I was talking to Barbatos the other day because of an inability to get Heal Chains working with E3 7.0. Despite hours of trying, I run into an error when activating the heal chain that my very minimal C++ understanding doesn't allow me to resolve. Upon speaking with others, this is a known issue. Are people not raiding with 7.0? Or are heal chains not used in the later raid game? How are people getting around this? Just an older version? If so, does anyone have a 6.X (6.3?) download they can post here so I can downgrade? I want to start raiding with my group, but the lack of CH chains is holding me back a bit.
There are only a small handful of encounters at endgame level in which it's more optimal to run a CH chain. Most people use HoTs and single-target heals at raid level. Also, by doing this, you allow yourself more leeway with character class selection, since you don't need a horde of clerics to make it useful.
Killians had heal chains working in older versions of E3, but it was clunky, unreliable, and as stated above - wasn't all that useful in raids anyway. He sidelined the project & never got back to it. Doesn't sound like it got any better with Creamo's revisions for RoF2.
I think I'm OK for now, thanks. I'll take Apollo's tip and use a combo of HoTs and spot healing. My primary concern is longevity using this scenario. I also haven't found a good way to prevent overlap by healers (ie 2 heals happening at once when only 1 is needed). I may be missing something in that regard with e3.
I run 12 toons (Pal/Enc/Clr/Dru/Mnk/Brd and Ber/Ber/Rog/Wiz/Brd/Shm) and tank most things on my Paladin with only Clr/Dru healing me. I run a shaman as well, but I've actually set my primary melee dps as tanks in his ini and downgraded my Paladin to an Important Bot (really helps with balancing mana usage). Currently, my Cleric HoTs first at 92%, then my Druid kicks in with a spot heal at 84%, then I have my Cleric's spot heal set to fire at 75%. (Again, SHM doesn't list Apollo as a tank, so his spot heal fires at a meager 50%) Mostly (non-raiding), I'm able to just run off of Cleric HoTs, defensive procs, and the occasional Druid spot heal. If things get hairy (or if raiding), my Cleric starts firing spot heals, and if it *really* hits the fan my Shaman will kick in too, keeping up on patches in between my CLR/DRU cycle. Combined with Divine Intervention and my other Pally self-heals, it's surprisingly difficult to take me down despite not running a massive horde of healers (which let me focus more on dps for the groups)
