Is Beacon of Light really that good?

[Sanguissa]

I thin kbeacon is not some awesome tool to get your healing meter blowed up from datas. Its technical tool taht helps you coordiante healing to keep things alive, not to help you increase your healing meter.

[iglocska]

I thin kbeacon is not some awesome tool to get your healing meter blowed up from datas. Its technical tool taht helps you coordiante healing to keep things alive, not to help you increase your healing meter.

So, you think the only reason one would want a higher healing output is to top meters?

Beacon allows me to do such things as tank one of the casters of the 4 horsemen, whilst healing the ranged DPS tanking another, it allows me to heal a tank and an off tank on a lot of encounters (Patchwerk?), it allows me to use tricks such as beacon on myself, hand os sacrifice on the tank to save the tank in high damage moments.

Really saying that I implied that it's the healing meter data I'd want to blow up is ridicolous.

[Montoya]

Coming from a Ret paladins point of view... I love bacon. Having a Holy Paladin in the group that casts baconn on me means that I can go all out on the DPS while they focus on the tank. Without that It's spot healing and hoping that the other healers are paying attention to my health bar.

So, plus one for Bacon!

[Dokoran]

Beacon is definitely worth taking.

Also make sure to get the Flash of Light glyph and Holy Light glyph, both are getting some nice buffs in 3.0.8.

I suggest Kare's build. Crit is -extremely- important for a holy paladin build. mp5 helps, but never go out of your way for it, if you get a upgrade that has it, hooray, but that's about it, don't go looking for mp5, look for +crit. +crit+crit+Crit+crit.

Haste isn't a throw away stat, but at the bottom of the totem pole for holy paladins.

You want Crit and Spellpower and int. Those are the 3 most important.

With raid buffs etc. our holy paladin sits at about 45% crit on his spells, which allows him to keep up with the holy priest and resto druid mana pools. I love having a holy paladin focusing on melee and tanks and with beacon of light, makes your job a lot easier and with the buff to Holy Light glyph, even more so!

[bonovoxpsu]

Beacon is definitely worth taking.

Also make sure to get the Flash of Light glyph and Holy Light glyph, both are getting some nice buffs in 3.0.8.

I suggest Kare's build. Crit is -extremely- important for a holy paladin build. mp5 helps, but never go out of your way for it, if you get a upgrade that has it, hooray, but that's about it, don't go looking for mp5, look for +crit. +crit+crit+Crit+crit.

Haste isn't a throw away stat, but at the bottom of the totem pole for holy paladins.

You want Crit and Spellpower and int. Those are the 3 most important.

With raid buffs etc. our holy paladin sits at about 45% crit on his spells, which allows him to keep up with the holy priest and resto druid mana pools. I love having a holy paladin focusing on melee and tanks and with beacon of light, makes your job a lot easier and with the buff to Holy Light glyph, even more so!

hmm. i'm sporting the holy light, seal of wisdom, seal of light glyphs. would it be better to replace light (or wisdom) with the new FoL glyph (5% crit right?)?

[Shamb]

For OP: Beacon of light really is THAT good yes.

[Phil Of Doom]

hmm. i'm sporting the holy light, seal of wisdom, seal of light glyphs. would it be better to replace light (or wisdom) with the new FoL glyph (5% crit right?)?

i would keep the SoW glyph and drop the SoL glyph and get some thing else as you cant benifit from both at once. I personaly also wouldn't bother with FoL glyph as you will never go ./oom with FoL and 5% crit increase to FoL healing will never save the raid as HL will still do more healing/5s.

[bonovoxpsu]

i would keep the SoW glyph and drop the SoL glyph and get some thing else as you cant benifit from both at once. I personaly also wouldn't bother with FoL glyph as you will never go ./oom with FoL and 5% crit increase to FoL healing will never save the raid as HL will still do more healing/5s.

could get 10% increased judgement damage, would help with soloing.

[Firecrest]

could get 10% increased judgement damage, would help with soloing.

Yeah. Taking a spell that hits for 500 damage every 10 seconds and making it hit for 550 is a swell idea. Especially when what you're supposed to be doing is healing. :

[underdogba]

Beacon of Light is totally awesome, but you really have to understand the damage and mechanics of fights to use it efficiently. It's not in any way a straightforward "I win"-button.

[verator]

bacon can nearly double your healing output on some fights (Razuvious MCd adds) and lets you solo heal the two caster tanks on 4h (in 10man, in 25man, 2 heal it) the fact that my holy lights are hitting two targets at once is amazing for keeping up with heavy damage, especially in fights like Patwerk where our paladins can essentially just spam HL with a beacon up on a second tank and solo heal all the tank damage.

As for glyphs, Glyph of Holy Light, Glyph of SoW, and Glyph of Divinity. Also, you'll want glyph of Lay on Hands. Why? Because you can then use your LoH as an emergency 6k mana pot if you cast it on yourself.

ideally, you're wanting to get close to a 45-50% crit rate with HL and around 27k mana, because that allows with the current divine plea for a holy paladin to cast only HL non-stop and not run out of mana (with lower than that, ~40% HL crit and 25k mana buffed, I can last the near entire duration of a 6 minute fight with just HL spam, and I suspect that haste is an issue there. Having over 30% haste after I judge keeps my HL cast time around 1.5 seconds)

[bonovoxpsu]

Yeah. Taking a spell that hits for 500 damage every 10 seconds and making it hit for 550 is a swell idea. Especially when what you're supposed to be doing is healing. :

were the rolleyes really necessary?

he suggested tossing the SoL glyph for something else. he then said the FoL glyph wasn't worth it. with the HL and SoW glyphs, what would you use as a 3rd glyph?

[Firecrest]

were the rolleyes really necessary?

he suggested tossing the SoL glyph for something else. he then said the FoL glyph wasn't worth it. with the HL and SoW glyphs, what would you use as a 3rd glyph?

I always rolleyes for sarcasm. The internet is chalk full of people too stupid to realize that I didn't mean what I said. Seriously, if someone can go all the way up the Holy tree and think that there's a better place to put that one last point than Beacon - there sure as hell are people who could rightly believe a damage dealing glyph is a good idea for a healer.

The HL and SoW glyphs are indeed correct choices. Currently, the proper third glyph is Glyph of Divinity (LoH gives you as much mana as the target). Also acceptable is the Glyph of Spiritual Attunement (2% increased Spiritual Attunement mana regen). The current FoL glyph is not something I could ever see myself using, but some people claim to get good use out of it. Even that would be better than a glyph that doesn't help you do your job (that of a healer) at all.

That's with the current glyph set up, of course. After the changes to the FoL glyph go through, that one will likely become the third glyph for most end game raiding Holy Paladins as none of us are struggling with mana in the slightest.

[bonovoxpsu]

I always rolleyes for sarcasm. The internet is chalk full of people too stupid to realize that I didn't mean what I said. Seriously, if someone can go all the way up the Holy tree and think that there's a better place to put that one last point than Beacon - there sure as hell are people who could rightly believe a damage dealing glyph is a good idea for a healer.

The HL and SoW glyphs are indeed correct choices. Currently, the proper third glyph is Glyph of Divinity (LoH gives you as much mana as the target). Also acceptable is the Glyph of Spiritual Attunement (2% increased Spiritual Attunement mana regen). The current FoL glyph is not something I could ever see myself using, but some people claim to get good use out of it. Even that would be better than a glyph that doesn't help you do your job (that of a healer) at all.

That's with the current glyph set up, of course. After the changes to the FoL glyph go through, that one will likely become the third glyph for most end game raiding Holy Paladins as none of us are struggling with mana in the slightest.

see, i don't really like to glyph for something i might use once every 20 minutes, at best, once ever 16.

now, once the new FoL goes through, the extra crit is kinda nice for the extra healing.

i'll probably end up using the FoL glyph... not sure i see any value in any others.

[Bilbobubblin]

If you are talking PvE, yes, Beacon of Light really is that good. It accounts for 7-12% of my total healing done in 25m raids, which may not sound like a lot, but it really, really is. However, where it really shines is heroics. Many Paladins keep insisting we need an AoE heal, which is simply not true. Where we had trouble is keeping the tank alive while healing the DPS after a bit of AoE damage. Since you're the only one healing, if each party member needs to be healed for 10k, your Beacon will heal the tank for 10k repeatedly.

Beacon should be *at least* 5% of your total healing done. If it's lower than that, you are likely too slow in reaction. If you find that your heals land after someone else's heal has landed, Beacon isn't going to be effective. But really, that's a sign that you need to pick up some slack, work to be faster and more aware, and your Beacon numbers will go up.

Another thing, on trash, I found that it is better to put your Beacon on an OT rather than your guild's traditional MT. I've noticed a fair amount of MT favoritism, where healers keep him at 100% all the time, while OT's can hover between 80-100% consistently. I've had my Beacon account for 15% of total healing done on trash, which is just huge.

In PvP, it's currently a matter of debate. For 2v2 it is worthless for obvious reasons. For 3v3, I'd like to think it's worthless, but I'm not sure. Right now I'm playing Boomkin/Rogue/Holy Pally 3's, and what typically happens is the Boomkin is first target and eventually gets HoP'd. Then the Rogue is targeted, and I need to heal both of them. My Beacon is usually on the Rogue, so while I am healing the HoP'd Boomkin back up to 100%, the Rogue is getting healed as well. Not bad IMO. I know it's a high mana cost, I know it's dispellable, but honestly, after around 100 arena matches, I've only had the game end due to me going OOM once. Most matches are far too quick to worry about a high mana cost.

Short summary: amazing for 5man's, great for 10man's, decent (and well worth taking) for 25man's; worthless for 2v2, debatable for 3v3, fairly awesome for 5v5.

[Firecrest]

see, i don't really like to glyph for something i might use once every 20 minutes, at best, once ever 16.

now, once the new FoL goes through, the extra crit is kinda nice for the extra healing.

i'll probably end up using the FoL glyph... not sure i see any value in any others.

Agreed. The Divinity glyph basically boils down to a free mana potion once every 16 minutes. It shines on fights like Patchwerk where not only is the extra mana really nice, but the help to your tank is great as well. But that's just one fight out of dozens. The bottom line though is that it does help you do what you're supposed to be doing - which is healing. It's usefulness is minimal but a dps glyph's usefulness is none.

To be fair, I push for every possible advantage in a raid. If it doesn't help me in a raid environment, its value is next to nothing for me. More casual Holy Pallies may find the additional soloing buff worthwhile. Additionally, Blizz has said that they want to buff our damage output and has mentioned the likely way for that to be an increase to our Judgment damage, so this glyph may help out soloing Holy Pallies even more in the future.