First Look at Hero Talents in The War WithinHero Talents Overview
Lightsmith Paladin Hero Talent Tree
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Blizzard recently announced the Lightsmith Hero Talent Tree. This is the shared talent tree between the Holy and Protection specs. The core idea embodies the fantasy of forging weapons of light to aid allies in combat. This fantasy is derived from existing stories around the force of Light including Lightforged Draenei or depictions of Lady Liadrin and Turalyon where their weapons are empowered with light to smite their foes. This core idea is in line with the Paladin fantasy as we know it from lore and fantasy. This shouldn’t really be a surprise to anyone that a utility centric class is getting a utility focused talent tree!
The Lightsmith talent tree is at its core a support talent tree. It centers around a keystone talent called Holy Armaments. Based on released information, here is how it works:
Holy Bulwark, which grants a scaling absorb shield based on max health or
Sacred Weapon, which adds a Holy damage proc to spells and abilities.
What is spawned and granted is based on the casting Paladin and not on anything the friendly player does.
Then several talents in the Lightsmith tree augment this ability or play into this fantasy of being an agent of the Light.
This is a new gameplay and interaction loop that Protection Paladins don’t have in Dragonflight. In this article, I’ll be providing my commentary and analysis on the proposed gameplay and paper design, discussing some talent issues, and providing suggestions for improvement.
Proposed Gameplay & Paper Design Analysis
It’s complicated!
Holy Armaments is a complicated ability. It needs to be placed on the ground, it needs to be seen and picked up with timing. It has at least three interactions attached, which is more than other abilities which might only have one of these. The management of these interactions will increase cognitive load for Paladins as well as the players picking up the armaments. It will require tracking on UI through WeakAuras, in your ERT notes, etc. It’s not exactly fire and forget. It will have to be actively managed to min-max and the higher your ranking, the more micromanagement is required. You will have to take the time to learn who is the right class or person to pick this up and coordinate with them. Some of these qualities are good for an ability to have but this iteration goes overboard. This ability can have depth without all this complexity.
Will require a Macro
Holy Armaments will require a @curser or @player macro to make it easier to use so you don’t lose any casts to the ceiling.
Adds to the overwhelming visual clutter of PvE content
Holy Armaments is just way more clutter in an already cluttered game. As raid and dungeon content have gotten more complicated, visual clarity has gone down. Sometimes it’s hard to read and understand mechanics, especially when they overlap with each other and the environment. This just adds another layer on top of that as players will need to notice an object in the environment, need to figure out if it’s safe or not, then move on top of it.
Is Holy Armaments better in the Retribution Spec Tree?
The question has to be asked: Is Holy Armaments in the right place? I think you can make a reasonable argument that Retribution needs something unique that only they bring. They don’t have Blessing of Spellwarding like Protection, or Aura Mastery like Holy and Retribution Aura is class wide. Retribution lacks a thing that gives them identity over other Paladins, and even over other melee specs. Holy Armaments conceptually fits the fantasy of the entire class and could solve consistent player feedback around Retribution’s utility.
It encourages social interaction, which is good!
Holy Armaments will require players to talk more about who gets the armaments, when to use them, where to place them, and all that. This is typically good as WoW is an MMO and social interaction is important, should be kept, and encouraged whenever possible.
Mythic+ has a lot going on
Mythic+ has a lot going, especially for a Protection. You need to watch your team for Blessing of Sacrifice or Cleanse Toxins. You need to know mechanics and when to use Blessing of Protection or Blessing of Freedom. You need to cover kicks with Rebuke and Avenger’s Shield. You need to keep things controlled with Hammer of Justice or Blinding Light. Holy Armaments just adds more cognitive load to what a Protection Paladin has to do in a Mythic+ key on top of what they do already.
How does it work with Brann Bronzebeard?
With world content becoming more of a developed content type in The War Within, with the implementation of the delves system and updates to the great vault, we need to consider this in that content. It might sound stupid, but it must be asked: If you’re doing a delve by yourself in Season 1 of The War Within, is Brann Bronzebeard going to benefit from a Holy Armaments? If not, then the implementation is not aligned with the Maintaining Freedom to Choose goal as described in the blog.
Talent Considerations
It’s too early in the process to start recommending choice nodes or giving serious opinions on talent strength. There is a lot of tuning and design left to be done before we play the final version next year. I will have plenty of opinions on talents once testing begins.
But I wanted to touch on some talent considerations and feedback because three talents need a closer eye.
Laying Down Arms and Valiance and how they connect with Shining Light could use better alignment with how Protection plays. Shining Light is not a proc or mechanic we use on cooldown. The spec can strategically sit on it until the right moment and that will diminish the value of any cooldown reduction or extra benefits. It’s more likely to reset the duration of our existing Shining Light buff more than anything. This should be changed to Grand Crusader as it makes the rotational impact much weightier and something we want to use right away.
Fear No Evil needs to be changed. It has little or no PvE value as getting feared usually means you made a mechanical mistake like didn’t line of sight something or missed a kick. The alternate, Excoriation, will have little to no raid value as creatures/bosses in raids are usually immune to stun effects. We’ll need to test the new raid and dungeon content but there is potential that in some PvE situations, this is just an empty choice node that will have zero value.
Suggestions for improvement
The most important change that needs to be made is that baseline interaction of a ground reticule and effect needs to go. It should be targetable at specific players. This reduces the ground clutter and makes it easier to use in a chaotic situation like Mythic+. This change will keep some of the good elements, like fantasy, social interaction. Making the ability easier to use will make the ability feel more fun to play.
Closing Thoughts
There is a lot of information still to be learned from the upcoming Alpha and Beta cycles. We can’t even fully grasp all the interactions of the Lightsmith talent tree; we haven’t seen it visually, or anything. By the time it sees public testing, this could be the same, completely different, or even out of the game. I love the fantasy and idea of the Lightsmith, as it’s in line with Paladin lore. But I question the execution and potential implementation. This could be the Night Fae of Hero Talent trees: a promising idea on paper and just awful to play in practice. How this new mechanic plays is critical as it’s the crux of an entire hero talent tree. The current design risks it being too much work, for truly little reward.
About the Author
This content was written by Lincoln. He is a moderator for the Hammer of Wrath Community where he helps players on a daily basis get better at playing Protection. Feel free to message him questions, comments or concerns about what you read here.
You can find him posting random opinions on Twitter.
