The Reluctant Tree
My Evolution into a Tree of Life Druid
Early in the expansion, when the buff was made to Lifebloom to have all 3 stacks get a +heal bonus, I was still very reluctant to use this new style of healing. I down-ranked my Healing Touch, used Rejuvenation and Swiftmend. Lifebloom was reserved for spot heals for someone who needed a top off. While I was specced heavily into resto, Tree of Life was rarely used except to showcase its funny dance.
While I still pulled my own weight and felt somewhat effective on early encounters, I found myself getting a major case of “Paladin Envy”. They never ran out of mana! I found myself canceling more HT’s than I let go because those Flash and Holy Lights were really hard to beat.
Then our Shaman hit 70 and got their Karazhan gear. Some decisions had to be made about healing spots and I was forced to make them. We wanted 2-3 Shaman, 3 Paladins, 1-2 Priests. Where did that leave Druids? I was forced to start sharing my spot, not fun for any of us, mostly because we knew it was necessary, that we were the most dispensable. Not because we were bad healers, but because we didn’t bring buffs, totems or heroism/bloodlust to the raid.
I had to find my niche. The thing that would make me valuable and indispensable to my raid.
So I started researching. I tried as many things as I could to stick with what was comfortable for me, Healing Touch. I tried Dreamstate but felt I lost too much from my HoTs with this spec, and while it solved my mana issues on demanding encounters, I still felt like I wasn’t bringing anything more to the raid another Paladin would, and they would also bring another blessing. Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t a terrible healer, I did well on the meters with both effective and over heal. I guess because I was Healer Officer and Guild Leader, I felt I had to look at the situation differently. I felt I was eating up the spot another blessing could bring by doing the same job another Paladin could do. We happened to have a couple skilled Paladins sitting out of raids at the time.
And so, I became a Tree. It was hard at first. Trying to get more out of 7 seconds than was possible my stacks would fall, a lot, and I would end up dumping a lot of mana re-stacking. I dropped on the meters and and felt like it wasn’t working, but I also knew I wasn’t doing a very good job of it. The hardest part was learning to trust the other healers and to just keep doing what I was doing aside from the occasional rejuv, swiftmend and NS Heal when necessary; that what I was doing was making it possible for them to do their job better. Pro-active healing, instead of reactive or predictive, it was completely new to me.
Finally, after a lot of practice, I found my niche; those bosses known for spike damage on tanks became easier, keeping up multiple tanks became a breeze. Instead of trying to perform the role of a paladin, priest or shaman I was complimenting their role and performing my own.
Disclaimer: I don’t want Dreamstate or HT Druids to boycott my blog! I still miss this style of healing and enjoy heroics where I get to use it more often and on those days we are short Paladins and I get to take over a bit. For me in WoW, one of the most important goals I have is to be an asset to my guild and have fun doing it and due to the amount of talented Paladins we have becoming a good Tree was the path to my goal 