Would you forgo BoL?

[lumnights]

I was playing as my rogue in Heroic Halls of Lightning last night. Everything went smooth until Loken. After several wipes, I ask our healer, "Who are you targeting with Beacon of Light?", as it seems he was having a difficult time keeping people alive, me especially.

"I don't have BoL, I don't care for it and all the top holy pallies I know don't use it" he replied to me. I think I almost instantly shit my pants. My alt is a holy pally and though I think BoL could use a little help, I couldn't imagine healing without it these days. To me, the healer was effectively saying that he didn't really need to double his healing potential for a minute at a time. Our wipes seemed to be proving him wrong however.

While it can be reasonably argued that we could have taken less AoE damage, I'm convinced that we would have won a lot faster had he been utilizing BoL. So...

Do any holy pallies here choose not to use BoL in favor of having 1 more point to put somewhere else? If so, could you explain your reasoning, I'm interested in learning more.

As an aside, I also noticed that our boomkin druid was standing right next to the melee dps for the entirety of the fight, and seemed incapable of running out of range of Loken's AoE...ever. He said it was something about his channeled spells... Can anyone shed any light on that? Do boomkins need to be in melee range now? It seems counter-intuative.

TIP OF THE DAY! Loken's AoE does NOT hit you if you are considered out-of-combat. That means rogues can vanish and stay in the AoE unharmed, and this might work for that hunter ability also.

Peace everyone.

[Scuggs]

Loken's AoE is hellish... its cast time is balls fast and it hits like a truck. If you dont haul ass the second he starts casting, you're probably toast, or causing unneeded healing which takes away from the duties of the healer on the tank. And all range must be on top of him for the fight sans the AoE... He has a aura debuff that makes you take more damage the further you are away from him. If you're at 20 yards you take something insane like 3k a tick.

[Deleted]

Loken's AoE is hellish... its cast time is balls fast and it hits like a truck. If you dont haul ass the second he starts casting, you're probably toast, or causing unneeded healing which takes away from the duties of the healer on the tank. And all range must be on top of him for the fight sans the AoE... He has a aura debuff that makes you take more damage the further you are away from him. If you're at 20 yards you take something insane like 3k a tick.

This is VERY off-topic, but I love your signature!
That's all. Sorry.

[Stratus^]

Generally the new instances aren't fit for the Paladin type of healing, when 2 or more is taking damage then you have to switch to holy lights. That's were you mana starts to go down.

I played a bit as holy, but I am mainly Retribution and I'm not that convinced that Beacon is sufficient enough to the heroics... Unless you have some sweets from Naxx etc.

[Firecrest]

BoL is very very good. Especially in Heroics. The fights are generally pretty short so you're only refreshing it once or twice. Beacon the tank and he stays alive while you heal the party. It's absurd to think that there's anywhere better to put one talent point. And if you're not going all the way up the tallent tree to get JotP, you're just wrong.

As an aside, your Boomkin was right to be stacking with the melee (in fact, everyone should have been doing it too). The boss has an aura that ticks for more damage the further away from him you are. Not running out of the AoE is obviously a different matter though. What he might have meant about his channeled spells was that he was reluctant to break a spell he was channeling to run away. Next time point out to him that Dead < Interrupted Spell.

[Edd]

im sorry but being a holy pala myself i think this would ruin the pally class just simply because ur asking for an OP ability....

i like a challenge


/make it work on OH

[Rozwell]

beacon is absolutely amazing. i cant see not having 51 points in holy. its amazing for pvp and pve. lower level talents i can see. where to put the other 20 pts i can see being up to personal preference as both prot and ret trees have good bonus talents. everyone always asks who is getting bacon. there are so many fights where a pally needs to be able to heal several people. bacon lets us holy light the tank and shock and flash heal the group as needed. in raids i usually beacon an OT and heal the MT or vice versa. i dont know any holy pally that doesnt have beacon(bacon!!!).

ill bet they didnt take extended range on judgements or the haste talents either.
ive also seen pallys not spec into the haste buff below because they say they dont judge. missing out on 15% haste is plain stupid. the judgement mechanic has been changed to let u cast judgement without targeting first.

ive seen other pallys claim cleanse doesnt get rid of poisons, they werent specced for salv or excorcism, hadnt done the quests to get rez.

just sounds like your pally healer was surrounded by bad advice.

[Celton]

I'm a Holy Pally. I've found that Beacon helps a ton on the heroic bosses. It's really not that much mana, its quick to put on, and it really helps keep the tank up. I don't rely on it, of course, but it really helps to put that extra healing on the tank while you're spot healing the other party members, especially if they're taking a lot of damage and you have to throw some Holy Lights on them.

By the way, I also use the Glyph of Flash of Light and I use Judgement of Light pretty much every time its up. The 3% extra crit chance from judgements is awesome to get the boss down faster before my mana runs out. I use Holy Shock almost every time its up, I keep the Flash Hot on everyone who needs it all the time, and I throw in Holy Lights where they're needed. I have all the extra crit from the ret tree. It's a very fun way to heal compared to just spamming Flash of Light. I use the Glyph of Seal of Wisdom. I'm usually pretty close to running out of mana, even using Divine Plea a couple times during the fight, but a quick mana potion usually puts me over the edge to last the whole fight. In a pinch, I also have Lay on Hands. So far, we haven't found a heroic boss we couldn't beat in a couple attempts. We almost did the Culling of Strat speed run yesterday.

[zumten]

Theres a lot of interesting talents in the ret tree for a Holy paladin. Within the first 4 tiers, you can get 8% extra crit. If you go deeper you can get extra regen, a scaling with AP, and potentially instant FoL.

Im not saying its making the best builds, but it is a possibility. BoL uses so much mana that i do understand why somes holy paladins will prefer to not use it. Having to refresh it every minute, along all the other cooldowns paladin have like divine plea, arcane torrent(Belfs), seal, judgement, divine illumination, divine favor and trinkets.

I would personally use a build combining both BoL and the 8% crit from ret.

[Firecrest]

By the way, I also use the Glyph of Flash of Light and I use Judgement of Light pretty much every time its up. The 3% extra crit chance from judgements is awesome to get the boss down faster before my mana runs out. I use Holy Shock almost every time its up, I keep the Flash Hot on everyone who needs it all the time, and I throw in Holy Lights where they're needed. I have all the extra crit from the ret tree. It's a very fun way to heal compared to just spamming Flash of Light. I use the Glyph of Seal of Wisdom. I'm usually pretty close to running out of mana, even using Divine Plea a couple times during the fight, but a quick mana potion usually puts me over the edge to last the whole fight. In a pinch, I also have Lay on Hands. So far, we haven't found a heroic boss we couldn't beat in a couple attempts. We almost did the Culling of Strat speed run yesterday.

The FoL Glyph is terrible. Take it off. It defeats the whole purpose of FoL as a quick but significant heal. You should be semi-chaining FoLs on your tank and the party and then switch to HLs when serious damage starts coming in. That you're trying to keep FoL HoTs on people probably explains a good bit about your other problem. You should have no mana problems whatsoever as a Holy Pally. Especailly in Heroics. I can't remember the last time I used a mana pot. A common reason for Holy Pallies to have mana problems is because they're not stacking Int.

Stack Int. Stack Int. Stack Int. Stack Int.

Int is far and away our most important stat now. Some Pallies run into mana problems and go and stack mp5. But mp5 is terrible. One point of Int provides as much regen as one point of mp5 but the Int also goes on to improve your crit and spellpower. The reason for this is because of the percentage mana gain of Divine Plea. 25% of 18k is a lot less than 25% of 24k.

[Deleted]

No, I definitely would NOT forgo BoL. It has helped me tremendously. Then again, I know when to use it and how to use it effectively. In raids I was always topping the healing meters, even though we had resto shamans and priests there. And boy did tanks love me, it's so useful to be able to heal just about anyone and still be able to keep the tank alive.

I have had one holy paladin with me once who was ret/holy combination specced...he didn't heal even half as much as I did.

The only thing about BoL is that its mana cost should be lower. Otherwise I just love it.

[Bigs]

Off-topic but for future reference, from my heroics guide:

HALLS OF LIGHTNING

Loken

Loken has 2 abilities, and neither is particularly fatal if you understand the mechanics of the fight.

1. Damage Aura - Everyone in the group takes damage every three seconds, with more damage being taken the farther a player is from Loken.

Solution: Stack on the tank to minimize aura damage.

2. Casted AOE - Loken will occasionally cast an aoe with approximately a 10 yard range. For this, you must outrange it.

Solution: Run away from Loken when he begins the AOE cast.


Summary: The Loken encounter is simple if, and only if, your party members are competant. Everyone charge up to Loken together, tank him on the glass circle right in front of his throne and stack on the tank. Loken DOES NOT cleave. Healers should focus target Loken and have a subsequent Focus Target Castbar active. When he begins the channel the AOE (it's his only cast), TURN AND RUN. Do not try to finish a cast, do not use the last second of your uber-cooldown, TURN AND RUN. With Loken tanked on the golden circle, the limit to his AOE is the top stair step leading to his throne. After the AOE, the entire group should immediatly move back to Loken, have the tank reposition him in the circle, and normal phase one will continue.

[Deleted]

Nice tip(s) Bigs, spank you very much

[Merin]

You don't, period. Nothing you could possibly get would ever be as helpful. There's no debate to be had.

And going Ret to heal is LOL. Can you do it? Yes. Does it work ok? Yes, in normal mode 5 mans. Is it better than Holy? Not even fucking close.

Going Ret to heal is the line of disgruntled forum trolls trying to get their way.

[Ninjaurloots]

No way in hell I would skip BoL. I love it. Without it a lot of fights would be nearly impossible. Put it on me and I dont have worry about healing myself when Im taking aoe damage. Or put it on the tank if the dps are taking enough damage to keep him alive by healing them. Since it doesnt use overheals Ive noticed that in a lot fights the dps dont take enough damage to keep the tank up. I think it could use some tweaking. But overall its an excellent ability and IMO a must have.

Overall I havent had much trouble healing the heroics. I had trouble in H. Gundrak, and I havent tried HoL yet.

Honestly Im having a blast healing. Way more fun than DPSing with my rogue. Its actually a challenge.

[antidan]

BoL is a very useful pve talent. PvP, debatable.

[roflpot]

BoL is a very useful pve talent. PvP, debatable.

it's insanely good for battlegrounds. whack it on yourself and heal your team mates and you last forever.

[Xs]

As has been said, Bacon is basically mandatory for heroics, and going through every heroic I've had no problems with most tanks only just being def capped with ~24k health
The only heroic content that gives me troubles are the dragons in strat for when they do the 9k burst, the caster spiders in AN and Loken, and so far Loken is the only one that has defeated the group (made us disband).

Personally I think they should lower the mana cost by a few %, to get it down to 1k mana, and possibly add something to it for when you heal the Bacon target.

[deebee]

Beacon is great, and definitely makes the Loken fight much easier. Loken has three abilities btw

[Evereghalo]

Whether or not you hate it, or think it was wrong to be given to paladins.

It is still a must for heroics. Without it I could not see a paladin being able to heal a heroic that does splash damage, or you have dps that takes alota extra damage without it.