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Well, here's my third iteration.

For starters, the new keystone talent is intended to be something that both Retribution and Protection benefit from, but that provides a whole new look to the character. I've taken the Heavenly Strength effect out of tier 4 from my second iteration and plopped it in the keystone. The idea was that Protection and Retribution would gain more strength (and generally more stats) from wielding both a shield and a two-handed weapon at the same time, but when I realized I could build on that theme and add a bunch of attacks and passives that incorporated both a shield and a 2H weapon, I was delighted to make it the keystone of my whole tree!

One of the weaknesses of my earlier Templar iterations was their flavor, or rather, their lack of flavor. Don't get me wrong: the North Star for my design is still the fun-factor and making sure that each individual talent is appealing to both constituent specs. But even with that design philosophy: more flavor, more theme, and more unification for the tree overall is better than less flavor/theme/unification. Originally, I'd intended for Templar to be a no-nuance, big, beefy, tanky paladin. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that the phrase "no-nuance" really means "I'm ignoring flavor/theme/unification altogether and just doing what I think is cool, useful, and/or fun". Ignoring theme, flavor, and tree unification is not exactly a good thing, even if it's not my top design priority.

Honestly, while I'm pretty satisfied with the effects of the active upgrade-abilities I put in tier 2 (you can tell from how little I changed them from iteration 2), I'm less than satisfied with the names I came up with for these combined abilities: Templar's Wrath for the Avenger's Shield + Blade of Justice spell might not be bad per se (I'm combining those two because they're both spec-specific and on relatively short cooldowns), but when you juxtapose that next to Templar's Focus for the TV+SotR and Templar's Rage for the DS+SotR talents, it's a bit...one-note. I didn't like how Punish was already the name of a Warrior talent, and I kind of felt like Condemn wasn't describing what the DS+SotR talent was doing. But depending on feedback, I might revert the names, or come up with new ones.

I realized that literally every single one of the upgrade-abilities was, in some way or another, contributing to Retribution's multi-target damage. They could also buff a Ret paladin's overall single-target damage to be sure, but none of them focus on single targets. So I decided to make some passives that (a) use the ol' shield in your offhand so as to add flavor, theme, and unification to the tree; and (b) are single-target. Shield of the Templar was an old, unused talent name from WotLK, so I pulled it back and set it up so that your basic builders and autoattacks could auto-trigger a single-target shield-strike. For Retribution, the extra damage from that shield-strike is nice. For Protection, the extra shield block chance you get after the shield-strike is nice, though I wonder if I made the numbers too high...

Exorcism is gone as an active ability, which I kind of think is a shame, since it was the first damage spell any paladin in the Warcraft franchise was able to cast (I'm talking about Warcraft 2, here---I feel it's a very iconic spell). But I realized I could salvage the talent name and the DoT effect as a passive. Tying it into the Shield of the Templar passive as well was meant to make the effect appealing to Protection, and I picked the old Vanilla Holy Wrath icon because I feel like that icon is badly underused, and if the icon's file name is any indication, it was originally meant to be used for Exorcism, anyway.

Seal of Vengeance (and its too-awesome-not-to-use-the-name-for-Templar buff, "Fanaticism") are still among the key passives of the tree, but instead of being the keystone, SoV is something that gets applied by the merged abilities, and its placement in the tree implies it's intended to be a buff for the merged abilities. I figured SoV was a pretty nice effect, beneficial to both Protection and Retribution, so I shouldn't get rid of it altogether, even if it isn't the keystone, anymore.

I'd like to add that the "Vengeance is Justice" and "Justice is Vengeance" talents were meant to be awesome and badass names, but also intended to be a multi-target-vs-single-target choice, emphasizing either the name of "Avenger's Shield" or the name "Blade of Justice". I had either the BoJ icon's components lit while the AS icon's components were darkened or vice versa, depending on which of the two abilities was being emphasized.

The capstone is completely redone in terms of its name and effect, apart from remaining an instant gap-closer: it's redesign was meant to tie it into the shield + two-handed weapon effect, giving it an immunity-in-transit and single-target Holy damage component from your shield and an AoE physical damage component from your 2H weapon. I figure it'll have a relatively long cooldown, and some part of me wonders if I should revive the aspect of it that instantly maxes out the SoV charges on the target; if feedback tells me to do so, I will.

I'd like to close by saying that not a single thing from Blizzard's own first iteration of their Templar tree made it into my tree. My iteration 3 of Herald of the Sun brought in their Sunspots and Sun Avatar concepts, and my iteration 3 of Lightsmith pulled in a heavily QoL'ed version of Holy Armament as the capstone and Hammer and Anvil as a renamed passive. But Hammer of Light and the Empyrean Hammers are nowhere to be found in this tree. Partly that's because the flavor of this iteration of Templar (now that I've settled on an actual flavor for it) doesn't mesh with Hammer of Light, and partly because I simply wasn't impressed by Blizzard's concepts. It feels like Blizzard isn't doing much to make their Templar tree appealing for Protection, plus I could easily see some Protection specs that don't get Eye of Tyr for whatever reason, which wouldn't mesh at all with the design where Hammer of Light replaces Eye of Tyr.

Of course, I'm taking all these opinions of mine with a grain of salt, and so should you, because I don't play Protection or Retribution; I've played Holy since summer 2005...

Any feedback you have on this iteration would be appreciated!

Description

Well, here's my third iteration.

For starters, the new keystone talent is intended to be something that both Retribution and Protection benefit from, but that provides a whole new look to the character. I've taken the Heavenly Strength effect out of tier 4 from my second iteration and plopped it in the keystone. The idea was that Protection and Retribution would gain more strength (and generally more stats) from wielding both a shield and a two-handed weapon at the same time, but when I realized I could build on that theme and add a bunch of attacks and passives that incorporated both a shield and a 2H weapon, I was delighted to make it the keystone of my whole tree!

One of the weaknesses of my earlier Templar iterations was their flavor, or rather, their lack of flavor. Don't get me wrong: the North Star for my design is still the fun-factor and making sure that each individual talent is appealing to both constituent specs. But even with that design philosophy: more flavor, more theme, and more unification for the tree overall is better than less flavor/theme/unification. Originally, I'd intended for Templar to be a no-nuance, big, beefy, tanky paladin. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that the phrase "no-nuance" really means "I'm ignoring flavor/theme/unification altogether and just doing what I think is cool, useful, and/or fun". Ignoring theme, flavor, and tree unification is not exactly a good thing, even if it's not my top design priority.

Honestly, while I'm pretty satisfied with the effects of the active upgrade-abilities I put in tier 2 (you can tell from how little I changed them from iteration 2), I'm less than satisfied with the names I came up with for these combined abilities: Templar's Wrath for the Avenger's Shield + Blade of Justice spell might not be bad per se (I'm combining those two because they're both spec-specific and on relatively short cooldowns), but when you juxtapose that next to Templar's Focus for the TV+SotR and Templar's Rage for the DS+SotR talents, it's a bit...one-note. I didn't like how Punish was already the name of a Warrior talent, and I kind of felt like Condemn wasn't describing what the DS+SotR talent was doing. But depending on feedback, I might revert the names, or come up with new ones.

I realized that literally every single one of the upgrade-abilities was, in some way or another, contributing to Retribution's multi-target damage. They could also buff a Ret paladin's overall single-target damage to be sure, but none of them focus on single targets. So I decided to make some passives that (a) use the ol' shield in your offhand so as to add flavor, theme, and unification to the tree; and (b) are single-target. Shield of the Templar was an old, unused talent name from WotLK, so I pulled it back and set it up so that your basic builders and autoattacks could auto-trigger a single-target shield-strike. For Retribution, the extra damage from that shield-strike is nice. For Protection, the extra shield block chance you get after the shield-strike is nice, though I wonder if I made the numbers too high...

Exorcism is gone as an active ability, which I kind of think is a shame, since it was the first damage spell any paladin in the Warcraft franchise was able to cast (I'm talking about Warcraft 2, here---I feel it's a very iconic spell). But I realized I could salvage the talent name and the DoT effect as a passive. Tying it into the Shield of the Templar passive as well was meant to make the effect appealing to Protection, and I picked the old Vanilla Holy Wrath icon because I feel like that icon is badly underused, and if the icon's file name is any indication, it was originally meant to be used for Exorcism, anyway.

Seal of Vengeance (and its too-awesome-not-to-use-the-name-for-Templar buff, "Fanaticism") are still among the key passives of the tree, but instead of being the keystone, SoV is something that gets applied by the merged abilities, and its placement in the tree implies it's intended to be a buff for the merged abilities. I figured SoV was a pretty nice effect, beneficial to both Protection and Retribution, so I shouldn't get rid of it altogether, even if it isn't the keystone, anymore.

I'd like to add that the "Vengeance is Justice" and "Justice is Vengeance" talents were meant to be awesome and badass names, but also intended to be a multi-target-vs-single-target choice, emphasizing either the name of "Avenger's Shield" or the name "Blade of Justice". I had either the BoJ icon's components lit while the AS icon's components were darkened or vice versa, depending on which of the two abilities was being emphasized.

The capstone is completely redone in terms of its name and effect, apart from remaining an instant gap-closer: it's redesign was meant to tie it into the shield + two-handed weapon effect, giving it an immunity-in-transit and single-target Holy damage component from your shield and an AoE physical damage component from your 2H weapon. I figure it'll have a relatively long cooldown, and some part of me wonders if I should revive the aspect of it that instantly maxes out the SoV charges on the target; if feedback tells me to do so, I will.

I'd like to close by saying that not a single thing from Blizzard's own first iteration of their Templar tree made it into my tree. My iteration 3 of Herald of the Sun brought in their Sunspots and Sun Avatar concepts, and my iteration 3 of Lightsmith pulled in a heavily QoL'ed version of Holy Armament as the capstone and Hammer and Anvil as a renamed passive. But Hammer of Light and the Empyrean Hammers are nowhere to be found in this tree. Partly that's because the flavor of this iteration of Templar (now that I've settled on an actual flavor for it) doesn't mesh with Hammer of Light, and partly because I simply wasn't impressed by Blizzard's concepts. It feels like Blizzard isn't doing much to make their Templar tree appealing for Protection, plus I could easily see some Protection specs that don't get Eye of Tyr for whatever reason, which wouldn't mesh at all with the design where Hammer of Light replaces Eye of Tyr.

Of course, I'm taking all these opinions of mine with a grain of salt, and so should you, because I don't play Protection or Retribution; I've played Holy since summer 2005...

Any feedback you have on this iteration would be appreciated!