3. Healing part 3

3. Tank and raid healing advice – Updated for 4.1, (4/26/2011)

General healing advice:

At level 85, there are multiple healing roles possible: 5-mans, 10-man tank, 10-man raid, 25-man tank, and 25-man raid. The encounters also come in the forms of normal and hard modes. Your healing style will change depending on the role you are filling as a healer.
The below advice is really general for two strategies in those situations (focusing primarily on tanks, or raid healing with keeping HOTs on the tanks). With the toolset we have, over-specializing (ie. only healing your tank and never using wild growth, or raid healing without keeping up lifebloom on the tanks) ends up being detrimental to your group.
Our direct heals are still important (especially for tank healing), but the druid class’ primary healing done is still HOT-based.
You will use swiftmend for Efflorescence procs as an AOE heal, and you want to use Swiftmend every time it comes off cooldown. In addition, lifebloom should be on one tank target at all times (even when assigned to raid healing).
You prime your Harmony mastery with a direct heal once every ~10 seconds (note that direct heals don’t need the mastery buff up to benefit, they get the bonus all the time). Since Swifmend is a 15 second cooldown and activates your mastery, you really only need to cast direct heals inbetween swiftmend casts (for raid healers, this will mostly come in the form of using nourish to refresh Lifebloom on the tank).

Tank healing at 85:

Put a 3 stack of lifebloom on the tank you are assigned to, and don’t let it fall off. Nourish, Healing Touch, and regrowth will refresh LB’s duration if you have empowered touch (and refreshing LB with a direct heal will give you the Harmony mastery buff). With more than 1 druid, assign each druid to put LB on a different tank if you have multiple tanks in an encounter.
Put rejuv on all the tanks & refresh as needed. Use a mix of direct heals as you find best suits the encounter and your group’s needs: HT when big damage, Nourish when little damage, Regrowth as an emergency spot-heal. You can still swiftmend the tank, because if he’s standing still, he’ll still benefit from the large burst heal and your efflorescence proc (and if melee are close, it will hit them, too). You can also use swiftmend, Wild Growth, and rejuvs to help out your raid with AOE healing even as a tank healer.
Healing Touch is your highest “heals per second” spell, and is slightly more mana efficient than regrowth, so this is an important tool for when the tank is taking heavy damage.
Use Nourish when you need a mana efficient heal (to conserve your mana resources and reduce over-healing) during times where your tank isn’t taking that much damage. Try to use Nourish on tanks that already have a HOT on them. Regrowth is an emergency heal that should never be spammed (except in fights where the mechanics favor use of “flash heals” for all classes).

HOT tanks while healing the raid:

Roll 3x lifebloom on a single tank. You can use direct heals (regrowth, nourish, or HT) to refresh LB on your tank and to activate the Harmony mastery (nourish is preferred if it’s likely to result in over-healing. In a phase with a lot of burst damage, a regrowth or HT could be preferred). You can refresh LB with LB if your harmony doesn’t need to be refreshed.
Use your AOE heals (wild growth & Swiftmend/Efflorescence) every time they come off cooldown. Keep in mind that Efflorescence only heals up to 3 targets at a time, so it can be used effectively on small groups of people or even just one without losing too much effectiveness. You still don’t want to use swiftmend on targets at full health, as that can be too much overhealing, so choose a wounded target likely to be stationary for the next 7 seconds (this may often be the melee group or sometimes even your tank).

Put Rejuvenation on your tanks and use rejuvenation on light to medium-wounded targets in your raid group. You can also use rejuv proactively to try to get several rejuvs sprinkled around the raid group on people likely to be taking damage in the near future (and to set up who you may want to swiftmend). Also, since the value of HOTs are determined by the buffs when they are cast, if your mastery falls off, it won’t affect remaining ticks on HOTs you have already cast.
Use direct heals to supplement HOTs as needed (especially on targets below 50% HP). You won’t use much in the way of direct heals for this role, since your frequent swiftmend casts should provide most of the direct healing you need, but there are fight-specific mechanics (ie. baleroc in Firelands) that require or favor direct heals.
Tranquility is also nice to use now because it will heal people outside your group, and at a 3 minute cooldown (after talents), you should get ~2 uses per boss fight during heavy AOE times.
This healing style will evolve a lot in various encounters, so you have to be able to adapt to the situation (fast reflexes).