read patchnotes and it seems like a whole lot of nerfs. but why?
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Blizzard buffed our cleave/aoe but nerfed our single target. Which makes no sense considering our single target isn’t top tier. It’s good but not top tier.
Trust me, we ret players have no clue as to why they would target that.
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It’s a bit unintuitive at face value.
But the way they buffed the AoE that much and with the little investment in talent points to benefit from it means we can branch into more ST focused talents without losing much AoE potency.
For example, Blessed champion is now only 1 point and reduces the damage on secondary target by only 25% compared to 50% before.
Consecrated blade also goes baseline, so just right here are 2 points you can re-invest somewhere else.
Finally the changes to ES/FR means that ES ain’t that much of a drop in AoE if you don’t make massive pulls but is much stronger in ST.
So it’s a bit more nuanced than it appears.
We’ll really have to see some sims of what the full ST build can do and how it compares to other classes.
Here is what I think would be the most ST you can get out of it.
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I don’t know how worth would be burn to ashes with templar TBH so maybe the duration on ES would be better but it wouldn’t stray too much from this.
If this build does relatively well compared to other classes ST then we’ll be fine.
And if you add targets then you have very few points to move out to still do decent cleave.
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Perhaps., but that’s not quite…accurate.
To use your example, sure, you have 2 points freed up but at the same time there are new nodes you’re going to invest those 2 points in such as Radiant Glory and Burn to Ash, which doesn’t help your single target specifically.
Which is an investment we could have made regardless, whether they nerfed our single target or not.
As I’ve stated before, Blizz zeroing in on our single target abilities honestly makes no sense considering our single target isn’t top tier. It’s good but not top tier.
I added an edit on top.
Yeah but it’s irrelevant in the end.
It all depends on whether or not the top ST build does fine or not.
If it doesn’t, then we have a problem and those nerfs are puzzling, but if does then it means that it would have been too strong if they didn’t nerf it.
If you look at the build I posted, the top ST build will most likely include Empyrean Legacy and Ire together.
What else would you take in ST beside those?
(I think that’s intended too so that Herald has access to DS in ST)
So the buff to AoE are also a buff to ST because of what we’re most likely to take.
Furthermore, they barely touched the power of the kit or the talents after adding the Hero talents, there’s a redistribution of damage occurring and without the proper tools it’s hard to say those aren’t warranted or unwarranted.
Please forgive my ignorance but I came back last year after years long hiatus and still not familiar with everything Warcraft. The build you gave…
…where exactly do you actually paste it in order to see the actual build? Do you paste it on Google? Do you paste it somewhere on Wowhead? Very interested in looking at it so I can learn. Appreciate it.
it’s on wowhead
You go below the tree and import it.
Edit:
Just the Holy Flames talent, yes they nerf FV by 10%, BoJ by 20% and HoW by 15% but they “rebuff” them through Holy flames AND EVERY OTHER PART of our damage by 3% as long as expurg is active on it, which it will virtually always.
The DS from Emp legacy with all the modifiers will hit for 246%AP (without judgement buff) I know it’s 3 DS on the min but when I take all of this into the picture, I don’t know that it’s that much of a nerf considering everything else that will be taken in a ST build.
Where it says “Load/Export Build” or in the box next to it that says "Search all talents’
Load/export yup
You have to put Wowhead on beta mode too.
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My man.
Learn something new everyday. But we’re paladins; we help people. 
Okay, I see you left out a few Talents to compensate for single target such as Blessed Champion, Crusade and Searing Light. From an M+ perspective, that’s a lot of damage being left on the table. But from Raid perspective, I guess it would be okay.
And this is the problem we have in DF, we have to give up one or the other (single target/aoe) to maximize whereas there are other classes that don’t have to sacrifice.
Which is why I say there was no reason to nerf our single target. Is it gonna seriously affect our total DPS output? Probably not (heavy emphasis on the probably) but still…
So see that’s the beauty of what they did.
By buffing the “baseline” strength of our AoE, even if there’s cleave going on we’ll still do better.
By all account, this ST build has plenty of incidental cleave going on.
In the build I made, you could easily replace Rush of Light and Vanguards Momentum by Blessed champion and JJE and that would be a good boost without sacrificing much ST damage.
Better yet, the new mastery coupled with Blessed champion gives you more stacks of DA, so we actually get a form of slight “funnel” for ST too.
Speaking of which, DA wasn’t nerfed, yet the new mastery effectively increase the rate at which DA will proc ever so slightly.
I’ll give you credit, bruh. You always try to see the good in things.
Rush of Light, maybe. But you really don’t want to give up Vanguard’s Momentum, especially if you’re playing Herald. 2 charges of HoW is some respectable damage you really don’t want to leave out for single target. Which would leave one point in your example.
And in an M+ environment, leaving out the previous 3 Talents I mention is leaving serious damage on the table.
Didn’t think about that. This would definitely be cool if Blessed Champion will count toward those 25 Stacks. Damn, this would really, really be good if this example works. So much so that Divine Arbiter is almost a must Talent to have.
So, the judgement and CS itself won’t trigger stacks, but the Higlord’s Judgement proc does.
Which I suppose is a replacement for what HoW used to do with the Blessed hammer spawn but more consistent and not as intrusive if HoW doesn’t have priority.
Why o why am I not surprised Blizz wouldn’t give us that.
Hmmm, fair enough. Which means our Mastery needs to be high enough to proc on a regular basis from either Judgement or HoW. Still…it’s definitely something to seriously consider on acquiring Divine Arbiter.
Honestly, it would be pretty crazy. You can already gain 6 stacks of a single judgment. If it also proced from every hit of Judgment you could gain 10. Likely immediately followed by another 5 from CSAA/TS
With Divine Toll+Resonance and Blessed Champion counting for stacks, it would take like 3 sec on average to build 25 stacks in AoE. 
Also, while on the topic of Divine Arbiter. Hammer of Light cannot activate the damaging effect of DA. Meaning if you are at 22-25 stacks when WoA comes off cooldown you are going to waste a ton of stacks.
You can? How? If it’s only hitting 5 targets, where’s the 6th coming from?
Yeah, well, I’m greedy. Give me more. 
This is true.
Your initial Judgement gives one and can trigger Mastery to, plus 4 from cleave mastery.
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Ahhh, that’s right. The initial Judgement is still Holystrike damage, which will proc a stack. Forgot about that.
Damn, Divine Arbiter is looking better and better.
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this has been a very productive thread, thanks for the info 
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We’re the Knights of the Silver Hand; it’s what we do. 