Bacon *not* The Best Substance On Earth?

Everyone's heard Ghostcrawler talking about B(e)acon of Light over it's many iterations while Lich King was in beta, but I have to confess I didn't pay a whole lot of attention. I was a ret paladin swapping to a hunter main at the time, and I was much too busy waiting to see if Divine Storm really was as amazing as it seemed, and whether my trusty cat, You, would be by my side or not, once the patch landed. But that was then, and this is now, and between the two, I've leveled my paladin to 80, specced and geared her for holy and ret as needed, and am currently using her to be an extra body in the 2nd 25 man raid my guild runs. So I've spent some time trying to figure out exactly what Beacon of Light is actually good for, what it's not, and how and when to use it effectively.

The Good: Beacon can, under the right circumstances, double your healing output. It's best when 2 people are taking damage in about even quantities. Patchwerk seems to have been *made* for Beacon of Light. Toss the beacon on the main tank, heal the hatefuls, and watch your throughput soar. Sapphiron is also an amazing place to use Beacon. Cast it on yourself, and heal the Main Tank, and you can stand in chills if needed to get that extra heal without putting extra healing stress on anyone.

The Bad: Beacon is expensive! It costs 35% of your base mana, compared to 29% for Holy Light, 18% for Holy Shock, or 12% for Sacred Shield. This may be a bit less of an issue once you're running full 25-man T7 gear, but my lady is at the bottom of the gear totem-pole and her mana pool is not up to casting it frivolously. It's expense only goes up when you realize it's only got a 60 second duration, and so needs re-cast mid-fight at least 2 or 3 times, usually more.

Beacon only works in certain situations! For single target tank 'n' spanks, Beacon is totally useless. There's no one to reflect the healing onto, so why should you spend the mana to cast it? It's also useless to Beacon if you're not actually getting any heals to land. Overheal does not mirror over to beacon healing. If your Holy Light is 1/2 a second behind the other guys, none of that huge Holy Light crit will become beacon healing, potentially.

The Ugly: Beacon is Noisy! I'm sure someone in the raid has noticed the piston robot noise eminating from your beacon target every time your heal anyone in 40 yards. I cringe every time I hear it, and it actively motivates me not to cast Beacon unless absolutely necessary. I know some people play without sound, but this one ranks right up there with the "ding" noise that fire mages make when they get instant pyroblasts from Hot Streak.

The Good News: You'll notice my list of complaints is pretty extensive compared to my list of benefits from Beacon, but it's still a VERY useful spell, in situations. So, when do you use it? My rule goes something like this: If the tank is the only one taking damage, don't bother. If you're dealing with AoE damage, beacon the guy who will take the most damage, or yourself if you won't have time to tend to your own healthbar, like Sapphiron. In a dual-tanking situation, if you can keep the tanks within 40 yards of each other beacon one and heal the other. Be sure to watch (0r listen for) when your Beacon expires, because you'll need to be re-casting it!

Be sure to macro up your Beacon! We don't have time to be swapping targets to get it up. My beacon macro looks like this: /cast [target=focus] Beacon of Light but I have another one that points directly at me, and I keep a 3rd that is not macroed, in case I need to toss one onto someone random. This's very similar to my Misdirect macro set, and I find it works pretty well.

Bacon of Light, as a 51 point talent, is an interesting new spell. It's got potential to be useful without being overwhelmingly powerful. If it were slightly cheaper, and greatly less noisy, I think I'd call it perfect at what it does. Keep in mind, however, that it doesn't do everything, and must be used with strategy, otherwise it's just a mana sink!