Kyrian
Divine Toll is really useful for mob pick up, interrupting a bunch of casters or just doing area of effect damage. They also fixed its interactions with
First Avenger so if you get a full five target hit, you get a moderate absorb shield. The Holy Power gained scales per target hit so if you hit 5 targets, you will gain 5 Holy Power. It also interacts with some legendaries like
Bulwark of Righteous Fury allowing for more SotR damage.
The downside is that in single target encounters, it will hit one target and generate one Holy Power. In that scenario, it effectively becomes a plain
Avenger's Shield on a one minute cooldown.
Ringing Clarity will help offset that as it gives an increased chance of firing more Shields at your main target.
As icing on the cake,
Divine Toll has by far one of the best visuals of any options available to Protection. It fits the theme of the spec as this shield throwing machine.
Summon Steward is a quality of life and utility button. It gives you a
Phial of Serenity that clears some debuffs while granting other benefits like talent changes or vendor items. With changes that have been made over the course of beta, it's a much better covenant signature than it once was. It gives you a third healing consumable and the option to be flexible with debuff removal. For example, you can use the Kyrian potion to remove your own debuff but cast
Blessing of Protection to remove a party members debuff.
Pros: Strong in multi-target, Synergizes with talents and legendaries, Divine Toll is really fun to press
Cons: Weak for single target tanking, Can only use the potion once per 'encounter'
Venthyr
Ashen Hallow is the best damage ability available to Protection of all four covenants. It also enables you to cast your
Hammer of Wrath with a significant damage bonus while in it. The conduit,
Hallowed Discernment, is just a passive DPS increase that you’ll most certainly always use.
The downsides of the ability are pretty clear. It tethers you to a location for the duration. On a boss or scenario with frequent movement, this ability won’t perform as well because you might simply move out of it and lose your damage. It only adds raw dps and hps without much other utility. The Holy Power gains from extra
Hammer of Wrath casts are also net-neutral since it will generally substitute for a
Judgment,
Avenger's Shield, or
Hammer of the Righteous.
The four minute cooldown has a frequent topic of discussion in community. From a numbers tuning perspective, the cooldown is justified.
Ashen Hallow does a lot of damage and provides a strong opportunity for more burst damage when needed.
Door of Shadows is a good signature ability. It has a 35 yard range which is effectively max range in most situations. Over the course of Alpha and Beta, they’ve added some pathing checks to it so it’s a bit more restrictive in where it can go. It’s not as good as some once thought and how it played in early Alpha. For tanking, one downside is the cast time. Casting spells while actively tanking is generally discouraged but there will be plenty of situations where you’re not tanking and can use this safely.
Pros: High damage, Good mobility
Cons: Low utility, Net-neutral holy power, Tethers you to one spot
Necrolord
Vanquisher's Hammer is the worst covenant option available right now. On paper, it helps you better utilize your Holy Power for healing, survival, and damage. However in real scenarios, it doesn't really do any of that. Currently, when you use Vanq Hammer, you get a 20s buff that makes your next
Word of Glory automatically cast an SotR. However,
Word of Glory isn’t a button you press whenever. You want to wait for a specific moment to properly make use of it. In that 20s, that specific moment may never come leaving you two options: Let the buff expire or you just yolo
Word of Glory in a very inefficient manner. There are a lot of situations where you just don’t get full use out of Vanq Hammer because of that.
However, the conduit is potentially one saving grace for Vanq Hammer. With
Righteous Might, Vanq Hammer is a very hard hitting ability for Single Target when used every 30s. Given the problems above, the ability for now should be thought about like
The Crucible of Flame was in BFA: a hard hitting single target nuke with no other real benefits. In multi-target situations, the damage drops off a lot making it very narrow even as a damage ability.
Fleshcraft provides an absorb shield equal to 20% of your HP and if you’re next to a corpse, you gain a bigger shield that can go up to 50% of your max health. This ability still suffers from two problems. You still can’t dodge, parry, or block during the channel meaning that you lose some tankiness to get the shield active. Second, the shield can suffer chip damage. By the time you finish channeling, the shield could be gone because you were taking damage. However, there are some soulbinds that add value to
Fleshcraft. They provide minor buffs, immunity to crowd control or the ability to cast it while moving. These are nice bonuses that improve an ability with clear weaknesses.
Pros: Higher Shield of the Righteous uptime, Strong DPS in single target
Cons: Effectiveness depends on Word of Glory usage, Weak in multi-target, Fleshcraft has very clear weaknesses
Night Fae
Blessing of the Seasons has been redesigned since my last article. Originally it was this pseudo-aura that buffed your full party all at once. Now it's just individual buffs that you cast like you would
Blessing of Freedom.
Opting for Night Fae means that you'll be focused on support including sacrificing your own power.
Blessing of the Seasons provides four unique buffs in the form of some passive damage, cooldown reduction, lower enemy movement and attack speed, and increased healing taken and done. Blessing of the Seasons can be tedious because you need to track which one you currently have active, which one is next in the rotation and when you want to activate it. You can fix this with a WeakAura however.
The Long Summer just makes
Blessing of Summer last longer meaning you can have
Blessing of Summer,
Blessing of Autumn, and
Blessing of Winter active at the same time. You should use
The Long Summer in most situations because there is no reason to pick Night Fae if you don't.
Soulshape is a movement ability that helps you get around when needed. The blink effect is much improved since Alpha started as it has a longer longer range than before. It does give you some control if you need to move frequently in a short duration.
Soulshape can be really handy for a class with limited mobility options like a Paladin.
Pros: Fills the buff fantasy, Good utility in groups. High mobility
Con: Tedious to manage, Requires a WeakAura, Very low personal throughput, Just boring
