In my personal opinion and experience, the new-ish Beacon light beam animations were neat to look at for the first week or two of patch 8.1, but have actually become a negative factor in my visual experience and ability to see other mechanics clearly.
I am not asking for them to be entirely removed from the game, as some may like them and find them useful, I just want the option to reduce/remove them. As for a possible solution, perhaps a glyph that greatly reduces the appearance of beacon animations, if not entirely removing them. At the very least, add this indicator to be adjusted by the “spell alert opacity” slider.
Personally, I do not find a positive use for the animation. I already know when my beacons are up, and I already know where my beacon targets are located (usually tanks are beaconed, and the front of the boss is not hard to find).
In the case of Beacon of Virtue which is used predominantly, if not exclusively in 5 man dungeons, you already know it’s going on everybody except one person. This makes it even more obnoxious, especially as many dungeons are close quarters (% of active screen occupied by giant bright beams of light is greatly increased). I doubt anybody is identifying the one person not virtue’d by lack of animation and then healing accordingly - most are using a party or raid frame which shows who has the virtues.
In the case of PvP where you may often beacon yourself (especially when running beacon of faith), it definitely makes things harder to see on the other side of the beacon animation because it’s specifically on your character which is centered on your screen.
I find it reduces visibility of other mechanics. Generally my camera angle is between 30-60 degrees from the ground and this worked well for me in all of my years so far - I shouldn’t have to change my camera angle or change my playstyle just to see around this animation. I will admit, if you are zoomed way out with no room ceiling or wall collisions, it’s not a big issue (as long as the beacon isn’t on myself). When you zoom in to about halfway between max and first person (as is often necessary in close quarters, when you want to make sure you dodge ground mechanics, etc) the proportion of screen occupied by this massive beam of light increases to a ridiculous amount.
What if I just want to be my holy paladin and run around with my beacon on me in town / doing world quests / etc.? You arbitrarily decided that what I have been looking at for the past 8-10 years isn’t okay, but now I have to always have this giant bright animation on me?
In conclusion, why randomly decide that holy paladins are going to have a bright, permanent (aside from faith) and nonadjustable visual obstruction on their screens for essentially no reason? This isn’t some minor tweak or change, it’s this giant bright pillar of light that I always have to look at, but find no practical use of. This type of visual obstruction is not dealt with by other classes or specs that I am aware of (prove me wrong if I am missing something), and where there are spell alerts, at least you can change their opacity.
Thank you for your time.