Healing help!Follow

Ok I need help with healing as a shaman.I've healed as a disc priest before and when a tank gets low on health there are a few oh sh%t buttons like penace or shield if its able. The problem i seem to keep having is I don't see one as a shaman. I'm not into heroic yet because I'm only level 73 but, I want to solve this problem if there is one, of the tank dieing because I'm not able to get a heal off in time or some way prevent damage. Do any other resto shaman have any advice or maybe just tell me what I'm doing wrong.

An example will be tank will be at half health and then takes another hit to drop him down to about 25% or less. When this happen my first reaction is to cast riptide for the instant heal but then after that I go and to cast lhw but tank dies. This is a rough explanation of what happens but its the best i can do at this time before going to work.

once again looking for help not to be flamed and called a noob.

Heal the tank before he gets to half health maybe?

Tanks need lots of heals at your level and don't hold aggro so well. So CH spam the tank and make him wait when you need to drink.

Getting that CH queued up early always helped me. Even if the tank is at full health, CH has such a long cast time that either (a), the tank (or other melee) takes damage before it lands and you are ahead of the game, or (b) the tank doesn't take damage and you have the opportunity to either cancel the spell and re-queue it or just let it go off to over-heal. CH is still relatively cheap, so over-healing with it shouldn't be too much of a burden on your mana pool.

Make use of your talents as well. Many shaman's get in the habit of spamming CH. While it can be effective, it defeats the purpose of having points in several talents. Ancestral Awakening has incredible synergy with Tidal Waves, Tidal Force and Riptide. To get the most out of smart-heals, you need to vary your selection and set-up the heals. It pays to be proactive.

Oh, and never let your Earth Shield fall off the tank. Refresh it early if you are idle for a period of time during a fight and it has less than 3 charges left. Better that you overwrite it than notice it has been used up. It is the best heal in the game as far as I am concerned.