There seemed to be a lot of confusion last night concerning Holy Paladin Assignments and Beacon Assignments, so I thought it'd be a good idea to clear up some of the basics.
Beacon of LightBeacon of Light, though no longer as powerful as it once was, is still an exceptionally useful spell and should be kept up at all times on a target that is consistently taking damage. In most situations this will be the Tank.
Beacon of Light is now only a 50% transfer of the healing value, before target based modifiers. Beacon heals will not produce the
Illuminated Healing shield from Mastery. Currently
Protector of the Innocent,
Enlightened Judgments, and
Light of Dawn all transfer to the beacon, adding extra value to those talents, in addition to the normal casted heals.
Seal of Insight heals are currently transferring to the beacon.
Tower of Radiance works in conjunction with Beacon of Light (which is required to get it) by allowing you to generate Holy Power through casting Flash of Light or Divine Light directly on your Beacon target. This free generation of Holy Power comes only at the cost of 50% of beacon healing. However, since you won't always be able to keep your target alive with 50% of all your direct healing, you will, out of necessity, need to use your emergency heals on them at points anyways.
Notable Glyphs that effect Beacon:
Glyph of Beacon of Light (Should really only be used on fights where beacon swapping will take place often, such as Cho'gall.)
Holy PowerLast night, I stressed the importance of Holy Power on heavy healing/mana intensive fights. In fights such as Halfus, having your beacon on your assigned tank helps generate Holy Power much quicker.
Holy Paladins have 2 healing spells that cost Holy Power. Casting a spell that requires Holy Power will consume all of your current Holy Power. The number consumed will determine the power of the spell. These spells have no hard cool down, and are instead limited by the rate you generate holy power. These spells also do not cost mana.
Word of Glory is our most efficient single-target heal since it heals for as much as a Flash of Light, is instant, and, most importantly, costs no mana with no cooldown. Useful under certain conditions where Light of Dawn would be unfavorable, such as during
Guardian of Ancient Kings (
Ancient Healer), or when only a single non-beacon target needs quick healing. It is worth noting that Word of Glory does indeed scale with both SP and AP at the same time.
Notable Glyphs that effect Word of Glory:
Glyph of Word of GloryNotable Talents that effect Word of Glory:
Eternal Glory (Making Word of Glory even more valuable.)
Last Word (Most Holy Paladins only pick up 1 point in this, but it's still very useful.)
Light of Dawn is a cone based heal that uses the 'smart' targeting mechanic. It has a 30 yard range, will heal pets, and is currently
transferring all heals to the Beacon target, resulting in many smaller heals that total a
very large amount.
Notable Glyphs that effect Light of Dawn:
Glyph of Light of DawnBeacon in RaidI can think of plenty of different ways to summarize this section, but all would be very lengthy. Anywhere from giving examples of the types of fights, to just plain going through each specific fight released thus far. Ultimately, it's going to be up to the holy paladins to discuss where they'll be placing their beacons with each other on each fight. Eventually, we'll get to the point where we'll just know, but until then we're going to need to be vocal.
Hope this helped.
