how to heal <60

[imabaer]

Some tips:

-Practice cast cancelling. Queue up a big heal (should heal about half his HP, max) on your tank, cancel before it finishes if he doesn't need it by moving. Queue it up again, cancel if he doesn't need it. This allows you to benefit from Spirit regen when Mana is an issue, and makes sure that if the tank does take spike damage, you've already got a big heal incoming.

-Be cautious on pulls, especially with pug tanks. Pay attention to the screen: if you heal the tank and the mobs make a beeline for you, Fade pre-emptively. In a similar vein, avoid using Power Word Shield before pulls. It's generally not needed and makes getting initial threat for a warrior a lot more hairy. If you want to make sure you have a buffer on a hard pull, use Renew, or try cast cancelling, as described above.

-Practice healing at close to max distance. Mobs can cleave or AoE. If a mob breaks off a tank, it gives you more time to Fade.

-Avoid Flash Heal. It's a bad habit. It'll do in a pinch but it's really, really mana hungry. Similar argument for PWS. Spamming Flash Heal will save your party in the short term but will screw you in the long term mana wise, unless the fight's almost over.

-Bind a key to "assist target", or get a mod that shows you the target of a target. Every so often, use it on the tank, especially if he sucks. You'll learn which of your allies (including yourself) is going to need a PWS to survive.

-Have a couple of mana potions handy. The CD is relatively short, and they'll save your ass in emergencies.

-As for deranking, don't even worry about it while leveling. If you really want to eke out more performance, your "big" heal shouldn't heal for more than 50% of the tank's HP. You should generally leave Flash Heal at max rank, as when you do need it, you'll want it to do more healing.

You have a LOT of room for error at the earlier levels. The earlier will help you when you are tackling more difficult content, but they're good habits to practice.

[flowison]

wow! thank you so much!

[Garfunkel]

If you run with a pug, before even the first pull, see how much of the tank's health bar your various healing spells cover. Just make sure that you have unitframes that show incoming heals on it. That way you'll know before you start whether you need to use greater heal or if normal heal is enough and you can even fine tune the rank to use if you want.

[Skullmiser]

You can totally cast Shield and renew on the tank before a pull and have enemies ignore you. All you have to do is shadowmeld before the tank enters combat. I do it all the time.

Be sure to mind control enemies with lots of healing spells when possible. It saves lots of mana.

Don't be afraid to Mind Blast enemies low on health if you have Spirit Tap. It's totally worth it.

[flowison]

You can totally cast Shield and renew on the tank before a pull and have enemies ignore you. All you have to do is shadowmeld before the tank enters combat. I do it all the time.

Be sure to mind control enemies with lots of healing spells when possible. It saves lots of mana.

Don't be afraid to Mind Blast enemies low on health if you have Spirit Tap. It's totally worth it.

shield on tank before pull?
most of the time the MT is a warrior. he wont get rage with shield.
shield costs a huge amount of mana and is better for other situations.

i am a dwarf, i dont have shadowmeld.

how can i mind control an enemy with healing spells?

[Skullmiser]

shield on tank before pull?
most of the time the MT is a warrior. he wont get rage with shield.
shield costs a huge amount of mana and is better for other situations.

i am a dwarf, i dont have shadowmeld.

how can i mind control an enemy with healing spells?

If you're a dwarf, then yeah, don't bother. I only do it if I have full mana anyway, and I'll proabably get it back before I need to heal again.

Mind control is a level 30+ shadow spell. I did it yesterday with an acolyte in Blackfathom Deep, and the acolyte got so much healing threat that it died because, the paladin tank wasn't very good because he didn't have consecration he says.

The things I'm talking about are a novelty, and if you're serious about healing you should probably ignore me.

[imabaer]

shield on tank before pull?
most of the time the MT is a warrior. he wont get rage with shield.
shield costs a huge amount of mana and is better for other situations.

Casting PWS before a pull has its merits, but it requires DPS who are willing to wait for the tank to get a couple of swings in. Among other things, it's a zero aggro buffer to his HP, since you cast it out of combat. You can also drink immediately after casting it, so if you have mage water, the mana cost for using it pre-fight isn't an issue.

If a boss's initial burst is particularly nasty and rage isn't an issue, you can give the tank a "super" buffer. PWS, wait about 12 seconds, then renew, drink: he'll have the shield, a fresh renew ticking on him, a weakened soul debuff that's about to fall off, and you'll be at full mana. You can also PWS a couple of other party members during the 12 second period if AoE damage is a thing.