Druid healing in heroics, part II

I have already covered the basics of healing in heroics with this flowchart, but a flowchart cannot give the whole picture (see what I did there?), so this post will be a companion guide to that flowchart. For the record, the strategies herein are for druids who are still using heroics to gear up; if you already out-gear heroics, then just follow Jen's strategy:
1. Rejuv the tank
2. (Optional) WG the group
3. Afk until the Rejuv runs out
4. Collect emblems
What follows is advice for people who don't have good enough gear to follow this strategy. This advice is also meant to help healers build the habits they will need when they enter the raid scene.

1. Get some sort of HUD mod that puts your health bar in plain view.
One of the main issues new healers face is forgetting to heal themselves; they get so focused on keeping everyone else's health bars topped off that they forget about their own. That's why I recommend you get a mod like IceHUD (that's the one I use) that puts your health bar in the middle of the screen so it is right in your face. Here's a picture of it in action:














It may seem like it would just be in the way, but trust me, this bar is a life-saver. Having my health Bar right there is the only way I can remember to heal myself. You may want to man it out and try to watch your own bar along with everyone else's, but though your intentions may be good, they won't be worth anything when your carcass is on the ground not healing your party. Trust me; get the mod, or one similar to it. I use it all the time, so it's not a bad addition to your usual mod lineup.

2. Healing Priority: Tank, you, DPS
In heroics these days, you aren't likely to encounter situations where you will need to prioritize healing, but these situation do arise. Your tank may get overzealous with his pull, or you may get Moragg in Violet Hold, or you may be plopped in a Frozen Halls instance. Either way, remember this: the tank must survive. When you need to decide between dropping a heal on the tank and anyone else, the tank's survival comes first. Your survival comes next, for, without your healing, the party will drop like flies. Now, this does not mean that your should not heal your DPS; without them, the boss won't die. However, most DPS these days are in such good gear that they don't need to be healed immediately; still, clothies will be clothies, so if you and the tank are all set for healing, make sure the DPS gets their share.

3. Use Barkskin if you are attacked.
Nothing too complicated about that. Barkskin reduces the damage you take and allows you to heal without your spells being delayed by damage, so if enemies decide to head your way, toughen up a bit with this spell. I also recommend using it before using Tranquility so as not to lose ticks of that spell.

4. Use Innervate when your mana reaches 10,000 less than its maximum.
Innervate restores 7866 mana at level 80, or about 8,000. Since it is your main way to get back mana, you want to have it available frequently, especially when you move into raids, where boss fights will be long enough to allow you to use Innervate two or three times. As such, you want to use it early, but how early? If you use it when you are lacking exactly 8,000 mana, you may regenerate mana in the time that Innervate is active, causing you reach maximum mana and waste your innervate. If you wait until you are lacking 10,000 mana, you probably won't regenerate enough mana to cause you to waste the mana you gain from Innervate. So, if you have 30,000 mana, use Innervate when you have 20,000.

5. Rebirth the tank if the fight is salvageable; rebirth a person capable of resurrection if it is not.
Let's say your tank has died on a boss fight, but that Death Knight DPS went into Frost Presence and took control. He can tank it for now, but you know he won't last long (of course, in a heroic, he will, but we are building habbits for raids, here). In this case, the fight is salvagable, so use Rebirth on the tank and heal him as quickly as you can so he can get back in the game and start tanking again. Now, suppose the tank has died and none of your DPS can off-tank. In this case, the boss will probably rush through and massacre your party before you can resurrect the tank and get his health back up, and if no DPS survive, the fight will take forever. As such, if any of your DPS can resurrect, it's better to use Rebirth on them once they have died. They can then wait for the fight to end, then accept your rebirth and resurrect everyone else. That way, people don't need to run through the heroic again. Note that, in most heroics these days, you are unlikely to encounter a situation where using Rebirth on a DPS is better than using it on the tank, but again, you are building habits for raids here. In fact, you probably won't ever use Rebirth in a heroic, but still, if you encounter a situation where you do need to use it, it's important to know how.

I accidentally posted this early, so you get your advice early this week.