I have healed at 85 as a resto druid, holy paladin and discipline priest. My resto shaman is now lvl 82 and I like to think I have a decent grasp on healing mechanics in WoW.

I would much rather heal alongside a healer who is on top of dispels and uses cooldowns to save people who are in danger than a “rockstar” healer who tunnel visions on his assignment to the exclusion of all else. Clutch uses of swiftmend, NS+HT, pain suppression, aura mastery, lay on hands and even HoP will not help one rank on meters but they can certainly save wipes.

Its been my experience that often a healer “rockstar” is being carried by someone else on who picks up his slack on dispels and dynamism.

As for what I try to do to be a more dynamic healer? PvP. PvP healing forces me to use every single tool at my disposal (hello binding heal) and I find that when I return to PvE after doing some serious PvP, I am both refreshed and better at it.

I think this really addresses what separates the great healers from the ones who are just okay. It bothers me a lot when people think that all it takes to be a good resto druid is to spam WG and Rejuv and top the meters. It bothers me when Druids complain about be expected to cast direct heals, or something other than a HoT. Using only heal over time spells really limits the amount of dynamic healing we can do. It’s not the 50% of my healing that comes from WG, Efflo and Tranq that make me a good healer. It’s the NS/HT casts that save someone from dying, the Regrowths I cast on someone at 15% health instead of casting another WG, the Swiftmends who heal someone that really needs a heal rather than the person with the 20% increased healing buff standing in the middle of the group. Of course, if I can do these things that actually save raiders while still putting out massive amounts of group healing, it’s all the better.

As to the question of what I do to be dynamic… sadly, while clearing DS for the umpteenth time at a 30% nerf, I’m kind of forgetting how to heal dynamically. There’s so little damage going out and so little challenge left. When the content was more current I loved trying to top the dispel meter on fights like normal Zon’ozz or heroic Hagara. On Heroic Spine I liked to break out my Healing Touch spell to get rid of the debuffs quickly after everyone had a Rejuv on them.

I really can’t wait for Mists. I think that content being challenging again, along with the extra utility druids are getting will give us all kinds of opportunity to be dynamic healers.

I also found it an interesting read because of my thoughts about healing in the 10 and 25 man formats. I know that 25 mans are where all the elite players go, and I will never be more than a casual raider myself (6/8 hard modes in DS before we stopped our progression attempts for the summer) but I have always felt that 10 mans are aleays more interesting and sometimes more challenging for a healer. When 2 healing a any hard mode encounter, you have to do everything you described above, all the time, every attempt, or you’ll never get a single kill. Conversely, I have always felt that 25 mans work best when each healer spams their best 2 or 3 buttons endlessly. Admittedly, my knowledge of 25 mans is limited, so I’m happy to see you saying there can be much more to it than that.

I was mainly a chicken in Wrath, for various reasons. I think a large part of it was that I really valued being able to provide that kind of utility. Tank starts dying, healers are dropping dead? Battle rez, throw some heals to at least keep him up, innervate. Group starts dying in a heroic? Tranquility. Maybe it meant my DPS dropped, but for me that’s a lot of the fun of playing a hybrid class: I *can* be useful in more ways than just the numbers.

Also, the healer mindset stuck with me into decursing and cleansing poison. It still bugs me when people can’t be bothered to do that.. or worse yet, when it never even occurs to them. Argh! So in conclusion – yes – I think being a dynamic player is important, both for healing and dps alike.. and it’s so much more fun than just straight heal- or dps-spamming a rotation.