Feedback: Herald of the Sun Paladin in The War Within

[Cererin-zuljin]

With a talent yeah. Without it nah

[Greatbrae-dalaran]

@Vyrbur-frostmourne

Since both Ret and Holy have Shield of Righteous

Although rets has the skill, they cannot use it. It requires a sheild to use.

[Vyrbur-frostmourne (Vyrbur)]

I know, which is why i suggested it be the perfect ability to replace with something new that relates to this Hero Spec. An ability that doesn’t require a shield.

[Cererin-zuljin]

@Westly-frostmourne

I didn’t play very much when Eternal Flame was a thing in the past but isn’t a 20 second hot a bit too long? In an m+ environment if you need to spam heals into 1 player, surely this would feel awful overriding the hot part constantly

You have to think like a druid on this one. Drop HoT on targets and use that to heal via your beacon. 5 HoT better than spamming 1 on the same target

[Healbutton-zuljin]

as a ret this looks amazing it gives a way to have are single target have some form of meaning in and aoe if its done right its going to make the issue that ret really can only single target or aoe no an issue anymore and put us way more in line with other melee in damage profile. so from a ret perspective i love this if the scaling is right i cant wait to play it!

[Thulen-thrall (Thulen)]

I just love it. Intuitive to play, not button bloat, not contaminating the environmet with ground effects. Good job

[Solarius-korgath]

For Herald of the Sun, I think a change that should be made should be instead of empowering hammer of wrath should be empowering final verdict instead. It’s weird that one is a holy power generator and the other is a spender. Plus if you take the capstone that makes hammer of wrath always crit, then the increased chance on hammer becomes completely null. There’s also no clarification on whether or not the Aurora talent requires us to talent into divine purpose or not.

[Eviaeline-area-52]

@Greatbrae-dalaran

But the dark souls gag! They want to do the dark souls sun guy theme!

[Pepino-frostmourne (Pepino)]

Eternal Flame becomes TWW version of Harsh Words??, Holy doesn’t need SotR anymore and both use WoG/Eternal Flame.

For Holy, Eternal Flame be ST DPS and Light of Dawn AoE dps?

[Exanthema-stormrage]

I am excited to test it in beta. that being said, I have used Eternal Flame before since it is a returning ability, and I 100% approve and hope that it stays.

[Jinxes-dalaran]

I like the idea of most of this talent tree. PLEASE Blizz look at “sunspots” from Destiny 2’s Solar Titan subclass. Instead of putting some effect on your target, put it on the ground where you HIT the target. When standing in Sun Spots you get a buff to healing, damage, resource generation etc, and it damages enemies when THEY stand in your sun spots… It incentivizes melee gameplay for Holy, can change up the cadence of Holy and Ret, and can create a more dynamic gameplay loop, plus it’s pretty easy to tune. Just raise or lower the damage the sunspots do! It can be so much more than just a “passive.”

[Ralloris-thrall]

The problem with putting it on the ground is the same issue most of us have voiced for Lightsmith: There’s already too much clutter on the ground and you can easily lose your sunspot to any ground mechanics that overlap with it, making it lose value in M+ keys and raid bosses. That’s why Lightsmith is being asked to be moved to a targeted on individual system instead of on the ground.

[Greatbrae-dalaran]

I do have to say this about herald, increasing the crit chance of hammer of wrath seems silly with a talent in the class tree already making it a 100% chance to crit.

This is unless the class talent/spec talent tree’s is going to be revised in TWW.

Also, does sunspots overlap each other or reapply? Since they will get divine purpose, it’s easy to use both sunspot applications quickly, if they do not overlap, would it be more effective to target swap for the most benefit from it? I believe blizzard needs top clarify this.

[Greybrook-sargeras]

@Jinxes-dalaran

Instead of putting some effect on your target, put it on the ground where you HIT the target. When standing in Sun Spots you get a buff to healing, damage, resource generation etc, and it damages enemies when THEY stand in your sun spots

As a paladin main, I really, REALLY don’t want to deal with two simultaneous consecration-adjacent abilities

[Barback-borean-tundra]

I like that this potentially brings Unending Light and Empyrean Legacy back as viable options.

In general I like that this answers the question of what to do with holy power.

Buff, not eliminate.

[Taelpalx-stormrage]

This is actually terrible, fat no. Don’t need things on the ground that people have to stand in lol, that creates multiple situations that this would get devalued in. It’s a HoT and that is fantastic, having it be passive is exactly what holy paladin needs, it already has a lot of buttons on the verge of being bloated after the rework which is why Herald is practically a perfect tree for hpal in that regard and one reason why Lightsmith is so bad for it.

Basically you are asking for pseudo consecration where mobs can get pulled out of your sunspots in m+ and people can move out of your sunspots in raid, m+ and pvp. It would be very bad. Passive is good, and HoT is very good as it is a form of healing hpal has lacked for a while.

[Jesir-emerald-dream]

One thing I forgot to mention in my original post, but tied to Holy this time.

If this is going to be focus around Holy Prism casts, the ability needs to have a fresh coat of paint.

#1 - Update the Animation, make it look epic
#2 - Update the functionality, make it fun to press. The healing and damage of this ability always felt paltry.

[Aulyo-moon-guard]

And “Chosen of Elune” doesn’t really fit trolls, kul tirans, zandi trolls, HM tauren, and tauren but yet that’s what it’s called.

Maybe worgen to a point.

[Greybrook-sargeras]

@Jesir-emerald-dream

#1 - Update the Animation, make it look epic
#2 - Update the functionality, make it fun to press. The healing and damage of this ability always felt paltry.

1. Yes, please. If this is going to be an absolutely central and constantly-cast ability for this hero class, please update its animation at least somewhat. It is ancient and looks terrible.

2. It was fun to press last season when it generated 3 holy power (on friendly targets, ugh). Maybe a cool animation/sound update would be enough, but it just feels bleh right now. Keeping in mind, this will be the ability Holy uses to activate our procs, while Retribution will be using the iconic Wake of Ashes. The two versions of this hero class will feel very different during play as a result, as Wake feels GREAT to press.

[Zaim-sargeras (Zaim)]

Retribution Feedback: Single Target vs AoE Builds:

I think one of the biggest critiques about the Retribution Paladin rework this expansion has been seemingly this divide in the tree where Radiant damage = AoE, Holystrike damage = Single Target.

It feels like it limits player’s choice in build customization and makes it feel like content dictates what talents you go, more so than individual playstyle.

Divine Arbiter & Burning Crusade

The bottom half of the Ret talent tree is now split between a Holystrike side and a Radiant side. I was hoping that these would have some interesting build implications, but they’ve unfortunately ended up being almost entirely passive bonuses that are almost exclusively useful for either single target or AoE with little crossover.

(WoWhead article: https://www.wowhead.com/news/a-look-back-at-retribution-paladin-in-dragonflight-and-war-within-wishlist-337571)

I haven’t read through every post here, so apologizes if someone already brought this up, but it appears that for Retribution, the Hero Talents are beginning to continue on that same path of AoE vs ST.

Paladins have 3 cap stone talents that work heavily off of DoTs and Radiant damage.

– This is why for Ret Paladins, damage type matters. –

Penitence
Talent
Requires Paladin
Your damage over time effects deal 10% more damage.

Burning Crusade
Talent
Requires Paladin
Divine Storm, Divine Hammer and Consecration now deal Radiant damage and your abilities that deal Radiant damage deal 5% increased damage.

Searing Light
Talent
Unlimited range
Requires Paladin
Your abilities that deal Radiant damage have a chance to call down an explosion of Holy Fire dealing (180% of Attack power) Radiant damage to all nearby enemies and leaving a Consecration in its wake.

Deals reduced damage beyond 8 targets.

(Proc chance: 5%, 15s cooldown)

Now these three talents aren’t end all-be all talents, but I believe it’s worth the mention. These three talents heavily synergize with our Herald of the Sun tree with multiple talents.

1. Sunspots - Radiant DoTs
2. Morning Star - Radiant DoT modifier
3. Eternal Sun - Radiant DoT modifier
4. Sun Sear - Additional Radiant DoT
5. Second Sunrise + Sun Sear - Additional casts/applications
6. Sun’s Avatar - Sunspot Modifier

Our “AoE” cap stone talents that " are almost exclusively useful for either single target or AoE with little crossover" are going to heavily favor Herald.

Additionally, Templar has a talent called:

Templar’s Watch
Hammer of Light and Wake of Ashes deal 30% increased damage when striking only 1 enemy. This amount is reduced by 6% for each additional target struck.

vs

For Whom the Bell Tolls
Divine Toll grants up to 100% increased damage to your next 3 Judgements when striking only 1 enemy. This amount is reduced by 20% for each additional target struck.

While I understand the main aspect of Hammer of Light is to be an AoE attack, and while synergy is important to emphasize with these builds, it appears to be going down that same path of ST vs AoE.

I think there are still a few questions that could be asked.

1. What’s Blizzard’s stance on Ret’s current ST vs AoE build situation?
2. Are any Ret Paladin talents going to be changed or improved to help the ST vs AoE builds?
3. Does the combinations of these talents, make Herald vs Templar feel like an AoE vs ST choice?
4. Does this make Herald feel like it locks in too many talent choices?
   • What’s synergy and what’s “mandatory?”
   • How does each talent gate rank in importance for what’s considered synergy vs what’s considered “mandatory.”
     • The higher the talent is in the tree, the more comfortable you are “locking it in?”
     • Example: Expurgation vs Penitence
5. Side Question for the larp – Will Templar Strikes/Slash be changed to Holy?
   • What’s Blizzard’s stance on Templar Strike/Slash being a Radiant baseline ability option and how that now fits into Named Hero specs? (Templar’s Verdict gets replaced but could be an interesting question as well.)