Well, after some more excellent feedback, I have my fourth iteration of my ideal Templar talents—mostly it’s just a few tweaks to my third iteration; you might notice that only one icon is even different:
https://www.deviantart.com/lookoutherecomestom/art/Ideal-Templar-Hero-Talents-Iteration-4-1044051536
I worry a little bit that I’ll come across as not-listening about a few things, like Templar’s Protectorate or Justice is Vengeance/Vengeance is Justice. For the former, I wanted to make one more stab at getting a Retribution build that could offtank before I gave up altogether on that goal, and for the latter, wanted to take one more stab at making a multi-target-vs-single-target choice node. I thought that I could come up with a trick for that choice node that would allow Templar’s Wrath to de facto overcap Seal of Vengeance, either for multiple targets or for a single target; I figured I’d need something that provided damage for Ret and mitigation for Prot, so I couldn’t altogether detach the JiV/ViJ from SoV, but I could set up a way to emphasize multiple targets with one node and single targets with another node. Please let me know if this is a workable concept—or if I need to simplify it.
If these ideas don’t work, then iteration 5 (if I make one!) will have them adjusted accordingly.
I did simplify and clarify a few talents, like SoV and Fanaticism, and I took out some of the more OP aspects of the Shield Charge capstone.
I also took a stab at making Templar’s Rage more appealing for Protection: I remembered the old Blessing of Sanctuary spell from the old days, which reduced the
damage you took per melee attack by a flat amount, which got the most benefit from having lots of little enemies attacking you at once; the idea with Templar’s Rage is that enemies hit have their attacks mitigated by a flat amount, too, also in a way that’s optimal when you have lots of little enemies attacking you. Hopefully the healing you get from Templar’s Focus as Protection is competitive with that mitigation; I’m more than willing to change the numbers to get them comparable.
I was a bit reluctant to do anything aura-related at first, but the thought of putting Sanctity Aura in my next Herald of the Sun ideal tree made that concept quite appealing (I remember a time in TBC’s development where Sanctity Aura boosted holy damage dealt by 10% and boosted healing received by 6%!). Who knows? I might re-implement the Smelting Light Shards concept from my next Lightsmith iteration as an aura buff.
Please let me know what you think of this iteration.
Love it, i will look at it more later.
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Hello again! I really like a lot of the changes you made. I shouldn’t have a lot of comments this time around, but here’s what I have noticed:
Templar’s Rage/Focus:
Feels weird for Rage to have a bonus effect on top of the fusion when Focus doesn’t, so you could maybe give Focus a Highlord’s Judgment style effect (the main target takes 10% more damage from holy abilities for 5 sec?) so the follow up does a little more damage. This node looks a lot better for prot, though, compared to iteration 3, but I don’t know how Ret would like it given that it is mostly defensives? I’d have to ask a ret main, so take what I say with a grain of salt regarding that. Rage’s effect is also worded a little weird: “…damage reduced by 10% of the Holy damage taken, up to 50%”? How does this work? You have a scaling component but didn’t say how it is supposed to scale. lol
ViJ/JiV:
I think you could give JiV another stack, just so it ends up at an even 6% (assuming the same scaling as SoV). Same with ViJ, but you could also go a step further and make ViJ apply both stacks at once at the cost of not being able to be refreshed (removing the extra radiant damage too) but with 1.5x the duration. That way the resets letting us spam Wrath won’t give it insane value in aoe (remember, both specs have a 20% chance to reset this spell that procs really often in aoe scenarios), but pulls will be a lot safer due to it giving both stacks at once. So it becomes a choice between a small CD on pull for mob packs or a ramping effect on bosses?
…I think that’s it… Everything else looks really solid and easy to understand. I would gladly play this. Great job.
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cool exercise in imagination
we’ve been asking for 2 handed and shield options for years now, and hero talents could give us that, but it seems they will miss the opportunity yet again
perhaps it would take too much time to make appropriate animations, dunno
at any rate, i would have been more hyped if we each specialization focused on seals, blessings and auras.
prot-holy auras
holy-ret blessings
ret-prot seals
or whatever
instead, we got what we got
I’d change the name of seal of vengeance to seal of truth, the max stack mechanic is similar to the last iteration of seal of truth and would fit the bill thematically and also bring some nostalgie back to some paladins.
But the rest seems pretty good. Nice.
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Ah—sorry about the lack of clarity; the idea was that you can’t reduce an enemy’s attack to the point where the enemy’s attacks deal less than half-damage with Templar’s Rage’s effect. Normally, the damage that enemies deal would have 10% of the damage that you dealt with your Templar’s Rage ability subtracted from it, but if that math would reduce the enemy’s damage by more than 50% of the enemy’s damage, then it instead halves the enemy’s damage.
I hope that makes more sense…
Seals, Blessings, and Auras are totally a Vanilla thing, but TBH, I’m kind of glad we moved away from those—to an extent: back during Vanilla, we didn’t have strikes, almost every direct-damage spell had a long cooldown or weird conditions for using it, and all-in-all, it didn’t feel very fun at all. I kind of wish they’d brought seals back along with Holy Power in Battle for Azeroth, since Seals at least were nice supplements and incentives to get into melee. But I probably wouldn’t enjoy a whole hero tree that specialized in seals unless the hero tree had some other fun perk attached to it, like a Holy Bolt spell or something like that.
Though I will agree that Blizzard screwed up their Lightsmith and Templar trees.
Ehhhhh I remember that Seal of Vengeance got renamed to Seal of Truth, probably around Cataclysm or so. I’m trying to bring back a more badass feel by calling it Seal of Vengeance. I know that Blood Knights had their version of it called Seal of Corruption, but this just feels a bit more badass.
I’m glad that I’m making real improvements as I iterate. And I sure hope Blizzard is paying attention! If they took my trees verbatim once players agreed they were good, then it’d set a really weird precedent…but it’d also make the game much better!
Thanks everyone for your feedback!
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Ohhh. That makes more sense. I’m not sure how the best way to word that would be. “damage reduced by 10% of the Holy damage taken, but cannot bring damage below 50%”?
Seals always interacted with Judgment, changing its effect, so that kind of fits the idea of a holy bolt style spell? You could make the tree focus on seals, judgment, and self-healing, having the first node give you a toggle spell that swaps between Seal of the Righteous and Seal of Light, with their old effects of bonus damage or self healing when you hit in melee, which then also make judgment do bonus damage or a self-heal respectively like they used to. I mostly just wanted to pitch that idea, because I think that would be a really nice way to bring back seals since we don’t really need all of the seals. lol
I know we had Seal of Blood, but I don’t remember Seal of Corruption. I miss those old asymmetries.
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