World of Warcraft

Being a holy priest since vanilla i would like to make a few suggestions for the lightwell spell.

Lightwell is an awesome spell but with the issue of the person wanting a heal needing to click it, there lies just one of the many issues surrounding the spell.

I'm only going to give ideas that may work (and of course) may not work in some situations and also the pros and cons of each idea.

Im open to arguments on all ideas as this is why im posting here.

1. Lightwell as a pet: Having lightwell as a pet and having a pet UI would allow the priest to move the lightwell when needed for instance trash mobs in dungeons. telling the lightwell to stay on a spot, move to location and follow the priest.
Pros: More manoeuvrable priest.
Cons: Raid/Group knowing where the lightwell's location is. and also having a shadowfiend pet UI im not sure how it would working having 2 panels up at once.

2. Mana Back: Many times a priest will put a lightwell down and after the 3 min cooldown will still have 10 (15 with Glyph) charges left, of course this is not the priest fault but if the priest was to get a static number of mana back per charge this would help.
Pros: LOL mana anyone and atleast lightwell will be used.
Cons: depending on the mana back, may make mana regen overpowering.

3. lightwell explosion: This like suggestion number 2, after the 3 min cooldown there are still charges left, the lightwell fades or explodes and hits the lowest health targets in range for..... say 50% of each charge left.
Pros: At least lightwell will get used.
Cons: Maybe still overpowering depending on how much health per charge is given.

4. Only healing Low health players: This would change the way lightwell works completly. this works as a computer controlled npc. lightwell is place by the priest at a location and any player in range that drops below 25-30% will automatic get a lightwell renew charge.
Pros: No need for player interaction.
Cons: Cant see any except maybe a little overpowering.

Another thing i can think if is changing the interaction effect of the target. back in vanilla it used to be like a flare coming from the lightwell to the player and now its a 2 second glow on target. in my view this change is not really noticeable enough for people to start using lightwell. If the interaction was more like the Shaman chain heal effect its more appealing to the user.

Id love to see more suggestions commented here, and i'd love some feed back and your personal views.

There's also the lightwell mechanic of those adds on the trial of the crusader instance.

But I don't think much will change. Haven't they stated plenty of times that they like that other players need to interact with it? Even though the priest loses a lot of healing from those who don't use it and it can also cause losing dps when searching for it,so I can understand those who don't bother. Especially when other heals can do the job just fine.

Points 2 and 3 are mutually exclusive to each other, you wouldn't be able to have both effects without it becoming severely over powered. With that in mind out of the suggestions that you've given I'd actually go with applying #4. To prevent this from becoming over powered I'd suggest that the hot provided by the lightwell triggering is amended slightly and either reduced in output or duration.

27/01/2012 08:59Posted by Dreyauc

Points 2 and 3 are mutually exclusive to each other, you wouldn't be able to have both effects without it becoming severely over powered.

I was not intending them all being implemented at same time. there just suggestions meaning one or the other.

i do like some of these ideas, and agree with Pinus saying that looking for it is sometimes the main issue with lightwell as my dps does drop when im looking for it,

One suggestion which i think would work although many may disagree for me is to have a extra button pop up (like the one on ultrax) when a lightwell is active this would allow players to quickly use the lightwelll increasing your HPS, keeping the main mechaincs stay the same only your not looking for it

i do like some of these ideas, and agree with Pinus saying that looking for it is sometimes the main issue with lightwell as my dps does drop when im looking for it,

One suggestion which i think would work although many may disagree for me is to have a extra button pop up (like the one on ultrax) when a lightwell is active this would allow players to quickly use the lightwelll increasing your HPS, keeping the main mechaincs stay the same only your not looking for it

Or at least allowing macroing of it. Atm, a dps needs a switch target to lightwell macro bind, another bind for actually using it and another switch back to previous target macro bind. Considering the thing is pretty small and hard to see in cluster!@#$s of spell effects, its cumbersome to use.
As for the ToC mechanic, they clearly stated they will not use that model.

27/01/2012 09:19Posted by Jambocambo

have a extra button pop up (like the one on ultrax) when a lightwell is active

Never though of that, would make allot of sense as well.

27/01/2012 08:55Posted by Pinus

But I don't think much will change. Haven't they stated plenty of times that they like that other players need to interact with it? Even though the priest loses a lot of healing from those who don't use it and it can also cause losing dps when searching for it,so I can understand those who don't bother. Especially when other heals can do the job just fine.

To be fair though, this is not necessarily a game problem.
It's just like players not standing close enough to let CH bounce when they rely on Shaman healers: They're bad players.

Sure, you could say "But why do they have to jump through additional hoops with spec X, but not spec Y?", but the thing is, they do!
For HPriests, people need to use the Lightwell, and ideally stand close enough for Sanctuary.
For Druids, people need to stand inside the (comparatively small) efflorescence.
For DPriests, people need to actually hide inside the PW:B, the same applies for Unholy DKs with their AMZ on high-single-hit AEs.
For Paladins, people need to stand close enough for the Radiance to work well, or stand in a cone so the Paladins can utilize LoD.
For Shamans, people need to stand in CH-bounce-range, and/or in the HR.

All healers have some variant of "The other players need to not be 1-digit-IQ-stupid". The difference is ofc that for all but HPriest, the difficult is in positioning only, for HPriest, you need to right-click something. It seems to be too difficult for some, but that doesn't mean it's a mechanic to be removed.

Rather, the opposite: It needs to be capitalized so people cannot do anything without learning how to interact with healing/utility objects.

E.g.:
Warlock MoP ability, the tunnel gateway.
Or as a fictional one, a totem players can click to shackle themselves, reducing movement speed by X% but becoming immune to knockbacks, knockdowns and the movement component of Fear abilities.


Basically, make players interact with this, instead of trying to get around it. It's useful, it's powerful, and most importantly it's both unique and quite cool since it's target-based. It's a good thing, if it were to be removed that'd be a major loss for the gameplay design as a whole.

It's still not exactly the same though. Positioning yourself does not necessarily distract someone,especially in the case of melees.

Finding the lightwell can be a bit tricky from time to time. If you don't find it within 1,max 2,seconds,then you already have wasted a lot of time.

The huge bosses don't help on that either...

It is unique and nice,but needs some proper tweaking,otherwise it will keep getting neglected.

27/01/2012 11:45Posted by Pinus

Finding the lightwell can be a bit tricky from time to time. If you don't find it within 1,max 2,seconds,then you already have wasted a lot of time.

If you have to find the Lightwell mid-fight, you're already doing it wrong IMO. For example on Deathwing the first LW will be pre-placed, and any even semi-serious HPriest should always place it the same relative position on each platform. This then means that all players can always find the lightwell at the very same relative spot, usually 10y or so diagonally behind the stack spot in front of the tentacle.

Doesn't take any time at all to find the Lightwell to click then. You know where it is.

In static fights it's even easier, it is pre-placed, and subsequent ones get placed on the same spot. Period.

27/01/2012 12:49Posted by Carrigan

If you have to find the Lightwell mid-fight, you're already doing it wrong IMO.

You forget two little details.

a)25 mans,ok,this is the least important one.

b)Male Taurens!

It's easy finding the lightwell beyond gnomes and dwarves! :D

Madness is a very static fight. The issues with lightwell come on more difficult encounters tbh. You cant always place it in the same place and the range is not that big that you can safely avoid any visual blocking on it.
It is a cluncky mechanic, no matter as much blizz loves it. Even I hate using it, nevermind dps that have to switch target.

27/01/2012 13:00Posted by Pinus

b)Male Taurens!

Hahahaha, you are indeed right. Even male Draenei, who are the meatiest alliance race - and very rare - don't block graphics half as much as the really big Taurens and the overdone Orc Shoulders do.

Good point.

Lightwell:
"... This effect will also shrink any Tauren or Orc wandering within 8y of it."

Lightwell:
"... This effect will also shrink any Tauren or Orc wandering within 8y of it."

Bloody hell, I'd roll holy for that.

There was another lightwell thread here somwhere ages ago, and someone suggested using the new raidmark-beam lighting to show where it is, and I'd strengthen it by using that whole bream (up from the well/down from the sky depending on how you look at it) clickable. Friendly spell effects can clutter up the small thing.

Even I hate using it, nevermind dps that have to switch target.

But noone doesn't have to switch target to it anymore? Or did they change it back again?

27/01/2012 16:49Posted by Nuvielle

But noone doesn't have to switch target to it anymore? Or did they change it back again?

No need to target it, but if you use a macro you will need to do it.
It's really not hard to click the light-well. As for it being changed: If it would be changed, it would need a dramatic increase in mana cost or a reduction of charges: It is giving amazing healing for a single spell.

remove it all together and make it into new spell on a cool down like sanctuary/coh

27/01/2012 16:49Posted by Nuvielle

But noone doesn't have to switch target to it anymore? Or did they change it back again?

It doesn't auto-target it anymore when clicked,but that's all. You can't macro it and you need to activate it manually.

27/01/2012 17:17Posted by Dorus

remove it all together and make it into new spell on a cool down like sanctuary/coh

While we're at it, make a check that people who cannot efficiently use the current lightwell can no longer enter raid instances. That'd solve a whole lot of problems really. :S

27/01/2012 23:55Posted by Carrigan

remove it all together and make it into new spell on a cool down like sanctuary/coh

While we're at it, make a check that people who cannot efficiently use the current lightwell can no longer enter raid instances. That'd solve a whole lot of problems really. :S

But then we're back on content for less than 10% of the population! Actiblizz doesn't want that.