(Originally written in response to an interesting discussion on the EU Warrior board)
I found it very hard to get accepted as a Druid tank last summer
I think a lot of guilds rely on pigeon-holing druids into healbot roles currently and I don't think it's a culture which will vanish with BC
Someone has to do the healing and if one looks at the census data for most realms you'll see something like 12% paladin/shaman, 10% priest, 7% druid. So if your guild reflects the server population and you need approx 30% of the raid to heal then everyone who can heal must heal
Now not everyone works like that - most guilds can dip under the 30% ratio and allow a couple of the healers to spec for dps or bear tanking but it's a factor in every guild
Someone has to heal
So if you want in the Expansion to have paladins and druids tanking; shamans shadowpriests cats retrinoobs and a moonkin dpsing you need to have a large amount of your guild from those 4 classes since those 4 classes will also have to cover all the healing in addition to all these new roles
I think what will happen is that people will judge more on a case by case basis. Not "we need more Warriors" but "we need more tanks" and the 10K armour 11K life 41 points in Prot Paladin is going to look a helluva lot more appealing than the 6K armour 8K life dps warrior who says he can tank a bit if he really has to
So it will be about gear and spec just as it always has been
Despite each faction getting an extra heal-capable class I predict a healer shortage
So if you are a Warrior wanting to tank you may need to be in one of the guilds that everyone wants to join rather than the guilds that pick up the leftover players the top guilds dont want
Now how a guild handles gear will have a lot to do with what its players do with their hybrids. If a tank ring is Warrior priority and an AP/Crit ring is Hunter/Rogue then Druids in that guild will heal. Maybe there will only be one or two druids in that guild, but they will heal since healing gear is the gear that's available to them
I'm casually considering the idea of an all-healer guild - only recruiting shamans druids priests and paladins. I've seen other people mention the concept and I think it may well become moderately popular. I won't bore you with in-depth reasons as to why I think it can cope with end game but just point out that for most healers healbot roles isn't what we want to do, taking it in turns to be on healing duty with everyone else in the guild will be appealing and will let us explore the other facets of our characters
But apart from such guilds the vast vast majority of tanks will be Warriors simply because there will be many Warriors around for the amount of guilds the server's willing healers can support. That doesn't mean that every Warrior who wants to raid tank will get a chance to do so, still less that every Warrior who wants to raid will get a chance to
I found it very hard to get accepted as a Druid tank last summer
I think a lot of guilds rely on pigeon-holing druids into healbot roles currently and I don't think it's a culture which will vanish with BC
Someone has to do the healing and if one looks at the census data for most realms you'll see something like 12% paladin/shaman, 10% priest, 7% druid. So if your guild reflects the server population and you need approx 30% of the raid to heal then everyone who can heal must heal
Now not everyone works like that - most guilds can dip under the 30% ratio and allow a couple of the healers to spec for dps or bear tanking but it's a factor in every guild
Someone has to heal
So if you want in the Expansion to have paladins and druids tanking; shamans shadowpriests cats retrinoobs and a moonkin dpsing you need to have a large amount of your guild from those 4 classes since those 4 classes will also have to cover all the healing in addition to all these new roles
I think what will happen is that people will judge more on a case by case basis. Not "we need more Warriors" but "we need more tanks" and the 10K armour 11K life 41 points in Prot Paladin is going to look a helluva lot more appealing than the 6K armour 8K life dps warrior who says he can tank a bit if he really has to
So it will be about gear and spec just as it always has been
Despite each faction getting an extra heal-capable class I predict a healer shortage
So if you are a Warrior wanting to tank you may need to be in one of the guilds that everyone wants to join rather than the guilds that pick up the leftover players the top guilds dont want
Now how a guild handles gear will have a lot to do with what its players do with their hybrids. If a tank ring is Warrior priority and an AP/Crit ring is Hunter/Rogue then Druids in that guild will heal. Maybe there will only be one or two druids in that guild, but they will heal since healing gear is the gear that's available to them
I'm casually considering the idea of an all-healer guild - only recruiting shamans druids priests and paladins. I've seen other people mention the concept and I think it may well become moderately popular. I won't bore you with in-depth reasons as to why I think it can cope with end game but just point out that for most healers healbot roles isn't what we want to do, taking it in turns to be on healing duty with everyone else in the guild will be appealing and will let us explore the other facets of our characters
But apart from such guilds the vast vast majority of tanks will be Warriors simply because there will be many Warriors around for the amount of guilds the server's willing healers can support. That doesn't mean that every Warrior who wants to raid tank will get a chance to do so, still less that every Warrior who wants to raid will get a chance to