Ive been playing lightsmith holy pally with armament as use on CD, Glimmer and holyshock for maintenance healing. Actively using damage mitigation, LOH (Which recovers very quickly with lightsmith). using Beacon of virtue with Holy light + infusion procs. I was using beacon of virtue as save people button. I was mostly only using word of glory as my healing spender. I really never casted flash of light or Light of dawn. they felt not worth it. i tried to play very actively so that i wasnt playing off my backfoot.
LOH felt like my save people button. I just played actively around martyr the entire time. AOE mostly felt like 1-3 people were taking large damage so it felt like just doing things to slow damage down or burst them up was fine.
I appreciate the willingness to experiment with something different, and I have hope for this new version of Templar Strikes.
After doing some playtesting with both Crusading Strikes and the new Templar Strikes, I’ve found a few things:
Templar Strikes and Templar Slash are doing next to nothing. They are doing similar or less damage than your auto attack.
After a 3:30 fight:
Auto Attack: 2.24M (1.4%)
Templar Strikes: 1.49M (0.9%)
Templar Slash: 555k (0.3%)
Templar Slash (DoT): 277k (0.2%)
After switching builds to Crusading Strikes and Zealot’s Fervor, and another 3:30 fight:
Crusading Strikes: 4.76M (2.5%)
On both retail and beta, taking Crusading Strikes doesn’t feel good to take. You often you wind up just looking at your character because everything is on cooldown and you have to wait for something to come off of cooldown.
Having Templar Strikes feels great to press, but the damage from it doesn’t feel great to have.
Something off the top of my head would be make Templar Strikes increase your damage done by x% for n seconds.
Ret right now is about a 3 button rotation. 3 buttons for single target, and 3 for aoe, with only a one button difference between the two (Final Verdict/Divine Storm).
I think it would be really healthy for ret to get another button or two to help make the gameplay a bit more lively.
Looking forward to see how the Ret tree will change!
It depends what threshhold you’re using to determine whether something is a cd or not. I use 30 seconds as the line of being rotational so…
Templar Strikes (if taken)
Judgement
Hammer of Wrath
Final Verdict
Blade of Justice
Divine Storm (if AOE, FV will still be used because of JJE)
Execution Sentence (if taken)
Wake of Ashes
Consecration (for AOE)
So we’re looking at 6-7 for ST, 8-9 for AOE.
I mean if you wanna play with 3 buttons, you do you. I don’t pay your sub.
Hammer of Wrath is only for enemies at 20% health or lower, so I guess I don’t really count that as part of the main rotation. Consecration we unfortunately don’t cast anymore.
I also think that Wake of Ashes is a cd, but that’s just me haha. Same with Execution Sentence. 30 sec and up is roughly a cooldown for me
The three main ones are Judgment, Blade of Justice, and Final Verdict/Divine Storm. Everything else is a cd or situational, not really part of the main rotation.
Which, speaking of Consecration, I do hope they buff Sanctify again, that was really great to play with. And with the new Divine Hammers, I think it has a chance at being pretty good! Though the 2 min cd is a bit long imo
Hopefully this isn’t just a repeat of the ret pally rework. I’m worried it will be.
We had some amazing feedback that we gave them, which was almost entirely ignored, and next to no communication. But fingers crossed, they can always turn it around
well they can make a “hard cast” clause for suns avatar like theyve done for other hero trees. like felscarred for demon hunter. demonic cant proc the hero tree bonus but meta does.
which is very much needed cause i shouldnt be getting a 70+ second duration on dawnlight with crusade and radiantglory.
its really not, radiant glory is probably still the to go option for herald. even t ho i like the seperation of dawnlights granted per buff. its a nice way to make each wing somewhat relevant. instead of having RG oppress everything.
i mean this is also kinda wrong? alot of the fixes we asked far is making it in, abit small fixes. i feel for holy tho
actual feedback post: sun avatar continues to be proced by radiant glory rng wing procs, while i like the attempt to real herald back and rg back with the splitting of dawnlights casted per wing cd type. its just silly for dawnlight to have a upward 100% uptime in 2-3 target situations because of crusade and radiant glory procs.
i highly suggest you remove the rng procs of radiant glory and increase its general uptime or make sun avatr and its haste boost proc from hard casted radiant glories.
Hey so quick bug report here. When you take Herald of the Sun and have Word of Glory replaced by Eternal Flame, the capstone Holy talent Empyrean Legacy says that Judgement causes your next WoG to cast Light of Dawn. When I cast Eternal Flame empowered by this buff, it consumes the buff but does NOT cast a light of dawn, verified by combat log.
It also makes me apprehensive if other talents that buff WoG are correctly buffing Eternal Glory. Will have to test more.
Why is wrath giving 2 dawnlights instead of 4? It has the same CD as crusade. Why are you guys trying to punish players who don’t choose crusade for herald blizz?
Alright, I was a little livid yesterday, but I want to actually give some constructive feedback this time:
The Herald of the Sun nerfs were 100% warranted. As much as I love sustaining a party with Sun’s Avatar alone, I get that it was probably a little too powerful. And when coupled with Blessing of Summer, it also allowed me to do nutty amounts of damage. It was fun while it lasted.
That said, Lightsmith will still need considerable work to be a more attractive choice for Holy. As is, we don’t need another cooldown, let alone another alternating one.
As pointed out by the Paladin discord, some of our passive healing got nerfed, and a spender got buffed instead, which is absolutely a step in the right direction.
Holy Prism buff will make up for losing the current S2/S4 Dragonflight tier set, which is a concern I had during testing since the spell would become much weaker without the tier set.
The Holy Shock change, while I still don’t like it, was probably done due to TWW Season 1 tier set reducing its cooldown? Possibly a chance we’ll see undone in future seasons. That said, why nerf it just to bring it back to its un-nerfed recharge time via a tier bonus? Holy Shock on its own heals for very little, and is used more for Holy Power generation and Infusion procs.
What Still Needs Work
We’re still very much bloated with cooldowns and modifiers, and if they ever want us to seriously consider Lightsmith, that’s going to be another button to press in its current iteration.
They took a step in the right direction this build, but we want to see Holy Paladin’s strength come less from their reliance on cooldowns, and more from what they’re naturally able to do so that we don’t need to lean on having a buff/cooldown to heal a party member. Holy Shock/Flash of Light/Holy Light are core abilities and should not feel embarrassingly weak on their own.
Lightsmith, as it stands, is still a Hero spec that nobody really wants to play. It doesn’t add as much to our healing kit as Herald does, even after the nerfs, and as stated earlier, we don’t need an extra keybind/cooldown to press. I pray that we see it re-tooled a bit to better mesh with the Holy playstyle and add some more passive strength instead.
Speaking personally, I quite enjoy the almost constant stream of sun beams that come from RG since, as noted, it’s on a 30 second cooldown, even if the damage is lower and more work has to be put in to spread Dawnlights, it’s sooo much more fun.
Actual Feedback for Lightsmith: Would it be worth considering actually lowering the cooldown of Holy Armament to around 30 seconds, but remove the stacks and adjust it’s scaling accordingly for the higher uptime?
My reasoning is, if Holy Armaments is the main shtick of Lightsmith, you’d want to be using it more often, specially since, unlike HotS, it’s supposed to be the armaments that make surviving damage easier, as opposed to just healing through it.
Maybe even, in an attempt to remove it as a separate button, you go the HotS route and have WoG become the Holy Armament, therefore giving it more synergy with the builder/spender design of the kit.
Absolutely not… blade of justice can reset, you get procs of free divine storms and templar’s verdict, you have wake of ashes, and more… ret has never been so busy as a spec
In addition to my previous notes, here is some additional feedback on Retribution after further testing.
Reduce 2 Point talents from Class Tree to 1 Point
We still have major talent point issues in the Spec Tree. We are starved for talent points when considering AoE or Cleave.
Judgment
Echoing feedback from earlier, there is a serious problem with the Judgment debuff.
We are in a situation where we cannot consume judgment debuff stacks fast enough
This is further amplified by Undisputed Ruling, Divine Toll, Highlord’s Wrath, Lingering Radiance all applying additional judgment stacks.
We absolutely want to press Judgment, mostly on CD, from a gameplay perspective. With Boundless Judgment, it is our primary Holy Power Generator and it triggers our mastery. This allows us to spend more Templar’s Verdicts/etc… and keep the rotation flowing smoothly.
The value of judgment comes from the following:
Damage Per Cast + Mastery Proc
Holy Power Generation
Judgment Debuff
Divine Arbiter Stacks (if talented)
Empyrean Legacy (if talented)
Searing Light (if talented)
For Whom the Bell Tolls (if talented, Templar Only)
Sanctification (if talented, Templar Only)
The problem is that a good portion of those benefits are devalued when
A. We don’t care about the judgment debuff because we have a surplus
B. Other abilities have a higher Damage per Cast, moving Judgment lower in the priority.
C. Shake the Heavens is only extended by Crusader Strike, Blade of Justice, and Hammer of Wrath, moving judgment further down the priority during that window (For Templar specifically).
This puts us in a situation (for Templar), where we are deprioritizing Judgment, and that feels bad. Even more so with the new Mastery.
An easy fix for this would allow Holy Power Spenders to consume more than one Judgment Stack (up to a cap), tune as necessary.
Hammer of Wrath
Adjudication is a required talent for any type of encounter where Hammer of Wrath will see frequent usage. It makes Hammer of Wrath dramatically better. This bonus should be baseline and rolled up into our mastery.
Damage profile and intended use needs some review.
As of right now, Hammer of Wrath is a jack of all trades
Light execute + Increased HP generation in execute
Proc Filler (through Final Verdict)
Procs Highlord’s Judgment
Additional Filler in Avenging Wrath
While all are useful, what niche do you want this spell to fill? As of right now, it seems to be focused on an alternative HP generator/filler.
Blessing of An’she (Herald Tree) needs some work.
Final Verdict already provides a Hammer of Wrath proc, this feels redundant.
In addition, a 200% damage increase is crazy amount. When it procs, it turns Hammer of Wrath into our hardest hitting spell by a mile. It feels out of place in a talent tree revolving around damage over time effects.
Endless Wrath (Templar Tree) needs some work
It is almost identical to Final Verdicts Hammer of Wrath proc. Is is also non-competitive with Sanctification.
It also doesn’t have a damage % increase like Blessing of An’she does.
Blade of Justice
My feedback for this spell primarily relates to pathing in the talent tree.
There are two distinctive Capstone Paths in the Spec Tree.
Path #1 (Left Side) - Adjudication → Blades of Light → Divine Arbiter
This path focuses on amplifying Single Target Abilities (ex. Judgment, Hammer of Wrath, Templar’s Verdict, Crusader Strikes)
Path #2 (Right Side) - Penitence → Burning Crusade → Searing Light
This Path focuses on amplifying Divine Storm, Divine Hammer, Consecration. Searing Light can trigger from Highlord’s Judgment, but will proc from the above sources.
My question is where does Blade of Justice fit in either of these paths? It doesn’t have synergy with any of the capstone selections. The spell is normally Single Target, but if you take Blade of Vengeance, it becomes an AoE Spell.
Considering that either path changes our damage profile, it would only make sense that Blade of Justice benefit from both paths, right now, it benefits from neither.
Radiant Glory
Having a mini wings trigger with Wake of Ashes offers an enticing talent choice.
Including an additive RNG proc causes problems
If using Crusade, you start with 1 Stack. The majority of this short duration proc and is spent at either 1 or 4 stacks. This means you aren’t fully benefitting from the Crusade Buff.
Since you spent at least 3hp to activate this proc, you should start at a minimum of 4 stacks, 7 stacks would be preferable.
This is especially a problem for Templar. If you are playing Herald, you gain the benefits of Sun’s Avatar immediately, so the Wings proc is more valuable.
This proc also can also benefit Crusade dramatically more than Avenging Wrath: Might
If the refresh happens when you already have Crusade up, you get a full extension at 10 stacks. While this is incredibly fun when it happens, on the other hand, it feels terrible if the refresh happens outside of your Crusade uptime.
This could be fixed by either of the following
A. Remove the RNG proc and just add additional duration to the initial Radiant Glory cast.
B. Cause Crusade to start at a higher stack count (7+) when activated from the RNG proc.
Holy Shock: The nerf to its CD is still confusing to me, and will probably create some issues later on after S2.
Holy Shock by itselft still feels particularly weak, even if you take Awestruck (which is a caster oriented talent), Glorious Dawn and LotM talents, barely makes the cut It’s too expensive and heals for too little/does too little DPS. For an ability so essential to our playstyle, this needs some more tuning still.
Impactful buttons, Spenders and healing outside CDs:
The changes to spenders are definitely steps in the right direction for the spec, and even thought many people disliked, so were the Herald and Tyr’s changes. We need more rotational throughput and power outside of our big CDs. Tyr’s may be still a choice (or HoD), considering how highly tuned Holy Light current is with infusions+Inflorescence of the Sunwell.
Right now, Virtue/Beacons + DB/DT combos feel particularly weak, even when taking all the right talents for Holy Shock. Not sure how to feel about this, since the balance in spenders/rotational healing vs CDs are one of our core issues right now.
Lightsmith Changes: Lightsmith depends a lot on infusions, and adds another button as everyone has been pointing out. I particularly love this hero talent tree, but Melee Hpal currently has not a lot of interactions with Infusions since Judgment CD is long, even with Crusader’s Might. Right now our best take is to use Holy Light since its again, quite highly tuned.
Some Spec Design Changes:
Infusions and Melee Hpal:: Currently, the only interaction Melee Hpal has is Greater Judgment. Judgment has just too long of a CD to make proper use of infusions unless you are weaving into casts, which is a playstyle that has been force into us since S3 regardless of build, and not every Hpal is happy about.
Button Bloat: Specially with Lightsmith adding Holy Armaments, spells like HoD and Tyr’s being separate are still improvements that could be made to the spec, considering we saw similar changes to Disc and Holy Priest back in S3. Bake consecration into a passive ability so it would reduce button bloat and help us not be as GCD locked, specially with the importance of relying on Barrier of Faith and Holy Prism for Herald of the Sun and Holy Armaments for Lightsmith.
QoL and Breaking Dawn: Please consider making LoD 40 yd baseline. 2 talents points for this seems excessive for an ability that its still not that high on our priority list, even after all the buffs.
Consider also making changes or removing Blessing of Seasons, since some like Spring is dentrimental to the spec since it supports the issues of both Button Bloat and also gives additional throughput that should be baked in our baselines spells. Same for Blessing of Winter, our mana economy as a whole still needs some re-tuning, since abilities like WoG and Holy Shock cost too much still.
Edit, more feedback:
Holy Light is healing too much with infusions/Inflo/HoD. Move this power into other abilities we want to press please, like Holy Shock, or WoG since they are still a little too weak.
Reclamation positioning in the tree now makes not much sense:
