How do you heal uncoordinated groups?

[Sir_Die_alot]

Am I missing alternative solutions to this? I don't really like not healing people who may drop, I don't like always being the first to die, and I'm pessimistic about my chances to get people to hold aggro by educating them (with the exception of friends and guildies who are excellent). Maybe I could try something like "No heals until I see a sunder on the mob"
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I've actually done that, or similar statements. I've even said "Ok we will do it your way." and when the group wipes I say "Your way didn't work let's try mine." The truth is, the hardest thing to find for a group is someone to be the dedicated healer. There are plenty of tanks. If you want to be obstinant about other people's playing you have some room to be that way, and sometimes you just have to be. If you have built up a reputation as a competent healer people will know it's the tank screwing up and are likely to support you in finding another. Threaten to leave the group, see who gets kicked out. Or what I like to say "If the druid ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!" (Just make sure the tank and the party leader aren't in the same guild! :) )

Another thing you can do is type /macro. Push "new". In that box type /yell HELP! I'M BEING ATTACKED!" Put that somewhere that you can spam it when your tanks and off tanks aren't paying attention. :D

As a druid I've found that you should avoid big heals. Heal with rejuvenation well before someone needs to be healed. You have great DOT spells so try to use them to negate the damage the tank is taking. Use healing touch only when that isn't enough, and then only a rank that will put them just below or exactly full life. Even at 60 I'm healing with rank 8 healing touch more often than rank 9 and 10 put together. If you do pull the aggro and its 1 or 2 you can also shift to cat form, cower, and send that sucker back where he belongs. Often my traquility is for when I've pulled 1 mob and everyone else is busy with their own. I just hit barkskin and cast it, by the time it's done usually someone can help me out.

What I try to do in the long run is keep everyone just about full life and a rejuvenation, regrowth HoT, or both running on them. The reason for this is I can't power word shield someone with low life, so if they are regenerating 300+ a tick I have a better chance to heal them should they take a big hit.