OMG, it's a theorycraft post!

Yeah, it's a theorycraft post. Someone said to me that it's better to use a lower rank of Healing Wave than a Lesser Healing Wave. So basically, I'm going to find out if that's true, and at which ranks it would apply. These are my initial findings and it's not 100% accurate yet. It needs testing in practice. Armed with DrDamage and no gear equipped, I noted all of the Healing per Mana stats of LHW, HW and Chain Heal. Note that I still have this talent build(any flaws in it are blamed to me being rusty and cba to respec everytime I make a small error). CH is only there for completeness of the table.

Rank:	Lesser Healing Wave	Healing Wave	Chain Heal
1	2,1	2	3,5
2	2,3	2	3,6
3	2,4	2,2	3,8
4	2,5	2,3	3,9
5	2,7	2,5	4,1
6	2,8	2,7
7	3	2,9
8		3
9		3,1
10		3,3
11		3,4
12		3,7

The higest rank of HW has a HpM of 3,7, where the highest of LHW has a HpM of 3. Please note that the HpM is noted without wearing gear. Also, you can get a higher HpM on all spells if specced for it. I accidentally put points in cheaper totems, but cba to pay alot of money for that 3% less mana cost. Coincidentally, rank 8 of Healing Wave also has a HpM of 3. Let's compare the spells in detail.

	HW12	LHW7	HW8
Mana cost	720	440	440
Casting time*	2,5	1,5	2,5
learned on level	70	66	48
Avg total**	2650	1304	1304

This, I didn't think I'd find: Lesser Healing Wave 7 and Healing Wave 8 only has one difference between them: the casting time. Okay, there are a few talented differences, which I'll go over in the next paragraph. But the 1 second casting time means alot to me. When healing, I often find that the 2,5 second casting time is really long, especially compared to the quicker priest and pally heals, but that's not what this is about. It's hard already to keep someone up with only Healing Waves, if taking really heavy damage, especially if you have other people to keep up aswell, but you'll have assistance most of the time, since that's almost only in raids or instances gone bad.

But the long casting time also has an advantage to it, or rather, the fact that it's Healing Wave and not one of it's lesser brethren. It's the way of the Healing Wave, called Healing Way. Which is the bonus! If you heal with a lesser rank, you still apply the buff, meaning that your big heals will heal more if they land within the buff's duration. So in a way, Healing Wave is more efficient, if you can cope with the longer casting time. Which you use is based on preference. But, everyone's HW gets bigger from Healing Way.

Ofcourse, LHW scales differently. With gear, my HW had a higher HpM.

*With Improved Healing Wave talent maxed out.
**According to DrDamage, without gear.