Taking it Seriously

Not too long ago, a warrior tank posted on the Druid forums, asking Resto Druids to please just heal and not try to dps in an instance.  He said that if he was in a random with a Resto Druid who was dpsing, he would vote to kick.

Fine.  Kick me.  Just because I am healing in caster form does not mean I am not taking my healing job seriously.

At the current time, and in my current gear, I can usually hold up a random Heroic with minimal effort.  If the tank is T9 or better geared, I can almost hold up the Heroic asleep.  It gets really, really boring sitting there in Tree of Life form, tossing a Rejuvenation only when the previous one has worn off the tank or when a dps does something silly and pulls one of the adds.  (This is the only sort of circumstance where I can chat while healing, actually.)  There are almost times when I wish someone would do something dumb, so I could wake up and save the day.  (Woot! Swiftmend!)

So to combat this tedium, I usually heal Heroics in Night Elf form, so I can toss Faerie Fires, Moonfires, or Wrath.  If we've pulled a pack and the tank has a stack of HoTs, I'll channel Hurricane.  If, for some reason, I find myself tanking an add, or if the group is undergeared and requires full-time healing (Hooray! A challenge!), I will shift into Tree of Life form.

Most of the time, nobody bats an eyelid when they see me in Night Elf form, especially when they see I've got a Val'anyr.  But every so often, someone will comment.

"Druid."

"Yes?"

"Why no tree form?"

"No need."

"Oh."  (If they were typing everything, they would have typed /blink.)

"And this way, I can throw out the occasional dps, as well."

I can almost see the wheels turning in their heads as they process this idea.

If I ever find a tank in a random Heroic deciding to kick me because I was tossing a Hurricane, while he and the entire group were at full health, I will happily put his name on Ignore.  After all, I do not care to play with people who do not want to play with me.

Postscript:  Official guild ICC 25 raids are a different matter.  Even in trash, there is usually a lot of healing to do, so I'm never bored enough to feel the need to dps.  The only times I end up dpsing there are if we have been very sloppy, we're verging on a wipe, and we just need to zerg down the boss another two percent or so . . . or we've all just been resurrected on the Lich King fight, of course . . .