I'm curious to learn what type of healing most healers prefer.
I realize I'm putting this on the priest forum (because I play a priest) and as such the responses might be slightly skewed, but I'd ask everyone to base their responses on any type of healer they've played including their priest and answer accordingly.
To give a quick explanation as to why I'm asking about this, last night during my guild raid we went to attempt (unsuccessfully, again) Elegon and even though discipline has been my main for awhile and I've been told it's better for that fight, after a few frustrating attempts I decided I'd give holy a try just so I could personally see what the difference was. A few tries in holy spec and I decided to ask the healer I was healing with (a resto druid) which spec he preferred me to be in and what made it easier for him to heal. Instead of giving me a straight answer he launched into some random monologue about the amount of overhealing I was doing (he even went so far as to unknowingly insult me by stating "Overhealing happens when you heal someone at full health" like I haven't been healing for the past six years and couldn't possibly have already known that interesting fact). Turns out his concern was about me going out of mana from overhealing. I could have understood his concern when I was in holy, however in disc spec I manage my mana very carefully and never run out. My response was to ask him "You do realize the disc mechanics, don't you?"...I never received a response to that question from him however.
This got me thinking. I realized that on any healing class I've played I've always been a proactive healer, but particularly more on my disc priest for obvious reasons. I don't really even understand how most reactive healing can be effective, particularly on a HoT character like a resto druid. I never stop casting or healing, and I can't imagine sitting there just waiting for damage to occur, and then attempt to cast something (with a cast time!) to heal it up. It seems terribly ineffective to me, however I'm sure that might have something to do with this just being my "healing style".
My question to you is basically which type of healing you prefer, and what your experiences are with both. Thanks.