I’m back! European vacation successfully completed with a minimum of National Lampoon-like instances. I even got to play healer IRL when my poor pally was struck down by a hotel-room-quarantine-inducing sinus infection (and I got a regular, non-quarantine-worthy head cold), which had me stuck in a tiny room in Ireland for four not-so-pleasant days of pushing water and meds on him, watching as many pay-per-view movies as possible, eating lots of soup and brown bread, and wishing I was a tree in reality so I could “Abolish Poison” and “Rejuv” him back to full health.
The one good thing about the forced hanging-out-in-hotel-room bit of our trip was that the hotel TV offered internet. It was a fairly wonky version of internet, but I was able to read stuff, so I did manage to catch up a little on what was going on in the blogosphere. And while I am incredibly, horribly late to the party, and half of the guests have already gone home or on to other parties, and all the good things to eat are gone, I’m coming in anyway at this late hour to talk briefly with the exhausted host, sip a mostly slushy margarita remnant and mop up the last of the salsa with a few crumbles of tortilla chips. In other words, I am responding to Miss Medicina’s healer questionnaire (even though Tam kindly gave me a pass due to my lengthy holiday):
What is the name, class, and spec of your primary healer?
Tazha, Restoration Druid
What is your primary group healing environment? (i.e. raids, pvp, 5 mans)
Taz is a Raider. She splits her raiding time between 10-man and 25-man raids, probably about 2/3 in the former and 1/3 in the latter.
What is your favorite healing spell for your class and why?
Rejuvenation! Rejuv is the loving tree-hug I give everyone who even looks like their health bar might be thinking about dropping. (And I love Rejuv because if their bar then drops A LOT, a Swiftmend can turn that Rejuv into a splint, some painkillers and a lollipop.)
What healing spell do you use least for your class and why?
Okay, time for the shameful ‘fessing up. My least-used spell is Nourish. I know, I know. Blizzard loves Nourish and wants us to use it. Other druids love Nourish and use it a lot. Nourish is happy, happy, joy, joy. But what can I say? I’m a rebel, a loose cannon, a tree renegade. I keep trying to work it into my rotation, to be a good little tree, but somehow, no matter how much I try, I keep getting out of fights and discovering that my Nourish is completely unused. Again.
What do you feel is the biggest strength of your healing class and why?
One of the things I love about druids is our ability to spread healing around instantly. Our HoTs give us flexibility of quick-healing targets and a mobility that I believe other healers lack.
What do you feel is the biggest weakness of your healing class and why?
Druids don’t really have a good Big Heal. We have Healing Touch, which takes so long to cast it’s not really worth it unless you oh-shit it with Nature’s Swiftness. As a result, we lack some of the major Save-the-Day that other healers can bring to the table. (This is not to say that we cannot save the day, but if we haven’t anticipated, this makes it much harder.)
In a 25 man raiding environment, what do you feel, in general, is the best healing assignment for you?
Raid healing is probably our forte in 25-man raids. That said, I’ve been on tank duty and done great. Our main tank’s favorite go-to healer is a tree as well. The truth is, while I understand that academically trees=awesome-o raid healers, I honestly believe that trees are strong all-around. And my favorite healing assignment is tanks.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with most and why?
Priests. They challenge me and push me to watch how I heal. Our healing can overlap too much if we’re sloppy and can keep everyone up with a minimum of mana if we’re not. Priests+Druids make me see how good a healer I can be.
What healing class do you enjoy healing with least and why?
Priests. Dammit, they challenge me and push me to watch how I heal. 😉
What is your worst habit as a healer?
I rely too much on my habits. As patch after patch comes out, druids (and all healers) need to adapt to the ways in which Blizzard chooses to change how we heal. I get cranky and fail to adapt sometimes (see: Nourish).
What is your biggest pet peeve in a group environment while healing?
Being ignored when assessing how a fight went. Especially if it went wrong. I was here, I was a part of it. If people died, it was my fuck-up, too. If people lived, it was my success, too. All too often other healers take it all on themselves, as if I had no role in how things happened. And while I appreciate that they are not doing it to irk me (in fact, far from it), it always does a little.
Do you feel that your class/spec is well balanced with other healers for PvE healing?
Actually, yes. I know the big thing is that druids are overpowered, but, from what I’ve seen, other healing classes can and do surpass us, equal us, come below us, just like we do for everyone else.
What tools do you use to evaluate your own performance as a healer?
Recount + # of People Alive at the End of the Fight
What do you think is the biggest misconception people have about your healing class?
We’re overpowered. (See above.)
What do you feel is the most difficult thing for new healers of your class to learn?
I think it’s very difficult for saplings to grasp the anticipatory nature of druid healing. A lot of people feel very uncomfortable with it. It requires practice and a certain level of intuition that I haven’t found as necessary in priest-healing. (Not that priest-healing is a /faceroll in the park, either.)
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 overheal, just like every other druid. I also tend to be in the top two of the healing charts overall as well in my 25-man and top of the charts in my 10-man.
Haste or Crit and why?
Well, per everything I’m reading, it’s all about the Haste now…
What healing class do you feel you understand least?
Shamans. By far.
What add-ons or macros do you use, if any, to aid you in healing?
I’m a VuhDo girl. I love VuhDo. It’s like Healbot and Grid+Clique had a beautiful, super-useful baby.
Do you strive primarily for balance between your healing stats, or do you stack some much higher than others, and why?
When I was a baby tree, a sapling, I was all about the mp5. Lately, though, I’ve been a spellpower tree – I stack it, I crave it, I pile it on.
Welcome back!
Yay! Glad to be back!
It’s always interesting to read about a fellow tree’s thoughts about raiding/healing. It was really surprised to read that you don’t use Nourish with any frequency, I, like many others I am sure, love nourish haha. What spells aside from rejuv do you use then to keep folks up? I find that sometimes the HoT’s arent enough, so I give them that boost with nourish.
I know. Nourish is great. I think I need to trick myself by redo-ing my VuhDo so that it’s on one of my regularly used buttons…
What I normally use is a Rejuv, Wild Growth, Lifebloom, Regrowth and Swiftmend combo. I have some oh-shit stuff like Nature’s Swiftness+Healing Touch, but I generally stick to Rejuv, Lifebloom and WG.