There’s no set answer.
Generally speaking, what rank heal you use depends on how much HPS you need and how much +Healing you have.
If the target is in no immediate danger of dying, just cast weaker, more mana efficient heals, providing a steady stream of healing at almost no cost.
If they’re at risk of dying, that’s when you use high ranks to get more HPS out.
It really depends on the fight.
Bosses like Herod and Verdan can pack quite a wallop, for those fights you want to keep the tank over 80% so he can soak the big hits. Most of the time it really isn’t necessary to keep the tank topped up, unless you have mana problems.
+Healing has really been confusing, like do I want +10 or 10 int when choosing which piece of gear is better.
HOWEVER, I think I get it now
I’m basically using that gear to make my lower rank spells do the same healing as upper rank spells, but for a lower mana cost? Is that the idea?
If the tank is a warrior they should have shield block up at all times when tanking a boss. Crits should be just about impossible. I’ve never had a healer just let me die in hundreds of dungeon runs, so I just trust them to figure it out and don’t critique. I think critiquing the healer is a dumb move b/c it will probably just rattle them and make them less effective.
It’s at the very least worth experimenting with. It depends how much + healing you have but it can’t hurt to start experimenting with downranking ASAP.
I don’t know if this stands true for Holy Paladins before level 60, but they’re effectively 1:1 in terms of value, just because of the talent Illumination.
+Healing is basically spell power, or Intellect in retail. In Classic, however, Intellect doesn’t increase your spell power, and instead increases your maximum mana and your crit chance with spells.
Every spell has a spell power coefficient, so a percentage of your spell power is applied towards the spell’s healing. It’s not always 100%, so +100 healing doesn’t mean you always heal 100 more. It depends on the speed of the spell.
Every spell has a base cost and heal. Lower ranks are less efficient to start with, but because of the spell power coefficient being the same, they start to become more efficient in terms of healing per mana spent (HPM) as you gain +Healing.
Exactly.
This is incredibly dangerous to do in scenarios where there’s Silences, Mortal Strikes, heavy pushback, and LoS issues.
My friend can’t let my health dip in Stratholme because of things like this, and Baron Rivendare can be dicey due to Mortal Strike, and the constant AoE damage.
As a tank I always ask the healer to set the pace.
My response is that you heal the way you need to do so in Stathholme.
Judge the context, respond accordingly.
When I heal, I judge how dangerous the situation is, as well as the risk of incoming damage. Sometimes the criiticisms are more like back-seat driving, where everything is fine yet the person is still nagging.
Of course, they have to drink.
Dude a ton of people either haven’t played vanilla before or its been years so they forgot how it works. Just take note the good tanks or try to teach the ones who don’t know… the ones who don’t care are the ones to avoid.
Pretty much my same play style on my pally. Leveling spec I can heal just fine but I’m not going to spam heals for no reason.
Now on my priest I will hit them with a heal and throw a renew on them between pulls. That seems to make them happier but I don’t have that as a pally.
Small benefit of being a bear tank, I don’t want to be topped off. I will cast a hot regardless before every pull.
Sounds like you were grouped with a tank who didn’t understand classic healing mechanics.
One of my favorite parts about healing on my paladin back in Vanilla (as he got decently geared) was just being able to constantly spam heals without losing mana. Kept me busy and was super effective.
That mana per second return - those items are the boss. Get your cooking going for sagefish too 
(vendor is in stormwind for the recipe near the cooking trainer there)
The tank doesn’t know what he is talking about.
Spamming down ranked heals works for certain healing specs with the right gear.
For most dungeon healing, especially early on (as in pre raid BIS or lower gear), spamming heals for most healing classes is a bad idea.
Random side note- beware of anyone telling you to dowrank spells. From what I have seen most people that suggest it don’t understand the concept behind downranking in the first place.
Okay well don’t berate the tank for using bandages to top off then.
I can’t speak for other tanks, but I don’t GAF as long as I’m not dead.
If after the pull you’re drinking and I’m not full HP, I have bandages and cannibalize.
This. The healers I run with know what theyre doing and are good. The one tank ive seen tell one of those healers to ‘heal me’ in a run we were doing fine in got himself into a game. The healer began to let him drop lower and lower before heals went out until he was letting him scrape the single digits.
Still no one died, the tank kept his mouth shut from then on, and the heals started happening at normal times again after a few pulls.
Passive aggressive healers are my favs
In leveling instances. If I am over 50% and not imminently taking spike damage, I am usually not concerned at all. Below 50%, I am watching what’s going on more closely, to find out what is going on and anticipating any potential problems (eg is the healer ninja AFK, what are the mobs’ abilities, anything special about the circumstances to which I need to be extra careful of?) I may get defensive cooldowns/extra defensive tactics primed/going at this point. It’s when I am sitting below 20% for more than the amount of time a hard heal should take to cast, that I start getting squeamish, especially if I have exhausted my extra defensive options.
Don’t be silly - bandages are for the warlock that keeps tapping himself down to my “need to use super heal” level over and over.
Every time I have a warlock, it’s like I have two tanks, but one is suicidal.