Hello first time posting,
TLDR: DoTs don’t activate Searing Light.
I’ve been playing around with Searing Light, and have been generally disappointed with how rarely it activates. I ran as much radiant damage as I could, but still would see it activate 0 to 1 times per minute. I decided to play around with it on some dummies for a several hours. I tested each radiant damage ability and each radiant damage DoT effect in isolation. I did these tests on the AoE dummies, observing thousands of instances of damage for each spell and DoT over hundreds of casts. This is what I’ve found:
-HOW SEARING LIGHT WORKS-
In my tests, Radiant damage from DoT effects never caused it to trigger. This means Expurgation, Truth’s Wake, and Divine Hammer will never activate it. It only activates from direct radiant damage spells. Consecration is odd. For Consecration, the initial cast of the spell can activate it, but it will never activate from a damage tick from its DoT effect. I think this is because Consecration does do direct damage from its initial cast. During my tests, I have never seen Truth’s Wake, Expurgation, or Divine Hammer cause it to activate, neither in the middle of the DoT effects nor from their initial damage.
-WHY IT COULD BE BUGGED-
I am convinced this is a bug. Penitence and Burning Crusade are required to pick it up. These talents promote the usage of DoT effects and make certain DoT effects do radiant damage. Searing Light itself says that abilities that deal radiant damage will activate it. Naturally, you would think this would include DoT effects from your spells. How it is working now seems to be anti-synergistic to the play-style it implies. Either Searing Light is not working as intended, or the description would benefit from some clarification, as it only triggers from direct instances of radiant damage. What really made me think it is bugged is that Divine Hammer can never cause it to trigger. Burning Crusade makes Divine Hammer deal radiant damage so it can get Searing Light to trigger, but is unable to ever do so. In addition to that, the talent states that it has unlimited range, which, to me, further implies that it should be able to be triggered by DoT effects.
-CURRENT APPLICABILITY-
If you want to maximize the chances to trigger Searing Light, you want to do as many instances of direct radiant damage as often as possible. Since DoT effects currently hold no barring on the trigger, prioritizing them is not as important as dealing direct radiant damage. Using radiant cleave abilities is the best way to achieve this. Templar Strikes, Divine Storm, and Wake of Ashes are going to be your primary activators. Templar Strikes with Blessed Champion does roll for each target hit, so it will activate more often in groups. Blade of Vengeance, however, does not increase the odds as Expurgation cannot trigger it. Consecration is best thrown down in the thickest group, but targets can be moved out of it without reducing the chances of activation. Unsurprisingly, this makes Searing Light best for AoE encounters. However, I believe Divine Arbiter would be a better choice due to how rarely Searing Light activates due to this potential bug.
