Feedback: Paladin Hero Talents in The War Within

Classes Paladin
42

I have to mirror others thoughts on this as well.

Id rather this be a buff applied to someone specific and like casting any spell on oneself or [@mouseover]. Having to interact with ground targets is an attention loss, a dps loss, a healing loss, a chance to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and lead to an increase in deaths.

I do like the idea of 1 ability 2 functions described above being dependent on HP of target. Tanks could use as a personal CD if low HP, or if no incoming damage is anticipated can place on a dps with full health to buff damage. Still should be castable on a target and leave no further interaction. People dont need to be distracted trying to pick up buffs.

Secondly, please for the love of God get rid of Consecration or rework it in a way that isn’t so painful. Having anything to do with a spell that people are going to regularly walk out of is so painful.

The avenging wrath talent is basically a weaker mirror. It might be nice, but likely will still feel bad.

1 Like
44

Frankly I don’t think this could have missed the mark any further.

Deleting the entire idea and replacing it with a single choice node that lets me pick whether my abilities are redder or whiter would be more compelling.

  • targeted ground reticles in modern WoW are incredibly yucky
  • this is literally just lightwell 0.5- in fact in some ways it’s worse because I’m now forced to try to position it every 20(?) seconds instead of once every 2-3 minutes
  • abilities that alternate or cycle are annoying and feel terrible to press because one is always the most useful and it becomes a “throw this garbage away to get to the good one”
  • please stop with adding to consecrate- its Rune of Power and it’s about time to either remove it or tie it in with a different ability or have it just move with you
13 Likes
45

What, a 15% AoE slow every minute isn’t enough utility? :smiley:

2 Likes
46

Bringing over my relevant feedback from the other thread:

I was really hoping to see one of the Ret hero trees, but it’s still nice to see anything Paladin-related really.

  • Holy Bulwark seems really strong and I am here for it.
  • Holy Armaments feels like less complicated Blessing of Seasons (which should probably just be reduced to two alternating buffs anyway), but with the added drawback of it being something you have to place on the ground, so your allies can :duck: it up on you. How long are these things going to stay on the ground? I’d almost rather just be able to cast it directly on a player, unless I can leave one out for someone to collect for 1-2 minutes in advance, so none of my charges are going to waste, but they can still be used at the most optimal times.
  • The weapon imbue idea is interesting. I kind of like the idea of it possibly being optimal to use a personal weapon imbue like this instead of a Rune like we do now. But can we make all personal weapon imbues last 2 hours like the Runes? Also, Rite of Sanctification sounds really really weak. 5% armor is almost nothing, and I don’t think you’ll really notice 1% main stat either. Though depending on the proc chance of Rite of Adjuration, that could still manage to be even worse. Just please make sure these are actually worth using over Runes or whatever equivalent item we have next.
  • Solidarity is exactly what I would hope for with this kind of ability idea. Sometimes I want to be able to give this buff to someone else who may benefit more, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want the buff for myself too. It’s the same as the Twin of the Sun Priestess talent for Power Infusion, and I’m glad to see it.
  • Hopefully Divine Guidance deals all of its additional damage immediately on cast of Consecration instead of over the duration, but my excitement over the ability is hampered a bit by RNG Consecration procs like Righteous Judgment giving me less control over when and where it happens.
  • Laying Down Arms needs a clause to reduce the cooldown of your next cast of Lay on Hands if it is not already on cooldown, perhaps stacking, if there is just no good use for Lay on Hands. Also if it’s going to give Shining Light or Infusion of Light, then these effects need to stack by default and not just through talents. I know Shining Light is probably going to give one stack toward the “free” cast of WoG (which still needs its mana cost removed) but once you have the “free” cast buff, you can’t get new stacks, so this effect will just do nothing. It needs to be possible to build up toward the next free cast while you already have one, up to two “free” casts.
  • I hope the proc chance for Divine Inspiration is just high enough to occasionally see holy weapons just littering the ground, if only for the visual of it. Realistically, I expect Forewarning will just be better in every way.
  • Shared Resolve
basically does nothing? Like this could be 100% and you probably still wouldn’t notice it.
  • Could Valiance just always do both effects? Neither seems like it will be a really game-breaking effect, but having even one RNG Armament active may prevent getting the next charge reset for some key timing in a fight because you no longer get the CDR because one is still active.
  • Blessing of the Forge sounds dope, but then I remember this isn’t a Ret thing and it sounds less exciting because I wouldn’t be swinging giant echoing hammers at things.
1 Like
47

I just don’t get it, lol. If it’s me being disconnected, or just have a different version of paladins in my mind, I’m sorry I guess.

I just don’t get why my utility spells aren’t buffed on my paladin? :joy:

4 Likes
48

I love the concept, but dropping on ground in combat is not gonna fly.

I do wonder if it’s better to make Armaments similar to Soulwell. That way, players can pick whichever they want before combat. Either with 3 charges or refreshs when the Paladin uses a specific ability.

9 Likes
49

Coming from a Holy Paladin’s perspective, I see three glaring issues with the apparent playstyle of Holy Armaments: agency, encouraging a weak playstyle, and visual clutter.

Firstly, reticle-based spells are excellent when they offer a high level of agency. Placing the perfect Ring of Peace or Ring of Frost for critical area denial can make you feel like a hero. However, Holy Armament, as a single-target buff, ties its agency to target selection rather than area benefit or denial. In a 5-minute raid fight, you’re expected to place 15 of these on a floor that already resembles Pollock’s last acid-induced painting, ensuring it lands near the correct player. You hope they are aware enough to pick it up while the Demon Hunter, bouncing around more than a 10-year-old after his first RedBull, doesn’t accidentally grab it. It feels terrible when Holy Bulwark lands on someone not taking damage simply because they happened to be moving where it lands. Moreover, what happens when a group is stacked? It seems like we are playing a quick game of buff roulette! Where is the agency in that? It’ll surely feel great when Sacred Weapon accidentally hits that melee Mistweaver during a damage amp phase /s. Your success with the ability relies not only on your skill but also on the awareness of other players. If you want to keep it as a reticle rather than a target-based spell, at least make the benefit apply to the area. As it stands now, I see myself making a /cast [@player] macro and pressing it on cooldown for the LoH CDR and free Infusion while hoping the other Armament goes on someone good, then wishing we could go back to the good old days of 2-minute Blessings because that was a 1/6 of the maintenance this will be.

Secondly, three of these talents synergize with spending Holy Power, which currently feels terrible for healing. A baseline Word of Glory provides less healing than a baseline Flash of Light. Even with a stack of Blessing of Dawn along with the Strength of Conviction buff, it still does less healing than an Infusion of Light-buffed Flash of Light AND costs more mana along with Holy Power! Maybe this is your plan to make spenders feel like good buttons to press, and if so, I hope the buffs it provides are extremely overtuned.

Thirdly, why do we need more visual clutter? Every fight has floor monsters in some form. We can’t tone down the ground effects of our spells, let alone other players’. If Holy Armament’s visual is enough for other players to quickly recognize and react to, it will detract from their ability to see bad ground effects or projectiles coming at them. That’s just how visual focus works. We are creatures of recognizing foreground from background, and the more effects you add, the harder it gets to do this well.

13 Likes
50

My concerns:

  1. I don’t want to have another button to press. I have a ton already. I would really like a more passive option to the Lightsmith fantasy.

  2. As prot, I am already punished for leaving consecration. I really don’t want incentives to leave consecration. It’s a really jarring gameplay fantasy. Having to chase armaments everywhere seems like it might not be fun to do in a tanking scenario.

  3. The talent focused around crit might be a bad idea. I generally avoid crit, so taking the talent feels more like a wasted point to me. Maybe pick a different proc’ing mechanism? Something that isn’t stat dependent?

5 Likes
51

Giving feedback is hard without knowing how the spec will be adjusted since we can assume some balance changes will go into play before the expansion.

The current iteration of holy paladin doesn’t work with the hero talents because holy power sucks, and having to rely on hero talents to make holy power viable is not great class design.

So I’m on the side of removing holy power completely from holy paladin and reworking the effects for holy.

The other note is this is akin to lightwell and no one liked that. We had an expansion where no one played blessing of seasons and it somehow became a talent node in Dragonflight.

You haven’t learned your lessons from the past and I’m not entirely sure why you ask for feedback when it’s clear you don’t care what your players think.

5 Likes
52

Make it 2 seperate abilities that share a cooldown.

Make sacred weapon buff the party dealing x% more holy damage for x seconds

Make sacred bulwark either a % damage reduction or a party wide absorb.

Alternatively make these completely passive party buffs and have a 3% party damage 3% party DR at all times

Alternatively give them only to the paladin in question and make it 15% dr/refilling absorb and 15% dmg.

53

Hello

I have been a holy paladin main (3k m+ rating) since the expansion began.

I like the concept of what you are trying to do with Lightsmith, but I am very disappointed in what was previewed. I have been thinking about it for the last several hours and here are my thoughts / recommendations.

  1. The last thing we need is another button with 2 charges to track. No thanks

  2. I don’t want an ability that I can’t control whether or not I get a dps buff or dmg mitigation tool.

  3. I am also super annoyed that it is apparently something other players have to pick up. lower skilled groups will f this up regularly and it will become another mechanic to manage for higher end groups. There is enough happening

  4. The balancing on this will be horrendous and similar to issues you deal with around augvokers. High end players will meta game the hell out of this while mid tier and low end players will benefit very little for the aggravation of managing the mechanical interactions.

  5. I think the way to salvage this is to just make it a buff we can cast on other players or integrate it into another ability. But that also removes the core of what you are trying to do.

I think you should scrap this concept altogether. It is contrary to what you wrote in the post about how hero talents aren’t supposed to add to the complexity of an already complex game.

6 Likes
54

Most Hero Talent trees do not add new buttons

Most

1 Like
55

Why don’t you make this something like the lock cookies?

We drop a forge or treasure box and the group just picks an enhancement for the dungeon? It could add a visual effect and then let us buff our weapons similar to the rune system that dks use.

Now you have something that is passive and doesn’t clutter the game up or add to mechanical complexity

11 Likes
56

Alternate Talent effects for Lightsmith (Suggestions)

  • Introduces no extra abilities or actionbar bloat
  • Easier to utilize without oversimplifying gameplay
  • Adds more dynamics to existing abilities in a way that easily works with both Holy and Protection specs

Holy Armaments

Word of Glory also coalesces a Holy Armament to be wielded by your ally, granting unique benefits for up to 20 seconds based on their primary role:

Tank: Gain an absorb shield for 15% of your maximum health and another 2% every few seconds, stacking up to 30%.

Healer: Spells and abilities have a chance to trigger additional healing.

Damage: Spells and abilities have a chance to deal additional Holy Damage.

Rite of Sanctification

While you have any Holy Armaments active, your armor is increased by 5% and your primary stat is increased by 1%.

Rite of Adjuration

While you have any Holy Armaments active, your Stamina is increased by 3% and your Holy Power spenders sometimes unleash a burst of healing around you or your target.

Solidarity

Using Word of Glory grants Holy Armaments to one additional ally within 40 yards, preferring allies with the same role as the primary target.

Divine Guidance

Casting Holy Power abilities cause your next use of Consecration to deal an additional burst of Holy damage when first cast, stacking up to 5 times.

Blessed Assurance

Casting a Holy Power ability increases the damage or healing of your next ability which generates Holy Power by 100%.

Laying Down Arms

Whenever Holy Armaments expires or is refreshed, the cooldown of Lay on Hands is reduced by 15.0 sec and you gain either Sacred Light or Infusion of Light.

Divine Inspiration

Your spells and abilities have a chance to grant you or one of your allies a Holy Armament for 10 seconds.

Forewarning

Word of Glory refunds 2 Holy Power when used on a target that is not already blessed with a Holy Armament.

Fear No Evil

Holy Armaments reduce the duration of incoming Fear effects by 50%.

Excoriation

Hammer of Justice also slows nearby enemies by 15% for 5 seconds.

Shared Resolve

The effects of your active aura are 33% more powerful on allies with your Holy Armaments.

Valiance

Consuming Shining Light or Infusion of Light extends the duration of your active Holy Armaments by 3.0 sec, or grant 2 Holy Power you have no Holy Armaments active.

Hammer and Anvil

Judgment critical strikes deal an additional burst of damage or healing in an area around the target.

Blessing of the Forge

Avenging Wrath refreshes the duration of all your Holy Armaments. During Avenging Wrath, your Holy Armaments have a chance to duplicate the effects of your Holy Power abilities.

5 Likes
57

I will echo what others have said that having something on the ground that you have to collect is a bad idea.

However, I also don’t want any more active abilities I have to manage. Pally already has so many buttons with blessings of sacrifice, protection, and freedom. I don’t want any more. If the only thing you can come up with every expansion for talents is giving us more buttons, then you have failed. Classes are already too complex to play. Keep it simple, and easy to use please.

7 Likes
58

We found out way back in Vanilla WoW with Priest’s Light Well that most players aren’t going to stop what they’re doing to go click on something for healing / damage absorb, they’re just going to complain that you should have healed better when they die.

And asking players to stop their dps to go click on something for a dps buff means the buff is going to have to be tuned high enough to offset the dps lost for the effort of picking up the buff.

Turn Back Now. The idea is cool, but the implementation needs a redesign.

I would suggest making Holy Armaments a cd like Divine Favor that augments your next spell cast. If you activate Holy Armements and cast Word of Glory, the target will also gain Holy Bulwark. If you activate Holy Armaments and cast Consecration, up to 5 allies within the area of effect will gain Sacred Weapon.

This would obviously require some reworking of the tree, but I believe the gameplay would feel far more fun and fluid rather than disruptive.

5 Likes
59

If this is something you have to drop and interact with or walk over it sounds awful. Also giving Holy and Prot something that increases the damage of others really puts Ret in a bad spot if their DPS is as low as it is now, why bring a Ret if they can’t buff your damage when other Paladins can? I think this should really only do healing and damage reduction.

2 Likes
60

I dislike how this revolves heavily around holy power spenders. The Holy Paladin class tree was designed in a way to allow people to choose between spender and caster playstyle. Since most of the passives are activated by spenders it nullifies the attempt to make both playstyles optimal.

61

The way its worded sounds like the damage/healing would be credited to the paladin that drop the weapons. That being said, you most likely can drop the weapons on anyone and they will just pick it up. The other thing is they gave you an option right there, first talent in the middle row to use the armaments on yourself and buff a random person.

62

So my initial impressions are kind of luke warm to be honest. I don’t know what I was expecting from hero talents. I specifically was trying to tamper my expectations so i could evaluate them as they are. Admittedly even with trying to set much in the way of expectations I am somewhat disappointed.

I do like the idea of light constructs being a theme however I don’t know these really hit the mark for that and you could go even further to make more constructs that augment or add to abilities.

Holy Armaments: Whilst the effects seem kinda strong I do not like that they are placed effects or that they alternate. Also the fact it is an extra button is less than ideal. I don’t want another rotational ability especially one that cycles between abilities.

Rite of Sanctification & Rite of Adjuration: I don’t get blizzards addiction to giving paladins more armour. Especially as Prot we already have a huge armour pool that doesn’t particularly equate to any real damage reduction. We just went through this with the amirdrassil tier set having it changed from armour to a flat DR. I understand you don’t necessarily want to give us a flat DR all the time so make it do something else please. I don’t need another armour stacking talent. Otherwise the effects are fine if a bit mid.

Solidarity: Yeah it makes sense. It’s fine.

Divine Guidance & Blessed Assurance: Yay more consecration modification after our amirdrassil tier set (sarcasm). If the designers want us to put more emphasis then please make consecration considerably bigger (without the 15% increased size talent) so it’s easier to stay in it while dodging mechanics. Modern WoW is incredibly movement intensive, which is antithetical to standing inside consecration all the time and tying bonuses to it. Blessed assurance is extremely unexciting buffing our least impactful ability.

Laying Down Arms: I’m ok with this but i’d rather it be a Divine Purpose Proc.

Divine Inspiration & Forewarning: It would be interesting if different abilities had a chance to proc different unique lesser armaments.

Fear No Evil & Excoriation: It’s fine, no real issues with this. Just a good ol fashion utility choice.

Shared Resolve: This sounds really strong at first but the more i think about it i’m not sure it’s actually much of anything.

Valiance: Yeah this is cool, i like things that either reduce cooldown or extend durations of cool abilities providing Armaments end up being cool.

Hammer and Anvil: See this I like, it sounds pretty cool.

Blessing of the Forge: This just sounds like a paladin version of the DK dancing rune weapon. I don’t necessarily think that’s a particularly bad thing with Death knights and Paladins kind of 2 sides of the same coin but still. Seems a bit copy paste.