Witch Doctor

The most characteristic shaman healing spell is, without a doubt, Chain Heal (aka: the Rogue’s Best Friend). It’s already an invaluable tool in five-man instances to top off the tank, the Rogue and the Hunter pet all at the same time, but it’s in a raid situation where Chain Heal truly shines, and where it becomes the staple heal for practically any restoration Shaman.

Let’s take a look at the tooltip:

Chain Heal (Rank 5)
540 Mana
40 yd range
2.5 sec cast

Heals the friendly target for 826 to 942, then jumps to heal additional nearby targets. If cast on a party member, the heal will only jump to other party members. Each jump reduces the effectiveness of the heal by 50%. Heals 3 total targets.

The tooltip doesn’t specify what “nearby targets” are, but research shows that they need to be within 10 to 15 yards from each other.

Another thing that the tooltip doesn’t mention is what I call the built-in bounce control; Chain Heal will never bounce off to players with 100% health, instead it will pick the targets that need the heal the most. It’s in this low cost / high profit nature of Chain Heal where its true brilliance lies; no other class is more efficient at healing multiple targets at once.

Its biggest advantage, however, is potentially also its biggest pitfall. In searching for targets that are low on health, Chain Heal ignores the type of target. Whether the target is another player, or a Hunter pet, or a Warlock minion - if it’s got a near empty health bar, it receives a heal. It doesn’t know about your own healing priorities. It doesn’t know that the Rogue is a more important target than the succubus (sorry Warlocks). This is why you should never hammer the Chain Heal button on autopilot - always keep your eyes open and on everybody’s health bars. Remember that sometimes a well-timed Lesser Healing Wave is a better option than a Chain Heal that might arrive too late.

Time to get nitty gritty with the numbers.

The spell coefficient of any magic spell in the game can be calculated by the formula (cast time/3.5), where instant casts are assumed to have a cast time of 1.5 seconds. In order to find your actual spell damage or healing output, you need to multiply the average spell damage or healing power indicated in the tooltip of a spell by its spell coefficient.

What does this mean? Simply put, the shorter the casting time, the smaller the bonus that the spell receives from +spell damage or +healing. For example, the spell coefficient of Healing Wave (with a casting time of 3 seconds) is 3/3.5, or roughly 0.86, but that of Lesser Healing Wave is only 1.5/3.5, or 0.43. This, by the way, is the reason that a downranked Healing Wave is usually preferred to a Lesser Healing Wave.

But to dismiss Chain Heal as having a coefficient of 2.5/3.5, or 0.71, is to forget that, if you’re doing it right, you will usually heal more than one target.

A commonly found assumption, used in various spreadsheets, is that Chain Heal will heal two targets on average. Specifically, it is said that Chain Heal will just as often land on only one target as on two as on three. Combine this with the knowledge that Chain Heal loses half of its healing power with each jump (so the first person receives a full heal, the second person half of that and the third person a quarter) and you find the following calculation: 1 * 1/3 + (1 + 0.5) * 1/3 + (1 + 0.5 + 0.25) * 1/3 = 1.4. Multiply this number with 0.71 and you find the actual Chain Heal coefficient: 1.01.

I’m sceptical about this approach. Having a Chain Heal land on only one person is not a good thing, and while it does happen, I simply don’t believe that a good Shaman lets this happen as often as one time out of three. Unfortunately, I can’t back up this gut feeling with solid evidence. As far as I know there isn’t any healing meter or other addon that tracks such details about your outgoing Chain Heals. (If something like that does exist: let me know, I’m interested!)

Another point is that I think it’s too easy to say that “an average of two targets healed” equals (1 + 2 + 3) / 3. There is a difference between the average amount of targets healed, and the average amount healed.

Example one: casting three Chain Heals where all three land on two targets.
Average amount of targets healed: two.
Average amount healed: 1.5 * 0.71 * (average base heal + bonus healing)

Example two: casting three Chain Heals where the first one lands on one target, the second on two, and the third on three.
Average amount of targets healed: two.
Average amount healed: 1.4 * 0.71 * (average base heal + bonus healing)

What does this mean? It means that the better you are at avoiding “wasting” your Chain Heals on only one single target, the more effective your Chain Heals become - even if the average amount of targets remain the same.

I would like to provide an exact number that can be used as a Chain Heal spell coefficient, but as I’ve pointed out: I don’t have such a number, I also don’t have the tools to calculate it. Either way, it’s not a fixed number, and I suspect that it varies significantly between one Shaman and the other, and even between one boss fight and the other. Having said that, and considering my ealier calculations: I’m pretty damn certain that the number 1.01 is too pessimistic.

On with the rest of the number crunching.

Like the other Shaman healing spells, Chain Heal is often downranked. From the EJ forum: (source)

Many shaman downrank Chain Heal to Rank 4 (and sometimes even Rank 3). Rank 4 gets the full benefit of your plus healing since it is learned at level 61 and is not subject to the down ranking penalty. By using Rank 4, you reduce your mana costs by 19% but lose only 10% of your healing power.

Some other useful information that can be found in that thread:

• Chain Heal can crit on each of the different jumps.
• The amount healed on the jump after a critical heal is based on the non-critical healing.
• Chain Heal can proc Ancestral Healing on any of its three targets.
• Trinkets that proc on direct heal can proc on any of the jumps, but trinkets that proc on succesful spell cast can only proc once.

Talents that Chain Heal benefits from are Purification and Improved Chain Heal. I recommend all dedicated resto Shamans to max out both of these talents.

The following totems are noteworthy if you seek to improve your Chain Heal (and with totems I mean the ones you equip in your relic slot): [Totem of Healing Rains] and [Totem of Living Water].

The Cataclysm Raiment, the Tier 5 raid set, and (especially) the Skyshatter Raiment, the Tier 6 raid set also offer huge boosts to your Chain Heal. But if you have advanced that far into the game then this probably isn’t the right guide for you anyway

Some practical tips to end this humongous essay with!

Chain Heal relies on having players standing close together. This is obviously quite easy with melee classes, such as Warriors, tanking Druids, non-healing Paladins, enhancement Shamans, Rogues, and melee pets. If at all possible, try to encourage your casters and other ranged teammates to cuddle up as well, as it makes recovering from AoE damage that much easier.

Chain Heal can be used to “heal around corners”. If target 1 is standing in line of sight but target 2 is not, you can use this to your advantage and cast on target 1 to heal both. This works even if target 1 is at full health! In practice you’ll find that this trick has only limited use, but it doesn’t hurt to know.

I’ve found that Chain Heal also works wonders in battlegrounds, and then especially in Alterac Valley. Things tend to get pretty chaotic in a 40-man PUG raid, so by the time you’re fighting Vanndar in his Stormpike stronghold (or Drek, depending on how you swing) it can be hard to select the proper targets to heal. Especially if there is no designated tank! The trick here is to run to the middle of the room and repeatedly cast chain heal on yourself. It requires very little brain power but is extremely efficient. (Of course, if you do have a designated tank, cast Chain Heal on him/her instead!)

In conclusion: thank you for reading, I hope this post has been of some use to you. As usual, I welcome feedback, my opinions are flexible and my arguments debatable. I will keep updating this guide whenever needed.