Beacon of Light - In need of a rework?

[Brerathiel 0]

As the title suggests - I think it's time that we discuss our Beacon(s) and their place in the current 'meta'.

Most of you will probably not agree with me but I feel like there's a very limited impact to beacon currently. When Legion was first announced I was thrilled at the prospect of tanks losing the 'I am a wall of iron....' and becoming more dependent on their healers again. And I say this despite playing a Guardian Druid for most of WoD with raiding Mythic throughout the expansion.

Once more it was going to be down to your healers to keep you level and you would focus primarily on smoothing out the damage intake while still picking up adds, tank swaps, controlling pace, positioning etc. (the list goes on and on obviously!). Healing yourself was no longer to be your responsibility!

Currently it feels like we've moved too far away from that again. Now this - of course, being an issue not only for paladins but an overall issue with the current state of tanking.

But I digress.... The reason why I feel Beacon needs to be reworked slightly is because currently beacon is having a very minor effective healing vs the overhealing it 'provides'. I've heard several arguments for this. Some feel that 'it is free overhealing so why should we care?' but I lean to the side of: What is the point of having a spell, which is undoubtedly one of our core abilities, that have such a low impact?

I feel like some tuning is in order for it. Maybe rework what it actually does? Tuning overall healing throughput of tanks?

Rework our mastery to be more interactive with throughput in relation to beacons?

I can't really offer any substantial solutions to the problem but I still feel that it is, in fact, a problem.

What are your thoughts on this? Has Blizzard dug themselves into a hole again with the current state of tanking or could a rework of the Beacon sort the issue so that it feels that Holy Paladins are once more the Go-To 'Tank Healer' with a more impactful kit? 

[Kufru 7]

I would say that, the toolkit you're asking are the lvl 100 talents.

If you are feeling that your tanks are solid and that your beacons have a low impact, then play with the beacon of virtue.

You want mastery to be more interactive and in relation to beacon ? Beacon of the lightbringer is exactly doing that :)

[Yridaa 490]

Places a Beacon of Light on a friendly target. Your heals on other party or raid members will also heal the Beacon of Light target for up to 40% of the amount healed.

50% of overhealing done this way will accumulate in a ward on the Beacon. Any damage taken while below 70% health will consume the ward.

 

Tweak the numbers to make it balanced. Voila.