Circle of Healers

I noticed a great deal of bloggers in my blogroll had participated in Saunder's revival of Miss Medicina's old survey.  My blog wasn't around way back then, but I thought it would be great fun to participate though I am not in the league of Jasyla or Beruthiel in terms of druid healing, so here are my answers!

1. What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Navimie, Resto Druid

2. What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
25 man (and 10 man when not enough on) non heroic raids, and Arena 2,3 and 5 (though 2s are my fave)

3. What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Lifebloom.  Love it for PVP, I love how in tree form you can cast it on multiple people (like you used to be able to in the good old days), and I love how having it on makes OOC proc like anything!

4. What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
I don't use healing touch as much as I used to.  I do for Main tank healing but in general I tend to use nourish a lot (cheap and with 3 rejuv's up and Nature's Grace proccing)

5. What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
Healing on the run.  Great for movement fights, great for PVP.  In fact I am so used to moving and healing that even in raids I can't even stand still, I'm running all over the place and jumping.  I do however blame my twitchy spacebar finger on my arena partner, Sevros, another jumping and constantly moving Afflock.

6. What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
Not having a spell that improves reduces damage (like a bubble, pain suppression) which goes hand in hand (in my opinion) with not having a spell or ability to reduce threat (like fade or salv).  Because when damage gets big, heals get big, and agro gets big... splat tree.

7. In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Personally, I always assign myself to tank healing.  I feel better knowing that the tanks health is kept up by me (and perhaps because we have some weaker healers of classes that I would ordinarily give tank healing to, and we get tank splats).  However, I do feel that my utility is best used in raid healing and grouped up aoe healing with wild growth, tree of life having multiple LBs, efflorescence and tranquility all helping the raid.  It is a bit mana intensive however!

8. What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
Paladins.  Not so much now, but in WotLK they always seemed to have mana and would never need my innervate.  I always have that "safe" feeling when I am with one.  In fact I only ever 2 heal anything with a paladin (any other class I'd go 3).  And boy do I love that disco ball healing thing.  I often feel like tanks are safe with beacon and me hotting up the raid.

9. What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Holy priests.  They never seem to have mana.  And pre 4.2 I would be giving them my innervates.  Since 4.2 I can keep it now, with that Innervate nerf.

10. What is your worst habit as a healer?
Trying to heal everything.  It makes me OOM.  I should let other people do it, but as raid heal leader you can't help it sometimes when you notice the raid heals are struggling you have to go and help and then you miss the refresh on your tank.  And doing all the dispels was a bad habit I kicked, since I decided to drop Nature's Cure.

11. What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
People saying things in vent such as "I've got XX debuff on me", "MrX is dead" and "can I get a rez please" during an encounter.  OK maybe I'm just mean or short fused but seriously, all healers can see you have the debuff, you are cluttering vent, and by the time you say it I will likely have dispelled it (eg. consuming darkness with Algaloth).  And yes, you're dead I can see that, what do you want me to do about it?  Unless you're a tank or healer I don't really care... and I don't want to waste rez's on just anybody so just sit quietly until we decide who is going to be rezzed and if you haven't been rezzed yet it's probably because I'm healing my ass off.  OK, 'nuff said, getting peeved!

12. Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
I think making druids stronger tank healers has helped our role.  And with paladins having AOE heals now I feel like we can fit into almost any raid.  In fact I think you can heal anything with 3 of any class healer now.

13. What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
I have to force myself not to look at meters (I use Skada).  There are people who do more healing than I do, yet when they do the same raid they don't get the boss down.  So I look at boss killing as an evaluation of my performance - as long as I am alive at the end of the encounter.  World of Logs is great for looking at my overall healing and overhealing.

14. What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
Druid healing is easy.  I think you have to know your class to know how to get someone from 1% to 80% with every cooldown and trick in the book.  And people think that it's easy to heal the raid on a druid.  It sure is, but it can be really expensive if you aren't doing it right...

15. What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
I think that preemptive healing rather than reactive healing is important for druids, and if you don't remember that then people go down faster than you think.

16. 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)?
Lots of overhealing.  Hots tend to be like that and I'm not sure there's much you can do about it but damn it looks bad.

17. Haste or Crit and why?
Haste is always yummy.  Crit is better now but I still wouldn't stack it ahead of Mastery or Haste.

18. What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Priests, both holy and disc.  I have no idea what spells they use, and why their mana is always low.  I should level one and find out.

19. What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I am a healbot girl (I can watch ticks of my hots, see curses and debuffs and people in range and have every heal put to my mouse) and I have only recently started using Power Auras for harmony and Lightweave/Power torrent which is great.

20. Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
Intellect obviously!  Then haste to 1573.  After that I am free to get more mastery.  Crit is one of those extra things you don't try to get but always seem to have lots of.

Now who to tag to send it to?  I wanted to send it to Fannon but he was tagged on the first run!  And I think Ange has been tagged also.  So I'll tag Keeva (I know you're not supposed to do other druids but sheesh, I mostly read druid healing blogs!) and Amerence.