I've got to wonder how much of the "healing is hard" view comes from trying to heal the way we're told we're "supposed" to. While I had to make some adjustments post-Wrath, they weren't too drastic and I haven't found healing to be too difficult. I still love healing.
The biggest adjustment I made was that I now use Lifebloom, which I found mostly useless in Wrath. The HoT portion is nice, but primarily I keep it rolling on the tank for Replenishment (adds 50mp5 per 10K mana to everyone) and let it bloom if the tank needs a big heal, reapplying after the bloom before Replenishement drops off. The second big change was that I don't just spam Wild Growth and Rejuvenate. I mean, after Lifebloom, those are still my two most important heals (and Wild Growth is actually my biggest throughput), but I wait until at least 3 people need healing to cast Wild Growth and only cast Rejuvenate on someone taking constant damage . . . probably using Swiftmend/Effloresence as well. Finally, I pay attention to using cooldowns. Use Barkskin when taking damage. Use Innervate whenever it's off cooldown and mana is under 75%. When massive damage hits the whole group, use Tree Form. The healing buff is huge. In Tree, I'll cast Regrowth instead of Rejuvenate, keep Wild Growth up a couple times and everyone will be at full even while the damage is ongoing.
Healing like that, I don't ever cast Nourish. I only ever cast Healing Touch with my Nature's Swiftness macro. I rarely even use Regrowth out of Tree Form unless someone is taking lethal damage while all other HoTs are already applied and Swiftmend is on cooldown. I didn't even take Naturalist or Empowered Touch, putting those points into Balance instead.
Between Replenishment, Innervate and conservative healing, I never have mana problems. I mean, I have to drink between fights occassionally, and I don't share Innervates. Which is a huge change from Wrath. But I don't go oom during fights. I only even have one point in Malfurion's Gift (and only because I need the point to move up to Tree Form) and I'm only putting 2 points in Furor.
Int, spirit and even crit are all good stats, but I still say to stack as much haste as you can. Lower GCD, lower cast time on Regrowth and all your HoTs heal faster. Haste is so good that if I don't need to cast Regrowth, I'll Moonfire something occassionally to proc Nature's Grace.
All told, healing is more challenging than it was in Wrath because I now have to watch what I'm doing instead of just throwing around heals like candy. But what I actually do to heal hasn't changed all that much.
The biggest adjustment I made was that I now use Lifebloom, which I found mostly useless in Wrath. The HoT portion is nice, but primarily I keep it rolling on the tank for Replenishment (adds 50mp5 per 10K mana to everyone) and let it bloom if the tank needs a big heal, reapplying after the bloom before Replenishement drops off. The second big change was that I don't just spam Wild Growth and Rejuvenate. I mean, after Lifebloom, those are still my two most important heals (and Wild Growth is actually my biggest throughput), but I wait until at least 3 people need healing to cast Wild Growth and only cast Rejuvenate on someone taking constant damage . . . probably using Swiftmend/Effloresence as well. Finally, I pay attention to using cooldowns. Use Barkskin when taking damage. Use Innervate whenever it's off cooldown and mana is under 75%. When massive damage hits the whole group, use Tree Form. The healing buff is huge. In Tree, I'll cast Regrowth instead of Rejuvenate, keep Wild Growth up a couple times and everyone will be at full even while the damage is ongoing.
Healing like that, I don't ever cast Nourish. I only ever cast Healing Touch with my Nature's Swiftness macro. I rarely even use Regrowth out of Tree Form unless someone is taking lethal damage while all other HoTs are already applied and Swiftmend is on cooldown. I didn't even take Naturalist or Empowered Touch, putting those points into Balance instead.
Between Replenishment, Innervate and conservative healing, I never have mana problems. I mean, I have to drink between fights occassionally, and I don't share Innervates. Which is a huge change from Wrath. But I don't go oom during fights. I only even have one point in Malfurion's Gift (and only because I need the point to move up to Tree Form) and I'm only putting 2 points in Furor.
Int, spirit and even crit are all good stats, but I still say to stack as much haste as you can. Lower GCD, lower cast time on Regrowth and all your HoTs heal faster. Haste is so good that if I don't need to cast Regrowth, I'll Moonfire something occassionally to proc Nature's Grace.
All told, healing is more challenging than it was in Wrath because I now have to watch what I'm doing instead of just throwing around heals like candy. But what I actually do to heal hasn't changed all that much.
