at what point in the game should i worry about putting a healing set and an "other" set of gear together?

im currently level 22 and dou mostly with a Lock.

thanks

You really shouldn't worry about gear sets until a much higher level. At low levels, it'd be a pain--financially and otherwise--to keep up sets for your forms. In my opinion, I wouldn't start getting gear sets until at least level 50. You could even hold off on it past there.

i had two sets almost right away, but i had my lesser used set (healing in this case) made up exclusively of drops or very cheap stuff - worked very well for me :)

I currently run 4 sets (not including my tuxedo set and fishing set) at level 45 I started gathering my second set and by level 55 I had 3 sets for each of my combat forms.(bear cat caster) I also have my Feralheart set that i actively run around in (you have to admit, its the nicest looking set we got). So I would say that you can even start collecting pieces as low as level 40.

i had two sets almost right away, but i had my lesser used set (healing in this case) made up exclusively of drops or very cheap stuff - worked very well for me :)
Yeah, doing the same now. It's nice to have some extra SPI/INT for instances and such, but I don't put much money/effort in it; quest rewards and the occasional AH bargain.

I think I started collecting 2 sets around level 35 or so, about when I started getting a lot of int/spi leather quest rewards/green drops >.> I just kinda used those when I needed to heal (which was pretty rarely). And I um, never really bought any healing items, so when I found myself in BRD being the only healer at level 54... let's just say I had a couple level 40ish items, it was great. xD;; But it was okay, hehe, somehow the party lived, and I soon got upgrades in scholo, LBRS etc. :)

I think I branched off into 3 gear sets around 45, when I got my warden staff and started experimenting with tanking ZF (then switched builds to full bear shortly after, never looking back >.> <.<).

Tbh, I levelled feral and healed just fine in feral gear. I didnt have feral / healing set until I got endgame drops ;D. Now I have so many sets...

I don't see how you would have the bagspace to be efficient carrying around 2 sets leveling up. I had full 14/16 slots right away and they were constantly getting full~

Get 18 slot bags ... they are worth it when you carry a lot of gear.

I didn't start carrying mutliple sets of gear until my 40's doing ZF. I'm restoration so it's not hard to get groups and I keep my healing gear on most of the time.

Since then I've collected a tanking set (+defense) and a melee dps set. I swap out some of my +healing gear for +spell dmg gear and mix in my int/spi pieces when I need to do spell damage.

I started collecting a healign set once I hit level 55ish. If it was leather and not needed by the healer in the group then I looted it, I have been feral built since day one. So many times have I seen someone pass on something , have it get melted then within a few weeks you are back "farming" for the exact same item.

I kept a good cat set and a good healer set from the mid 20's on. It's always much easier to keep the healer set updated since there's less competition for caster leather. Bear pieces other than the Warden Staff and Tortoise Ring don't really show up until 55-60. That's when you can get the Ring of Protection, Mark of Tyranny, Smoking Heart of the Mountain, Cloak of Warding, etc. You still aren't going to have completely separate bear and cat sets until you start running at least ZG and AQ20.

Oh, and being the main healer while wearing feral gear because you can "still heal just fine" is like being the MT that refuses to use a shield because he can "hold aggro better with his 2H". Sure, you can heal just fine, but you're OOM about 3 times faster which at best means a lot more down time and probably means a lot more wipes. Crap like that is what is what gives ferals a bad name.