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This week we are discussing the always polarizing lolwell Lightwell. Has Blizz done enough to make it viable in raiding? Are you using it? If so how are you spec’d and what uses have you found for it. If not, why? Leave us your thoughts and we will share everyone’s thoughts on this week’s pod.
lightwell is awesome… I’m a mage with a priest buddy and I click the thing all the time.
20 yard range, doesn’t drop current target and a really great heal.
in my experience, people who dislike don’t use lightwell are the ones who don’t realize how good the heal is and thow big the range is.
I still don’t like it :(. I know its efficient and powerful and I don’t deny it. I just feel odd using a spell with which I have no direct control on who gets healed with. Its a control thing with me probably.
That and I’m still trying to discover tactical positions to drop it. Behind melee? Middle of ranged? Adjacent to tanks? Case by case?
It’s something you have to train your raid to use but when they learn it helps out healing a lot!
Lolwell is only as good as the people in your group using it… which basically means only as good as the people reminding them to use it. If your group is having trouble with XYZ aspect of a fight, your raid leader isn’t going to be pleased if you are adding on top of that a request to use lolwell. It’s just too much to stuff into people’s little brains.
Lightwell is invaluable. I think the ideal position is somewhere between melee and healers, so that both groups can click. It’s less important for the tank, I think, because damage for tanks is so constant compared to what happens to other members of the raid.
There are a number of reasons in the first few bosses of Cata why Lightwell is great:
#1 Prevalence of boss abilities that split damage between multiple raiders (meteors, flame slashes, etc.). This means that multiple players are in one spot taking spikes of damage periodically. Lightwell excels at healing this damage. Examples: Meteors on twilight dragon buddies, flame slash on the Tol Barad boss.
#2 Fights in smaller areas with lots of AoE. Omnotron, for example. Toss a well in the middle of the room and people can hit it as they move around, to, and away from all the bad shit going down.
#3 The unavoidable flame breath/roar on Halfus justifies lightwell. If it’s placed somewhere people can access it, it’s pretty easy to click it either while casting or while stunned by Halfus’ roar. There’s just no reason not to drop these if you’re holy.
Agree with Zelmaru – my guildmates have started t use and love LW in our 5man heroics, much to my delight. I’m still learning when to use and how to position it best (and remember it…), but I can definitely see myself using it in our 25mans too.
Holy crap I love my lawlwell now. I lead my raids though so that helps get my raiders into the mode of using it. In heroics to help train people I’ll let them know on bosses that don’t have a lot of AE dmg that their only heals are lightwell, they use it to heal themself or they die.
Lightwells can be clicked even when stunned, not many peeps know that. First boss in SFK that puts you in the air and eats your HP, click it at 1 second or when you fall for a significant heal (about 18k at my current gearset in 6 seconds). I use it a ton on every boss fight but Halfus in particular when he’s doing his AE stun when he’s low on life. Having DPS click it after Magmatrons AE for a quick way to get a burst of HP. I also tend to stand near it and click it while I’m in the middle of healing a tank (it won’t interrupt the heal). That way I don’t use a GCD to put renew on myself or try to get my own health caught up.
Putting the lightwell down on CD and having a raid that uses it can account for a HUGE amount of healing you do. Our first OMD kill this last Sunday had Lightwell doing almost 10% of my overall healing (I was on raid healing anyway).
Our most recent Halfus attempts had Lightwell doing 10-15% of my healing when I was assigned to a MT.
I’ve always been a hater on lawlwell but now… yea, I’m in love with it.
I’ve found the best place to put it is closely behind and to the side of melee. Generally this will give most members the ability to click it without searching all over for it. If the boss does an aoe I normally put it closer to the casters for
when the melee run out.
My biggest issue with Lightwell now is that you still have to find it on the ground and click on it through various other shiny graphics and player models. There are ways to target and focus lightwell, and you can interact with the target/focus frame to get the heal, but I haven’t figured out a simple one step click to make this happen without it changing my current target.
They made a lot of improvements to it and I will use it when it is feasible to do so, however I think it could still be made better.
OMG if there were a macro for it, I bet we could get people to do it. I know there is now an “interact with target” keybinding – maybe that could be put into a macro command. As for losing your target, you simply would put a “/targetlasttarget” at the end of the macro to return your target.
Alternatively a macro to set the lightwell as your focus (if you don’t already have a focus) and then “interact with focus” if such a command exists. I don’t like this idea as much since many people (myself included) use focus to keep an eye on their crowd control assignment.
A macro-savvy person should get ON that!
I started a topic on this on plusheal.com last week but no one has given a simple easy way to do it yet, and I haven’t figured one out either.
http://plusheal.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=8075
There’s been a lot of love for Lightwell recently. The way our talents are set up, you’re almost forced to take it. And since it’s sitting around every other fight, there’s no reason not to love it!
It’s a dynamically-scaling smart heal. The better you’re group is, the better lightwell is. Your super awesome raid aware guildies know when to click it and when not to. However, the daily heroic PUG you got, well, they’ll just click it cause its shiny. Ignorance plays a big part of this. If no one has explained Lightwell to Mcstabyaface, how’s he suppose to know that clicking it is wasting charges? How’s Mcshieldyaface suppose to know spam clicking it when the boss does 31% his HP on swing is a waste of the HOT? If at the end of a group, you feel lightwell is awesome, your group was prolly awesome and the inverse.
It can heal when you can’t. No amount of haste will ever let you throw HOTs as fast as a lightwell can. No other HOT can be applied while you’re completely incapacitated.
Lots of praise lightwell deserves, but even it has its bane: large hitboxes and flashy spells. Its like cover and concealment to borrow some military terms. Cover is something that stops bullets; concealment is something that makes you harder to see. Your rogue may see the lightwell under the boss’s tail, but rightclicking only results in an attack command at the boss. Our own spell, Holy Word: Sanc is the perfect concealment if you wanna make your lightwell vanish before the raid’s eyes. The bajillion other effects ain’t helpin either.
Lightwell is exactly what Bliz wants it to be. Its a spell thats awesome when you’re awesome, but a waste if you use it mindlessly.
best feature of lolwell: Passively aggressive telliing your raid where to stand 😉
nobody uses my lolwell unless … i am oom and it’s the only way for my group to survive (after i flamed them on teamspeak)
I really do love my Lightwell something fierce. I’ve had it since Burning Crusade (when it really wasn’t all that sweet), and started berating my team to get them to use it. I got to the point where I even had macros with clever sayings to grab people’s attention.
As to the best place to use it? It really depends on the fight. I’ve placed it near my tanks (though it helps that one sits right next to me during raids and beams like a proud little kid every time I thank him for using it), and out in the middle of range (it was GREAT for heroic Saurfang).
Now that you don’t even have to target it and it has a range of 20 yards, it makes it even more appealing to me =)
Loving it more since xpac. People are getting used to actually using it, especially in Heroics. I’ve never heard them have a problem with clicking it or finding it, I usually try to place it somewhere outside the melee area in an open space. That way melee, tanks, or ranged can easily click/find it without issue. Haven’t done enough raiding yet to say how great it is there, but from what I have seen in Halfus, it’s pretty awesome to have around =)
As a Bear I absolutely adore lolwell. Put that bad boy down near men and it will get used constantly. I also like that it can serve as an anchor point for me in movement intensive fights.
I been training my guild since 4.0 and they give me a hard time about how much I bring up lightwell. Biggest help is telling my guild you can click it when your CC during a boss fight.
There are a number of arguments against Lightwell, too – but none that eclipse the idea of it still being great to use. They are more minor grievances or things that could be done to balance it or make it more fluid or even than it is right now.
I wrote a post about this on Divine Aegis and I mentioned how some spellpower buffs seem to affect the output of a Lightwell’s heals and some don’t. Line of Sigh seems to be an issue, too. I’ve also noticed in a few Heroics that I get a pathing error on my screen and it won’t allow me to drop the Lightwell in certain spots. This can lead to some awkward moments where your group is expecting and even asking for the Lightwell and you cannot provide one, because you can’t find a place where the pathing is friendly enough to drop it.
Its really nice sometimes,
ok the ony tank nef phase one whom i’m using. (nice)
Useless when you can’t see it or click it.
nef phase two (unuseable)
Impractical when things are being kited and there is a sea of shit and activity. (nef phase three)
So in the harder phases when its needed most, its useless or impractical. Whoopie.
It sucks the rest of our healing reflects the highest HPM in the game… for a gimick.
Blizz needs to just give up on the goddamn failed design, admit defeat and make it like the NPC’s in TOC 5… then buff the rest of our healing to where it should be. But they won’t we’ll forever have to suffer with this piece of impractial shit, coupled with our broken regen mechanic.
The Lightwell is awesome. Its one of the best healing spells in the game. The only problem is, u will have to train your raid. We run a 10 men, with 2 holy priests. The amount of damage lightwell heals is amazing in our setup. As a raidleader myself, i had my raid trained pretty fast. But i can understand, that if u arent leading, it can be a bit harder. But i believe, the lightwell, giving responibility to the dps of there own health pool, really is in line with this new expension, wich i love too btw.
Holy Priest here. I love love love lightwell now. Our guild is moving slow getting geared up for raids. We only have a 10m formed so far, with two holy priests and a paladin healer. Lightwell was immensely useful on Halfus and omnitron. The dps and tanks also love it. No one is used to it, so someone always calls out on vent once the wells are placed. At the speed our dps was going, lightwell was up every time for magnatron(? the one with aoe fire) and was invaluable.
On my dps alts, I’ve been quite diligent about using lightwell when I see it…even if I’m at full health sometimes, and it seems to be a good tactic because my repair bills have been surprisingly smaller lately. So, when I’m back on my priest I feel less guilty if someone dies when lightwell is up because it is partially their fault for not using it. I used to HATE lolwell, but now I’m warming up to it.
Works great on the last boss in Grim Batol (Erudax) if you place it somewhere near the middle so people can click it as they pass by while on their way to the center of the shadow whirls.
I have been specced for Lightwell since my priest became my main and I’d rerolled back during ToC. Even now, I’ve been annoyed that Lightwell has been used up before the cooldown is up more than anything in just heroics. >.> The other day, for example, Lightwell Renew was my #7 effective heal in HSFK, with 176 ticks of effective healing, and only 36 ticks of overhealing. When people get to know how to use it, it’s amazingly good.
Lightwell is actually one of the reasons I changed from Main Holy Priest to Main Holy Pally — and I can summarise it in one word –control. Blizzard gave us an amazinfg throughput spell that can be used when stunned, feared, even when trnasformed (eg a skelly) but the downside is: many people don’t use it and you can yell at them and aks them to and explain it’s a great spell but “oh i’t sonly a 5.5k tick why would I click it?” “did you notice my heal its you for 10k atm?” so you’re getting half my main spam spoell in a CLICK and that’s just a tick. Lightwell is an amazing spell but being so amazing blizzard has balance dph priest around it being used when one is ina group that uses it it’s awesome — i run a lot with a rogue and lock and the rogue loves the well so much she calls it her “best friend” and got her other holy priest friend to spec into it. Now when I’m healing her on my pally I hear “i miss my best friend” me– “but squee look yore protected! and raidance!!” but she’s a good player. then you get the ones who won’t click it cause omg it interrupts my dps!! (which ahh it doesn’t you know, don’t lose target And can click it mid cast but whatever) so then I’m on my already mana regen nerfed (pre buff mostly here) priest trying to heal without that 10% through put blizzard has budgeted me around because of STUPIDITY. Now if i pugged less I’d still be on my hpriest all sprakles and shiny, but i do pug, so I need that control over my spells so I sparkl and shine on my holy pally instead.
I hate to say it but I have been converted to Lightwell. My raiders/group mates use it all the time. Part of that is because our guild did most of its heroic/gearing runs in full guild groups, so it was easy to communicate about Lightwell.
Also, while I was learning how to conserve mana (while we still had our underpowered 20% added Spirit Regen, I might add) and everyone was undergeared, Lightwell seriously bought us several kills that would have otherwise been wipes.
It is less useful now that everyone has better gear, and I know how to conserve mana a bit better. But it is a pretty nice security blanket, and my raiders call for it by name.
At first I hated that I was using it. Now, its kinda like those healthstones Warlocks put out – something I have that I’m going to use – its just one talent point – and you can click it or not. But it is there and if you aren’t comfortable with your HP, click it.
Its not the most amazing talent ever (by far) and I wouldn’t mind if they got rid of it (they should make it trainable, or a passive Holy skill, so it isn’t such a debate anymore) but it much, much more useful now than it has ever been before.
all of you fans of it. (and yes I LOVE it in certain situations, and all of them its not needed)
overlooked my post.
its unusable when it can’t be seen or clicked.
NEF PHASE TWO.
its impractical in phases where there is kiting and movement and ground clutter.
NEF PHASE THREE.
so… our healing is tweaked and adjusted for a heal that is dependent on the raid to use (ok fine they have it buffed) however its impratical or UNUSABLE in phases its needed most… but our healing model regarding other things reflects the “omg op lightwell”
Maybe in your five man doing grim batol its nice….
try heroic halfius or nefarian on reg and get back to me.