I've got a slightly more complex rotation that I've been using for tank and raid healing.

Basically it goes:
CH, RT, HW, HW

I cast the RT on the same target as the CH, and I rotate through 3 different targets of casting a CH & RT - that means my CH is being cast on a target who's RT is about to expire (I'm glyphed for extra duration on RT). I find this best eats up the 6 second (soon to be 5, as soon as I get 2nd piece of t8) cooldown on Riptide.

Just a straight RT HW HW rotation leaves some time before you can cast RT again, and rather than cast a 3rd HW, I find that casting CH on a target with RT gives it a 25% boost, which makes its direct heal about as powerful as a HW for the same mana cost (and then it jumps to nearby targets, unlike a HW). Casting a CH on a target who's RT is not about to expire wastes the HoT effect of Riptide, which is why I cast it on a target who's RT is about to expire. I like to keep the HoT of Riptide up on 3 targets at once, and in 25 mans, that usually means all 3 tanks. In 10 mans, and some fights on 25 man, I'll throw a RT on a dps, and skip the chain heal when its about to expire if the dps doesn't need it. I do this regardless of my role, although I usually won't run around if one of the tanks is out of range due to the way the fight is done (Iron Council is one of the exceptions that comes to mind where I do run to keep RT on all 3 tanks).

Its what I do with the 2 HW or LHW between my CH (to eat up RT), and refresh of RT on the target that is determined by my assigned role of either tank healing or raid healing. My guild's tanks like that I keep a RT on them even when I'm assigned to healing another tank. Each of the tanks is just getting a buffed CH followed by a RT every 20 seconds or so, so its not much of a distraction away from my duties, but it makes them feel better having another HoT on them.




Given that TW makes the HW or LHW spells take about 1.5 seconds (or less), and RT has a 6 (or 5) second cooldown - that means that everyone is casting 1 non-TW boosted spell as part of their rotation (or just spending 1.5 seconds not casting during their rotation). You do need to refresh Earthshield, or re-drop totems every once in a while, but definitely not every 6 seconds. Using the time to cast a Shock Spell on the boss is an option, but only good if your mana regen allows it. But I prefer to cast CH for this non-TW boosted spell, since it will be an RT boosted CH.

Given that RT gives a 25% boost to the effectiveness of CH, I'm surprised I haven't seen more talk about a rotation using both RT and CH in combination. Am I the only one here that uses a rotation centered around RT & CH?

If the Riptide is on a dps, then I usually don't cast a chain heal on the dps right before the RT expires
But if it is on a tank, then I don't consider it a waste to be casting a chain heal on the tank

But I definitely am geared too much for mana regen - I don't even use the mana ride totem too much
I've found the [Soul of the Dead] gives me some really ridiculous mana regen, so I always use it (its crit bonus isn't bad either), but I rotate between 3 other trinkets for my other trinket slot. I've tried to decrease my emphasis on mana regen, and I am saving up emblems to get the t8.5 helm soon (its got no mp5 on it) which will help decrease it

I use my HW and LHW spells between the CH & RT for what my role is for the fight, but I've found it rare that keeping RT on a tank, and then casting CH on him right before the RT expires to be a wasted cast. There are a few times where one of the tanks won't be taking damage, and I'll alter my rotation accordingly, but the majority of the time, there are 2 or 3 targets that need the RT & Chain heal combo.

As always : preformated rotations are for DPS (and maybe tanks) but definitly not for healers. As said before you may do more harm to your raid than the boss himself by trying to follow rotations. Of course everyone follow some kind of logic while healing, but you can't call that a rotation as rotation means something fixed in stone that you won't ever change.
Using a CH on a person at 100% hp whose RT is going to fade is a net loss. Losing the first hit of the chain to gain 25% effectiveness on the rest of the bounces is a loss in term of mana, HPS and global efficiency for your raid. If the RT is going to fade away on some dps/healer who got 100% of his pv left, just let it fade away, it has done it's job already and cast CH on someone who will really need the first big hit of the CH.
Healing is more based upon reactiveness and 'feeling' than in applying a given rotation. Maybe on some fight you'll get lucky and the rotation will work with the timing of the boss abilities, but most of the time you'll lose a lot of effectiveness while trying to follow a pregiven order of cast.

I know it would be more accurate to ask that in the 'Healing Trinket' topic, but as you're talking about it here : Sixthy and the ones who have given a try to the new totem, how are you feeling about it ? At first glance I didn't wanted to try it and keep with the totem from Leviathan 25. But as the ICD seems to be 8 seconds and the proc rate at 70% I look at it in a different way right now. That means you can keep the buff nearly all time up as long as you cast a CH every 10 seconds or so ? In that case that would make it worth the 25 emblems of triumph and waiting a little longer for buying the first piece of T9.

From my experience so far with the relic, uptime is pretty close to 100% during effective healing time - or as close to 100% as one could reasonably expect. Of course, if there's a break during the encounter, or where where i am forced to move around a bit (Big bang for example) it may drop off for a few seconds, but it's usually back up again in no more than two casts - three maximum. This makes it a lot better than Steamcaller because i can utilize that extra SP for my Earth Shields and HWs as well (or whatever else i choose to cast).

Since my healing breakdown in standard CH heavy fights is about 70-80% CH, with the rest being made up by HW, ES, RT etc, the extra SP applied to all spells makes Calming Tide the superior choice i feel.