Lightwell thread to end them all!

[zenkai]

The funny thing is people who say lightwell suck has never used it in a raid situation. The only thing that sucks about it now is that it does switch your target but when I am fast enough to click it between GCDs so it doesn't really matter. A 5k HOT that doesn't use a GCD that can crit for 8k is pretty damn nice IMO.

[Kaibel]

Is it wrong to say that when I've spec'd holy in both wrath and bc I've always gotten this and placed it in raids?......

IMO awesome blizz, simply awesome! Removing the targeting problem, sheer brilliance (you get a cookie)

I love this spell, always have, alway will, the mechanic that a lot have bashed and scrutinized will finally get the tlc it needs and deserves. It saddens me to see so many people still hatin on it.

DPS players get ready to actually start thinking....... YOUR ARE NOT PREPARED!!!!!!!

[Sackman]

His example actually covers every aspect whether it be throughput or efficiency, if Lightwell is a part of our repertoire Blizzard surely will counter it when balancing out the holy priest spec, but where we need people to actively use our lightwell to be efficient (or for throughput) other classes/specs have spells they fully control the effect of, and thus his question still stands.

If holy priests forces the raid to use time/awareness/whatever on our Lightwell, wouldn't everyone just be better off with a different healer type ? Healing spells you as the healer not are in control of are flawed because of the unreliability/reliability on other people. Will good people use it ? Maybe, properly. Though it will still be an inconvenience, and the other problem is that encounters with good people seem rarer and rarer for each passing day.

No, unfortunately the person in question clearly never had this in their raid. I will repeat what I just said in an easy to understand format as I think I may have been being slightly vague. Situational abilities are not considered in generalised throughput, they are only considered as extras on a per fight basis. i.e. A holy priest with lightwell in Herecius' example would have an advantage on Fester in the situation mentioned. This would not be an advantage on say... Putricide, considering that the movement is far too sporadic and random. This means that the Holy Priest may be slightly (and it really is very slightly) better for the Fester fight in comparison to other healers. It does not mean that because they are slightly better in one fight - that they would be balanced around this.

If you or Grouchi had been around in TBC when Lightwell was actually used a few times for the extra throughput and because of mana issues - you would see it as a boon, but also see how when it was not used the Holy Priest was still as effective as a healer. The lightwell is an interesting mechanic that is a boon in certain situations. Situational abilities are not what Blizzard balances classes around.

In an extreme sense, that's like balancing Hunter dps around Mongoose Bite. (In a really extreme sense, balancing hunter dps around Mongoose Bite - when you were required to dodge to activate it).

[Deleted]

I encourage pushing players to be organized enough within a boss encounter, to use a lightwell.

It will filter the skilled players from the scrubs.

[Herecius]

No, unfortunately the person in question clearly never had this in their raid. I will repeat what I just said in an easy to understand format as I think I may have been being slightly vague. Situational abilities are not considered in generalised throughput, they are only considered as extras on a per fight basis. i.e. A holy priest with lightwell in Herecius' example would have an advantage on Fester in the situation mentioned. This would not be an advantage on say... Putricide, considering that the movement is far too sporadic and random. This means that the Holy Priest may be slightly (and it really is very slightly) better for the Fester fight in comparison to other healers. It does not mean that because they are slightly better in one fight - that they would be balanced around this.

If you or Grouchi had been around in TBC when Lightwell was actually used a few times for the extra throughput and because of mana issues - you would see it as a boon, but also see how when it was not used the Holy Priest was still as effective as a healer. The lightwell is an interesting mechanic that is a boon in certain situations. Situational abilities are not what Blizzard balances classes around.

In an extreme sense, that's like balancing Hunter dps around Mongoose Bite. (In a really extreme sense, balancing hunter dps around Mongoose Bite - when you were required to dodge to activate it).

Thank you for that. I indeed did not mean to imply it would give Priests a giant advantage - just a minor one for certain types of fights, where the raid must be aware (which a good raid should be) in order to use it properly. It's hardly different from how a druid's Tranquility is quite powerful on a fight such as BQL.

I would be sorely disappointed to see Lightwell turned into the Fountain of Light mechanic in the ToC5 mans, where it would become a 'throw down and forget' ability.

[klaugh]

I'm very happy so far with the changes. The only additional change I could hope for would be the ability to macro it!

I look forward to going Holy again in Cataclysm, lately I'm essentially forced to be Disc due to being 1 of very small healing Priest population in the circles I run in, so I go Disc due to the sheer power of Disc currently on every boss.

[Pozz]

No, unfortunately the person in question clearly never had this in their raid. I will repeat what I just said in an easy to understand format as I think I may have been being slightly vague. Situational abilities are not considered in generalised throughput, they are only considered as extras on a per fight basis. i.e. A holy priest with lightwell in Herecius' example would have an advantage on Fester in the situation mentioned. This would not be an advantage on say... Putricide, considering that the movement is far too sporadic and random. This means that the Holy Priest may be slightly (and it really is very slightly) better for the Fester fight in comparison to other healers. It does not mean that because they are slightly better in one fight - that they would be balanced around this.

If you or Grouchi had been around in TBC when Lightwell was actually used a few times for the extra throughput and because of mana issues - you would see it as a boon, but also see how when it was not used the Holy Priest was still as effective as a healer. The lightwell is an interesting mechanic that is a boon in certain situations. Situational abilities are not what Blizzard balances classes around.

In an extreme sense, that's like balancing Hunter dps around Mongoose Bite. (In a really extreme sense, balancing hunter dps around Mongoose Bite - when you were required to dodge to activate it).

I were around and I have used it and still does and I do like the spell as such, but I do disagree with you saying it's situational, I don't think there's (m)any encounters where it does not help, sure it might shine a bit brighter in some encounters, but so do "ordinary" spells. What I and the person I quoted before said is that currently there's a huge flaw in making people use the lightwell, and with blizzard's new "every healer setup has to work, in any encounter" his (and my) question still stands, why take matters out of the healer's hand and into the dps'ers´ when you can just bring a different type of healer.

Lightwell is good when the people you group with are good (or if you like me have an extremely annoying voice and wont shut up before they've used it ) but average people just wont use it, and neither will bads and those two groups sadly are the biggest currently.

[klaugh]

Lightwell is good when the people you group with are good (or if you like me have an extremely annoying voice and wont shut up before they've used it ) but average people just wont use it, and neither will bads and those two groups sadly are the biggest currently.

So don't use it in those situations? It's a situational ability, regardless of if it can be used in almost every boss fight to an advantage, it remains a situational ability. As far as I'm aware, Blizzard isn't balancing Holy Priest around Lightwell being down. If your group is too ignorant to realize the benefit of Lightwell and refuses to use it. Then don't use it.

You have a very full repertoire of heals to use besides Lightwell, use them. You aren't being punished in any area due to having Lightwell. It's one talent point. If you don't like it still, don't take it. I for one enjoy the current changes and am definitely planning on returning to Holy once 4.0 hits, I don't raid with idiots (not world-class but not cavemen/women either), they'll learn to use the Lightwell. For the occasional PuG, I'll throw it out if it could benefit the raid, and whomever uses it, uses it. If they don't, they don't. I don't care.

[Sackman]

Now one last change needs to be made - spammability. Many people abused it just by spamming the lightwell over and over until its charges were used.

I think it should look for the buff and not take a charge if they already have it on them (but not refresh it either).

[JDPickle]

Here is the heart of the problem. Let me explain.

Blizzard is trying to balance healers to that extent that no healer, or healer setup, is obligational to any particular fight. So all healer setups from, Pala-Sham-Durid / Druid-Sham-Priest / Sham-Priest-Pala etc. is viable to some means on every boss fight. So why bring a Holy Priest when one of their healing potential is crippled by an ackward game mechanic, which in and of it self is replacable(by bringing an equally good Druid, Shaman).

Let me put it in numbers. Every class let's say has the base spells in which increases it's healing output. Should you remove one of it's spells it should obviously lose some of the healing potential it originally had.

Priest - Other spells 90% + Lightwell 10% = 100%
Druid - Other spells 90% + Lifebloom 10% = 100%
etc.

So, why not bring a Druid(or Shaman, Paladin) who can reach this optimal 100% healing output - whilst keeping that ackward-nobody-likes-mechanic where it belongs, in some major afkcity. That is sadly what might happen in Cataclysm OR nobody bothers using a wasted talent.

I can understand your argument, but I don't believe that priests are gimped because of lightwell. Good raids will utilize lightwell, while bad people won't. I feel that good players will be rewarded by using this spell in certain fights. Here's to hoping lightwell becomes a HUGE factor in raiding

[sicness]

I can understand your argument, but I don't believe that priests are gimped because of lightwell. Good raids will utilize lightwell, while bad people won't. I feel that good players will be rewarded by using this spell in certain fights. Here's to hoping lightwell becomes a HUGE factor in raiding

Honestly, it's hard to claim 'good raids' will use this and only bad raids won't, especially when the best raids in the world won't use it because they choose to optimize their dps. So no, it's not a matter of good and bad raids, it's that the ability is useless for good healers as it's not optimal.

[Thundertom]

I really love LW, but I'm not specced for it. I can see it being very usefull on fights like BQ. Let's hope the larger range and no target change thing will get people to use it. It's gonna have to be a significant heal tho, maybe as strong as rejuv or something.

[sicness]

Please, with a game where dps stand in the fire purposely so they don't hurt their dps, I'm pretty sure dps won't be willing to spend their precious 2 button spaming time to click on the well. >_<

You act like dps are the only ones. I've had a raid wipe after they fixed the bug in ToC/ToGC where healers could levitate to completely negate the fire spawning on them, so dps aren't the only ones with 'slow raiders'.

[Madam]

With all the Lightwell talk as of late I decided to respec my alt priest (yes I have 2 lvl 80 priests) and just TRY to use LW and see if DPS would use it. Jumped into a random and ended up in HoR, I was SHOCKED to see DPS using Lightwell!
As for raiding ICC with LW yeah, on certain fights it really could be OP.
Oh, one more thing, even if a raid group didn't use LW but a few times, it would still be better than taking Desperate Prayer? I may end up trying LW on my main...

[Guesswho69]

If the threat of healers going OOM in Cataclysm is very real as Blizzard wants it to be, then making the raid learn to use Lightwell responsibly seems pretty important to me.

In BC and Vanilla, if a DPS did that, we would just not bring the dps the next time to the raid. I remember on Leotheras the Blind one of the DPS refused to move during his WW and basically got dotted up to the point where a raid healer could only focus on keeping him up. The RL said stop wasting mana on "xxx" and then after the wipe, he got kicked from the raid. Next week he didn't stand in the WW anymore.

Just because healers have limitless mana, and can keep morons up indefinately doesnt mean that it will continue in Cata. If healers are really going to be mana starved, there's going to be much more focus on just letting idiots die to save mana for the raid than to keep them up.

[zenkai]

In BC and Vanilla, if a DPS did that, we would just not bring the dps the next time to the raid. I remember on Leotheras the Blind one of the DPS refused to move during his WW and basically got dotted up to the point where a raid healer could only focus on keeping him up. The RL said stop wasting mana on "xxx" and then after the wipe, he got kicked from the raid. Next week he didn't stand in the WW anymore.

Just because healers have limitless mana, and can keep morons up indefinately doesnt mean that it will continue in Cata. If healers are really going to be mana starved, there's going to be much more focus on just letting idiots die to save mana for the raid than to keep them up.

Sorry, talking bout TBC and Vanilla, I am having a hard time understanding what type of point you are trying to make.

[Deleted]

Please, with a game where dps stand in the fire purposely so they don't hurt their dps, I'm pretty sure dps won't be willing to spend their precious 2 button spaming time to click on the well. >_<

Which is EXACTLY what blizz has said they will change. It will NOT be the healer who is the ONLY person resposible for a persons life, the dps himself should have to think a little. Adding to the increased mana attention they will have to, just so the healer wont run out.

[Kaesebrezen]

Just because healers have limitless mana, and can keep morons up indefinately doesnt mean that it will continue in Cata. If healers are really going to be mana starved, there's going to be much more focus on just letting idiots die to save mana for the raid than to keep them up.

Yep. That's exactly why Failgrip won't get used. It costs the more mana as a greater heal.
If they run out themselves -> no need to grip, no mana wasted
If they have to be gripped -> you had to waste a ton of mana to correct somebodies fail.

If you're mana starved and have to save idiots with lifegrip, then it will hurt. Better take people who know how to move and save the mana on lifegrip.

[Sackman]

Yep. That's exactly why Failgrip won't get used. It costs the more mana as a greater heal.
If they run out themselves -> no need to grip, no mana wasted
If they have to be gripped -> you had to waste a ton of mana to correct somebodies fail.

If you're mana starved and have to save idiots with lifegrip, then it will hurt. Better take people who know how to move and save the mana on lifegrip.

Lifegrip will probably used as an "oh shit I got stunned right where he's about to do a one hit cone/aoe" and that person happens to be another healer/interrupter/tank or something.

But those saying lightwell won't be used because they will be optimising DPS clearly need a helping hand in understanding that - you can't DPS if you're dead.

[Kaesebrezen]

But those saying lightwell won't be used because they will be optimising DPS clearly need a helping hand in understanding that - you can't DPS if you're dead.

It's more likely than people will go "kick the priest" instead of "use lightwell". Nobody would wan't such a terrible spell in game.

One of the main problems that remains it is hard to locate and as a very bad visual. With new ground effects such as efflorscence, healing rain and holy word: sanctuary it gets even harder to locate lightwell. There are better things to do than to locate the tiny lightwell somewhere hidden under all other graphical effects.