I am a relatively new healer, having leveled to 70 as enhancement. I respecced to resto at 70 to learn the healing arts before 80. I have run a dozen or so instances and lots of BGs, so I think that I have the basics down. Deaths and wipes in instances have been minimal. I know I have had a few times where I was instrumental in saving the party from a bad situation. That is fun. I have even gotten a few compliments on the healing <grin> Not quite so fun when I cause the wipe by getting lost amongst the function keys. Topping the charts in BGs with heals isn't hard - just show up <grin>.

So, I keep earth shield on the tank, water shield on me, use riptide, lesser healing wave and the occasional healing wave (usually along with the oh crap nature's swiftness - I probably need to macro those together!). My main healing tool is, of course, chain heal. However, I have some questions on its mechanics that I haven't found elsewhere.

1) If I hit the tank with CH and his health is at or near full when CH goes off, should the heal still bounce to other party members?

2) I am glyphed to hit four targets with CH. Why does the heal only hit the tank, maybe one other person and no one else?

3) I thought if I cast CH on myself, it should also go to one other in the party. That doesn't seem to happen very often. Any idea why that would be?

I imagine the answers may have something to do with distance between me and other party members. However, I know there have been times when I cast CH on the tank and the person missing the most health is a guy standing right next and he doesn't get any healing.

Thanks for your thoughts.

Pushan
Mysteriorum guild
Terenas US

1) If the tank is at full hp and melee are not it should still bounce.

2) Chain heal hits one target for one of two reasons. Either there is no one close enough for a jump or those that are close enough are at 100%.

3) Sometimes it doesn't appear to happen but it does indeed happen if the situations of #2 aren't happening. Its hard to tell but if you check your combat log it should say it worked.


Hope that helps =D

Remember this about Chain Heal as well - the mechanics dictate that the first jump it makes are to the lowest percentage (health) within range. Thus, it's sort of a "smart" heal in that regard. This can be an issue adversely as well, in some situations. For instance, if your melee does the whole "dip in the slime" thing on Patchwerk, they're going to ninja all of the CH that was meant for the tank.

Bottom line, CH bounces are what they are. You can pre-emptively try to gather the raid tighter (this is *awesome* for the achievement with that Voidy in Violet Hold, Zuramat) for maximum bounces, but usually you just hope it'll bounce. As long as the total number (3, 4 if glyphed) of targets have not been reached, it should go to any target in need of healing that is within range.

Also, with regards to self-targetting CH, this works pretty well in some situations. Most notably, I always self-target my CH when everyone is clumping behind an iceblock for Sapph since I can't really be bothered to see who is behind iceblock A and who is at iceblock B. Just play around with it and freelance, you'll get an idea of when to go where with it.

Lastly, *do* make that emergency macro. I'd put Nature's Switftness, Tidal Force, any trinket you've got and Chain Heal all into one. Great to have for firing off a CH on the run, or when KT frost tombs 3 people because someone didn't check distance.

Good god Manchego! That's brilliant! I've only done KZ once, but we lost a melee on pretty much every attempt.

As long as you have another AoE healer, aka priest or druid, then you should be fine with just a cast. That's what I do, and if I'm worried i pop my macro that uses Nature's Swiftness, Tidal Force, and my trinks, but still lets me choose the heal I use it on.

Push, one thing you may want to look at is why you are glyphing a certain way. Resto Shaman glyphs proved a great deal of flexibility based upon your expected content. The 4th bounce of chain heal is a great example. This glyph is fantastic in a raid situation (especially if you run melee heavy like my guild does.) If you are mostly running regular heroics at this stage, however, its not nearly as good. Its just not that common in a 5 group for you to have 4 people close enough to have that extra bounce actually trigger off. Lesser Healing Wave, in contrast, is less useful in raids (because shaman are often not single target healing) but absolutely fabulous for your work in 5 mans (where 90% of the healing will be directed on one target).

Customizing your glyphs to address the content YOU actually do is one of the best ways to improve your healing. Most discussions on this front are directed toward a raid environment, so its important to look at the reasoning behind the recommended glyphs.

Just a quick follow-up. I healed a bunch of instances this past weekend. I was getting my four CH hits even when I started with myself. I think it was a distance thing.

I hit 80 and added glyph of Lesser Heal to Chain Heal. I moved 3 points from Healing Way to Thundering Strikes. I can't give up instant puppy form just yet. I like running the flag in WSG too much and still like to have the "OS!" button.

I have a macro Nature's Swiftness, Ghost Wolf. Not quite instant, you have to press it twice while running, only once if you're standing still. A poor mans instant puppy.

clever macro - hadnt thought of that. I think i will copy your idea.