Originally Posted by PsyBomb

A cute resto shaman trick I found: Healing Wave rank one costs 23 mana and takes one second to cast. What is interesting to note here is that the [Totem of the Maelstrom] reduces this to 0, making it free to cast and as such it won't place you within the 5SR. This doesn't seem like much of an advantage, given that you can pump out all of 90 HPS with it in Sunwell gear, but look again.

Evil tricks include using it to stack up Healing Way and trigger Ancestral Fortitude. It counts as a nature-school spell, so it can trigger [Fathom-Brooch of the Tidewalker] for +335 mana (again, no investment other than 1 second to cast), and as a heal it can be used to charge up a [Vial of the Sunwell] (despite the fact that its normal heal at +2k healing is around 85). In ZA it can trigger the [Amani Charm of the Witch Doctor] (and since THAT heal takes place over the course of 9 seconds, I've had it help soak a nasty Saber Lash before... for nothing). I know for fact that I've missed several and I didn't write some of the less-useful ones here, but you get the drift.

Sum of it is that whenever I find myself with some breathing room, I'll equip the totem and spam HW(r1) on the tanks until such time as I need to start actually healing again, at which point I cast a main-rank healing wave and swap out mid-cast so that no time is wasted. I also do this in the few seconds before a pull to prep them for healing (and maybe get the armor bonus on the pull)