Old Healer Survey

What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?

Wouldn't you like to know? Resto, with a mix of enh for pve and ele for pvp.

What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)

10 man raids and 5 man heriocs.

What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?

Riptide. I like the water. I also like that it's pretty much my only mobile spell.

What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?

Lesser Healing Wave. tends to not heal enough, and tidal waves has healing wave be about same length.

What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?

Flexiblity. Druids are raid healers. Disc is single target. Holy is raid. Pally's are tank healers. Us shammys? We can do whatever we want.

What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?

Mobility. We have none of it. If you want healing on the move call someone else.

In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?

For me specifically? Put me in the tanks group, let healing stream do whatever it wants, and put me on chain spam duty.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?

I personally like disc best. Their bubbles interact nicely with shaman. See bubble spam tends to stop damage, and shaman are particularly good at fixing "oh crap" moments. It gives a nice few moments to triage properly.

What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?

Probably Holy Paladins. Sure they can handle the tanks all by their lonesome, but that leaves me with 7 other people I have to take care of. I can do it, but I don't like it. If I can three heal, I'm at my happiest.

What is your worst habit as a healer?

Knowing when to use my cool downs. Nature's swiftness tends to be very no-brainer for me, but tidal force is far more complicated to know when to use. The only encounter I've gotton used to it, is during marrowgar. I tend to burn NS pretty quickly there, so TF acts as my second "I"M FALLING BEHIND ON HEALING" cool down.

What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?

Ranged that spread out, in an encounter that requires no spreading out. Way to gimp my performance for no reason whatsoever.

Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?

Personally I think we're sort of unfair. Other classes are pretty pigeonholed into their roles. Shaman can be a little too flexible on pretty much stationary fights.

What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?

I briefly glance at recount to see what % of healing I've done. If I've done about 40-50% in a two healer encounter I'm good. Mostly I just want to see if I'm being carried or I'm carrying. or (heaven forbid) my partner(s) are doing their job.

What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?

I feel like people there is a very "you are an AOE healer" mentality. If I was to list where I thought classes were in terms of a "Tank to Raid" ratio, Druids are 15:85, Pallys are 85:15, Holy Preists are 25:75, Disc is 60:40, and we're floating around 35:65 I'm not saying we're fantastic at tank healing, but given a 3 healer scenario I think we do best in a "floating" position, where we take care of damage that the "raid" and the "tank" healer cannot do themselves.

What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?

That given our flexibility, gemming and glyph for us, is pretty much arbitrary. Not that there isn't a good way to do it, it's just that it's meant to mesh with your play style. Need more mp5? Gem for it. Want haste and sp? Gem for that instead. Do you have reflexes like an old dog? Go ahead and gem for the 3% +crit heals meta. They'll actually do just fine.

If someone were to try to evaluate your performance as a healer via recount, what sort of patterns would they see (i.e. lots of overhealing, low healing output, etc)?

Healing Wave > Riptide > Earth shield > Chain Heal > Healing stream. Fairly low overhealing. Maybe 20% I'll probably be clocking in at about 3500 HPS. My activity will probably be fairly low. I'm pretty twitch-healer oriented. I don't think about where damage comes from, I just heal it, unless it's super obvious (oh look sally's standing in the death and decay. Time to heal!)

Haste or Crit and why?

I prefer haste just because of the nature of style. I react to damage as it happens so I need higher amounts of haste to compensate. I'm very lax about haste/crit gear though. I'm pretty sure mine is pretty balanced, if not actually crit heavy.

What healing class do you feel you understand least?

Paladins. I've played preists enough to get the gist of how they function. Druids I'm a little fuzzy on, but nothing is terribly complicated about stacking hots, in specific ways to get healing accomplished. Paladins I understand have 3 heals, but its the support structure proping it up I don't understand. Talent trees are generally pretty clear on what something does, but the holy tree is oddly devoid of that information. I don't know what sacred shield does. I don't know how divine plea works. Or what hands can be used on who. Stuff like that. It easy enough to get "flash of light, holy light, holy shock" but the rest is when it goes to hell.

What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?

Chain heal is bound to 3. Healing Wave is bound to 4. If I hold shift and push either of those buttons, I have natures swiftness bound to it. Shift3 for CH; Shift4 for HW. Shift+E happens to be trinket+tidal force.

I'm learning how to use grid. Mostly I'm using it in the same way I used xperl. As a means to track where my earth shield and riptide are, and who has aggro. Aggro is clearer on grid, but ES and riptide were easier to track on xperl. I wish squares had more corners, ya know? :P I just want to know every heal on a person if at all possible.

Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?

I balance the crap out of my stats. It's taken literally having my guild carve out 2 +20 haste gems for me, before I even changed my sp/haste gems out.