I learned first aid on my druid, got it to 375 and still had enough cloth left to skill up my tailor alt. So I would definitely NOT pass on this great skill only on the basis that you might waste a bit of cloth levelling it up.
The great aspect of first aid for me, as a feral:
- at I progress in lvl my eq gets more and more specialized, esp. in Outland, to the point where I am not wearing ANY eq with +int. Therefore for the first time I'm starting to have issues with mana from time to time. First aid can help in this case
- first aid starts healing you as soon as you hit the button, whereas heals starting healing after casting time (+ HoT tick). It sounds like a negligible difference, but when in a tough spot it can make a lot of difference, yes even 1 second worth of healing can make a difference. While soloing elites it can be really useful to bash/root, jump back and bandage.
- it reduces your downtime, especially in situations with strong time pressure, e.g. escort quests.
EDIT: re: unused bandages, I usually either send them to alts who can use them (e.g. my rogue needs a lot of bandages), or I give them away to warriors (and similar classes) in my guild. Everybody is happy.
Edited, Apr 20th 2007 9:07am by anathor