I actually came across this personal Q&A session over at Killing ‘em Slowly but it leads back to a post from Miss Medicina. Definitely check the post out if you’re a healer/part-time healer!
What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Sammich, Druid, main spec is Moonkin but I heal often with my Resto offspec.
What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Anything from 5-man heroics to 25-man raids. No PVP at all.
What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
I’m a big fan of Wild Growth. It makes an awesome WOOSH!-ing noise, has a cool looking leafy swirly effect and still stays true to the Resto Druids HoT nature (pun totally intended). In 5-man heroics though, Nourish is my best friend.
What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Healing Touch. It’s too long of a cast unless it’s glyphed, but glyphed it’s not as good as using Nourish (especially with the additional healing benefits of Nourish with HoTs on the target which is even stronger when glyphed).
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Resto Druids are very mana efficient raid healers. With the Rejuv idol and 3/3 Revitalize, there is a lot of lot of low-mana HoTs going on that also have a good chance to restore our mana per tick. Combine that with the mana restore Meta gem and a spell-proc mana restore trinket and we can raid heal all night long. We don’t pack quite the punch that Resto Shaman do with their OP Chain Heal but we have an easier time AoE healing ranged DPS/healers and can target 5 (or 6 with the glyph) players with Wild Growth with no penalty to the amount of players healed (since Chain Heal heals for less each time it jumps).
What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
This can be answered two different ways. Class-wise, right now, I think the biggest weakness for Resto Druids is gear. Haste loses a lot of its value once you hit ~400 rating and since our HoTs can’t crit, crit isn’t very valuable in a raid healing scenario. Hopefully the new Rejuv glyph in 3.3 and changes to Gift of the Earth make haste a little more attractive. Healing-wise, I would say our biggest weakness is an instant heal. We have Natures Swiftness for an “OH $#!T!” button but the cooldown is pretty brutal. We have Swiftmend which is on a shorter cooldown but it’s 2 GCD’s to slap on a Rejuv and Swiftmend it. Sometimes that’s long enough for a squishy caster to go splat.
In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Raid healing, for sure. Blanket as many people as you can with Rejuv and Wild Growth the melee has been working well for me so far.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
I only have experience healing as a Resto Druid and Disc Priest at 80, but I’ve healed as a Resto Shaman in the past. I definitely prefer my Druid over my Disc Priest but I have a lot of fun with both. So I’d say the Disc Priest but not in a negative way.. just in an “I prefer A over B” kind of way.
What is your worst habit as a healer?
Tunnel vision. I’m so used to being a DPS caster (almost 4 years and going) that sometimes I pay too much attention to health bars and not enough attention to what’s under my feet.. err.. roots. That and yelling at people who do the same thing >.>
What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
People calling out on vent who needs heals. Tanks with “heal me!” macros.
Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
All healing classes/specs should have their niche and Druids definitely have theirs.
What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
I’ll use Recount to check my performance against other Resto Druids, but it’s not often that there are 2 of us in the same raid group. Honestly, if we win, I win.
What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
I’m not a seasoned veteran, so I really couldn’t answer that. It was pretty easy for me to ease my way in to Druid healing, which is something I couldn’t say about Priest healing.
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)?
I’m not quite sure. My role, to the best of my knowledge, is to blanket the raid in Rejuvs and use Wild Growth whenever possible to ease the spikey AoE raid damage. If the raid doesn’t take damage, I’m going to have a ton of overheals.
Haste or Crit and why?
With GotEM, ~400 haste and then it’s open season. I just take whatever has the most spellpower/spirit since crit/haste beyond this point isn’t really noticeable outside of healing heroics.
What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Paladin. The only Pally I have is 70 and Ret and I’ve never healed as one before.
What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
Grid and various Grid plugins.
Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
My first goal was to hit ~400 haste to get my GCD down to 1 second for faster Rejuv blanketing/instant HoT applying. Now I sit at around 640 haste in my Resto set just because that’s the gear I picked up along the way that had more spellpower/spirit. I prefer haste since it’s a consistant bonus over the RNG feeling of crit. If I need to spam Nourish around the raid for spike damage, I’d rather they be faster than have a “chance” to crit.
As for tagging another healer/part time healer of a difference class.. I’d like to pick Blog of Light to get her back in to blogging.. so I’ll see what I can do!
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