As a follow up, we now have all of the Paladin Covenant legendaries implemented, and testable. We won’t spend much time talking about
四季丰裕 or
义缚之槌 as they are primarily unchanged from our last post
linked here.
The real talking point is between the Kyrian and Venthyr legendaries, as these are the two most popular covenant choices for Holy Paladin they are the most noteworthy.
Kyrian
The Kyrian Legendary was worded somewhat ambiguously initially, and now that we can test it, we know how it works.
圣洁共鸣 will cast one additional
神圣震击 on the INITIAL target of your
圣洁鸣钟, every 5 seconds. This will add up to a fair amount of Holy Power over an encounter. However, a large portion of the
神圣震击 healing may go to waste, as there is no guarantee that person will benefit from a
神圣震击 that frequently. Due to the
圣光闪烁 cap, this also ensures this person will have
圣光闪烁 on them pretty much exclusively for an extended period of time. Some encounters, this may be a benefit or this may be used on a tank frequently. Overall, this legendary is a solid legendary, though it is competing with some heavy hitters for Paladin already, as the power level of our legendaries is quite high.
Venthyr
The real talk however, is in Venthyr’s
耀光余烬 now that we have a better idea how this works. Essentially, how it works is as soon as you leave your own
红烬圣土, it instantly disappears, but a portion of its cooldown (based on remaining duration) is instantly returned. This means in some scenarios you could get a mechanic forcing you to run out (and waste
红烬圣土), or maybe even just stand in the raid if your group “needs” said
红烬圣土 healing. This is kind of unique, as far as mechanics go and could lead to problems.
The real strength of this legendary is in its current tuning values. Essentially skilled players will be able to track (probably with a weakaura) its remaining duration, if you leave after exactly 20s into your
红烬圣土s duration, you can get its cooldown to roughly 2mins, coincidentally the cooldown of
复仇之怒. Previously, you could not get an
红烬圣土 with every
复仇之怒, but this legendary gives you that option which is certainly powerful. If an encounter has a predictable damage pattern, you could run 2-3 paladins with this legendary, and they would be able to stagger
红烬圣土s and Wings to have very powerful raid cooldowns for practically every damage event of an encounter. This is somewhat concerning, as the damage potential of Venthyr Holy Paladin is still quite high, despite the nerfs. For more information on the nerfs to Paladin in a recent PTR build you can read about
it here.
In conclusion, the
圣洁共鸣 legendary effect is a middle of the pack legendary, which could see some play, but has tough competition. The Necrolord and Night Fae legendaries are comparable in power, but are less represented as covenants for Holy Paladins. The Venthyr legendary, is still early and is a really cool idea mechanically but is probably slightly overtuned and could lead to abuse by stacking paladins on specific encounters to take advantage of very powerful short duration
红烬圣土s.
Now that the new Covenant Legendaries for Paladin can finally be tested on the PTR, we have a much better idea of exactly how they work and interact with other abilities.
Kyrian
圣洁共鸣 has had a significant change since it was last discussed - rather than casting
圣洁鸣钟 additional times, instead it casts regular
审判s. Compared to how it was previously assumed to work, this will result in less Holy Power in situations with multiple targets, but more initial damage from
审判s on single target. It also obviously now won't proc
明澈之音 or
战斗冥想 with the extra casts. For how
圣洁共鸣 actually works in practice, it's usually a 30 second buff that casts
审判 every 5 seconds. For each
圣洁鸣钟, you get 6 extra
审判s with a 5 second gap between each. However, it also seems to have a bug where if the initial
圣洁鸣钟 hits more than one enemy, you actually get a 35 second buff, which results in an extra
审判 cast.
The extra
审判s still proc all the normal effects you'd expect them to, like
善德命令,
狂热, and the
审判 debuff itself. Awkwardly for both
善德命令 and
狂热, there are a couple of bugs and issues that appear when you end up casting a lot of
审判s within a small timeframe. For
善德命令, its buff doesn't actually get refreshed if you cast a second
审判 with the buff still active, so despite casting 6 or 7
审判s you'll only end up with extra
善德命令 procs from about half of them, depending on server lag. With
狂热, if you cast
审判 very frequently you end up capping at 9 stacks very quickly, and then waste stacks as they're refreshed above 6. Ideally these problems will be addressed before 9.1 goes live, especially the
善德命令 bug, as it's essentially random whether each
审判 will give you another buff or not.
As far as how strong it looks to be for damage, it's not unlikely based on the current version that it will become the best Legendary for Kyrian. The
审判 damage and Holy Power alone is probably enough to rival
最终审判, not to mention the increased
圣殿骑士的裁决 damage from extra
审判 debuffs and the fact that it doesn't lose value in AoE situations like
最终审判 does. Whether it really will be better or by how much remains to be seen, but judging by its current design and tuning, expect this to be a strong Legendary in the coming patch.
Venthyr
耀光余烬 is still a very weird Legendary to try to wrap your head around. It's been clarified to cancel
红烬圣土 once you leave it, but the cooldown reduction it provides does not scale as you might expect. Up to around half of the 45 second duration, 22 seconds or so in, it will still provide 110 seconds of cooldown reduction for
红烬圣土, which is only 10 seconds less than if you left it immediately after casting it. However, after this point the cooldown reduction is reduced at a much faster rate. This ends up with a strange outcome where there's very little change in the amount of cooldown reduction you receive until half of
红烬圣土's duration is finished, after which its cooldown reduction is scaled down at a much faster rate.
The result of this is that you can use
红烬圣土 for essentially the entire duration of
复仇之怒 plus a couple of seconds, cancel it, and then have it back off cooldown shortly after your next
复仇之怒 comes off cooldown. Although this sounds very strong, it only ends up being around 15 extra seconds of
红烬圣土 compared to a normal 4 minute cooldown use. While you can also just wait the full 45 seconds on your last cast of
红烬圣土 each fight, since you don't need the extra cooldown reduction if you can't cast it again, it might not end up as strong as
疯狂圣贤 for Venthyr.
Night Fae
四季丰裕 has thankfully had a design overhaul. It now doubles the effects of each Season for its middle 10 seconds. Since each buff lasts 30 seconds, you end up with 10 seconds of the normal buff, then 10 seconds of the empowered version, then another 10 seconds of the normal buff.
- 暮秋祝福 provides 60% faster cooldown recovery instead of 30%
- 凛冬祝福 does double damage with each proc
- 阳春祝福 increases healing done by 20% and healing received by 40%, instead of 10% and 20%
- 仲夏祝福 has a 80% chance to deal 60% extra damage, rather than a 40% chance to deal 30% extra damage
As you might have noticed,
仲夏祝福's average damage is actually quadrupled rather than doubled, since both the chance to proc and the amount of damage are doubled rather than just one of them.
It's fairly difficult to evaluate the new version of this Legendary.
仲夏祝福 is by far the most valuable Season, so increasing its value by that much means that it's at least worth some consideration. Since in raid combat you can cast
仲夏祝福 prepull and have your season reset back to
仲夏祝福 on pull, you end up with more uptime on
仲夏祝福 than any other season anyway. There could be a build similar to current Kyrian with
处决宣判 and
最终清算, where
处决宣判 is used within the middle 10 seconds of
仲夏祝福 in order to buff its damage by proccing off regular casts within its window, but could also proc off the final hit of
处决宣判. Alternatively, it could just be used on another class with a strong 10 second burst window every 3 minutes, like a Balance Druid. Either way, this is likely to be a Legendary with some niche uses at the very least, and has potential to be much better.
Necrolord
义缚之槌 hasn't received any recent changes. It's still a pretty underwhelming effect and is unlikely to change Necrolord's position compared to other covenants.
