[morelore]

Source: Insahnity 1) I do not have lightwell. I've been disgusted to not be top 3 healer, still push out 3k+ heals and have half the DPS die. Long gone are TBC days when you could expect healers with insane mana regen to brute force through healing, get with the present (and for goodness sake, roll a holy priest, utilize brain THEN engage post).

Maybe you're not playing the same game I am, because mana regen and raid damage are actually much higher than they ever have been and in fact we can and do expect healers to heal heavily through entire fights. Have you actually ever raided in content where mana regen *was* a serious issue? Where you took 5 druids just so you could innervate the real healers? If you were pushing 3k heals and the DPS still died you're either a bad healer (yes, you can be a bad healer and still push out any arbitrarily large HPS number you want) or lightwell wouldn't have saved you.

Source: Insahnity GC's Words The basic root of the problem is that most dps classes seem unwilling to have to take the time or spatial awareness to make use of the Lightwell, even if it provides great healing. Players will use Health Stones, but Lightwell crosses the line. We’re not entirely happy with that phenomenon in the game as a whole. We don’t like that dps characters focus on dps at the exclusion of even their own survival and just assume that’s the healer’s job

Good DPS will use lightwell in fights that warrant it. I've never said anything different. There are not many fights that warrant it, and saying they *should* use it when it's not warranted just so you can feel better about your 31 point talent is wrong.

It's not simply a matter of spatial awareness (competent DPS need excellent spatial awareness), but it is a matter of time. If GC wants DPS to use lightwell in its current form, then we need encounters that have the damage and activity patterns to support it.

Source: Insahnity Newsflash: It isn't our job either to save your skin. We help, but it's not our responsibility alone. Nor is it your sole responsiblity to max out DPS (texting your boyfriend does not count).

Er, yes, actually, it *is* your job as a healer to save my skin. Thats why we brought you, and had you spec holy, and said "you heal the raid". And yes, as a DPS, my *sole* responsibility is to do DPS. That does not mean my sole responsibility is to sit in one spot and press my attack buttons. Fulfilling my obligation of doing DPS can mean that I do many things. It might even include using a lightwell.

Go back and read what I said about damage on DPS. Expecting healers to heal through avoidable raid damage is normal, reasonable and in fact designed into encounters. You take the damage so you can do the DPS and kill the boss. Sometimes you can't heal it, so you avoid it instead. It depends on the encounter.

Source: Insahnity I am just *waiting* for developer to design an encounter for people like you. Things like Loatheb or Zul'jin eagle phase come to mind as attempts to challenge healers, but it wasn't nearly hard enough to drive home the point. Sadly, I fear people like you will still blame the healers.

Can you maybe try not to make this some sort of personal issue? I'm a raid leader and a tank and a healer and a dps. I've raided since classic, when it was common for DPS to literally not get heals. I've let DPS die because I didn't have the spare time to save everyone. Quit with the "people like you" crap.
[/quote]

Source: Insahnity 2) Since you clearly are not a holy priest nor have taken the time research the issue, Lightwell is a 31 point holy talent. At 31 points, it pushes it out of every effective non-holy build. Therefore you have a holy priest on your hands. Now Holy Priests generally do the following: i) Circle of Healing ii) Flash Heal to keep up 3-Stack-Serendipity, to drop a Prayer of Healing Nuke as needed iii) Drop Renews like Candy (on everybody, not just the tank) If you see a tank only heal spell, please point it out (while we ridicule you out of the post). Perhaps you were confusing a holy priest with a disc priest or a holy paladin? Please feel free browse the forums once you have raid healing roles clear.

Yeah, you know what? You're making this a personal issue where you try to stereotype me, instead of talking about the design of the game and talent. I know what lightwell is, where it is in the tree, and how it works.

Let me recap this discussion for you:

You: I don't have lightwell because my DPS are retards and won't use it, even though it's a great spell

Me: Lightwell is not really that great, and just because they don't use it does not make your DPS retards. Your DPS may be retards for other reasons, I don't know.

You: It's the DPS job to heal themselves.

Me: No, it's a healers job to heal them. That's why they're called "healers".

You: I can't stand people like you always blaming the healers!

I know what lightwell is and how it works. You have all the tools you need to raid heal without lightwell, as you post yourself. Lightwell is not a make or break ability. It's a situational, marginally useful spell. And that is fine - it doesn't have to be good.

[Nicki]

Source: morelore I know what lightwell is and how it works. You have all the tools you need to raid heal without lightwell, as you post yourself. Lightwell is not a make or break ability. It's a situational, marginally useful spell. And that is fine - it doesn't have to be good.

This for TLDR

Source: Satorri Furi, you miss the point. The skill is not at all deficient, it is the priests and the rest of their raiders who don't know how to use it. You don't have to like it, or take it, or teach people to use it. But when priests in the community bash it, then I get my hackles up. Nicki, your statements are about as ignorant as can be helped. It's easy to click through charges if you don't know how to use it but think you should (which is currently a non-existent condition, people either don't know it exists or know how to use it). The heal is significantly larger than a health stone, it ticks 3 times each for about the size of the health stone. You give up 1 talent point to get it, tell me what you're getting instead that's such a superior value? Holy Reach? Desperate Prayer? And again, Furi, don't confuse your inability to use or provide it, with the value of the skill. You don't like it, don't take it, but don't assume that makes it somehow worthless.

For one you didn't check talents if you are gonna swap a point for light well its between healing prayers, Surge of light and anything at or below those tiers. So you sacrifice efficiency and scaling talents NOT range or OHSHIT talents.

Most priests dont spec desperate prayer for holy although it is very handy in a pinch since its an instant 7-8k heal. Holy reach is very important for holy because of circle of healing and Prayer of healing do not underestimate the power of a single point as disc id love to reach holy reach.

If your pretty sure you are gonna die soon you spam health stone dont you? So 5 melee spam light well end result is probably 1-2 people get healed. Im not as ignorant as you think, I just happen to have played a priest in the past.

The problem is in any encounter where it would be useable ultimately it is a stationairy abillity. I have clicked lightwells as dps but never needed them. Suffice to say you can go through all of ulduar except for probably freya, mimiron and yogg hardmodes and NEVER touch a healthstone or potion as dps so long as you know what you are doing and your healers aren't asleep.

The requirement for lightwell is not there, the need for it is not there and the understanding for using it is not there. 3-4x a healthstone heal is Overkill for dps any damage 3-4x worse than what a health stone heals means they are probably dead before they found the lolwell.

Sorry satori calling someone ignorant with no firm basis or experience playing a priest is without substance or grounding. You can sing praise to pretty much anything but light well and spirit of redemption (which priests practically only take because of 5% spirit and the fact that its there so may aswell.

I guarentee that not ONE priest in a top guild is speccing into lightwell because they think its not good but just because it wouldn't be useful. Not used, not hard to use, USEFUL. Theres a distinct difference between it.

Sadly priests are plagued by bad talents; Circle of healing used to be refered to as Circle of LOL, Holy nova was a LOL 11 point talent that no one took or took cos they liked the animation, Spirit of redemption = Spirit of LAAAAAAG and ofc there is lolwell which is fundamentally flawed in its implementation because it is so inflexible and ofc it will go away quite fast in heavy aoe encounters, 30% of a priest in stam gear would be 7500 health and there are plenty of aoe effects that would cancel the effect sooner than it would be used (ground tremor, tantrum, flame jets...)

Please refrain from calling anyone ignorant for we are not we are realisitic just because your view is that something another class has is imba and that our opinions are -wrong- doesn't make us ignorant, it makes you ignorant of us?

Also as a priest you always have other options if people are really take a shed load of damage we have a thing called Divine hymn which can heal a ton of damage in a pinch. Priests are the healers with the tools, Lightwell is a tool that we don't need and don't find logical or sensible to use no matter if a trained monkey clicks it. Placing a lightwell for a particular point also takes time the cast time + the time to find the location (like casting a blizzard or a mass dispell). Personally id rather be casting something or ready to cast an aoe heal on people that need it.

Having a different point of view doesn't make you ignorant nor does it make you wrong it just means that theres often more to something than meets the eye.

[Lanore]

I'm a Disc Priest, but if lightwell were a class skill instead of a talent, I would have several spots I would use it.

Razorscale - I'd drop it right next to the turrets so our turret runner could grab a heal.
XT - I'd drop one right on the melee and tell them to tap it everytime he winds up a tantrum
Vezax - for the ranged... you get your ass hit by a shadow crash? go tap the light well you dummy.

Bliz made Lightwell much more user friendly in WOTLK... if you remember the original LW had to be channeled... anyone using it had to stand there for 8 seconds like a bandage and any damage taken would break the channel. I'm sure they want use to use it, but I find that the higher percentage of dps players are just keysmashers.. Only the good ones really understand how to keep themselves alive when the healers can't. Example - Why (as a raid leader) when doing KT do you have to scream into ventrilo at the melee group that they are standing in a shadow fissure? Only to watch 2 of the 3 of them continue to smash keys and die. There are encounters where no amount of healing is going to save you.

I'm in a casual guild and our best players are our tanks and healers (with some exeptions) Our guild progresses very well on bosses that demand smart healers and smart tanks. We get hung up on bosses that demand awareness from our dps. So is it our healers fault when dps die? Not usually. That usually happens when a dps gets themselves somewhere they shouldnt' have been. To bring this point back to the original topic... Lightwell is a poor talent.. not because it's poor.. but because it's value is dependant not on the healers skill, but on the dps' skill and awareness.

Even if a priest knows when to drop one, the value is found when the dps know when to use it.

[Satorri]

Source: Nicki Sorry satori calling someone ignorant with no firm basis or experience playing a priest is without substance or grounding. You can sing praise to pretty much anything but light well and spirit of redemption (which priests practically only take because of 5% spirit and the fact that its there so may aswell. I guarentee that not ONE priest in a top guild is speccing into lightwell because they think its not good but just because it wouldn't be useful. Not used, not hard to use, USEFUL. Theres a distinct difference between it. Please refrain from calling anyone ignorant for we are not we are realisitic just because your view is that something another class has is imba and that our opinions are -wrong- doesn't make us ignorant, it makes you ignorant of us?

Forgive me for the rudeness of calling you ignorant, but this is why I call you ignorant.

You draw poor conclusions from the evidence presented and use it to justify an opinion without understanding the other side. That is ignorant.

*If* top priests do not take it because they question the value (which you assume without checking). The point of this thread is that the value of the spell does not lie in the talent/spell itself, but in people's (lack) of understanding of its uses.

You assume (ignorantly) that I have no experience playing an Ulduar-geared holy priest.

You also fail to appreciate the value of Spirit of Redemption, it seems. No one wants to invest in the idea that you will die, but when you do, Spirit of Redemption is a TREMENDOUS value to your team.

I don't think your opinions are wrong, I think your conclusions are simply misplaced. Scientifically you cannot prove something, only disprove it, the problem with "Lightwell has poor functionality" is that my team has demonstrated differently, and no matter how you complain against that, it doesn't make the counter-argument true.


So to re-emphasize the point of my initial post, so that it is clear:

Lightwell, the talent, the spell, is not broken or a bad investment. It is a particular survival skill that the majority of the players in the game do not know how to use, and that is the single largest detracting element to its value.

Can it be improved on? Yes. Does it require a massive redesign to be useful? Not at all. Will it make or break your raid to take it? Not even slightly.

I only want to combat the ignorant parrots who proclaim its uselessness without actually discovering how to use it well. GC, thankfully, understands this.

[holyjebus]

Source: sud What if they changed the way it works to be the same as the one used by priestesses in the trial? It just spits out bursts of healing-"beams" apparently at random. Ofc scaled to player numbers and given some priority in who to heal, wouldn't that work?

well i got to admit i would use it all the time if it did that. Great thinking now only if we can get blizz to do it

[Darksend]

Sorry did not read most of the thread so most of this has probably already been said

raids are not trained to click on it. Our first hodir hard mode kill he shot the thing at the cache just as he went green and it didnt break it. If 3-4 dps would have broken off hodir to click that, we would not have made the timer. The whole having the click on it and change targets, no thanks.

[holyjebus]

was said but it still proves why we don't use it... people don't like to click 2 post's up i quoted sud, he had a great idea ... would you put it down to raid laziness ?

[Satorri]

Thank you Matt Low (Matticus)

[Furi]

The funny thing is that his article validates some of the points made by both sides of the argument.

[Nicki]

Source: Furi The funny thing is that his article validates some of the points made by both sides of the argument.

I have to agree with you reading the article I found some points rather funny.

he 'does' play a holy priest but...

Not taking holy reach is almost silly when its available I know his article comments briefly that the talent spec is not set in stone but a good priest reccommends a good build. I did not find the build suggested. Almost makes me wonder if hes joking with us since healing prayers and holy reach are core talents while improved healing, divine fury and empowered healing are alternate choices that just aren't 'the best'.

His warning to players about them taking damage (not sure if thats the way this spell works now but it seems counter intuitive) is clear but well what use is a HoT that is dispelled by taking too much damage? not any use at all.

His boss descriptions were good but lacked fine detail. No dps is going to pre hot themselves in malygos (for progression), You switch around 3-4 times on zeliak = 6-8 lightwell hots, Most guilds don't stand still with hodir and again its a dps race if the lightwell is a little bit out no melee will click it we have health stones for that. Vezax is a fair point but in every other aoe situation there's a vastly limiting factor which is availabillity 10 charges in a 25 man goes fast plus joe schmuck who double clicks it.

The effect of saving you on healing done will be negligible its not as if any healer has real mana problems these days..

I guess his point is good but ultimately in my own mind ive just ripped through it and thought what good is this? being that I play disc on my priest the concept of prehealing is engraved in me but i still see little use for lightwells.

However taking his examples into 10 mans I could see working very very well.Then again 10 mans are a joke these days.

[Vorla]

While I can see a few uses for the spell (hell, I'm normally a mage in the raid environment - glass cannon from vanilla turned to just glass in LK) plenty examples have been given but incinirate flesh from Jaraxxus comes to mind, it is still of limited use. The fact that you need it to tick for a while and at the same time stay away from damage makes you lose even more DPS time and forces you to be "out" of the fight for too long. At it's current implementation, it is going to be superfluous most of the time because the fuss with placement, DPS being forced to be aware of even more things and break their rotation for it. When it is not superfluous, ie when you undergear content (less stam on the DPS due to lower ilvl averages, less healing throughput and mana efficiency on healers), you need every last bit of attention paid to boss mechanics (else you will die harder than you'd otherwise do from a missed LW heal) and maxing out your DPS to end the encounter as soon as possible.

This leads to the situation that you either can't afford it (even if you have the best trained DPS monkies in the world), or it is not needed cause the priest has sufficient throughput on his/her own to keep everyone alive, so why bother?

However, making it a smart healing totem (ie like the ToC priestess version) and/or copying some/all functionality of the shaman talent would be nice so that it would actually be worth the talent point and the fuss.

[Mookey]

Carefully reading trough... I remember days when lightwell was nice tool on Firemaw while you wait debuffs to wear off...

Yesterday, we were working on Freya with 2 elders and our priest poped lightwell. My intention was to use it after 20 sec of lashers phase before I aoe taunt them... I spent more then 2-3 sec trying to mouse over lightwell , then I just gave up...

Am I missing something, can usage of lightwell in this form be made over macro? Something along target lw, use, target last target... That would be realy nice... It's not hard to use it when it's static and you are running from something... but in most of the hectic situations when you are running on 10fps... it's kinda hard...

[!3M]

IMHO, One thing that blizz could do to make lightwell more popular would be to allow anyone using it not to lose their original targets.

From my point view as a tank (DK), dps (hunter) and heals (priest)... tanks or DPS who are more aware (as this topic covers mostly) would willingly run out of AOE or try to preserve their own lives. The thing which messes it up for lightwell is that when they use it, they would lose their targets. Now clicking your original targets aren't that bad if you're ranged, but i've heard feedback from melee that it's frustrating trying to retarget the boss or mob that has to be burnt down when there's many other players who are in the fray of the battle.

On that note, I do know how to use lightwell when i'm on my dps as well as tank; but that's because I have a holy priest who used to spec lightwell and fully know it's uses. Something which i can't expect everyone else to understand, nor appreciate.

[Amallthia]

My guild made it's first attempt on General V last night. I figured last night would be perfect for the LoLwell since there is no mana regen. I respec'd and glyphed for it, and plunked it down in the middle of the room. Our tank LOVED it, I even saw a couple of the top dpser run from the boss to click it! o_O

By the end of the fight all the healers were hopelessly oom, all I could do was InnerFire/Lightwell near the tank. We downed him on our third attempt and everyone concluded it was because of the LoLwell. They made sure to wait for it's CD to be up so we could get it in our screenshot.

Needless to say, this is the only time I'll drop this silly thing.

[KnThrak]

I agree.
Ever since I keep insisting that Lightwell is good, and in WotLK it is actually incredibly powerful.

Nearly no Priest uses it though. Ofc, since "it never gets used". But then that's hardly the priest's or the spell's fault that the DPS can't understand healing.

Tanking adds on Ignis as a DK? Lightwell and I can heal myself after every add!
Light/Gravity bombs on melee at XT-002? Good thing there's a Lightwell at the spot they run to!
Running from Mushrooms due to Fury at Freya? Happy there's a Lightwell in the open area where healers couldn't cast heals on you.
Failed to dodge something at Vezax? Good thing there's no healermana lost - due to Lightwell!

How on earth can most people be so single-minded and not realize how powerful this thing is? :s

[Squeegiemama]

I was in a H ToC pug the other day after reading this thread. Of course what does the priest drop, Lightwell. He/she put it up during the transition on the Black Knight fight. I'm not sure if anyone else clicked on it, but I sure did.

It seemed a a good time for everyone to top themselves off before the next phase and all the priest to regen mana or w/e they do

I probably wouldn't have noticed it or made use of it without this thread.

[praenuntius]

so, coming from the perspective of some one who's raided as a healer, tank, and melee dps, i personally find light well to be a great utility spell that is under used. on my paladin id love to be able to spend one talent to drop a precombat heal, even if only one person uses it during a fight its a free heal, or if you drop it in combat, i'm assuming its still pretty good HpM. As a tank, i love having it around, i may only get 1-2 ticks out of it, but those are heals that I decide to take, if i need to give my healers a little more buffer space to top dps off, its amazing for that. one last thing regarding DPS, i never considered my job to push out high numbers, i figured it was to ensure the enemy died before me, and if braking target for a whopping 1-2 seconds to top my self off to give the healers some breathing room isn't helping the RAID then i don't know what is. if blizzard wanted dps to do nothing but damage, they'd give you one button with no utility, get over your selves and consider the raid as a whole(including your healers) instead of your damage meter. no one forces you to click the light well, but even if its one tic of the heal, thats time and mana saved for your healer. not taking the free heal is pretty well stupid, cause the only one that cares about your loss of 2 seconds worth of white damage is you.

[Valalvax]

The DPS who think that they're losing out on SO much from clicking a lightwell then clicking back on the boss are the ones who will also not move out of the fire because it takes two seconds to move, when they can DPS just fine from here, the healers need to heal them anyway, it's their job.

Seriously though, two clicks takes me less than a second, maybe your swing times will be reset but over the course of a 4-5 minute fight, that is worth like .01% of the entire raids DPS, as opposed to the healer blowing a GCD on you and the tank getting killed, the boss then turning around and oneshotting you, then your buddy, then the guy next to him, then a ranged dps, while he kills that ranged he cleaves and wtfpwns all the other ranged and heals, then he goes back to the melee, and it's a wipe... (yay for being over dramatic, but seriously, wiping because you refused to give up 2k damage in whites is bad)

[Clyde]

*sigh*

Yes, Lightwell is quite powerful when used.

Yes, a good DPSer won't lose much DPS if he uses it.

However, any DPSer (especially melee, depending on placement) will lose *some* DPS. And many, perhaps most, raids rate DPS players purely, 100% on how much damage they output. This is usually a stack ranking, straight up. Bob did more than Tom did more than Mary did more than Marvin. Stopping DPS to heal yourself means losing relative ranking to nearby other team members that don't do so but rely on the healing staff to keep their health up.

Lightwell rewards the wrong behavior. Mind you, a good raid, with a smart leader and perceptive healing staff can counteract that, even if it's just by verbally acknowledging the smart play of the guy that never needed healing. But most raids are not that raid.

Lightwell isn't useless mechanically. It's useless socially. Which is sad, 'cause it's an interesting mechanic, quite different, and we need more of those. But I think that unless it is changed to be less interesting and different, it will continue to be under utilized.

[Ion]

Source: Mookey Carefully reading trough... I remember days when lightwell was nice tool on Firemaw while you wait debuffs to wear off... Yesterday, we were working on Freya with 2 elders and our priest poped lightwell. My intention was to use it after 20 sec of lashers phase before I aoe taunt them... I spent more then 2-3 sec trying to mouse over lightwell , then I just gave up... Am I missing something, can usage of lightwell in this form be made over macro? Something along target lw, use, target last target... That would be realy nice... It's not hard to use it when it's static and you are running from something... but in most of the hectic situations when you are running on 10fps... it's kinda hard...

I've run into this exact problem. I'm standing right on the lightwell, it is clearly visible, but I can't get the gear icon to click on it because the boss' hit box is so gianormous that all I can do is click him.

Thanks lightwell...for making me waste all that time trying to click you.