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?