My Ideal Lightsmith talents, version 3

Classes Paladin
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https://www.deviantart.com/lookoutherecomestom/art/Ideal-Lightsmith-Hero-Talents-Iteration-3-1036818265

I got a lot of good feedback on iteration 2 of my Lightsmith concept, which is why there aren’t that many changes between my second and third iterations, but one of the big drawbacks of iteration 2 was that relatively few of my talents really fed into the “Lightsmith” theme. I consider my top priority with designing these ideal trees to be the fun-factor and making sure that each individual talent appeals to both constituent specs (not that I always succeed at either of those), and then I treat things like flavor and theme like secondary goals.

Well, I’ve taken a stab at upgrading the theme and flavor in iteration 3; in particular, there’s a talent in the middle, Smelting Light Shards, that’s intended to make it feel a bit more smith-y: when one of your Illuminated Healing shields breaks, you recover a little health and mana. The idea is that you’re recycling the material from broken armor, even if that material is The Light.

I’ve also altered the choice-node that comes after Shield Glare: it either buffs the damage and healing, or it causes Shield Glare to provide extra damage mitigation through buffing Illuminated Healing. Its earlier version in iteration 2 was a bit too klunky.

Iteration 2’s version of Touched by the Light was meant to buff active abilities deeper in the Holy and Protection talent trees, but that made it look (in Zaim’s own words) overburdened. I decided to make it a buff to the Salvation talent before it to simplify it, and I tacked a buff to overall Holy damage onto TbtL, since the Lightsmith tree looked like it wasn’t doing enough to buff damage output. (That’s not surprising; it’s easily the most defensive hero tree we’d have, being a healer/tank tree.)

A minor one, but I’ve changed the icon and renamed the Judgment of the Protector passive to Hammer and Anvil—it sounded a bit cooler :slight_smile:

I’ve also swapped out the Phalanx capstone I had in iteration 2 with a heavily QoL-improved version of Blizzard’s own Holy Armament concept: instead of casting it on the ground, you cast it directly on an ally, and the benefit that the ally receives depends on whether they are a tank, healer, melee DPS, or ranged DPS. I suspect that change alone will make this look appealing, and that we’re all hoping to The Light that Blizzard is actually listening, and will make these QoL changes before they go live…

There’s something from the feedback I got in my Templar thread that struck me: it may not be possible to be balanced and add offtanking ability to a DPS spec, or offDPS ability to a tank spec—I’ll likely be removing the talents that were intended to allow for that in my fourth iteration of my Templar tree. But is it likewise impossible to be balanced and add offtanking ability to a healer spec, or offhealing ability to a tanking spec? I’m asking because I typically have a choice node that allows for offspeccing, and I haven’t yet taken that out in my third iteration of Lightsmith. It’s the “Devoted Protector” talent in the middle on tier 4.

Feedback on this would be appreciated!

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I have less to say about this tree than I did with Templar, so that’s a good sign.

Illuminated Healing:
I thought this was already a thing. Maybe that was an old iteration of Holy though.

Sacred Chain:
I assume it prioritizes enemy if cast on enemy or ally if cast on ally? Then have it target the opposite if it runs out of viable targets? Otherwise, I actually like this. I’m shocked that replacing Avenger’s Shield has never come up until now, and at how okay I am with it (as long as spec tree talents still affect it).

Eternal Flame:
The prot side of this feels clunky: Use Judgment to use Eternal Flame to use Shield Glare, but only once every 20 seconds. I think removing Judgment from this would remove most of that clunkiness, but I also don’t see this getting a lot of use. We don’t really use WoG that much as is, even with all the nodes that buff it in our spec tree, until it’s free. Maybe have it do a bigger shield through Illuminated Healing (20% instead of 10%) and/or have it give the target a radiant damage version of immolation for the duration of the Illuminated Healing shield? That way Holy is the flames restoring health as it warms the target while Prot is the flames fighting back at attackers?

Salvation:
No issues with this.

Touched by the Light:
No issues with this either.

Protector of the Innocent:
Leech and protecting feel weird to associate with each other. Just needs a rebranding, imo. You could probably swap the names of these last three around to make them work better. Have the new order (as I wrote them down) be Protector of the Innocent, Salvation, Touched by the Light.

Smelting Light Shards:
Love this thematically and theoretically. Great foresight to add dispelled as well.

Judgment of the Protector:
Might want to make this apply Illuminated Healing to nearby allies for X% of the damage done, that way it can synergize with the rest of the spec? If it wasn’t already intended to. I don’t think that would add enough resource recovery from light shards to make it an issue with how well you balanced it.

Devoted Protector:
I ripped apart Templar’s version, but how will this one fare? Holy getting block chance is a little weird, because I usually see them with 2h, but they have used 1h+shield in the past and this could push those items to see more use. I noticed you made sure to add non-players to the crit immunity, which was a smart idea. Might be worth specifying how much mastery will affect these new additions, as it definitely shouldn’t be 1:1 with the other spec’s. I think 3(main):1(off) would be fair, that way it doesn’t give absurd amounts of value. But overall, while holy is getting more effects, this looks a lot better. I assume the crit chance is going to translate directly into parry instead of acting solely on gear stats like riposte?

Shield Glare-Divinity:
No issues with any of this side of the tree. Everything looks solid and balanced to me.

Holy Armament:
What’s the cooldown and duration? I think the higher the cooldown, the higher the chance for the dps effects to occur. The specifics of this one will make or break it, balance wise. I definitely like it more than (the first iteration of) Blizz’s. Feels like such a small change to make it targeted, and yet it immediately feels better on paper.

All in all, you did a great job taking feedback, not only from your previous Lightsmith iteration, but from all of your trees into account when designing this one. You avoided a lot of potential issues with really smart wording.

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I figure it’ll be about the same as Blizzard’s CD and duration. And the idea is that its effect will depend on the spec of the buff’s recipient, so I’m a bit surprised you talked about “the DPS effect”. Did I miss your meaning?

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I was referring to both “Hallowed Halberd” and “Consecrated Crossbow” saying that they only have a chance to do bonus damage, whilst “Sanctified Scepter” and “Blessed Buckler” don’t. So I was implying that I feel like it would feel bad to use on a dps unless there’s either a good proc chance on the halberd and crossbow doing that bonus damage or there’s a low enough cd for you to not feel punished when it doesn’t proc.

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Ah. In that case, I’m going to have to tweak the DPS Holy Armament buffs so that they deal increased Holy damage guaranteed instead of chance-on-hit, I think.

Shoot…I was hoping to make more changes going into iteration 4; I’d wanted to turn Smelting Light Shards into Auras of the Light Reforger, where allies need to be inside your aura for it to kick in, and maybe when it does, the target gets the healing and mana.

I’m not sure what other changes to make for iteration 4; I was attempting to pull in Empyrean Legacy into Prot’s kit with that particular buff to Eternal Flame. Maybe I’ll make it go the other way: you self-cast Eternal Flame on yourself for free if you cast Shield Glare?

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I think this could work as another node, maybe replacing the 5% leech node since it doesn’t really give a lot of benefit. That way you can retain the sustainability on yourself, but also anyone in your aura has a chance to gain it as well.

This could be interesting, especially paired with Empyrean Legacy. Every 5 Shield Glares grants a free Eternal Flame, and every 5 Eternal Flames grants a free Shield Glare. It’s like you’re stacking up to be able to do a double potency Shield Glare, but with the benefit of choosing when to use the second one. It would give a lot of incentive to use Emblazoned Shield and be able to dish out a massive amount of support.

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