First Look at Hero Talents in The War WithinHero Talents Overview
Lightsmith Paladin Hero Talent Tree
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Initial Thoughts
The Lightsmith Hero talent tree is a clear and obvious case of fantasy and thematical choices being put before gameplay considerations. Having to cast on the ground and then needing someone to move over it to pick it up is a step that does not need to exist. Why is it not just a buff you cast on a target of your choosing? Sure, it will probably have a cool animation and be thematically fitting, but trying to use this optimally in a raid setting sounds unfeasible, tedious, and frustrating.
Imagine if you are trying to buff that Unholy Death Knight with Sacred Weapon for their big burst, but they are standing in the melee clump. Good luck hitting the right player. You would have to place it out of the group and then have the player run out and take it.
Having it be a ground effect adds visual clutter and takes the agency of the spell out of the hands of the paladin and puts in to hands of dps players who will have to identify the effect on the ground and then be knowledgeable enough to know whether they or someone else should pick it up.
While there are still a lot of open questions as to the tuning of the talents and the cooldown and duration of the buffs from , my initial reaction to the Lightsmith talent tree is one of antipathy, and frankly I hope the whole tree is redesigned and reimagined from the ground up.
Talent Reviews
Of course it is hard to imagine how this will all play out as we have no knowledge, yet, of what potential changes the spec will receive with the launch of War Within, so my feedback here will largely be viewed in the lens of the current iteration of Holy Paladin and the design of the talents.
Many of the talents in the Lightsmith tree are boring, useless, or buffs spells that we would not otherwise press. This last point might not seem like a problem, but Holy Paladin is already a gcd starved, resource wasting, and overbloated spec. Talents such as and incentivizes casting spells that we are currently largely ignoring in a raid setting because we need to keep our rotation of casting Holy Shock and spending Infusion of Light going permanently for the spec to flow somewhat well, so we simply do not have many free globals for filler spells such as Consecration and Crusader Strike.
‘s Sacred Weapon sounds like a significantly more annoying version of the Night Fae Covenant spell Blessing of Summer. A covenant which had close to 0% representation but some how still made its way into our Dragonflight talent tree as a cap stone without any changes to it. Keep in mind that, as opposed to effects like Power Infusion, Blessing of Summer gets attributed back to the Paladins dps, and as such our dps is tuned with this in mind.
Holy Paladins do not need more external damage effects that makes our actual damage have to be nerfed even more. I am not sure our damage can get worse than it is at the moment, but at this point I wouldn’t be surprised. Let us at least hope that will work with pet damage as opposed to Blessing of Summer.
At its current tuning the absorb shield from has potential to be very strong and would be a great boost to our survivability and healing output, and depending on its cooldown and how long we are able to extend it with we are possibly able to keep it up on multiple people and our self at a time.
The cap stone talent seems to limit when you should ideally use wings to when you have Sacred Weapon active from , which we may or may not have high uptime on, depending on its cooldown, duration, and extending. This wording makes it sound like you can have multiple Sacred Swords active during wings, which would mean you would only use wings when you also have one active from or you would simply lose throughput. This sounds unintended, but we will have to see how it works when we can.
is likely going to have issues with healing players on bosses with large or small hit boxes, just like the Azerite Power, Grace of the Justicar which is copied from, had back in Battle for Azeroth. We don’t know the actual range on it yet of course but effects like this are notorious for having issues with both small and large hit boxes.
Then we have talents such as and which are boring and tiny throughput increases that are nothing more than glorified weapon oils, and do I even have to explain how awful and are? They are genuinely useless.
And the talent adds up to a whopping 1% damage reduction on people with a currently active with Devotion Aura.
There is just nothing in this tree that excites me, there is very little synergy and a lot of the talents honestly sound like place holders.
Continued Playstyle Problems
A few month ago I wrote an extensive article on the, at the time, upcoming patch 10.2 and how the intricate balance of our rotational spells had been compromised. The apparent choice to keep Holy Power in War Within is a sad decision that makes me doubt that this issue is likely to be addressed or understood.
The talent exacerbates the problems highlighted in that article, making us cast Holy Shock and spending Infusion of Light as much as possible at the cost of Holy Power spenders, and it further exacerbates our over reliance on Holy Shock crits, without which the rotation simply collapses. Having low crit at the start of War Within will feel absolutely awful if nothing changes.
I would keep a very close eye on as this talent has potential to completely dictate our playstyle.
While it is unlikely that we are able to keep rolling indefinitely with as we would need to spend 20 Infusion of Lights per minute, it is not as impossible as it sounds. To try to achieve this we would have to basically completely ignore any spell that does not help with this, and if we ever gets close to that, then it would probably need to be addressed immediately by nerfing extension or by implementing a cap to how much it could extend each buff.
Conclusion
Ignoring tuning entirely for a moment, none of the talents really excite me, as they just create more rotational bloat, potentially dictates our playstyle too heavily, and reduce agency over our damage output even further. I might seem excessively negative, but I encourage you to compare these talents to the other Hero trees that have been announced and I believe any reasonable person would agree with my assessment.
This Lightsmith tree being the first thing we see for our spec in Dragonflight is disheartening. The choice to keep Holy Power while adding more support-like spells that take more damage out of our own hands feels like its out of touch with the reality and extend of the problems facing the Holy Paladin playstyle, but we can only hope there are some major overhauls coming to other parts of the spec then, and I hope we are early enough in the design process that this talent tree can get a full overhaul.
Holy Armaments
Will the Light to coalesce and become manifest at a target location as a Holy Armament, which may be wielded by you or your allies. Alternates between Holy Bulwark and Sacred Weapon. Last 20 sec after being cast. Max 2 charges.
Holy Bulwark: While wielding a Holy Bulwark, gain an absorption shield for 15% of your maximum health and an additional 5% every 2 seconds, stacking up to 30%.
Sacred Weapon: While wielding a Sacred Weapon, your spells and abilities have a chance to deal additional Holy damage or healing.Divine Guidance
For each Holy Power ability cast, your next Consecration does additional Holy damage or healing split across all enemies, up to a fixed total.Blessed Assurance
Casting a Holy Power spender increases the damage and healing of your next Crusader Strike by 100%.Fear No Evil
While wielding an Armament the duration of Fear effects is reduced by 50%.Excoriation
Enemies within 5 yards of Hammer of Justice’s target are slowed by 15%.Rite of Sanctification
Imbue your weapon with the power of the Light, increasing your armor by 5% and your primary stat by 1%. Lasts 1 hour. Weapon imbue.Rite of Adjuration
Imbue your weapon with the power of the Light, increasing your Stamina by 3% and causing your Holy Power spenders to sometimes unleash a burst of healing around a target. Weapon imbue.Fear No EvilWhile wielding an Armament the duration of Fear effects is reduced by 50%Excoriation
Enemies within 5 yards of Hammer of Justice’s target are slowed by 15%.Shared Resolve
The effect of your active Aura is increased by 33% on targets with your Armaments.Blessing of the Forge
Avenging Wrath summons an additional Sacred Weapon, and during Avenging Wrath your Sacred Weapon casts spells on your target and echoes the effects of your Holy Power abilities.Valiance
Consuming Shining Light or Infusion of Light extends the duration of any active Armaments by 3.0 seconds, or reduces the cooldown by 3 seconds if none exist.Laying Down Arms
When an Armament fades from you, the cooldown of Lay on Hands is reduced by 15 seconds, and you gain Shining Light or Infusion of Light.Hammer and Anvil
Judgment critical strikes cause a shockwave around the target, dealing additional Holy damage or healing at the target’s location.
About the Author
This page is written and maintained by Clarius. Clarius is a long time Holy Paladin player and is an active Templar in the Paladin Discord. If you have feedback or questions, feel free to ping him there, or DM him.
