Beacon of Light

Beacon of Light
Beacon of Light 60 yd  range 3 sec cooldown 3.125% of base mana Instant cast Your heals, including multistrikes, on other party or raid members will also heal the Beacon of Light target for up to 50% of the amount healed. Your Flash of Light and Holy Light on the Beacon of Light target will also refund 40% of their Mana cost. Empowered Beacon of Light (Level 92+) Your single-target heals heal your Beacon of Light target for 10% more. Also applies to Beacon of Faith.
Usable by
Class	Paladin
Properties
Type	Utility
School	Holy
Casting time	Instant cast
Cooldown	3 sec (GCD 1.5 sec)
Talents
Specialization	Holy
Level required	39
Related buff
Beacon of Light Healed whenever the Paladin heals a nearby ally.
Related buff
Light's Beacon The paladin's healing spells cast on you also heal the Beacon of Light. Duration: 2 seconds
TCG image

• Beacon of Light
• 60 yd  range
• 3.125% of base mana
• Instant cast
• Your heals, including multistrikes, on other party or raid members will also heal the Beacon of Light target for up to 50% of the amount healed. Your Flash of Light and Holy Light on the Beacon of Light target will also refund 40% of their Mana cost.
  
  Empowered Beacon of Light (Level 92+)
  Your single-target heals heal your Beacon of Light target for 10% more. Also applies to Beacon of Faith.

Beacon of Light is a paladin ability learned at level 39 for those with the Holy specialization.

Designed to aid paladins in healing groups of players, this spell is cast on a player and lasts for 5 minutes. During that time, all heals cast on a group member within 60 yards of the target will also affect the beaconed target, the amount varied by the healing spell used.

Modified by

• Glyph of Beacon of Light

Talents

• Saved by the Light ( Holy spec)

Tips

Beacon of Light is one of the most important spells for healing paladins, but is only viable when more than one party member is taking damage.

On the Tank/Offtank

By far, the most common targets of this spell are tanks, since they will be taking the most damage, and therefore will always benefit from it. Paladins then cast heals on the other party members taking damage, which also heals the tank. As noted above, when tanks share the boss to avoid stacking debuffs, it is useless, since only one of them is taking damage.

If more than one paladin is healing, they can place their Beacons on each other's targets (Crossover Beacon).

Alternatively, they can place their Beacons on the same target to reduce the workload on that target significantly (Stacking Beacon).

On the paladin

If paladins are taking damage, casting Beacon on themselves can both assist a weak group healer and prevent the paladin's death (unless they runs out of mana). Alternatively it can be placed on the group healer for the same reason.

Smart Placement

While this spell won't turn paladins into a great group healer, properly executed, Beacon can dramatically improve a their group healing contributions. There is no single answer for who the target of this spell should be; it will depend on the encounter and the heal assignments.

The heal on the Beaconed target is delayed by about half a second, which can be dangerous in very healing-intensive situations.

Range

Both the casting range and the effect range of Beacon of Light are 60 yards, significantly larger than the normal 40 yards of most healing spells. This gives the Beacon several extra uses.

If for some reason you are out of range and are unable to get within normal healing range, you can cast the Beacon on your target and then heal yourself instead, as long as you are within 60 yards of the target.

You can stay farther from the fight using this tactic to avoid AoE or give the tank more time to pull threat off you if you pull too much threat healing.

The effect of Beacon of Light DOES require that you have LoS of BOTH the beacon AND your target. Note this is a significant concern on the Sindragosa encounter in Icecrown Citadel, as you can NOT heal a tank you are not in line of sight of while hiding behind a block.

Also note that YOU must be within 60 yards of the target with Beacon of Light if you want them to receive your heals. If you are farther than 60 yards, you CANNOT heal the target with beacon, even if the player with beacon is within 60 yards of someone you are healing.

You must be careful using any of these tactics, if the tank dies or loses threat, it may be difficult for you to heal other party members. Also, being too far away will make it very difficult for the tank to get anything you accidentally pull off of you, if they even realize it's on you. Also realize that the duration is only one minute and be careful to keep the Beacon up.

Misunderstandings

A common misunderstanding and point of irritation for paladins is the idea that the Beacon of Light works exactly opposite to the way that it does. Inexperienced players often assume that the paladin can heal the Beacon and by that heal everybody within 60 yards as well.

Patch changes

• Patch 6.1.0 (24-Feb-2015): Beacon of Light heals should no longer benefit or consume Glyph of Flash of Light's effect.
  
• Patch 6.0.2 (14-October-2014): Beacon of Light now has a small Mana cost.
  
• Patch 4.3.0 (29-Nov-2011): Beacon of Light is triggered by Word of Glory, Holy Shock, Flash of Light, Divine Light and Light of Dawn at 50% transference and Holy Light at 100% transference. It does not transfer Holy Radiance, Protector of the Innocent or other sources of healing.
  
• Patch 4.2.0 (2011-06-28): Beacon of Light can no longer be dispelled. In addition, it now transfers 100% of the heal from Holy Light, but still 50% of the heal from other spells.
  
• Patch 3.3.0 (08-Dec-2009): The effect of this ability will no longer sometimes continue past the duration of its buff. In addition, the duration when used with the Glyph of Beacon of light will now correctly be 1.5 minutes. Finally, the tooltip was corrected to indicate benefiting targets must be in the paladin’s party or raid.
  
• Patch 3.2.0 (04-Aug-2009): The healing amount on the Beacon of Light target is now based on the total healing done (including over-healing) instead of the effective healing done. Radius increased to 60 yards. Multiple Paladins can now have this active on the same target. Buff indicating a player is within range of the Beacon target is no longer displayed.
  
• Patch 3.1.0 (14-Apr-2009): This spell no longer duplicates the heal on yourself if your target is currently immune to being healed due to being on a vehicle. It will simply not duplicate the heal. In addition, Divine Plea will only penalize the original heal instead of applying the penalty a second time on the duplicated heal.
  
• / Patch 3.0.2 (14-Oct-2008): Added.
  

External links

• Wowhead
• Thottbot
• WoWDB