Paladin Hero Talents — The War Within (Season 1)

This page is specifically about Hero Talents in The War Within. If you want to learn more about the best regular talents for Holy Paladin, check out our Talents page:

Herald of the Sun is our strongest Hero Talent in all scenarios. While it may fall behind in damage compared to Lightsmith, it offers significantly more healing, and the healing that it does provide is much more useful since Lightsmith is largely uncontrollable and impacts very few targets. Sun's Avatar specifically offers a ton of extra healing when you use Avenging Wrath, turning this into an even stronger cooldown. It does, however, require you to be somewhat careful about where you use your Dawnlights because you will want to make sure that the beams hit as many targets as possible. Generally, that means avoid putting Dawnlight on melee players when in spread situations.

Lightsmith's primary strength comes in the form of the damage provided by Sacred Weapon. This functions similarly to the old Blessing of Summer, where it can be used on other players and gives you damage in return. It will often struggle in raiding situations because you can only give a few players the buffs you offer. Compare that with Herald of the Sun, where you can potentially cross beams through the entire raid; it is clear which one offers more impact beyond just numbers (Lightsmith still falls behind even number-wise).

Herald of the Sun will be the best choice when you are at any point concerned about healing. During the start of a season, doing very high keys, or even in situations where you don't feel confident, then you will gain significantly more healing from Herald.

Lightsmith pulls ahead in terms of pure damage but can feel a bit weaker since it lacks some of the power in Avenging Wrath that Herald of the Sun gets from Dawnlight and Sun's Avatar. When in situations where you don't care at all about healing, you can definitely opt into playing Lightsmith, and the damage you gain will be well worth it, assuming you can still heal your group efficiently without taking away from casts that could've instead been spent on DPS globals.

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Best Hero Talent Builds for Holy Paladin

Herald of the Sun Raid - Casting Herald of the Sun Mythic+ Lightsmith Hero Talents

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Best Herald of the Sun Raiding Talents Build for Holy Paladin

Whether you are focusing on a melee or casting build, your Hero Talents will not change. You must have a strong understanding of both Sun's Avatar and Dawnlight to truly be successful. While you can't control the Dawnlights that spawn from pressing Avenging Wrath, you CAN control the ones you apply by casting Holy Prism or Barrier of Faith. This means that with the two free Dawnlights, you will want to aim to have them on targets that will spawn good Sun's Avatar beams. If I were to put my Dawnlights on melee players, then it is safe to assume my ranged players will not be at all hit by the beams since they are connecting between the melee players and me (also in melee). Ranged targets are ideal because you can safely hit both melee and ranged with the beams, or at the very least reposition if possible to better center the beamlines to hit as many players as possible. The longer the beams, the more healing you will gain, and that is only possible when you have Dawnlights on ranged players.

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Best Herald of the Sun Mythic+ Build for Holy Paladin

You must have a strong understanding of both Sun's Avatar and Dawnlight to truly be successful. While you can't control the Dawnlights that spawn from pressing Avenging Wrath, you CAN control the ones you apply by casting Holy Prism or Barrier of Faith. This means that with the two free Dawnlights, you will want to aim to have them on targets that do not have either Beacon of Light or Beacon of Faith. This way, you can ensure everyone in the party receives a ton of healing. If you are playing Beacon of Virtue, it will matter a lot less who you decide to place your manual Dawnlights on and you should instead just opt to put them on players who will benefit the most from the Dawnlight healing.

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Best Lightsmith Build for Holy Paladin

Lightsmith is very straightforward to build, but in your gameplay, you will want to make sure you keep Solidarity in mind. In order to get the most value out of Lightsmith, you will want to make sure that you are casting the buffs on other players so that you control who is actually receiving the buffs, rather than casting on yourself and letting it go to a random player. That being said, the overall talents do not change between Mythic+ or Raiding unless you need to change the CC choice node of Fear No Evil or Excoriation (both of which are largely unimpactful).

The key to getting the most value out of Herald of the Sun is to make sure that you are optimizing your Dawnlights. You will need to cast Holy Prism or Barrier of Faith as much as possible to keep the most Dawnlights out as possible. If you are playing Awakening, however, you will want to hold Holy Prism/ Barrier of Faith if you are close to a proc, that way, when you do, in fact, proc, you can have an extra Dawnlight active and thus an extra beam active, giving you a significantly higher amount of healing.

Lightsmith has no appreciable impact on your rotational priorities. You will simply want to make sure that you are continuously using Sacred Weapon in order to buff the players in your group. As mentioned previously, you will prefer using them on other players; that way you control who the buffs go to rather than casting them on yourself and letting them choose a player at random.