[HOLY] is this common knowledge?

[xXpenguinsXx]

A lot of people I know say to put beacons on tanks and heal others... but i've found that not to be the most optimal way to play.. here is why...


The logic in the games code for the mana reduction (by healing a beacon target) (also the 4pce effect) happens as soon as you finish the cast. It is important to note that this fires BEFORE the number hits the player.

The logic in the code for the beacon heal happens AFTER the number hits the player.

Using the Glyph of beacon of course takes it off the GCD so you can cast a beacon in-between heals without losing a GCD.

so you can essentially trick the system into giving you both your Mana reduction/4pc stack and your beacon heal by switching beacons before the heal hits..

since this is the case why would anyone want to let a beacon sit on the tanks when you can micro manage them and not let them go to over healing, and get a little mana back while doing it... this does not require you to heal the beacon target either, you can heal anyone and micro manage by switching the beacon from a full target to a half target.. and if a tank happens to take a hit after losing the beacon well that just means he's my next holy light target.

my question is how publicly known is this mechanic? I can't assume that i'm the only one who has figured this out as I've been doing it since MOP to get free holy powers, as it worked then too.

[Sephis]

The 4p procs from any heal, including the heal from the beacon itself. You do not need to directly heal a beacon target to get the stack.

[Keiyra]

#1) Sounds like it would only work consistently with high latency.

#2) So little gained from so much effort. That much micro managing in order to "scam" some mana cost reductions is so not worth the trouble, particularly when Paladins have ridiculously high mana longevity to begin with. So not worth it IMO.

[xXpenguinsXx]

The 4p procs from any heal, including the heal from the beacon itself. You do not need to directly heal a beacon target to get the stack.

what i mean to say is that you can rev your stacks up instantly if need be by switching the beacon gaining, a stack from your 1st beacon, a stack from your 2nd beacon, then healing the switch target or your "3rd beacon" for another stack. not entirely necessary but can be useful to know.

- - - Updated - - -

#1) Sounds like it would only work consistently with high latency.

#2) So little gained from so much effort. That much micro managing in order to "scam" some mana cost reductions is so not worth the trouble, particularly when Paladins have ridiculously high mana longevity to begin with. So not worth it IMO.

actually it really works well in low latency, worse in high latency.. it has to do with how the game functions, the beacon needs to switch as the heal is being calculated. and in order to switch the beacon you have to have a low latency. the calculations are done server side as well as the beacon calculations so really this is an error in wow's logic that i'm exploiting.

of course it's a lot of effort... it's a ton of effort.. but it's not just the mana cost reductions we're after here, the mana reductions make it possible rather makes it cost efficient to beacon switch... by managing your beacons well you remove a lot of the over-healing associated with beacon... I've got it so that my beacon is consistently my top heal, rather than my illuminated healing.. i've dropped my overall over-healing approximately 10% doing this and those over heals into effective healing. The average beacon heals for my companion holy pally happens to hover around 20% beacon, whereas mine tends to hover around 30%. That's a 50% increase in beacon heals over him which could mean 3 millions heals? and with him having his ring and class trinket, i'm able to keep up with him without said ring and trinket. as long as i'm not having mana issues during the fight there is no problem, i've even had to use it when i was OOM in order to pump out as much heals as i can with the little mana I had left... it's been a very successful technique, but hard to keep up.

[CloudedInSanity]

You're going crazy here with Beacon dude.

Here is the thing, at best (provided this works) you save 50% the mana cost of the ability minus the cost of moving the Beacon. Not using Phylactery this is 600 mana. Using Phylactery this is 900. Ok yes, a mana save. But what are you sacrificing? Chance are if you are healing a Beacon target in the first place, they don't need the healing. So you are saving 600 mana to do maybe 50% healing (this is probably generous) to the main target to gain 600 mana and the healing transfer to another target.