A question that’s been nagging me for a few days is who the best target of Sacred Shield will be in Patch 3.2.  According to the 3.2 Patch Notes:

• When a paladin casts Flash of Light on a target with this buff, they also now place a heal over time effect on the target, healing that target for 100% of the Flash of Light amount over 12 seconds and
• 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.

There’s been questions about whether the HoT would get Beaconed onto the tank and whether the HoT gets applied even if we cast Flash of Light on a different target.  Whether the HoT is Beaconed or not would have a big impact on who we cast Sacred Shield on.

Now that we’ve had some time on the PTR, we have a little better idea of how the HoT will work:

1. The HoT does not get Beaconed onto the person with Beacon of Light.
2. You must directly cast FoL onto the person with Sacred Shield for them to receive the HoT.

Knowing how the HoT works now (unless things gets changed or something here is incorrect), lets look at who we should use Sacred Shield on in Patch 3.2.  Consider three scenarios:

• Sacred Shield on the Beacon Target (Main Tank)

The most straight-forward strategy is to cast both Sacred Shield and Beacon of Light on the main tank.  However, doing this will require us to place a direct Flash of Light heal on the main tank at least once every 12 seconds, taking advantage of the HoT but wasting a potential Beacon heal.  If we go with this scenario, we’ll have two choices to make while healing.

1. Cast FoL on the tank.  The FoL is doubled over 12 seconds due to the HoT.
2. Cast FoL on someone else.  The FoL is doubled immediately due to Beacon.

Both choices give us the same total healing (assuming there’s no overheals).  Casting the Flash of Light on the main tank seems to be the best choice since it will even out damage on the tank over time and the tank is the most important person to keep alive.  You still receive the same heal throughput as if you took advantage of the Beaconed heal.  Of course, if someone else is about to die or the tank is at full health, you should cast FoL on the low health person until its safe/appropriate to send one directly to the tank to reapply the HoT. 

But, what if we cast Sacred Shield on someone else?

• Sacred Shield on a non-Beacon target (the Off-tank)

This scenario represents a higher potential heal throughput.  Consider the healing done in this scenario:

1. Cast FoL on the Off-tank.  The FoL gets doubled immediately due to Beacon and tripled over 12 seconds due to the HoT (if you don’t re-cast FoL on him within 12 seconds).

Casting Sacred Shield on the non-Beaconed target allows you to triple the power of your Flash of Lights.  However, this scenario gets quite complicated.  To get the most efficiency out of your Flash of Light, you want to only cast Flash of Light on the Sacred Shield target every 11 - 12 seconds to refresh the HoT.  If you re-cast FoL earlier than that, you’ll be wasting a good portion of the HoT and you’ll only have slightly more efficiency than the first scenario.  So, during the rest of the time, you want to focus your heals (at least your Flashes) on other targets.  Without Beacon on the off-tank, this means there’s two different targets you want to avoid healing with Flash of Light (both tanks).  It also means another healer will need to be the primary healer on the off-tank while you supplement them with your doubled Flash of Lights and Sacred Shield.  You’ll be doing a ton of raid healing while mostly avoiding direct heals on both tanks.  All your heals will get Beaconed to the main tank and you’ll be keeping up Sacred Shield and one Flash of Light every 12 seconds on the Off-tank.  It would be a lot to keep track of, but would represent the highest possible heal throughput for yourself while you spam your heals on the raid.

Now consider a third scenario:

• Sacred Shield on a feral kitty druid with Nurturing Instinct.

This actually represents the highest possible heal throughput for you since you get all the benefits of the previous scenario as well as a 20% boost multiplied 3 times.  However, most of your heals will be completely wasted on overheals in this scenario as well as most of your Sacred Shield absorbs since the kitty druid won’t be taking nearly as much damage as a tank or off-tank.  So, this strategy is probably not recommend unless for some reason your kitty druid is taking a ton of damage.

So which one should I do?

 This is part of where the new “skill” of playing a Holy Paladin comes in.  It really depends on the fight, the tanks, and your other healers.  Is it worth losing the mitigation on the main tank for the extra heal throughput and efficiency you get by putting Sacred Shield on the off-tank?  Is the off-tank taking enough damage to need the extra mitigation and the extra HoT or will it all mostly be overheals?  Would it be better to sacrifice the equivalent of one FoL every 12 seconds so you can keep that mitigation and HoT on the main tank instead?

Keep in mind that your main job is to keep people alive, not to top the healing meters.  Do not hesitate to cast a Flash of Light on a target with the HoT if he is about to die.  Its not worth trying to take full advantage of every HoT if it means people are dying because of it.  The safest scenario is to keep Sacred Shield and Beacon on the Main tank and send a direct Flash of Light to him once every 12 seconds while you heal the raid or off-tank.  If two tanks are both taking a lot of damage and you have good healers helping to keep them both up, you can split Beacon and Sacred Shield between them, do some raid heals, and get your highest throughput potential and efficiency.  But those are a lot of ifs, so be careful.

Flash of Light is already a very efficient heal so trying to get even more efficiency out of it isn’t strictly necessary.  Don’t hesitate to spam it around on whoever needs it, regardless of the status of Sacred Shield or the HoT.  The FoL HoT is also relatively small, so don’t worry too much about how it affects your total healing.  But keep these tips in mind if you’re looking to squeeze the most out of your new tools.