Something Other Than Hammers Please

Classes Paladin
1

Templar Paladin is, personally, something I’m looking forward to from a gameplay perspective as a ret pally. A gripe I have with it is ‘Empyrean Hammer’. I like the idea of the ability itself, this is purely a visual issue. I know hammers are kind of our thing, but MAN I think we have enough hammers. Paladins use the Light and I think the Light is more than magic hammers. Let’s take a look:
1.) Judgement: Magic hammer throw
2.) Final Verdict: Overhead hammer slam weapon swing
3.) Hammer of Wrath: Another magic hammer throw
4.) Divine Storm: Hammers swirl around you
5.) Divine Hammer: Hammers swirl around you for 12 sec
6.) Blessed Hammer: Hammer swirls around you
7.) Hammer of Justice: Hammer falls from sky onto target
8.) Divine Toll: Judgement but stronger; so again, throw magic hammer
9.) Execution Sentence: A large hammer being orbited by smaller hammers falls onto your target
10.) Hammer of Light: The new talent, where from the description it seems like you’re using a magic hammer slam ability on your target

I don’t think I’m asking for much here. With the new hero talent ‘Shake the Heavens’, Empyrean Hammers fall from the sky every 2 seconds. It’s like we have our own mini-version of Starfall, which I think is cool. But hammers constantly falling out of the sky seems kind of silly in my opinion. I think the change for this is simple yet effective:

Use the holy bolt VFX from the passive of the original version of Final Reckoning. It was essentially a holy lightning bolt that would periodically hit your target while the skill was off cooldown. Raining heavenly lightning down onto your enemies sounds dope, and it seems more fitting for ‘Shake the Heavens’. The name can be changed to ‘Empyrean Bolt’ or something. I know this is a very long winded ramble for a very trivial aesthetic complaint, but visuals can do a lot to make gameplay more satisfactory.

TL;DR: Petition to change Empyrean Hammer from falling hammers to holy lightning strikes.

7 Likes
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I agree Templar needs a reimagining. While the gameplay looks solid, Hammers were not the right pick for our Class Fantasy on this Hero Spec.

Trust me I have been all over this in the official Templar Paladin Feedback thread.

I would also encourage you to also share this feedback there!

Let’s get this thing fixed! :crossed_swords:

3 Likes
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You’re right; bolts from above would be more appealing.

But it’s dawned on me that hammers have been exclusive to paladins for quite some time. Swords make it into our visuals now and then (the tier set from Amirdrassil, Seraphim, cosmetic glyphs for Judgment, Seal of the Crusader’s oldest animation during TBC), but the only time paladins have ever had an axe as so much as an icon for one of their talents was Burden of Guilt back during MoP, and we’ve never had an axe as one of our spell animations. Heck: we’ve only had spears as part of our visuals for a few icons, come to think of it.

2 Likes
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I remember a time that using holy magic to empower your physical attacks and we had at least a few animations that wasn’t a magical hammer smacking the target (exorcism, holy prism in cata) can we please get more variation to show that light magic isn’t just all hammer stuff? At this point we may end up throwing hamers on our heal spells too.

I think there was a minor glyph judgement for axe’s when the glyph system was still around. Don’t remember though I used the sword ones.

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I don’t want to rain on anyones parade, but there is alreadty another Hero spec that focuses on calling down lightning from above.

Mountain Thane.

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That’s uh… a Warrior hero spec.

Also I do love how blizz back-tracked that lightning should only be a shammy theme by slathering lightning all over warriors, the one class that should be all about muscles and weapon martial arts. (poor mages, they should had some lightning spells for arcane lol)

2 Likes
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Hammers are fine as the baseline option, but it would be very cool if they added glyphs alongside the release of hero talents that allowed you to slightly alter visuals like we kind of have now in game for certain things.

Glyph of axes: Your Empyrean hammers now take on the form of Empyrean Axes

Glyph of swords: Your Empyrean hammers now take on the form of Empyrean swords

just as an example. I don’t think they need to change the default vision of empyrean hammers at all, i think its really cool and hammers fit paladin perfectly, however they can absolutely add cosmetic glyphs for this to allow us to change it up a bit. They can do this for other classes as well but changing hammers to axes/swords visually seems relatively easy in terms of glyph capabilities.

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I wouldn’t mind Hammers for the initial hit, but I do agree that the Empyrean Hammers should be Holy Bolts rather than more falling Hammers.

Also, I think if they made this one singular ability a Sword animation, it would clash with too many of our other abilities as the OP pointed out. That issue may have to be solved with glyphs or class skins in the future. :frowning:

However, I do not think the animation for Hammer of Light is going to work very well in Ret’s current kit, honestly. It’s nothing against the spell and what it does, but imagine this:

  • Judgement → Blade of Justice (+Consecrated Blade) → Wake of Ashes (+Seething Flames) → Hammer of Light → Divine Purpose Proc → Divine Storm (+Tempest of the Lightbringer)

    • Including Procs, Execution Sentence, Searing Light, etc…

Imagine Hammer of Light’s animation during the animation of Wake of Ashes + Seething Flames, and then followed directly by a Tempest of the Lightbringer, Divine Storm.

It’s just clashing, visual overload, and it’s going to get lost in the ridiculous Light Show Ret Paladins currently are putting on.

Unless it’s replacing Wake of Ashes and Eye of Tyr completely, I don’t think it’s going to be a very satisfying visual with all the other stuff that’s going on and for Prot, I don’t think it’s going to have that same emphasize as if it were something with a Shield. >.<

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i think u need to actually wait and see the animation before talking about how it looks. this isn’t something that can be guessed, and i don’t really see how wake going and hammer of light happening directly after or during the last seething flames hit would cause visual clutter. most animations don’t get in the way or cause clutter at all unless they are massive or are big ground effects that block enemy ground effects. really need to see what it looks like before saying u dont like it, i can understand saying too many hammers for empyrean hammer which can be solved with a glyph, but hammer of light might look awesome and be a relatively quick animation as well.

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I am pretty sure it clearly says hammer in both HoL and empyrean hammer, which would indicate their animation would include said workshop tool.

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Well, it’s not really about getting in the way of Boss Mechanics, though that is possible with things like Divine Steed on Tauren. :rage:

But there is some basic interactions you can assume and make predications based off of.

You can analyze what’s already existing in game, and think if adding more “stuff” to it is just going to become overwhelming on what’s on your screen and what’s all happening within the span of a few seconds.

Ret Paladins have a few unique, lingering buffs within the game, along with some procs;

  • Divine Resonance - Auto visual effect
  • Searing Light - Auto visual effect
  • Consecrated Blade - Additional visual effect
  • Tempest of the Lightbringer - Additional visual effect
  • Execution Sentence - Additional visual effect
  • Seething Flames - Additional visual effect

Now this all seems like a lot, and no way this can happen in the span of a few seconds, but honestly it all can.

– Now, this isn’t to say this is the most ideal rotation … that’s not the point of this conversation. This is about possible visual overload. —

I cast;

  1. Execution Sentence

  2. Divine Toll

    • Divine Resonance - Auto Cast

  3. Blade of Justice

    • Consecrated Blade - Auto Cast

  4. Wake of Ashes

    • Seething Flames - Auto Cast
    • Searing Light - Auto Cast
    • Shield of Vengeance - Auto Cast

  5. Hammer of Light

    • Empyrean Hammers - Auto Cast

  6. Divine Purpose Proc

    • Divine Storm
    • Tempest of the Lightbringer - Auto Cast

And keeping in mind other things that could be happening in the fight, other ally abilities/procs, etc…

If I’m under a haste buff or Blood Lust, this could roll out pretty quickly within the span of ~4 secs.

Realizing that Wake of Ashes (including WoA itself) just did 4 things, instantly, can really showcase this over load.

And on top of that… WHAT all happened is equally important.

I had a Hammer fall from the sky with ES.
I had Judgements auto casting from DT.
I had 4 “fire things” proc from hitting WoA.
I had 2 “hammer things” proc from HoL.
I had 2 “hammer swirls” proc from DS.

Not only did I do a crap ton of stuff in that ~4 sec window, it is a wide range of visual effects. Searing Light is vastly different than Divine Storm, that is from Judgement.

If Hammer of Light is supposed to be that new big exciting button to press this whole next Expansion, it’s probably gonna be fancy. But it has a lot of other crap to compete with right now, and I just think it’s about time Paladins visuals get a pretty decent overall. :sweat_smile:

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that has nothing to do with what i said, not even a little bit. trying to sound smart while being incapable of reading text lmao!! i said we need to see what the animation looks like before it is randomly called visual clutter regarding hammer of light. that is not about it being a hammer visual, but about the actual visual size/animation itself. only thing i said about empyrean hammers is that those can change via glyph to different weapons, i did not say anything about these things not being hammers.

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i don’t think that is bad. crazy light hammers is just the theme and hammers have been a theme of paladin especially ret for a while now. this tree goes hard into that theme so now we get empyrean hammers raining from the sky all the time+whatever hammer of light will end up looking like visually, the icon is a flaming hammer but who knows. again need to see all of this in action before assuming anything about clutter. the empyrean hammers can be changed via glyph though, really to whatever, but hammers should remain the baseline theme for paladins that enjoy that being the theme.

hammer of wrath is one of our most iconic abilities, and paladins hammer theme has been pretty iconic overall, not that this matters but one of the bigger/longest standing wow streamers has ‘hammers up’ and ‘hammer squad’ as his main things based off of paladin, ‘big dam judge’ is a popular saying revolving paladin, theres so many things revolving around this theme. i dont like people attempting to change that iconic theme because they don’t like it despite it being our theme for a long time, however it is definitely okay to bring glyphs in that can allow for that customization.

1 Like
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Yeah, I don’t really mind it being a Hammer, my more controversial take is that it should replace WoA completely. >.>

While I know WoA is a core aspect to the Paladin Fantasy, I think having Templar branch off from that into the Physical/Holy theme could be quite interesting as long as the rest of the tree got some updates to go along with it.

https://imgur.com/5p2nXid

Whether you like Swords, Axes or Hammers, there could be some cool concepts to explore for updating the spell and making it feel more connected for both Ret and Prot. ¯\ _ (ツ)_/¯

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yea that is quite the ‘take’, dont think it should replace woa at all, that is just a bad idea. having it turn into hammer of light is really cool not just for the theme but likely gameplay as well, and it changes from a radiant damage ability to a holy damage ability (likely holystrike) which is also cool. i also like that the gameplay seems like it will flow well, ie judge>wake>hammer, assuming hammer hits hard that will feel really good. the way they did it means u don’t even need an extra keybind either, def love what they have come up with. have not seen a single take related to this tree that would actually improve it outside of the 1 capstone talent thing, kind of crazy to me they came up with this and it actually looks this good (need to playtest first ofc though).

and yes, but that can be done via glyphs i’ve already agreed with that. they don’t need to change the baseline spell, that is not really worth doing as the entire theme is ‘hammerfall’ basically. however, they can add glyphs to change it up ie taking on the appearance of a sword/axe or something.

1 Like