Please give this a look:
And let us know your thoughts here!
3 Likes
Compared to Herald, Templar at least from the Ret Paladin perspective seems…meh?
I’m not sure if that’s the right word but I don’t see anything from a gameplay side as interesting except just raining more light hammers on things. Which may be intentional, but when compared to Herald doesn’t make it as appealing.
I will say I feel like a ability called Unrelenting Charger should just be a targeted dash towards something, at the cost being able to use it whenever. That or maybe add something like a trampling effect to it for everything in your way as you move, that does damage or maybe even a small knock back. Something to make it more interesting, else it’s just…Divine Steed but a tad longer.
12 Likes
Thank you guys for giving us access to these Hero Talents as early as possible. I can tell that the team is a bit surprised by the overall response from the community regarding them so far and that you guys genuinely want to iterate on these as much as possible!
With that said, Templar is running into two primary issues for me.
- Theme
- Excitement
Our first talent, Light’s Guidance is really well thought-out. I love how clever the team is at finding ways to augment existing abilities without adding in more button bloat where possible. Great work there!
Past this talent however, I am struggling to grasp what a Templar really is all about as a theme. I was hoping for a more “Warrior-like” Paladin. Something that better resembles more historically accurate Templars.
For excitement, as mentioned above, I am pleasantly surprised by Herald of the Sun. This theme was nailed and as a Retribution Paladin who only does PvP, I very well may pick that up instead. You guys killed it on that Hero Spec!
I would like to see much more from Templar. This theme easily has potential to be the top contender for the expansion and currently, it feels like this opportunity is a bit missed.
11 Likes
Questions/Issues:
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The theme of Templar feels a bit lacking. So far from the Hero Talent previews we’ve seen, a lot of trees seem to favor one spec more than the other, with the exception of Frostfire.
- Is there any more explanation or depth Blizzard can share with how the theme of the Templar came to be?
- The Templar Tree feels 80% Ret, with 20% dedicated to Prot. Is this the goal? Is there a more balanced approach Blizzard plans to achieve? Should Templar favor Ret more so than Prot? Why or why not?
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Templar feels like it centers itself around Hammer of Light and Empyrean Hammers more so than the Class (specs) as a whole.
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Are there any plans to adjust some more talents to expand to more of those “iconic class abilities” or has that design goal changed?
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How does Blizzard feel about Auras, Blessings and even Seals (Classic/Wotlk style) and why don’t we see them in these Hero tress?
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Retribution - Currently both Retribution Hero Trees revolve around Wake of Ashes, a “deep optional talent.”
- Deep optional talents were mentioned at Blizzcon 2023, stating that they wouldn’t necessarily be required, but more likely encouraged.
- These Hero Trees make Wake of Ashes feel mandatory and loses a bit of that uniqueness when both Hero Trees share the same ability, is there any plans to adjust or change this?
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Protection - Similar for Protection, Templar requires Eye of Tyr to function, another “deep optional talent.”
- Are there any plans to adjust or change this?
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Protection - Currently both Lightsmith and Templar are active gameplay Hero Talents, these are buttons that need to be accounted for and played around and aren’t “fully passive,” as we’ve seen with other trees.
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As Hero Talents have no “opt-out” button, there could be concern that Prot is “forced” to play around more mecanhics than other Hero Trees.
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While the gameplay may be fun to some, it might not be all that interesting to others, so providing options is always nice. Are there any plans to provide such an option for Prot paladins or does Blizzard not see this as an issue?
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Choice Node - Combo vs Passive
Something unique to Paladins is Templar Strikes vs Crusading Strikes, an active Combo vs Passive gameplay option.- Could something similar be achieved for Templar’s Hero Tree taking into account the information from above?
- Could a Keystone Hero Talent be a choice node?
- If not, could Hammer of Light be moved to a different location to open up that possibility?
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Retribution - Templar feels like a clashing of identities with Wake of Ashes, Templar Strike/Slash’s Radiant Damage, and Templar’s/Final Verdicts and Hammer of the Light’s Holy Damage. Doesn’t feel like a underling coherent theme was established for the whole class.
- Could the option of replacing Wake of Ashes completely with a new Combo Attack (similar to Templar Strikes) be explored?
- Are there any plans to expand the Ret Spec tree a little bit more to give a defining Holystrike vs Radiant Damage builds.
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Retribution - Visual Overload - Something that is becoming an issue with Ret Paladins is the amount of visual overload within the spec. What used to be spec defining capstone talents have expanded in DF, becoming more accessible, and the ability to stack these talents has only increased.
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Divine Storm and Tempest of the Lightbringer are two examples. Iconic Spec capstones have now become almost the baseline norm, without losing the epic visuals in the process.
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It’s not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but again Paladins are reaching a point where so much is happening within the span of just a few seconds:
- Execution Sentence
- Divine Toll
- Divine Resonance - Auto Cast
- Blade of Justice
- Consecrated Blade - Auto Cast
- Wake of Ashes
- Seething Flames - Auto Cast
- Searing Light - Auto Cast
- Shield of Vengeance - Auto Cast
- Hammer of Light
- Empyrean Hammers - Auto Cast
- Divine Purpose Proc
- Divine Storm
- Tempest of the Lightbringer - Auto Cast
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Within 4-5 sec, a large variety of visual and gameplay effects can happen. Cool visuals are awesome in a video game, but information overload really isn’t. Does Blizzard feel like this is becoming an issue?
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What’s Blizzard’s stance on preforming X amount of functions within a “burst window?” ES/FR → DT → WoA → HoL → etc… Are we getting too many “big cooldowns?”
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Recently Blizzard shared thoughts with the Warrior community about their design goals and inspiration regarding Warriors, along with mentioning changes will be coming to the Warrior class tree soon™.
- Can Blizzard share any of those similar details regarding Paladins? Such as the goal behind the Templar vs being a regular Ret Paladin, to changes within the Class and Protection Trees?
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Talents:
- Light’s Guidance
- Is Hammer of Light a one time use? Or do we have the full 12 seconds to use this as much as possible?
- How would this talent work with Divine Purpose? (Less damage?)
- Just as a question, could a Passive vs Combo be created for this talent tree? (More so from Prot perspective?)
- Could this be changed to be a more satisfying Combo ability, replacing Wake of Ashes and Eye of Tyr completely? (Similar to Templar Strikes)
- Could this simply be renamed Hammer of Light for ease of use?
- Shake the Heavens
- Could this be a different visual effect as Hammers are already very abundant within the Paladin toolkit? (Blessed Hammers, HoJ, HoW, etc…)
- Higher Calling
- What are the thoughts behind using this ability with Templar Strikes vs Crusading Strikes?
- Art of War resetting BoJ could give this more value, could a similar thing be introduced for Grand Crusader and Avenger’s Shield for Prot?
- Hammerfall
- Is this active all the time, or only for a duration after Hammer of Light has been used? For those 12 secs?
- Again, is this visual overload? (Ex: Final Verdict Hammer + Hammerfall proc)
- Light’s Deliverance
- Does this feel too similar to Divine Arbiter[Ret Talent] and could this cause too much burst protentional for Retribution?
- Templar’s Watch
- This talent feels like it leads deeper into the Retribution problem of “Holystrike = ST” and “Radiant = AoE” - Where content can dictate gameplay more so than player choice.
- Is this intentional for Retribution?
- How does this interact with Seething Flames[Ret Talent]?
- For Whom the Bell Tolls
- Again, this adds more to the ST vs AoE conflict.
- Is this meant to be Avenger’s Shield for Protection? (Divine Resonance synergy)
- Sacrosanct Crusade
- Does this fit into the theme of Templar?
- Would this be better as Eye for an Eye? (Legion-SL)
- Does this make Wake of Ashes “do too much?” (spell overload)
- Endless Wrath
- This talent feels very similar to Final Verdict’s additional effect, does this make HoW usage too high?
- When does Blizzard feel an ability becomes too “spammy?”
- What does this do to the identity of the HoW spell? It has lost a lot of identity of being an execute.
- Sanctification
- Does this stack with Divine Toll and Divine Resonance?
- If so, does this add too much burst with DT + DR + Double Judgement?
- Empyrean Hammer
- While this makes Crit more valuable to Retribution, it also makes Avenging Wrath less of a choice node.
- Are there any plans to adjust AW:Might, Crusade and Sentinel in the future?
- Bonds of Fellowship
- This is a great talent, although this again falls into “deep optional talent” category. While it’s a choice node, are there any plans to adjust this talent into it’s own Blessing and merge with BoSac if that talent is also taken?
- Not all Prot Paladins play with BoSac and just curious if that warrants a bit of a change?
- Unrelenting Charger
- While this is another interesting talent, does this talent need to add more speed to one of the already fastest movement speed abilities in the game?
- Divine Steed feels lacking in other categories than speed, such as immunity to knock backs, could something different be attached to this spell?
- Undisputed Ruling
- Eye of Tyr granting 3 Holy Power feels mandatory for Hammer of Light to work, why is this such a deep talent? Could make first impressions feel bad.
- Eye of Tyr granting 3 Holy Power as a Hero Talent could make the experience of going Templar → Lightsmith feel a bit clunky, is this seen as an issue?
- For Retribution, we already have more than enough ways to apply the judgement debuff between Divine Toll, Judgement, and Highlords… does Ret need more applications of Judgement?
- Are there any plans to change Divine Toll for Retribution to be based off something other than Judgement?
Again, these are meant to be questions to hopefully spark discussion. This is not an attempt to convince blizzard to do any particular thing expect possibility expand on the design.
(Besides giving Paladins Heavenly Strength. Do that, Blizzard. 
)
Hopefully more is instore for the Paladin trees in TWW, but coming from our unknown perspective, both the Templar and Herald trees leave little to be desired in that class fantasy department. They revolve heavily around a few abilities and don’t expand themselves to the class.
I’d be much more interested in seeing Blizzard’s talent trees if some of the modifiers were reduced and more of the side talents got focused on improving the classes with unique flavor.
9 Likes
For what particular reason are Templar and Herald for Ret both centered around Wake the Ashes? That feels rather restrictive, esp. in talent selection.
12 Likes
The final cap stone for Temp seems clunky for me.
Seems like you have 8 seconds after casting the first Hammer to build 50 stacks to then build up 5 hp to cast HoL to then cast the free one.
Compared to Herald simply linking you to all your spots for pulsing dmg.
Definitely needs to be simplified.
Perhaps the final capstone could reduce the cost of hammer to 3 hp or reduce the stack cost from 50 to 25?
1 Like
This…
Feels like it should be centered around Divine Toll instead.
5 Likes
Perhaps remove the HP cost of Hammer and give it a short cd after casting wake and a longer cd after casting hammer.
Then redesign the final cap stone, having to ramp up the stacks isn’t fun. Feels like another divine arbitor.
Maybe have Emp hammers reduce the CD of HoL?
4 Likes
I gotta spend 5 holy power. And get an effect that causes me to aoe and reduce damage of targets by 5%
But shield of the righteous is 3 holy power. Aoes, gives me 17% damage reduction, heals allies, and grants stacking stam and str…
10 Likes
Thanks for listening 
You’re welcome!
1 Like
Read the Higher Calling and Hammerfall talents…
You have more than 8 and even when it falls you can still gain stacks.
I’m more interested by how it interacts with CSAA and TS.
TS can give you 4+ extra sec while CSAA most likely give you 2-3.
Can we somehow make it to 100% uptime?
Is that how Ret will get it’s “skill expression” ?
Oh that’s right.
Still doesn’t seem fun having another divine arbitor though
5 Likes
Completely agree. Retribution has too much of this currently.
Divine Arbiter and Aura of Reckoning (PvP Talent)
I have never been a fan of abilities like these and was also disappointed to see Divine Arbiter when it hit the talent trees on the PTR.
4 Likes
I’m not very impressed.
Also these talents seems to consolidate that we will likely not see wake of ashes reset again.
So for me ret will stay as a c/d tier spec for gameplay for the foreseeable future.
4 Likes
Templar and hammers just do not sound very synergistic to me. Templar almost immediately calls swords to my mind.
This Hero Spec should be grounded thematically much more into a physical damage dealing juggernaut.
I also have no idea what you guys are cooking up for Rider of the Apocalypse, but Templar could really go heavier on augments to Divine Steed. Considering this Hero Spec is for Prot/Ret, let’s make Divine Steed more aggressive and cool.
7 Likes
Even if you can keep the uptime indefinitely with TS and even imp BoJ, you’re still gated by having wake available to press.
So not only do you need 50 stacks you need wake available for subsequent HoL’s.
Arbitor at least just needs stacks.
1 Like
Looking at this from my Prot Paly’s PoV.
Hammer of Light costs 5 Holy Power to use, but for Prot, maintaining a high uptime on Shield of Righteousness is important. You can only really start accumulating excess Holy Power once you have high haste (30% or more). Also, you can only Hammer of Light for 12s after using Eye of Tyr so you’d probably only get 1-2 casts of it. Maybe make Hammer of Light replace Shield of Righteousness instead during the duration?
Either way…
Left-side path is bad. Templar’s Watch is pretty underwhelming for Prot compared to the Bell Tolls. Sarcosanct Crusade is kinda underwhelming as well… you’re getting a tiny extra absorb shield for using Eye of Tyr.
Middle path looks the most fun for just pure AOE dps. I don’t really have any negative complaints.
Right side is kinda mid as well. Also, you have a typo it’s Empyrean Hammer not Emmpyrean. So when you use Hammer of Light (and have to crit with a 60% chance to apply this effect) you get a whopping -5% damage reduction from nearby enemies. It’s probably equal to getting like -1% overall damage reduction. This seems a bit too clunky and complex: just make Eye of Tyr reduce your damage taken by an extra -10%.
Bonds of Fellowship is kinda bad considering you’re planted on the ground as a Prot Paladin in your Consecration. Unrelenting Charger is okay: it’s really another version of Seasoned Warhorse.
Undisputed Ruling is probably the only good talent on that side. I’m assuming you can AOE apply Judgement of Light. Also, Eye of Tyr granting an extra 3 Holy Power is kinda nice if you just want to instantly use it, and cast Hammer of Light.
The end tree ability Light’s Deliverance would only realistically work with the middle tree because of the constant Empyrean Hammer’s being casted when you Shield of Righteousness and activating/extending Shake the Heavens.
The tree just needs some adjustments to the left and right side paths and maybe not requiring 50 stacks of Light’s Deliverance. It feels like at 50 stacks it would take like 5+ minutes to get even one proc. Easily a lot worse if you’re tanking a boss in raid.
4 Likes
? How is divine toll less restrictive than Wake?
And this is my Prot Paladin incase anyone is interested.
1 Like
Because you wouldn’t have to take wake for Temp if you didn’t want to. as it stands you need wake for both Temp and herald, which is why it’s “restrictive”
3 Likes