Lightsmith is a really cool concept in my opinion, but it doesn’t really feel very impactful, or really even fun, visually or thematically, in actual practice. Holy Paladins already have some serious ability bloat so having to micromanage another ability is kind of a drag. There’s also a bunch of absolute dud talents which don’t feel very great for a “hero” spec.
Let’s look at the talents and see what could be done. Lightsmith is the name of the hero, so why not focus it on what smiths use and what they make… hammers and armor, weapons, etc. A Lightsmith probably uses and/or makes hammers and armor/weapons from light. It says it right in the description. To me, that sounds like the hero talents should revolve around boosting our hammer-themed abilities.
Holy Armaments: Applying this manually kind of sucks, and having it split into two different buffs that cycle makes it kind of pointless to try to put it on an appropriate target. You end up just throwing it on whoever because you need to just have it out. Why not add the effect to another one our abilities?
Why not just have Judgement grant Holy Armaments to a nearby friendly target, prioritizing those without it? Combine Holy Bulwark and Sacred Weapon into a single buff; weaken it a little if needed.
Rite of Sanctification/Adjuration: These just feel like a nothingburger. They’re just another annoying thing to remember to put on and aren’t exactly very impactful whatsoever.
How about Sanctification straight up increases the duration of Holy Armaments, while Adjuration increases the duration more when you use some other ability, so there’s an active and passive playstyle when it comes to maintaining your buff(s).
Solidarity: This is fine.
Divine Guidance/Blessed Assurance: This is fine for the most part; DG is way better than BA.
Laying Down Arms: This can stay the same, but because my iteration applies more buffs, perhaps the cooldown reduction effect for Lay on Hands could be drastically reduced to 2 seconds versus 15, and the Infusion of Light proc effect would have an internal cooldown.
Divine Inspiration/Forewarning: Because of my changes, it could be changed to “Divine Inspiration: Your spells and abilities have a % chance to apply Holy Armaments to a nearby friendly target.” and “Forewarning: Your Divine Toll applies Holy Armaments to a nearby friendly target.” A little more random node and a more precise node.
Fear No Evil/Excoriation: FNE might become a little more useful with my iteration of Holy Armaments. Excoriation is a complete nothingburger. “Excoriation: Hammer of Justice now applies Holy Armaments to a nearby friendly target.” Much better.
Shared Resolve: Functionally 1% damage reduction, which is kind of sad. How about “Blessing of Sacrifice applies Holy Armaments to your target and while Blessing of Sacrifice is active, Holy Armaments can stack up to 2 on this target.”
Valiance: Since it wouldn’t work with my iteration, it could now be “Consuming Infusion of Light/Shining Light increases the duration of Holy Armaments.”
Hammer and Anvil: This is fine.
Blessing of the Forge: This can probably stay the same, perhaps with a bit of a nerf because of how many more buffs we’ll be putting out and maintaining. Give us a visual or something though… maybe instead of our wings, we get forge bellows on our back pumping out light.