Herald kind of sucks compared to Templar

Classes Paladin
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This thread is in regard to m+. In rated PvP, I find Herald to be more versatile than Templar, but they’re both pretty good, which is nice.

So, why is Herald worse than Templar in m+? Firstly, I sim 10% worse as Herald in both ST and AoE. If I replaced some crit with mastery perhaps the gap would close a bit, but I believe Herald is just tuned lower than Templar.

Secondly, Templar has a better damage profile due to its priority damage. I can’t think of a situation I’d prefer Herald’s profile other than when the final boss in Dawnbreaker flies away with a long Dawnlight attached to him.

Thirdly, Templar has better utility: Sacroscranct Crusade > Eternal Flame, and Unrelenting Charger > Will of the Dawn.

How could we fix this? In regard to damage:

  • Increase Blessing of An’she proc rate (more consistent priority damage)
  • Buff Sun Sear damage (maybe we can make Herald value crit more)
  • Reduce Dawnlight damage beyond 8 targets (currently 5)

In regard to utility:

  • Eternal Flame should probably be tuned a little higher for Ret
  • Will of the Dawn should be something like 10% movement speed above 50% health, 5% leech below 50% health. I can think of other ways to change this talent, but bottom line is it’s not cutting it right now

I like both hero trees. It’s a shame that Templar wins on all fronts.

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I agree with you. I prefer the Herald rotation, and its more fitting being that I play a Tauren. Blessing of Anshe procs might be the most satisfying button that ret has.

Unfortunately, Templar is just better in every aspect. Even if they were tuned the same overall (they aren’t) Templar would be better than Herald due to its damage profile, better mobility, and better survivability.

Eternal Flame does need to be tuned a little higher. Its costs HP to use and much of it’s power is tied into a hot. They could also add some type of damage reduction onto targets with Dawnlight similar to Wrathful Descent.

I like your ideas for Will of Dawn. It definitely needs something.

2 Likes
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For your first point.
It was lower before the Templar buffes as well, it’s the mechanics of Templar that made it lag behind.

Herald damage profile is much easier to manage.

Which bring us to the 2nd point
Herald also has priority damage, while the DoT will apply at random if you DS, it does apply on the target of your spender, which means 1 FV gets the DoT on your prio target.

And thirdly…
The utility maybe leans toward Templar but not for those spells or effects.

It’s with Bond of Fellowship, which transform BoS into a real DR even if a really small one.

Sacrosanct is not utility, its personal survivability and Unrelenting is personal mobility.
In term of helping your team, Eternal Flame has more potential but you have to also maybe waste a Dawnligth on someone as well to heal instead of doing damage.

Illumine would also be much more impactful if it wasn’t for the complete collapse in DPS of the 1min AW gameplay choice.

I don’t want to turn this into a semantic argument but utility should be understood as a measure of what you bring to a your group, not to yourself.

RG doesn’t create 4 dawnlight on enemies, it creates 1, which means that you get at most 3 dawnlight running in packs instead of 6.

If the 1min AW was closer to RG+Crusade, it might make for a better scenario for Herald.

I wish RG had never been a thing honestly.

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I could have been more clear and said that Templar has better priority burst damage, but to be fair it also has better overall damage, and therefore Dawnlight gives Herald no advantage.

Bond of Fellowship is kind of bad. It reduce the damages we take from Sac from 30% to 24%, if I understand it correctly. This needs a buff as well actually even though it’s a Templar talent.

My point was that Templar has better non-DPS talents than Herald, but okay, I’ll use the right terms.

Eternal Flame on allies is so insignificant for Ret. In the rare instances we WoG an ally in PvE, what’s better, WoG’s 346.5% upfront healing, or EF’s 315% with the follow-up HoT? Remember, Rets use this ability on low-health targets to benefit from Healing Hands, and that once we pop an ally out of danger, our healer should be able to recover from there.

EF is stronger when self-cast, but Sacrosanct Crusade blows it out of the water in that regard.

Even then…

The snare is reduced to 30% in PvP, and if we need an AoE snare in m+ isn’t Consecrated Ground a better choice? The movement speed buff doesn’t stack with other active movement speed buffs.

Templar’s “survivability” and “personal mobility” talents blow Herald’s pure utility talents out of the water. You need to compare these directly even if they’re different sorts of utility because it’s one hero tree against the other.

So like I said, Templar has better ST DPS, AoE DPS, priority burst damage, and “utility.” I like both specs, but I won’t hinder myself by playing Herald.

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Herald rotation is 1000000x better than templar. Hands down. There is no empty times when your waiting to use something, cds line up better, better self healing, quicker playstyle, your not having to balance holy power between hammer of light and your spenders, and it looks way cooler.
In delves you just plow through things without stopping with herald. In templar, you find yourself waiting for cds.
They never should have taken away the 4% haste.