From Billowy Face Melter to ...

Healbot. Ugh. I've gone ahead and made a concession (for the time being only) for my guild. I'm the only priest at level 80 in my guild. I levelled (apart from the sporadic instance or group quest) alone. I've ground and fought and face-melted my way to the maximum level. I've carefully collected gear along the way to help me DPS endgame. I've disenchanted countless "healer" pieces along the way.

And now I've volunteered to heal (at least for a bit). It was a calculated decision. After waiting around in Dalaran for a number of consecutive nights with all of a group except a healer and then never actually going anywhere, the solution seemed obvious. I needed to provide a healer (if I could) to my guild. I also decided to offer rather than be asked. Now, in my guild, I'd probably NEVER be forced (or even asked) to respec. But to me, it was better to offer to heal rather than be asked. Additionally, by it being "my idea" to heal, it can also be "my idea" to go back to shadow.

So, I've begun to look at gear with Spirit or Mana Per Five in a new light. I've re-enchanted and re-gemmed some gear. I've rolled on things that were only moderate DPS upgrades, but allowed better sustained healing. And I actually downloaded (but haven't completely configured) a healing addon (Healbot).

My first several attempts at healing (pre-Healbot) were just this side of disastrous. I've not played a healing role for close to six months. I am, perhaps, just a tad rusty. And I had just a few issues with my UI as it's currently set up. When I tried healing "by hand" I was often a little too slow on key heals. Most of it was practice, but some of it was bad set up of my interface for healing.

After downloading Healbot, I didn't trust it (completely) and was getting used to spell rotations. I found it MUCH easier to cast most heals, but when it got really hectic I went back to the manual healing. After a couple runs where my healing was just bad, I embraced the healbot. On my first several runs, I healed things I know I couldn't have done a few days before. It was a lot easier to keep up, keep folks topped off and not let the tank drop like a rhino on a bungee jump.

I really miss the billowy, face-melty part...I'll be back Shadowform!