Leveling a new Druid

[Delicious]

Ok, I'm leveling a new Druid. I just hit 30. I've been leveling as Boomkin, I have a feral/guardian on another realm. I've always wanted to druid heal, and I think now is the time to do it. The last time I healed was on my Shaman during ICC. Thing is, healing always makes me nervous and I feel like I'm messing up. I really want to get this right. I used healbot during ICC, but I think I want to use VuhDo this time around, it just seems more customizable.

I want to start out right, I want to set it up so it's easy to use and efficient at the same time. I know I don't have a plethora of spells currently, but what should I start out using? Is there a newbies guide to Druid healing? Any and ALL help is appreciated. I don't want to be the healer that no one wants, I want to be the healer that is essential to the group.

[ophion1990]

Low level dungeons are a bad place to learn how to heal really, damage is minimal and you don't really go oom unless you spam regrowth. When I healed on my druid I just kept up rejuv, regrowth when the tank takes alot of damage and Swiftmend if a clothy got aggro and is taking alot of damage fast or if you want to aoe heal.

Even if you're tank is undergeared healing really shouldn't be too hard though, hardest boss to heal is probably commander springvale if your entire group eats the aoe+breath but you're already past that level anyways.

[Olcar]

I set Rejuvenation, Lifebloom and Regrowth to middle, right and left mouse button. Swiftmend is shift-left click. Nourish and Healing Touch are less essential if you're just trying to learn.

If you keep lifebloom and rejuvenation rolling on the tank and keep up with the tank you're already better than a lot of healers in low level dungeons. Toss dps a rejuvenation if they need it and if the tank is topped up.

I set the tank as my focus at the beginning of the run to make it easier to see them on the minimap. You dont want the tank to get out of your line of sight for any length of time.

Swiftmend is a great spell and you should generally use it before regrowth if your hots arent enough.

A small thing with Vuhdo is it comes with a "Smartcast" setting for when you click on someone who has a dispellable debuff it will cleanse instead of healing. This can be undesirable in a crisis where you need to heal and not dispel so this feature should be turned off. Its under the "Spells" tab and then at the bottom of the list "Smart Cast", and then uncheck cleanse.

Also if you have a stray mob on you, its good to help the tank out by bringing it to him. Low level tanks dont have complete toolkits yet and dps wont wait to let them get aggro. This is why you will see tanks charging ahead with charge: they aren't doing it to make things hard for you they're doing it so they can get a few attacks in before the dps get there.

[adynn]

Actually dungeons are a great place to start healing, particularly if you're worried about the pressure as it simply isn't that difficult (although people being *really* dumb can and will still wipe you). Also note that healing LFR's isn't too bad either, although you tend to run oom pretty quickly at lower gear levels if you aren't careful. If you want you can set up mouseover macros or start using an addon like clique, however these days the default UI has improved immensely and it's more of a personal choice.

As far as healing goes; as other people have said you'll want to keep lifebloom ticking on the tank (this is good practice for raiding even if not necessary in a 5 man), use wild growth as your go to heal whenever 2 or more people have taken damage, all heals are very strong while levelling so instead of needing to rejuvenate each person you can often just use wild growth and most people will go to full health. You're going to want to glyph regrowth and use it when someone is taking sustained bulk damage as it's our largest single target heal, also use it whenver you get clearcasting procs from lifebloom. Swiftmend is good as an "oh shit" button to save someone, although less usable than it is in raids due to the decreased likelihood of needing to keep rejuvs ticking in 5 mans. Of course if everyone is taking large amounts of damage you either want to tranquility or cast wild growth and rejuvenation on everyone, that is generally the largest aoe hps you can dish out (also good practice for raiding :P).

Honestly the most important thing is to get a feel for how our spells work and their strengths and weaknesses, which just comes from using them.

Finally don't be too worried about how to heal in 5 mans, most of the time you're going to have very little to actually heal until you get higher in levels.

[Delicious]

Thank you for all the replies. I'm tired of Timeless Isle and ToT LFR so I guess I'm just going to level my baby druid and heal for a while today. Just hope everything goes well. Going to spend some time setting up Vuhdo in a bit.