Everything I learned about Healing I learned in Kindergarden

I was a lost little tree, until my guild master sat me down, yes I was on a little carpet square, and taught me how to be a better healer. (Look down for the whole story!) This is basically what he taught me. This is mostly for my reference, but if you find it useful great! I know I have NO readers.

So your a tree! Your role in a raid is to heal pretty much everyone that is not the tanks. And to help out the tank healer(s) as needed. Your spells tend to be Heal Over Times (HoTs) but you have a few just plain heals and other useful buffs and debuffs.

Spells you have:

Rejuvenation:  A HoT that lasts for 18 seconds, ticks every 3 sec, and (for me) heals about 2000 every tick.  Instant cast.
Regrowth: A HoT that has an instant heal attached to the begining. It casts in about 1.5 seconds for me (with a buttload of haste) and the instant heal heals for ~5k (can crit for about 8-9k) and ticks for 1kish.
Lifebloom: A HoT that lasts for about 8 seconds, stacks to three stacks, has an instant heal at the end, and gives you back mana when it expires. Yes it's that confusing. But useful.
Nourish: A just plain heal that (when glyphed) heals more if you have more HoTs on your target. It casts in ~1 second (again with a buttload of haste) and I've seen it crit for about 10k.
Wild Growth: A HoT that can affect 5 targets within 15 yards of each other. Ticks every second, but the amount healed starts off at about 1k, then decreases with every tick.
Swiftmend: An instant cast just plain heal that can only be cast if you have a regrowth or rejuv on the target, and the glyph keeps you from consuming the HoT when you cast swiftmend. Oh SPOON! button.

I'm not going to bother with healing touch, because it's huge it's slow, and you are not a Holy Pally. And because I somehow speced out of having Nature's Swiftness.

Spec:
This spec is what my GM and I came up with. It dosen't include Celestial Focus, due to having enough haste on gear, and Nature's Swiftness got left out due to being the lesser used Oh SPOON! button.

Rotation Priority List:
As a hunter I was told "you don't really have a shot rotation, you have a shot Priority List." You basically go by what the conditions are, what's off cooldown, and "are you having to move?"

So this is the Tree Druid Priority List as of this point:
One or two people taking damage:
Regrowth--> Rejuvenation --> Nourish (repeat as needed) --> Swiftmend
Don't use Nourish unless a Regrowth is on someone. 

If mutiple (more than 3) people are taking damage (ie a decimate):
Wild Growth ---> Regrowth (person 1)--> Rejuvenation (person 2) --> Regrowth (person 3)---> etc etc. -->Nourish and Swiftmend as needed

Special cases:
- Just use Rejuvenation if someone is taking just a little damage, but kind of regullarly (ie the little lasers in HoS)
-Lifebloom is great for when you can anticipate a lot of damage is going to come in at a certain time (ie decimate, pound), get it stacked and let it expire after the damage is done.

You also may want to put Fairy Fire on the boss (after the tank pulls!) if there is no other druids in your group.

Vuhdo: (My favorite addon EVER)
Set it up so it looks how you like it, I like class colors, HoT icons instead of just little colored blocks, and I have the swiftmend showing.

I got the great piece of advice to put only your instant cast spells on just plain mouse buttons (with no modifier) so you can heal and run, or jump around like a tard. When you press a modifier key to cast your spell (ie Regrowth is Alt+left click) you don't have to hold down your modifier key until the cast is done. Really! You DON'T!

Also keep in mind your vent push to talk key when deciding on your modifier keys. Clicking into vent everytime you have to decurse gets annoying after a bit.

That is basically it.

Raid Healer Kindergarden was not as embarassing as it could have been

*Brushes dust off of blog* Yeah, between work, actually playing the game and my other hobbies, my blog has been neglected a bit.

So, since I last posted, I've changed guilds twice. The first change came when several of my in game friends and I went from our RP/maybe raiding/Where'd the GM go? guild to a guild that at the time was trying to casually progress through content. Not long, maybe 3 weeks, after we joined that guild they decided that they wanted to be more hardcore, and recruited a lot. There were some issues and it basically turned into a hardcore progression guild with loot issues, personalities that some of us didn't get along with, and some other things we just didn't agree with. So several people who had joined with the "casual, friendly and most of all fun" progression in mind split off and founded a different guild. It was an amicable split.

Yesterday was our first guild outing. We tried to do ToGC 10. That raid is HARD. We bashed our head into the beasts and got Gormuk the Impaler down one time, but couldn't get the worms down. There was even "Yeah, I died.... 'cause I stood in the fire like an idiot" coming from me. We ended up running out switching it to normal and roflstomping normal 10. It was fun. We even managed to get the speed kill achievement on the twins. I don't think I can ever do Anub right though. It was messy, but we got through it.

Afterwords, we tried to get a group together to do the weekly, but couldn't because about the guild was saved, and when you have about 13 people, that's not enough people to go kill Dragon in SPACE! A few people were going to go grab some level 70 alts (some people stayed on their mains) and go stomp Kara for the benefit of Paladin on dial up. I was about ready to say "Ooooh! Take me take me!" when our GM, who is a Boomchicken/Tree asked if I could hang around and talk for a bit. He then proceded to look at my spec, gear, and glyphs to figure out why I was not healing to my full potential. I knew I wasn't, and I had been reading and researching, and just not being able to figure out what I was doing wrong on my own, but too embarassed to ask.

Diversion story! My little sister has a friend that is home schooled. She is in a musical group with this friend. When the musical group has performances at school events or other such venues, I tend to notice something. This friend can't seem to wait in line, and could use a lesson in cafeteria etiquette. She is very smart and plays her musical instrument quite well.  She's just a little behind socially.

That is how I feel as a healer. I basically "home schooled" myself as a tree. I read blogs, I read forums, I dungeon leveled, but in a raid, I am behind on social healing. I kinda made my "rotation" up out of thin air. It was basically Rejuv, Nourish, Nourish, Nourish, Swiftmend if things get hairy, and Wild Growth to top off the melee. I had the Rapid Rejuvination glyph, so I was casting rejuvination a LOT because I have a ton of haste. I'm gonna put his advice in another post so as to make this one longer (TOO LATE!), but I feel I have a better grip on what I'm doing now. My spec and glyphs and style now compliment each other instead of me trying to work around them. I rearanged everything in Vuhdo, so I'm still trying to use my old key combos and getting a "there is nothing to dispel!" or "That spell is not ready yet" far too often.

I think I'm going to try to pug the weekly to test everything out. It's Malygos this week, and the last time I went people had no idea how not to get one shotted coming out of the tornado thing. Should be fun.