The way you're talking, it sounds like you expect Beacon to do your job for you while you get to do something else. That isn't what it's for.
I'm sorry if it came across like that, what I was looking for was a way to get more than a few % increase from the massive mana cost of Beacon.
Beacon only ever goes on the MT when you're in a situation where you're often needed to cross-heal and nobody else is likely to do it, which generally only happens in 10-mans and 5-mans. In 25-man raids, all tanks have designated healers. If you try swiping someone else's work, you'll inevitably see the effect you described. You're better putting Beacon on an appropriate off-target who is sure to take damage but is a lower healing priority than the MT, such as a raid healer in AOE fights or an off-tank in Saber Lash/Hurtful Strike fights. It's even worth putting it on yourself in some cases; it converts Hand of Sacrifice into Pain Suppression.
Again, sorry but this paragraph doesn't make sense. With Sunwell radiance gone (and not likely to return in any format for WotLk), the MT has by far the highest avoidance and mitigation of any raid member which means that their damage will be more spiky than anyone else's. So if someone pays the mana for Beacon on someone else while healing the MT then the throughput achieved by Beacon scales negatively with the avoidance of the tank to the point where a string of avoided blows will result in zero healing on the Beacon'd person which is effectively an utter waste of mana.
With regards to your specific Sabre Lash example (I haven't done the new Naxx yet), it is highly common for at least one of the tanks to avoid the Lash which means that Beacon is severely reduced in effectiveness.
In short, Beacon is at its most effective when you heal someone who is guaranteed to take a steady stream of damage and not avoid or mitigate any ie. the Warlock tank on Twins. My mistake was thinking that such a stream of constant HP would offer good assistance with the reduced damage MTs are taking now.
Point taken about HoS & Beacon but it's still a pretty huge mana investment.
I would have thought the key point with Beacon was that the decision to use it comes down to whether it is likely that the useful healing done by Beacon after all factors are taken into account make it worth the mana cost (and GCD?) Unfortunately the 'all factors' part of the equation is quite complicated unless damage (for both your target and the Beacon) is predictable.
Your point about avoidance is a good one. However, from my understanding (hanging around Tankspot and the like), most tanks seem to be considering damage intake in WotLK to be more predictable and steady than it has been in the past. So largely the argument you're making may well hinge on the WotLK encounters themselves.
Having used it myself now in anger I think its a useful tool and worthy of the arsenal. We just have to figure out the optimal places to use it to best effect.
Is it my imagination, or does JoW stack on live? I was running Heroic Mech with a Retadin and Protadin and got 254/55x2 mana back off the same spell cast (1 LB, I was healing, just wanted to test it). Will this apply to raids? Going to test it tonight if we get something together.
Yes. Judgement of Light and Wisdom currently have no internal cooldown (it's supposed to have a 4 second cooldown) and currently stack with multiple instances of itself.
With Sunwell radiance gone (and not likely to return in any format for WotLk), the MT has by far the highest avoidance and mitigation of any raid member which means that their damage will be more spiky than anyone else's.
Which is exactly why putting it on the MT doesn't work. The hits he takes are less frequent, but they're all but guaranteed to deal more damage than anyone else is taking. You will always get some healing from Beacon, but even if you personally heal 100% of that damage, you will still have to switch back to the MT to heal up the balance.
Conversely, if you put the Beacon on the character taking the steady stream of damage - in this case, the Warlock OT - then whenever the tank is hit he ceases to be a healer issue. Instead of trying to do the job of two healers by yourself, you carry on doing your own job as normal but in the process make someone else's job easier. In fact, the harder your job becomes, theirs becomes correspondingly easier. This potentially allows them to take time out to help you.
I don't think Beacon is meant to be used as a healing multiplier except in certain limited circumstances. I used it tonight on a 7/9 BT run, and overall it made up just 18% of my healing. Even on AOE-heavy fights like Naj'entus it wasn't huge - there, I used it on the MT so I could instantly throw a Shock on whoever got Spined without running any risks. The best fights for it were Supremus and Mother, where myself and the second Holy Paladin each put Beacon on one of the Lash/Strike soakers and healed the MT. Between the two of us, we were readily able to cover all three tanks.
Auras are now off the GCD, but share a 1 second cooldown with each other. Source
However, GC doesn't seem to want paladins to switch auras intuitively with incoming damage, and so far hasn't made a comment on increasing range.
Now that Auras are off the GCD, I was hoping that maybe one other paladin skill could be removed from the GCD - perhaps casting a Seal?
At the moment, this is prot tanking: 123452143254. Switching auras depending on what the boss is doing would be a welcome change. Unless you have a cast-sequence macro, where it would just be 11111111. If some of our skills are removed from the GCD and we have a spell that could activate in certain conditions, tanking would be more interesting.
I'm also a little dubious about Devotion Aura for prot- seeing as a lot of the time we use Ret aura (considerably more now in LK) is devo / imp devo really worth it?
With 3.0 live, does this mean that prot consumables and enchants will change? Specificially Chromatic Wonder versus Fortification, Threat to gloves versus Strength to Gloves, etc?
I would have thought the key point with Beacon was that the decision to use it comes down to whether it is likely that the useful healing done by Beacon after all factors are taken into account make it worth the mana cost (and GCD?) Unfortunately the 'all factors' part of the equation is quite complicated unless damage (for both your target and the Beacon) is predictable.
From Malleus' post above, I agree with ~18% of our healing comng from Beacon. However, I also noticed that the Beacon heals operated at a much higher overheal percentage than my normal heals, presumably due to heal sniping or things like chain heal bounces.
When I tried to "get more" out of Beacon, I found that it was incredibly difficult to push that 18% higher because of the unreliable nature of Beacon healing. Which brings me to my point...
While Beacon can (as Malleus said) make another healer's job easier, you still need that healer and the only way you can translate that into a benefit for the raid is if that other healer is able to spread their attention effectively elsewhere. Despite having Beacon, another Paladin really cannot take advantage of the Beacon secondary effect whereas Druids, Priests and Shaman (to a lesser extent) can and will.
Your point about avoidance is a good one. However, from my understanding (hanging around Tankspot and the like), most tanks seem to be considering damage intake in WotLK to be more predictable and steady than it has been in the past. So largely the argument you're making may well hinge on the WotLK encounters themselves.
Fair enough, but tanks in WotLK also have a plethora of mitigation tools at their disposal. Using dodgy back of the envelope maths, Beacon has a 1-(tank avoidance) chance of transferring (heal amount)-(tank mitigation) to the Beacon target. So in the scenario of a tank with high avoidance who takes an unlucky string of attacks and pops a trinket/shield wall etc, you have not been transmitting much to the Beacon target and, when you do start transmitting, it is reduced by any competent tank who knows that hit strings are the killer and manages his cooldowns appropriately.
Having used it myself now in anger I think its a useful tool and worthy of the arsenal. We just have to figure out the optimal places to use it to best effect.
I'm sorry for going on about it, I do realise Beacon is useful. It just annoys me that it scales negatively with tank gear and skill.
Last edited by Lightflower : 10/16/08 at 11:23 PM.
Reason: fixed tags
The Divine Storm fix was a pretty good idea, since it doesn't affect raiding much (where you have Sunder/CoR) but reduces PvP burst, the same idea with changing Righteous Vengeance to a DoT (what about debuff slots?).
On live, Ret is still doing a few 1 shots, so the change isn't too bad.
Just FYI, with a Torch and doing two 4 minute tests with each dps Seal, a BE with SoC + SoC Glyph + SoC Libram was higher dps than SoB + CS Libram (I know this one is bad) by about 40 dps.
However with raid buffs and the proper Libram SoB would slightly come out ahead, but I will stick with SoC unless I get that crit Libram.
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
I'm guessing I can spend time on DoTimer to turn off all the crap that it is throwing into the mix, but perhaps there is a simple mod that handles it without much configuration some of you are now using?
With some configuration you can set it up so it both shows a timer for your currently active Seal, and shows a huge unmissable warning in case your Seal drops completely.
buff /bÊŒf/ Pronunciation[buhf]
–verb (used with object)
- to reduce or deaden the force of
I picked up a [Glyph of Blessing of Might] yesterday and noticed that it also increases the duration of Greater Blessing of Might for all targets if you cast it on yourself, giving a 50 min duration on all paladins in your raid. The Blessing of Wisdom glyph probably works the same way too.
With some configuration you can set it up so it both shows a timer for your currently active Seal, and shows a huge unmissable warning in case your Seal drops completely.
That is a fantastic idea. I will download it tonight and play. I toyed with PowerAuras once, many months ago, because it looked like such a neat idea, but really prot and ret cooldown use was so simple in TBC that I didn't see a need.
The Divine Storm fix was a pretty good idea, since it doesn't affect raiding much (where you have Sunder/CoR) but reduces PvP burst, the same idea with changing Righteous Vengeance to a DoT (what about debuff slots?).
On live, Ret is still doing a few 1 shots, so the change isn't too bad.
Just FYI, with a Torch and doing two 4 minute tests with each dps Seal, a BE with SoC + SoC Glyph + SoC Libram was higher dps than SoB + CS Libram (I know this one is bad) by about 40 dps.
However with raid buffs and the proper Libram SoB would slightly come out ahead, but I will stick with SoC unless I get that crit Libram.
I'll have to try this out, i just picked up the SoC Glyph yesterday, and i'd been using SoB all week and had been throwing down meter topping dps, even with the nerf to DS yesterday. My closest competition was an arms warrior fury warrior and a combat rogue with 1 glaive.
Like you, i currently don't have the SoB libram, so i'm still running around using the SoC libram for whatever reason. I'd say the dps output between seals is definitely dependent per fight, as maybe SoC would be much better for brutallus, but where as on a fight like Muru, SoB would be best as it will help drop your humanoid adds fastest with its ability to hit all 3 with your seal rather than just chance to proc on one.
SoB would be best as it will help drop your humanoid adds fastest with its ability to hit all 3 with your seal rather than just chance to proc on one.
I know SoB can hit 3 targets with DS, but are you sure SoC cannot potentially hit 3 targets with DS?
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
I'm also a little dubious about Devotion Aura for prot- seeing as a lot of the time we use Ret aura (considerably more now in LK) is devo / imp devo really worth it?
At least one holy paladin can quite easily (and desireably) pick up improved devotion aura at level 80. Ranged raid members will miss the aura if they are standing at max range from a prot paladin, whereas a holy paladin can buff more raid members as well as the tanks. I'm not sure if you have other more beneficial uses for the talent points, but at the very least i think it's worth making a holy paladin do it so that you can use retribution aura without losing the healing bonus. Also, it's a nice excuse for us healadins to spec into divine guardian.
Spec'd into Illumination and sheath of light/JotW for a 3.0 BT run with my guild. On every single encounter I took 40%+ of the healing. Some of them I netted 60%. More then all my other healers combined. My over heal was high, in fact, it was inane. I feel like I'll be cancel-casting as I adapt to the spec to sustain 10 minute pulls.
But with JotW and 4k flashes/10k HL's, who cares? A critical heal HL leaves a 2k ticking Sheath on the tank. It also spikes off 1.1k heals on 5 other targets if needed. Further, a judgment of the wise with a 13.5k mana pool raid buffed gave me 11% every 8 seconds. As a side perk, things like Brutalis's stun are a thing of the past with my improved hand of freedom. My tanks are immune with me and a ret paladin in the raid. My beacon paladins, one of which has comparable gear to me and usually was only a % or two behind me on reports, still couldn't keep up with the Holy spec'd priest.
Level 80 may change this. The number of "potent" tank healers required seems to be getting even smaller with encounters in the Heroic Naxx, Obsidian Sanctum, and Malygos. But I'm of the mind unless they really rework sheath and JotW, this will be THE healing spec for raids for our class. Leave the raid healing to the others, as many posts previous to this indicate, Beacon doesn't hold its own in raids.
Side note: Haste is huge for this build. Without the .5 reduction speed from talents, you will still want to sport a healthy amount of haste. With a boomkin and ret Aura, I was pushing 2 seconds or so. That felt like a good resting spot from a "feel" perspective.
As a side perk, things like Brutalis's stun are a thing of the past with my improved hand of freedom. My tanks are immune with me and a ret paladin in the raid.
Brutallus doesn't stun, don't waste your mana on HoF.
Decent changes in latest Beta (I assume the changes to Ret, i.e. DS doing melee damage is supposed to be here as well, but at least we got a 1% increase in damage)
Holy
* Judgement of Light now grants attacks and spells made against the judged enemy a chance of healing the attacker. (Old - Didn't include spells, very nice)
* Judgement of Wisdom now unleashes the energy of a Seal spell to judge an enemy, giving each attack a chance to restore 2% of the attacker's maximum mana.
Protection
* Righteous Defense cooldown has been changed to 8 seconds. (Down from 10 seconds)
Talent
Holy
* Infusion of Light now reduce the cast time of your next Flash of Light by 0.75/1.5 sec or Holy Light by 0.5/1 sec. (Old - Didn't affect Flash of Light)
* Judgements of the Pure now increases your casting and melee haste by 3/6/9/12/15% for 1 minute. (Up from 2/4/6/8/10%)
* Enlightened Judgements now increases the range of your Judgement spells by 15/30 yards. (Up from 10/20 yards)
Protection
* Hammer of the Righteous now causes 4 times your main hand damage per second. (Up from 3 times)
* Shield of the Templar now also reduces all damage taken by 1/2/3%.
Retribution
* Sanctified Retribution now increase damage caused by targets affected by Retribution Aura by 3%
Millions of words are written annually purporting to tell how to beat the races, whereas the best possible advice on the subject is found in the three monosyllables: 'Do not try.'
Buffing Retribution Aura and not get its range inline with other auras and raid buffs (45 yards) is really frustrating. I bet there will be plenty of battles when only half of raid or less will benefit of it (many bosses require quite a bit of raid spreading). And since I cannot find any logical reason for this, I continue to assume they just forgot or didn't come out with a good 11 pointer in Holy to replace Aura Mastery.
I know SoB can hit 3 targets with DS, but are you sure SoC cannot potentially hit 3 targets with DS?
Yes. The internal cooldown on SOC prevents this. I have tested this myself. SoC can only proc once in a DS, and there is a small internal cooldown that makes autoattacks and specials interfere with each other sometimes. How big that cooldown is is currently not known.
Buffing Retribution Aura and not get its range inline with other auras and raid buffs (45 yards) is really frustrating. I bet there will be plenty of battles when only half of raid or less will benefit of it (many bosses require quite a bit of raid spreading). And since I cannot find any logical reason for this, I continue to assume they just forgot or didn't come out with a good 11 pointer in Holy to replace Aura Mastery.
And while they're at it, make Battle Shout work for a 100 yards or something. It's becoming incredibly frustrating to buff a raid with BoM, just to have a warrior overwrite it down to 2 mins with Battle Shout (which leads to hunters potentially not having it when they get out of range later on).
As a matter of fact, something like 100 yard range shouts would solve the exploit of giving different people different shouts before arena (which was never intended).
And while they're at it, make Battle Shout work for a 100 yards or something. It's becoming incredibly frustrating to buff a raid with BoM, just to have a warrior overwrite it down to 2 mins with Battle Shout (which leads to hunters potentially not having it when they get out of range later on).
As a matter of fact, something like 100 yard range shouts would solve the exploit of giving different people different shouts before arena (which was never intended).
Well, BoM and Battle Shout should have same attack power buff, but I think the problem is that now Battle Shout gives +1 attack power over BoM and under these circumstances, it will always overwrite the later. Should be fixed soon I guess, but there's no point for Warriors to use Battle Shout when a Paladin buffs BoM.
10/16/08, 8:51 PM
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