“Getting by” by offloading the work on the other DPS, tank or healer isn’t the same as playing a DPS class competently. For example, during Entangling, I played with quite a few retribution paladins as that is currently a very common class/spec in PUGs. Only two gave me BoF so I never had to walk out of the entangling. Unsurprisingly, both also did more damage, took less avoidable damage (Elitism Helper shows the stats at the end of runs), and interrupted more than the average DPS.
The difficulty of healing scales with the competency of the group. Some players are an additional affix for the healer, but good ones stand out and make healing a breeze.
I don’t believe there is an actual shortage of healers in the game. There’s just a shortage of healers in PUGs. It’s not because the role is fundamentally difficult, but because the quality of PUGs is so variable. I simply don’t want to play with a DPS who believes their role just consists of “doing your DD rotation well and target 1 red mob via tab targeting”, and I’d wager that the majority of healers feels that way also.
People say that DPS is hard to but that must be people who never tried healing.
If you dps and have to move and loose your rotation you drop in dps but can recover.
If you heal and have to move someone might die.
More quick or instant heals whould remedy this.
When I try to heal my biggest problem is to have a scope of everything.
Where do I stand when do I move, what heal should I use now not to loose it because I have to move and so on.
People say it needs skill and I do agree about that. The problem is that it needs to much of skill and pre-knowledge to be bareable for most players.
This is why so few people play healers.
Healing is by far the hardest role to do in the game as far as the difficulties that most people play are concerned.
Even on medium difficulty, the healer needs to keep a watch over the entire group via raid frames + the actual 3D locations of the group members + the boss and its mechanics + keep watch of their own resources and cooldowns.
Meanwhile the tank can smash whatever buttons their rotation is + pull the right amount of mobs and keep them in control
While the DPSer on most difficulties can have a rotation helper do most of the thinking for them (not that some rotations are not clunky but at least there is this workaround).
The “reward” a healer gets in groups often is criticism about how they let someone fall in battle or about how their healing numbers are not as high as the other healer in the group who managed to snipe more healing opportunities first…
There is also that expectation that the healer should be able to always fix the mistakes of the group
I have mained healer since TBC. I find dps to be alot harder. Mostly because im not used to it i guess. I find it very difficult to do good dps while dealing with mechanics, keeping an eye out for what needs an interrupt or stun, watching my own health and when to use a personal and so on. I dont know why cause i can do all that while healing, but as dps i really struggle 
DPSing is overall considered easier by virtue of having the least individual responsibility as there are always at least 3 of you in a group.
Also like I said in the post above, there is such a thing as rotation helper addons in WoW at least since Legion (they basically suggest what to use next)
Have you tried DPSing? Or Tanking? Or worse… whatever Aug is?
They are all in the same boat. The idea that DPS is somehow easier than Healing is a myth.
The old days are gone. Now WoW is what a 2024 game is supposed to be: High octane combat. But don’t despair, WoW Classic is still there.
The majority of players prefer to DPS, this is a fact and not a myth.
All the roles have their challenge in the highest level of endgame content (mythic raid, very high keys and high PvP ratings).
But most people do not play at that level and healing is the least forgiving role in the less challenging content that most people play at.
Ofcause I have.
I mainly play dps and sometimes tank aswell, but mostly with friends with the latter one.
I also have an Aug and I have to say that one is, by far, the most easiest to play, but I find it a bit booring.
Dont most of the playerbase stick to normal/heroic and maybe LFR? Timewalking dungeons when they are up? I feel like there’s barely anything to heal at those levels. Or are you talking about lower end of mythic+ and normal raids?
I get it. I have played in lower keys as well.
And let me tell you that at ANY level, and ESPECIALLY at lower keys, if DDs play well you literally don’t have to heal anything.
DDs have enough leach to heal themselves IF they play correctly. And im not talking about 300 APM MDI level of play. Im talking the regular Joe level of play. But adding interrupts to the Confessors and Augurs in AD. Just that, 1 button that is off the GCD.
The only difference is that DDs don’t see the consequences of their bad play. Healers do.
But that does not make DDs easier to play. Far from it. At ANY level, but especially at lower keys.
And that is a myth that keeps being perpetuated. And people believe it.
Everything that is not mythic raid or 20+ M+
Just because people are by now vastly overgearing the low M+ keys it does not mean that they do not normally need healing.
Most players do not play at the level where they are not being hit by sources of damage that they can avoid.
It is the players themselves and their decisions in the gameplay who make healing hard, not its design per se.
The healer is a vet and the rest of the group at their cats that they need to try to save after they get run over by a car
Then for certain you will have compared the “interrupts”, “avoidable damage”, “healing received” between you and everyone else.
Simply because as a healer main you know the consequences of not interrupting X cast, or poping a defensive in Y mechanic. So you interrupt more, use deff CDs more wisely. offheal often, ect…
And in addition to all that, you have to maximize the rotation to maximize DPS. Which means moving from swirlies 1 pixel away from death, to minimize movement… ect… Because killing a boss 1 minute sooner actually matters. In fact, its what matters most in a dungeon run.