Let's see the statistics. I have always wondered which one is more rare - tank or healer.

For me it is healer. I have done all 3 in my small playtime and healing is the most interesting one. It keeps you busy at all times. Tanking sometimes is just smashing buttons at the boss and not even moving an inch. (depends on the boss) DPS is DPS. For me it is boring after trying healer. Also being a healer or tank your queue times are much much lower which is a huge bonus.

Yeah I can only play healers for some reason. Every single time I try to DPS I get bored lol, and tanking feels like too much responsibility.

I will always love tanking, leading a party and feeling that you are they guy defending them feels awesome.

If we are talking vanilla wow and just pve group content which I assume we are healer wins easily. Dps is so straight forward and mindless compared to healing in vanilla. Hunter is pretty much the only class that have any firm of chalange to it but rogue is also alright. I will most likely play warlock and don't really look forward to the engaging dps rotation of CoE > Shadow Bolt. My second choice is Mage which is just as bad in pve. I play these classes because they do what I want outside of pve group content but they are so mindless in raids. I'm very tempted to roll paladin/Shaman depending on what faction we end up playing just so I get to heal instead, but I do love my warlock so much. It will be a hard choice.

Quick typo in your title : "What role do [...]"

Between tank and healer I prefer healing, played a Resto Shaman for all of my Vanilla raiding. DPS is my favorite overall because of how chill it is, way less pressure as long as you are doing good damage.

I answered healing even though I'll be running DPS in classic. Groups are primarily a social experience for me and the DPS often get caught up in comparing their e-peens and fighting over loot. I guess it's natural when your role is the most expendable and you're used to being a solo god.

For myself, i always feel frustrated by people and keep in calm most of the time. normally i dont like to be a leader person myself but i just couldnt play any other class or spec other than a protection warrior..

I was first selected warrior as my very first character to create back then. but i was so hyped checked every class 1 by 1 since i played only 1 or 2 lvl of warrior back then i couldnt figure out the warrior rage mechanic or rogue energy. so i decided to stick with the good old mana classes and played a hunter to 60. and switched to druid at the end of classic era.

I was always wanted to play as warrior but my guild has full of warriors and desperately needed "good" hunters for raids so i had to remain as hunter for whole game. with the itch of warrior on my mind.

with tbc, I was used to be a resto druid whole game until wotlk i have a lot of fun with resto druid in tbc compared to classic druid was awesome. but i barely managed to get my alt warrior to 70 in that time. after wotlk i switched to warrior and its just ..... an addiction for me... i was so furious i didnt lvl it before i was so disappointed that i couldnt played it on classic like it was meant for me. thanks to the private servers i have leveled 6 warriors and done raidings with such a joy. now its time to make it right and play a warrior at the first glance of wow classic release. I am so excited!

I originally wanted to be DPS in vanilla, but I wasn't great at it. I started tanking so I could get groups more consistently and... ended up loving tanking and mained it for around 10 years.

I really enjoyed healing in vanilla as a priest but one thing did frustrate me, which was solo/grinding.
As a priest I couldn't really solo things and when i did it was hard and time consuming, even as shadow.
Only inside a dungeon or raid, It felt rewarding and fun! Saving your friends!
But outside in the world as a holy priest even running to dungeons you are just gimped...aggro a mob...dazed...cant really kill it lol...run...

That's one reason this time around I will be joining the dark side as a warlock and should not have any issues out in the world

Prefer healer mainly when playing with others, and a solo dps class when playing alone

Usually healer, but considering tank this time around. My choice still changes every week!

I usually like to dps and tank. Now I'm thinking about tipping toes to into healing territory also.

I prefer to play tank, but I don't think I'll be going through all the teeth gritting bullshit again. I tanked pretty hardcore through the beginning of Cata and feel like trying something different this time. I'll probably DPS at first, and then if I feel like changing it up I'll roll a healer.

I like DPS for the independence. Also many DPS classes/specs can be tanks/healers preraid anyhow. To spec specifically into tanking or healing is a huge and unnecessary investment pre raid in most cases.

Tanks will be needed the most during the dungeon farm stage. Despite warriors being heavily populated, few will be willing to throw on a shield. Once you start raiding, getting a tank spot is challenging as most guilds have already established their tanks. In raids, healers become a bit more desirable. DPS are a dime a dozen.

During the preBIS farming stage, no one really needs to spec for their role. Warriors shouldn’t be going protection, fury generates more threat. Feral druids make excellent tanks and prot pallies can be viable with the right gear (most wont have it during this stage). Most classes can heal without specing as a healer etc. It always confuses me why people aren’t more adaptable in this portion of the game. Most people would rather spend 30-45 mins looking for a tank then tossing on a shield and tanking or looking for a healer rather than healing.

Anything preraid is insanely easy. With the right comp and competence, most groups can cheeseball dungeons without even using a proper tank. Just use a few BM hunter pets etc etc. We are already seeing that meta switch over to Classic in a meaningful way with groups of mages AoE farming dungeons in the Classic beta.

I was betting that most people will click DPS...
I love to play heal its fun, dps is okey - but heal is much more fun :D

I love tanking.
I love being able to control the pace of the dungeon and raid.
I love communicating with other tanks for strategies during encounters.
I love researching dungeons, learning from other tanks, how pulls could be improved, and handling threat among multiple mobs efficiently.
I love the balance of 102.4% avoidance to push crushing and critical hits off the hit table.
I love the min-maxing and optimizing of gear between threat and survive ability.
I love the idea of an effective health pool based on mitigation.
I dislike the lack of class design existing for Protection Paladins so I won't be tanking.

I have healed before but I don't think I would be able to enjoy it much in Classic. I was never a big fan of healing. I played Final Fantasy XIV for the last several years and have Tanked, Healed, and DPS'd and the healing in FFXIV was by far some of the funnest I have ever had. Being able to play life and death with the tanks life while maximizing damage (to the point of out DPSing underperforming DPS) was extremely fun. This kind of gameplay doesn't exist in WoW (Classic or Retail) unfortunately so I won't be healing.

The last thing I can do as a Paladin that isn't Tanking or Healing is DPSing and thats not very promising but what is promoising is the theorycrafting behind a build that I've been seeing a lot of talk about and that is Spelladin. I am very interested in trying this out and making it work. I don't mind the consumables (except for MCP) and would be interested in trying to explore this as an option as opposed to normal Retribution while giving me some leeway with being able to perform in healing as well.

I'll be playing DPS.

I played warrior back in 2005 and tanked until mid TBC when I changed to healing as a druid. In MoP I rolled hunter and have been hunter ever since although I still have an healing druid alt with whom I occasionally tank. For classic I'll definitely roll druid and try to tank up until the game lets me. Then hopefully they remake TBC and go tank again for Brutallus instead of healer. *dreams*

I get so frustrated if I'm not playing as a tank. Either the tank is too slow or too fast for my liking, and I like setting the dungeon pace myself.
Also I've played as a tank for about 90% of my game time in WoW, so there's that as well.

I've played Druid since Vanilla, so I have healed in every single expansion.
Since TBC made Druid tanks more viable, I also started to tank on my Druid. I've tanked in every expansion and the Druid tank became my main spec.
I love being the tank and taking the lead, having such a responsibility and having to focus 100% all the time.
Since I'm probably going to play Druid in Classic again, I don't know if I'm going to tank. Will probably end up being a healer again and leveling a warrior seems difficult / too expensive :p

I was a resto Druid back in the day. However, I fell in love with tanking with my alt-warrior running alt-runs of MC/BWL. This time I plan on feral tanking and constantly convincing my guild that it CAN be done!

I've healed I've DPSed, this go around I might try tanking, in dungeon at least, I been seeing Shaman Tank stuff and I'm like gonna try that with a group friends

@biggle, your signature gave me cancer.

i am literally crying

I was a healer in classic originally, and a tank ever since, but I am going DPS this time because I am not a fan of warrior tanking and don't want to heal again. If I could tank everything as a paladin, then it would have been no contest.