Chain Heal?

[Jezebel]

for those of you 5 boxing shamans.. how do you get around the 3 target limitation of chain heal? ive tried to play shamans and i just cant get used to how unpredictable chain heal can be when youre taking AoE damage or your enemies arent focused on one target.

anyone discovered any tricks to spread chain heal out and get a more even coverage in a 5 man setup?

[TMNT]

For chain heal if all my toons are down from lets say AOE or what not. I just have it cast them on themselves so everyone at least gets two hits from it. This way they almost always get healed. If someone is getting FF'ed i just lesser healing wave up to full. Also i think CH jumps to the next person with lowest health. Not sure on that one though but i doubt its just a random jump. Might be wrong.

[Jezebel]

i believe its the two closest targets.

however, since theyre generally all on /follow or spread out in a formation, the distance from the healers to the CH target is nearly always exactly the same. this means that at the time my chain heal hits, the two clostest targets will receive the chain heals, leaving two characters with nothing.

i suppose its just one of those things you have to live with, with a shaman. my previous 5box setup was 4 priests and an MS warrior. using rank1 CoH i could spam guaranteed 2.5k instant group heals for almost no mana.

[Skrimshaw]

My chain heal is setup to go in a circle. Death targets War, War targets Famine, Famine Targets Pestilence, Pestilence targets Death. I have never had a problem with that. For pve I also have a NS-chain heal macro setup for bad pulls or a hard hitting boss. I have been finding that emergency o'shit chain heal more useful than the 12% crit as of late.

[Jezebel]

My chain heal is setup to go in a circle. Death targets War, War targets Famine, Famine Targets Pestilence, Pestilence targets Death. I have never had a problem with that. For pve I also have a NS-chain heal macro setup for bad pulls or a hard hitting boss. I have been finding that emergency o'shit chain heal more useful than the 12% crit as of late.that would work fairly well in a 4 man team, since theres one chain heal per shaman. in a 5box setup, one gets left out and one gets overhealed by a crapload.

[Crayonbox]

I have my 5 shamans target a different one and hit chain heal. For the most part my shamans tend to be full or nearly full when getting aoed for semi low to med damage. For any other aoe damage, chain heal casts too slowly. self target + lesser healing wave is king for those.

[Skrimshaw]

My chain heal is setup to go in a circle. Death targets War, War targets Famine, Famine Targets Pestilence, Pestilence targets Death. I have never had a problem with that. For pve I also have a NS-chain heal macro setup for bad pulls or a hard hitting boss. I have been finding that emergency o'shit chain heal more useful than the 12% crit as of late.that would work fairly well in a 4 man team, since theres one chain heal per shaman. in a 5box setup, one gets left out and one gets overhealed by a crapload.

Even with just 4, my healer or extra dps in my 5 mans pvp or pve usually get healed full as well. I would imagine 5 targeting round like that would work well, but then again I do only run 4.

[moog]

I'm assuming the WoW Wiki is correct when it says:


http://www.wowwiki.com/Chain_Heal

The spell is cast on a friendly target. This target is healed for the advertised amount (plus 5/7 = 71.4% bonus from +heal gear).
The spell then jumps to the friendly target within 5 yards with the largest current health deficit, and heals it for 50% of the amount from the first one.
After that, the spell jumps a second time (but never back to the first target) to a third target, which is healed for 25% of the initial amount.
Personally, I have
9 - they all CH my current friendly target or me if the current target is an enemy
Shift 9 - they all CH a hard-coded target (A->B, B->C, C->D, D->E, E->A), which I also use for making my Pentagram light display :)I use Shift-9 mostly, as that will tend to bring everyone back up to max, and just 9 for those "oops, over-aggro" moments.

[Tizer]

Shift-9 is a bit of a finger stretcher for a WASD user :D

Im using the fixed target system, and a Shift modifier for focustarget heal too. Chain heal is great, but i find myself using a normal heal more often these days, especially if bloodlust is up, takes seconds to heal up full :D.

[moog]

Shift-9 is a bit of a finger stretcher for a WASD user :D
I'm a WASD driver and use 1 to =, SHIFT-1 to SHIFT-= and CTRL-1 to CTRL-= with no problems :)

Anyway, you're not moving when you chain heal, so use your other hand :thumbup:

[Elili]

I have my 5 shamans target a different one and hit chain heal. For the most part my shamans tend to be full or nearly full when getting aoed for semi low to med damage. For any other aoe damage, chain heal casts too slowly. self target + lesser healing wave is king for those.If you drop a man, one of your guys will just heal himself (Providing you made sure to the macro tells it to) won't he? Unless you put a pretty long list of targets (IE Try to heal A, then B, then C, then D). I personally just self heal everyone with chain heal if I want to get a lot of healing flying out. When you self heal it will still proc to the next two targets. It goes in order by who's taken the most damage. I have heard that if you have everyone on top of themselves sometimes heals won't proc around. Can't say I can confirm or deny this (It's on some thread), I don't notice it if it happens that way.

From http://www.wowwiki.com/Chain_Heal
This target is healed for the advertised amount (plus 5/7 = 71.4% bonus from +heal gear). The spell then jumps to the friendly target within 5 yards with the largest current health deficit, and heals it for 50% of the amount from the first one. After that, the spell jumps a second time (but never back to the first target) to a third target, which is healed for 25% of the initial amount. I've never had a problem with it not sending enough heals to everyone. In bad situations I prefer a self heal with lesser healing wave though, or 5 lower ranked to one person, since I tend to only heal when I'm getting hit, -a lot- and chain heal takes a while.

I do also have a hard coded chain heal that goes to specific characters bound, but I only use that for showing off, never in combat. I don't see the point.

[aNiMaL]

Confirmed it won't jump when all are full health.
I've been playing around with it a lot lately, trying to make a full font with the heals.
(not for typing, just for show in game or use it as some intro to a movie I'll probably never make :p)

I myself have them CH on a hard-coded target for combat if I have no healable target.
It has my preference,
because a char getting hit is usually the one needing the most and fastest heals,
if they would heal themselves they could get interrupted and only get procs to heal them.

[Toned]

I have 3 chain heal macros... I usually only use 1 of them on a regular basis.

Macro1: All shamans cast CH with the target being themself (most commonly used)
Macro2: All shamans cast CH on my focustarget
Macro3: Staggered A>B B>C C>D D>E E>A

Most the time I use macro 1, or just use my all cast lesser heal on self button, then for single target healing I usually just use Lesser Healing Wave on a defined toon for self healing my group. Healing people outside my group all cast lesser healing wave on my focus' target.