Everybody is setting themselves up for disappointment.
Look at the DK hero talent for blood and unholy. The San’Layn hero tree is mostly just a proc that replaces Heartstrike or Scourgestrike with another ability that hits a little harder and does some passive healing. It likely won’t even be noticed by the player during combat.
Blizzard may have made a mistake by calling these “hero talents” because it created an expectation that is unlikely to be met.
I think this would be the way it has to go. Not actually equipping a shield, but having a talent thats like: “Holy Bulwark: Conjure a Holy Shield to equip in the shield slot, giving the paladin x stats and a cool buff” and then a talent where you can change the stats and other talents where you can do cool things with the shield.
Again that won’t happen, and 2h+shield likely won’t happen either but if they did it I think it’d have to be like that, rets needing on shields just for a hero spec would be kinda crazy for healers and tanks that also want shields.
(The rest of this post is general posting not aimed at anyone) And Thunderfist is also right, if you just look at the other trees its very basic overall, things that are extremely easy to tune. Even lightsmith is easy to tune despite being the most out of the ordinary so far. There is nothing extravagant so far but not in a good way, the only one that I think got some pretty cool stuff is Frostfire mage.
They also already said Templar will be wake focused in one of their recent interviews, that can obviously change but that should tell us where the focus is.
I still find it being “wake focused” huperbole with prot being able to use wake.
I mean thats what they said, meaning for ret it will be wake focused. I imagine any talents that deal with wake will deal with a different ability for prot, maybe avengers shield or something like that.
I think they already shot themselves because weve seen just a few of thses and with no alpha god knows if any feedback will be actuslly taken. Imagine being the last spec to get their hero talents released. Dragonflight came out at like 70% in regards ti talent tree the difference between warrior and paladin were insane. And the same is about to happeb where they end up “reworking” and touching up hero talents up to patch 11.0.7 11.1 11.1.5.
The war within is releasing even faster than dragonflight but I wish they pushed it until december or next year.
While this is indeed worrying.
Hero talent don’t have the same scale as the talent tree had.
There aren’t as many and aren’t as ambitious.
But there is effectively a shorter amount of time to work with.
It’s hard to tell how fast they can turn around on those.
In any circumstance, if we don’t have another set of trees to look at this week, it won’t fair well for meaningful iterations before release…
And the next trees should also probably be
So we’re still at least 3-4 weeks off seeing anything for Ret, at the very least.
This is my biggest concern.
I really understand that the Dev team is probably working diligently to hit all these deadlines. They have to create something that fits into numerous boxes across game types.
Ion did say at Blizzcon, that Hero Talents alone are the highest priority for feedback and iteration over the weeks and months to come.
I wanted to make this thread in anticipation of it. Templar is the single highest point of excitement for me in The War Within. I still haven’t personally pre-ordered yet, just to see how this spec and a few others turn out.
I even also made a thread a few months ago detailing everything that’s known about Templar lore in Wow.
So long story short, I really want to give everything in my ability to Blizzard for this one. I have tried numerous times on the Paladin forums to create threads about talent adjustments and was very vocal during our rework.
If Templar comes out and all it really does is augment Wake of Ashes and then is full of a bunch of randomness, its going to be lame.
Templar is a real historical type of warrior. More so, Templar’s in WoW have an interesting lore themselves. In my humble opinion, if this hero spec doesn’t revolve around more “Warrior-like” functions, a more aggressive Divine Steed approach, heavy armor/defense or better battlefield prowess, the name should be changed. It doesn’t have to have all of these items and it doesn’t need to include them exactly as I have laid them out so far. It’s just anything not close in relation to these ideas, isn’t a Templar.
These are the characteristics that must be included by definition of the name Templar. Anything else, is Blizzard simply dropping the ball a bit.
So time will tell. I’m hoping for the absolute best but I do not have high hopes. Mainly stemming from the original comment about Wake of Ashes. Don’t get me wrong I love this ability. After the rework, its probably my favorite out of all my abilities. With that said, I’m struggling to see how this plays into Templar.
If you asked me a few weeks ago, I would have bet money that Wake of Ashes would be used in Herald of the Sun over Templar. This gives me great concern about the overall concept they are crafting.
Agree on pretty much all points. I have a bit of optimism because they did an amazing job taking different bits of feedback during the rework. It wasn’t perfect and some stuff didn’t pan out as hoped but that isn’t a reasonable expectation anyway. It genuinely felt like the devs working on that were trying and I hope that same approach is seen here.
Being Wake focused is definitely a bit odd to me here as well. I like wake but that ability is pretty well fleshed out in the talent tree already and I don’t know what they could add to it for the ret elements of the hero tree. For prot it is obvious that having it at all would be the big change. I suspect what we will see for Ret is the return of a reset mechanic on and/or maybe an autocast for it, we may also get larger range on it or a change from cone to full circle. Nothing I can think of would be all that exciting though, especially knowing that it would need to get nerfed to compensate for anything cool they gave us given how potent it currently is.
I’m not gonna lie though, ever since the 2h and shield idea was floated I’m afraid nothing will excite me as much. I know it isn’t a realistic thing but that tiny bit of hope will not go away and it is going to slightly spoil anything that isn’t that. It is just too perfect for a prot/ret hero talent capstone and would even work to explain how prot gets access to WoA and could maybe have ret use SoTR over DS. I don’t know a lot about the WoW Templar archetype (feel free to share) but something like a shield and spear feels like such a cool fit, even if it was really just a cosmetic thing that only really changed our animations. Practically I know that dealing with the extra stats, weapon speed and damage value for prot and the added stats, block/armor for ret would be problematic to balance, but I can’t imagine it would be hard to have buff/nerf values as part of the talent for each spec that makes things behave pretty much the same. Or they could just lean into it and give them each some unique advantage/disadvantage profiles, but balance wise I don’t think that would be realistic. It doesn’t need to be about redefining playstyle or shifting role towards more DPS or more Tank, just added flavor within the existing paradigm. I’m just trying to convince myself that if I justify why it can work, they will do it lol.
I see a lot similarity between paladins and crusaders in D3 and this gives a good window for them to lean into some of that flavor even if it isn’t strictly aligned with the existing lore. There have been a number of cool crusader abilities from D3 that paladins in WoW would seem right at home picking up. (Divine Steed is a clear example of this already being done)
Edit: reading through the wiki on Templars in wow, there is an opportunity for some cool character customizations being added and maybe some animation changes from the usual fiery gold/yellow to a more silver/holy lightning theme. I’m looking at you Falling Sword
Thank you very much for this response comment. No kidding, this was probably the best well-thought out response I have ever seen. I agree on all points with you too.
I have nothing to add because you hit the nail exactly on the head here. But, I can at least copy/paste some lines from my previous forum post that covered the WoW lore of Templar for this thread as well.
So grounded in World of Warcraft, what exactly does it mean to be a Templar Paladin?
According to Wowpedia, Templars are a type of Paladin and Priest combatant. They are the most skilled in battle, but also the most righteous in their demeanor. Strength of arms and purity of mind are strict requirements.
This next up following info, is taken from the Warcraft RPG and is also known to be considered “non-cannon”. Nevertheless, it is important to mention!
Argent Dawn Templars, or simply Templars, are devoted students of the Holy Light. They have chosen to cast away traditions of the past to find the best ways possible to fight the growing forces of darkness in the world. Templars are similar to Paladins in that they primarily oppose demons and undead, but Templars go a step further and learn to use the Holy Light to combat other forms of evil with equal potency.
Templars study all forms of combat, and they find powerful/unique uses for the Holy Light. Most interestingly here, the more a Templar studies and delves deeper into the Holy Light, they abandon old teachings and connections to the world. They sacrifice much of their wealth and may even cast off their plate armor.
Among the eldest and most devoted Templars, rumors exist that these Knights are powerful enough to shield themselves from any form of harm and can banish a servant of the Burning Legion from Azeroth in a single strike.
An Argent Dawn Templar gains the ability to change divine spell energy into holy lightning that manifests as a silvery light. In addition, Templars may gain distinguishing marks such as runic tattoos, glowing eyes of a metallic color and even the loss of all hair on the body.
Lastly, the majority of Argent Dawn Templars are Paladins. Although some healers also take up this mantle. Argent Dawn Templars see themselves as a small silver light shinning in the darkness in the world around them. Templars see corruption in their homes and many organizations. While Templars and Paladins are indeed close allies, Templars feel that the Silver Hand overemphasizes tradition and order over general goodness and other values of the Holy Light.
I’d rather be towards the end than towards the beginning. If memory serves druid was the first to see their class tree and its still awful. It still feels like a rough draft and is absolutely the worst one.
I’d much rather be towards the end where the idea train is already rolling and the team has some idea of what the talents look like overall.
Would be neat if the first talent for Temp is a two hander and board talent.
Then the final is like some weapon shield combo attack that costs HP.
I do 100% agree with you. But nobody would dislike season 3 tier gear if, It had not been nerfed by 50% in PTR AND PVP nerfed for 50% of what PVE Ret gets, AND misleading with how it is worded where the secondary HP spender hits are not augmented by a single thing that buffed the spender they came from. If the tier set was allowed to be useful in pvp we would be singing its praises, but instead we got a tier set many choose to not even use because it does nearly nothing in pvp.
If killing paladins is your goal you want to do as much physical damage as possible. Which makes us very weak against pet classes, outlaw rogue, warriors, monks and hunters… Thanks to the armor nerf on plate specs. If paladin suddenly did 50% physical damage, it would also be a nerf on us against any cloth spec thanks to their armor buff.
(FV is popular) Because having more damage and range without instant mobility is better than not having more damage and range while still lacking instant mobility.
Actually wanted to say I think if 2h+shield was happening maybe it would happen with Herald or something, mostly because the tree would have to have a decent amount of talents dealing with 2h/shield stuff, and Holy is the only other spec that has ever dabbled in 2 handers, even having one this expac designed basically for Hpal from Dawn of the infinite. Hpal just doesn’t use them because of sotr in pve and armor in pvp but artifact was 2h and it’s a semi popular idea for hpals to want to use 2handers.
So I think the chance would be higher from herald of the sun if you wanted to believe we’d get it even though templar as a name might fit it better, mechanically it makes sense for ret/holy I think.
At least currently, it was revealed by Blizzard that the first talent for Templar augments Wake of Ashes. But I agree with you completely! It would be fun, thematic and the shock of the expansion to have our first Hero Talent merge Prot and Ret by allowing us to hold a 2-Handed Weapon and a Shield. Blizzard could really exceed expectations on a few of these Hero Specs. Templar being a top contender and Rider of the Apocalypse as another one.
Really like the idea of a weapon and shield combo attack that costs HP. Essentially, merging Final Verdict and Shield of Vengeance.
We can dream!
You are right. Really wish we could have had this set be a bit more impactful in PvP so I could get a better feel for it.
I did say a few times in this thread, that Templar as a Hero Spec should revolve around physical damage. As a few others have pointed out, this in-game would translate to be Holystrike damage.
This bypasses the problem completely. But I didn’t do a good job of explaining what I meant by physical damage personally.
This is a better way of explaining it. I really just want to focus on my up close and personal, melee side by selecting Templar.
Being able to stay within melee range of an enemy would be great, but I won’t be asking for any range nerfs anytime soon.
I do agree with many folks here, that 2hander and shield Ret would be a welcomed addition. Unfortunately now, a one hander and shield Ret build gives up too many abilities that requires 2 handers equiped and does very poor damage for very little added survivability.
When did they confirm that WoA is augmented by temp? Feels like it’d be a Herald spell augment. Maybe they meant Herald?
Back when the History Channel actually had programming on history, I remember some shows that discussed the Knights Templar, and part of their code was “first to arrive, last to leave,” and so I also hope that this tree explores mobility and defensives. I don’t know what else to assume based on the name alone, and I am not sure what hero in the WoW universe they are thinking of with this tree, but having divine steed morphed into a charge-like ability would be great.
I don’t PvP too much, and ever since they made Divine Steed buffs baseline for all specs, I don’t really have complaints with our mobility, personally. If anything, I would love to have access to more abilities that allow us to function even better as temporary tank/heals. Vaguely like what Heart of the Wild does for Druids. My favorite part of being a Paladin is that I can support my friends and group when the chips are down or something bad happens. Anything that doubles down on that will be welcome imo.
Wanted to add: I really want Divine Steed to be unassociated with our class mount. Ideally, change the name and aesthetic but leave the effect alone. I’d rather get a different wing animation for the speed boost, or just make us glow with Light. Even if we just get a glyph, I would be happy.