Feedback: Templar Paladin in The War Within

Classes Paladin
183

From a protection perspective, I don’t really find the mechanical theme of this as exciting. I play tank and I prefer a more defensive play style over a more DPS play style (some tanks like DPS, so I get that). Templar in its current form doesn’t give me much that makes me feel more tanky. There’s the one talent that gives me more damage reduction if the ability crits, but that’s it. It just feels odd that it doesn’t have some more tank oriented themes in the mechanics.

My preference would be for it to replace shield of the righteous after you use eye of tyr, and maybe give us some more defensive capabilities/choices.

The other thing I am concerned about is the competition of it between shield of the righteous. Sure, right now in season 3 and upcoming 4 we have a lot of haste and can probably weave it in without losing SotR uptime, but back in season 1 it wasn’t uncommon for some of the higher up paladins here to claim they could maintain 80% uptime. In that world a lot of new / average paladins are going to find themselves confused and feeling squishy as they progress up in content because they can’t maintain SotR (or as much if they couldn’t before). I know this problem gets better as seasons progress and we get more secondary stats, but I feel like it’s just not a great design to do that. A different option might be to allow hammer of light to also apply the shield of the righteous effect. I think that would help smooth it out for newer/less experienced players.

Finally the capstone talent just seems lackluster. Maybe tuning will change perspective on it, but at face value it sounds like a random free hit and without context that really doesn’t feel exciting.

As a side note. As protection I was hoping that I would have a good choice outside of lightsmith (I really don’t want to have extra stuff to do as tank like placing totems/picking specific people to buff). Templar doesn’t hit that mark for me, so now I am left feeling that for the war within I don’t have a good choice for hero talents. I know that is a subjective thing though. There are people who are gonna like both. I just wanted something that really leaned into my tank identity some and didn’t give me a lot more cognitive overhead.

3 Likes
184

This is mostly what I could find online.

I have never read any of the Warcraft books. This would make sense where you could find more story about Turalyon that you don’t find as easily online.

If we were strictly talking about only the lore, I would agree with you here. But, overall, I’m not primarily interested in exactly fleshing out the lore of what it means to be a Templar at this stage. More so just what the class fantasy really looks and feels like based on its theme and ascetics in-game.

For the War Within, we still do need to flesh this Hero Spec out more. Hero Specs are arguably the topmost defining feature coming in the next expansion!

Especially because that is Blizzard’s goal. Here are some quotes from their main article page about Hero Specs.

“They are an evergreen form of character progression for each class specialization that introduces new powers and class fantasies.”

“Feedback is critical to us as a part of creating an impactful and fun addition to the game.”

“Most Hero Talent trees add new visual effects to classes, both to communicate what they’re doing and bring their class fantasies to life.”

“You should feel like you’re playing your spec with a twist.”

I want to go ahead and wrap up my personal thoughts on feedback for the overall theme and class fantasy of Templar here.

The gameplay element(s) sound great and an entire design overhaul isn’t going to needed in the slightest! You can’t say the same for some of the other Hero Specs previewed. So, they have nailed the goal of adding new powers. Now it’s just delivering on the second goal of class fantasy that needs the most attention. We still have such a long time to polish up each individual talent, especially once Alpha/Beta arrives.

It takes me back to Templar’s current working description.

Templar stop at nothing to fulfil their divine purpose of bringing justice and purging the wicked. They call down hammers of light and unleash devastating combinations of Physical and Holy attacks that vanquish their enemies.

This definition leaves too little room to help distinguish it from what a Retribution Paladin currently already is. Furthermore, it doesn’t include much room for showing correlation to what a Protection Paladin currently already is either. There’s room for growth!

Another key piece is all Hero Specs are competing against one another to some degree. Take Mountain Thane, Diabolist and even Herald of the Sun for examples. These Hero Specs did an excellent job of showcasing what those class fantasies are going to look and feel like. If Templar keeps this gameplay design but has its class fantasy improved to better match up to those specs, it’s going to feel really fun to pick these up!

Hammers are cool, but that already defines a Paladin. Our class symbol is even a Hammer and much of our toolkit already uses that ascetic theme.

It would be much more exciting to feel something that’s more recognizable and felt when picking up Templar as our Hero Spec. A simple switch to Swords can easily do that.

Logically, with Templar augmenting Wake of Ashes for Ret and Eye of Tyr for Prot, it makes sense to incorporate Swords primarily as Templar’s ascetic theme. Both of those abilities came from our Artifact Weapons in Legion, and they were both Sword models. Holy Paladins specifically instead, used The Silver Hand which was a Mace model. This Spec is rather bridging Protection and Retribution Paladins.

185

Well… for prot it was a more the sheild then the sword. Still a missed oppurtunity for 2-hand & sheild

1 Like
186

I agree that the more general the name, the better. That, or make the same hero classes have different names depending on the race. The Elune ones are an example of a bad one, imo. “Elune’s Chosen” could be Moon’s Chosen, or Chosen of the Moon, etc. Mountain Thane is even more race hyper-specific. Maybe an Orc Mountain Thane could be a Thunderlord Champion or something.

But there needs to be wiggle room to fit in all the races, because even though I almost exclusively play Alliance, I think trolls have some of the most subtextually interesting paladin lore. All the way back in Vanilla, in the Zul’Gurub raid, the paladin armor set was called the “Freethinker” armor, and this was so intriguing to me, and so troll-specific. It was recrafted ancient armor, so it seemed to indicate that trolls as a race had a long history of paladins or at least something paladin-adjacent. But obviously paladins were not front and center in troll culture, which is based mostly on local polytheism/animism/ancestor worship. The title of “freethinker” indicates someone with views at least outside of the norm, and possibly outside of the normally acceptable. So I imagined troll paladins being (socio-politically) similar to warlocks in a Light-worshipping or Shamanic society: sometimes tolerated for what they can bring to the table, but never fully trusted or accepted. And you can see how in a largely local polytheist/ancestor-worship society, a faith based on the potentially more monotheist/henotheist/taoist(?) perception of the Light (or troll equivalent) could be massively disruptive.

2 Likes
187

i feel like we completely lost the point in all of this. i know all feedback is important but its a genuine issue when rp flavor and talk completely eclipsed potential gameplay feedback.

im also to blame for this heavy deviation from the point. yall can talk about templar if you want but frankly i dont think the issues people are highlighting here are issues that need focus on compared to potential desyncs and gmaeplay issues the new hero trees will introduce. im going to repost my feedback here with some additions that i saw echoed on this f orum

repeated again. its hard to give proper feedback without worrying about number tuning and any potential talent tree changes. however in a vacuum i can safely say that these trees are very good and hit alot of the marks and pain points of ret paladin. if i have feedback please keep in mind they are very nitpicky at worse. but overal having the hamemr rain asthethic is peak paladin and im all here for it this ofcourse will be ret oriented

  • lights guidance: i love this, i hope its tuned well enough to be giga nuke button like wake. it also encourages more of a skill floor such as properly pooling 5 hopo and resource to be able to use it right after wake during your es window. or even better pushed FR to the f orfront with current tuning since its a spender
  • the choice node between templars watch and for whoom the bell tolls. i love it. its a nice literally bonus for st and cleaving. the buff to dt was also warrant and well liked. i just wished for ringinclarity to make a return but this is also nice as well. basically makes DR a dt in itself.
  • shake the heavens: i like this, strfall for ret paladin and good for cleave
  • sacrosanct crusade: kinda pointless since a 10% sov on wake cast is very very small. but really doesnt matter we take all free wins. perhap buff it for pvp?
  • highercalling: this is probably what i dislike about the tree the most. its no secret that i helmed the fight against mad paragon (zealots paragon) and its inclusion in the tree in df beta and post rework. i often consider its removal to be the highlight of my paladin career. so its very dishearting to see this talent increase the uptime of our new mechanic to insane degree. with current rotation you can effectively buff shake the heavens to 18 seconds. i highly suggest that you remove this talent OR put a cap on the extension of shake the heavens to 12 seconds.
  • undisputed ruling: the more things that apply judgement debuff means rthe more pointless judgement debuff is. i highly suggest you make this into another dot
  • hammer fall is GREAT i love it
  • endless wrath will be very undertuned due to the nature of how being undertuned in itself. the choice node wit hsanctification seems like a no brainer especially with whom the bell tolls
  • lights deliverance, again i love this. its like DA but with a better animation (i hope) its simple and gets straight to the point and powerful. i just hope this means hammer of light keeps its strong nuke status as a 5 hopo cost spender

i encourage everyone to repost their feedback to put it once again on the forfront and try to stay away from these long convos

188

We dont wear our hero talent choice as a title next to our name. No one knows if you are a Herald or a Templar until they see you in combat or bother inspecting your talents, so I feel the name is the least important part of Hero talents. RP as whatever you would like, what funtion the Hero talents provide is what matters to gameplay.

2 Likes
189

Eh I mean I kinda like the names being cool or interesting personally. Nobody else will see it, but imagine saying “yea i play totemic elemental shaman” vs “yea i play rider of the apocalypse unholy death knight”. Subjective but one sounds lame as hell and the other sounds insanely cool just to say out loud. We got 2 really good ones, especially Herald, but some are really bad and I feel a difference when I say one vs the other if that makes sense. I am not a roleplayer and do not even really focus hard on lore, I just want it to sound cool.

1 Like
190

Repeating feedback for two talents in Templar tree

Unrelenting Charger: Would be great if this talent could also include slow/root immunity for the first 3 seconds of Divine Steed as well. This is an ask for PvP and it can be an honor talent instead, but combining freedom with steed (both of our only mobility buttons) feels quite bad, especially if freedom gets purged/stolen instantly and you are slowed on steed again.

Light’s Deliverance: What happens with this talent when you hit 50 stacks but don’t have Wake available yet? Do you just overcap on stacks there? Is it being designed so we don’t really hit 50 stacks more than once every 30 seconds if you have good management of Shake the Heavens? Is the intention to generate so many stacks that it won’t make a difference if you overcap? It may not end up mattering much, just an early potential concern.

3 Likes
191

Personally, I hope that the racial discourse in the Templar and Herald thread highlights to blizzard that they need to do some legwork with the different races and how the racially influenced classes (paladins/druids) are represented in game. That’s their best way of expressing that flavor more than any wording in either hero tree imo.

192

Taking another look at the tree itself, my current feedback as a prot pally would be the following:

Light’s Guidance, Shake the Heavens, Higher Calling, Hammerfall, Sacrosanct Crusade, Bonds of Fellowship, Unrelenting Charger, Sanctification, and Templar’s Watch all look good as they currently stand.

For Whom the Bell Tolls: This one feels odd. Divine Toll has us use a ton of Avenger’s Shields, generating a ton of aoe damage and mitigation from talent choices. This talent gains reduced effectiveness when used in aoe scenarios, where we primarily use Divine Toll, and it generates that value for a purely single target spell that isn’t even valued for its’ damage. So it doesn’t feel like it competes with Templar’s Watch as much as it could. Maybe if it increased the damage of our next 3 Crusader Strikes/Blessed Hammers/Hammer of the Righteous, SotR’s, or Avenger’s Shields instead? Not sure, but Templar’s Watch just feels like it will generate more value out of the box at this time.

Endless Wrath: This feels like a ret talent that prot just happens to get due to the shared nature of the tree. Not a bad talent, except for maybe the really low proc chance but we’re going to be spewing hammers all over the place so I can understand why it’s low. Just has the same problem as some of the old talents back when we had the 3-choices per tier system; too much overlap between specs. Doesn’t need to be changed, just wouldn’t expect many prot pallys to take it over Sanctification.

Empyrean Hammer: Having the damage reduction be reliant on the crit chance of the hammers sounds bad for a tank. I’d much rather if the damage reduction was when a hammer hits, period, and the crit only made the hammer aoe (on top of critting).

Undisputed Ruling: This kind of has the same problem as For Whom the Bell Tolls; it really wants us to build for the most powerful judgment possible but does this do judgment’s damage or just apply debuffs that are tied to judgment? 'Cause the latter makes it sound even worse, especially when For Whom the Bell Tolls only buffs Judgment’s damage and Sanctification specifies “Casting” not “applying” like Undisputed Ruling does. So what exactly does this part of the talent do? Eye of Tyr becoming a generator is good though, since we can use it to cap out Holy Power to go straight into Hammer of Light.

Light’s Deliverance: 50 stacks just feels like A LOT, and like we might only get it every third Hammer of Light. Maybe 30 stacks instead? So it can be reliably built for every other Hammer of Light. Unless 50 isn’t the cap, just the amount to proc the free Hammer of Light. Then I could see it being a lot more use friendly.

Overall, I think the tree is very interesting and sounds like a great tool to enhance prot’s already great aoe ability. I don’t think we care as much about Judgment as ret might, so some of the talents feel like their focus on it is a little odd for prot, but they’re not so egregious that I think they need to be reworked entirely; some clarification regarding Undisputed Ruling and what it will apply/activate/proc would help soothe this concern. As it stands, I would gladly take this hero spec. I’d probably give it an 8/10 for an overall score.

2 Likes
193

My buddy plays the Tank Specs for our group, and this is basically what he had to say about the Templar from a Tank PoV, which may echo what’s already been said here.

General:

  • Doesn’t see how this is much of a Templar, looks more like just another Retribution Capstone
    • Only having the ability on your hotbar after you use another, almost unrelated button feels bad. You’re a Templar… 8 sec every 45 sec…
  • Locks him in Eye of Tyr and Inmost Light to get the most benefit from it, which isn’t the biggest of issues but not ideal I guess.
  • While Eye of Tyr is used quite often, he doesn’t use Eye of Tyr on cooldown like Ret does WoA. Sometimes he saves Eye of Tyr for a mechanic, and this kindof defeats that purpose.
  • Doesn’t care for Lightsmith or the extra buttons, but Lightsmith actually helps him survive more than this talent tree does. In high end content, Lightsmith is just going to be the de-facto choice.
    • Asked if he would rather have player power or class skins:
      • Both. Glyph system, 3 Major for Power, 3 Minor for Cosmetics

Talents:

Light’s Guidance

  • Not much of a Prot theme ability, no Shields?
  • Kindof forces Inmost Light, which isn’t ideal, but not that big of a deal.
  • Encourages usage of Eye of Tyr even when the DR isn’t needed.
  • 5 HP cost isn’t ideal, but with Undisputed Ruling it probably won’t be an issue. Doesn’t feel much like a “combo” though, probably feel more clunky to use if you aren’t utilizing Undisputed Ruling’s HP generation.
    • If you spend that HP on anything else directly after Eye of Tyr, it could be clunky to build back to 5 HP and that doesn’t feel like a combo.
  • Has good visual potential.

Shake the Heavens

  • This is the issue where it’s just damage and no DR or anything else a Tank would want.

Higher Calling

  • Cool synergy with the rest of the Prot toolkit, could probably get quite the uptime.

Hammerfall

  • Feels a bit redundant with the previous 2 talents, does SotR and WoG need to call down more hammers in addition to their current effect?
    • Maybe this would be better if active while Hammer of Light is on cooldown?

Light’s Deliverance

  • Feels kindof bad having little control over this, depending on when it procs. Procing at the end of a trash pull or something, idk. Just bad timings feel bad.

Empyrean Hammer

  • The DR feels like it should be baseline, kindof whatever talent. Probably won’t notice 5%.

Bonds of Fellowship

  • Currently doesn’t spend the 2 points in BoSac during Raids, so it has niche value.
  • Otherwise it’s fine in Mythic+

Unrelenting Charger

  • Longer duration on Steed is nice, but usually pointless as a tank. Either cut this or Seasoned Warhorse and adjust Steed as needed. Feels redundant.

Undisputed Ruling

  • Judgment debuff isn’t amazing for Prot, probably won’t notice this effect in game.
  • Eye of Tyr generates 3 HP feels needed for Hammer of Light to work smoothly, why is this a level 77 talent?
    • Could make first impressions feel bad.

Templar’s Watch

  • Again, kindof encourages Eye of Tyr on cooldown and not when you need it for high end content.

For Whom the Bells Tolls

  • Nice option to not force using Eye of Tyr whenever, but probably not going to notice the extra damage.
  • Is this talent supposed to be Judgement for Ret and Avenger’s Shield for Prot?
    • Divine Resonance synergy?

Sacrosanct Crusade

  • Weird name
  • Okay talent, first reliable extra defense.

Endless Wrath

  • Cool synergy with Zealot’s Paragon.

Sanctification

  • Depends on Empyrean Hammer, but probably nothing to really notice or play around.

Seems cool, but unless he’s doing more casual content, Lightsmith is just going to be the go to spec. Lightsmith aids in not dying, this talent tree really doesn’t.

2 Likes
194

Assuming everything stays the same, it’s a very valid criticism.

When I do tank, I use Eye as a defensive CD not a rotational damage button.

Since WoA is already used for Herald and that Eye seems problematic for Prot…

Maybe they could toy with the idea of making hammer of light replace your free spender on Divine Purpose proc?

I feel like it would also have a thematic coherence to have Divine Purpose associated with Templar.

Everything could work pretty much the same with the stack count and you wouldn’t be left waiting for WoA/EyE CD to use the proc/stacks.

Divine purpose would also inherently help getting more stacks, which makes the gameplay feed into itself.

You mention the divine purpose of Templar in the description too.

Edit 1:
After some thoughts and back and forth with others.
I think having it work with DP could work but it would need the Aurora talent from Herald.

Essentially making it available every Wake but with a slight chance of getting proc in between wakes and getting a more steady stream of stacks.

Idk, food for thought!

195

I have a concern on how this spec plays with DS builds, it can work with or against ds builds as far as I can see, with the extra DS procs helps maintaining shake, but my concern that hammer of light itself being an AoE seems to work against empyrean legacy talent, as you only have 20 seconds to quickly use a single target to get use of. I think to counter that weakness you’d be forced to try to pair up wake with exuctioner’s sentence with the divine auxiliary talent in order to minimize the chance of loss of the free DS, which increases the feeling of restriction of talent choice in the ret tree.

This may effect AoE damage and pvp as a result, but I am unsure of hammer of light damage will be enough to impact it, or if exu would become an undispellable next expac, though I doubt it will.

As far as I can tell, herald is much more freindly with DS builds then templar, although that is to be expected of a radiant side hero spec.

196

Yeah…it shouldn’t be Hearald of the Sun. It should be Sun Hearald. :sun_with_face:

As for templar: cool in theory for a single use ability on a 30 sec cooldown. Going to be mediocre at best. Basically gives a 2 charge wake where 1 cost 5 HP. Good luck getting more than 1 in.

Unfortune that Hearld seems to be the best pick unless they really overtune Templar which lets face it, wont happen.

197

I don’t think this is a great option, because the hero spec becomes completely dependent on a proc for it’s major mechanic and makes Hammerfall do all the heavy lifting. I didn’t think about the issue with Eye of Tyr being forced to be used on rotation instead of as a defensive. The problem, I think, is we don’t have a long cooldown damage ability except for Eye of Tyr and… wings, technically? So there’s just not a great choice to attach Hammer of Light to. Maybe just all spenders (except WoG) become Hammer of Light when we hit 5 holy power and Hammer of Light is off cooldown?

198

This is literally how the original version of Glyphs worked :joy:

I think it’s just always active, whether Hammer is on or off cooldown.

I agree with everything else they stated and appreciate you posting on their behalf. Reminded me how Eye of Tyr is used as a defensive instead of on cooldown.

199

I don’t really see that as a problem, far from it.

It integrates seamlessly into what we’re already doing, doesn’t add buttons and as the benefit of improving a talent we’re not taking anymore due to how broken the class tree is.
Integrating to what we were doing without adding load was an explicit goal they stated.

If it works with DP it removes the 5HP cost obviously.

The only downside is that 10% feels bad right now, I think they would need to change that.
And I would EXPECT them to change it if they fix the Class tree.

Even if they don’t, if it approximate 3-4 procs a min that would objectively do the same.

People liked DP, it did feel fun. The only reason we don’t pick it is, again, because of the broken tree and because it needed to be nerfed because VoJ exist.

200

I think they will, if they don’t, then herald’s tree would look silly adding crit to an ability we can get to have 100% crit chance already. Also the current ret tree with empyrean talents would feel odd as the hero talents stand (hammer of light is an AoE finisher, so it won’t use Empyrean legacy)

This is beside my “put wake higher in the tree” arguements.

201

This.

It makes no senses otherwise.
Or they could go the “lazy” way and just add a “crit chances increases crit damage” to it too.

2 Likes
202

The downsides I see are 10% being bad, as you said, but also that you might want to use that free spender on something else, like WoG or SotR. So having it completely override all spenders means I have to use that DP on it when it is off cooldown, so you might as well just give Hammer of Light a 10% chance of proccing when you generate holy power on its own tree instead of backpacking off a class node for the same effect but making it mandatory.

That’s why I’d prefer it stay attached to 5 Holy Power instead. Heck, I’d rather just have Eye of Tyr turn into Hammer of Light when at 5 Holy Power and it’s off cooldown instead of making us use Eye first. That way I can choose to opt out of Hammer of Light by using WoG or SotR to dump some holy power in order to get my Eye of Tyr off, or I can dump the whole 5HP into more damage if I’m off tanking or don’t need the defensives. I think the player should be able to choose how and when they want to use it, not being forced to use it.