Kyrian
Divine Toll has been the talk of Alpha for Protection Paladins. We love and adore it as it amplifies our fantasy as a shield throwing Holy Warrior. It’s really useful for mob pick up, interrupting a bunch of casters or just doing area of effect damage. The Holy Power gained also scales per target hit so if you hit 5 targets, you will gain 5 Holy Power. The downside is that at the low end, 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.
Summon Steward is a quality of life and utility button. It gives a potion that clears some debuffs while granting other benefits like talent changes or vendor items. Generally, I think this is the weakest covenant signature ability of the four. The healing from the potion is on the health potion cooldown while providing less healing until you’re in end game gear at level 60. Additionally, Paladins do not have many issues with debuffs such as poisons, diseases or bleeds.
Venthyr
Ashen Hallow has been changed at least once so far in Alpha. It’s not as bad as it once was but it's still the weakest of all the class abilities and seems the least fun. To help provide context on its power,
Ashen Hallow is worth 1 Holy Power per minute while
Vanquisher's Hammer is worth 6 Holy Power per minute. Blizzard has
communicated that they are open to adjusting the ability and I hope they do. One idea could be that
Hammer of Wrath generates 2 Holy Power per cast while you’re standing in
Ashen Hallow instead of just 1.
Door of Shadows is by far the best signature ability on Alpha. It has a 35 yard range which is effectively max range in most situations. It doesn’t have as many pathing checks as similar abilities, meaning it has no real limits on where you can go. A good rule of thumb from testing this on Alpha is that if you can see it, you can use
Door of Shadows to get there. 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.
Necrolord
Vanquisher's Hammer is a hidden gem of Covenant Class Abilities for Protection Paladins. It doesn’t have the visuals of
Divine Toll but it's just as good, if not more so. For Protection,
Vanquisher's Hammer makes your next
Word of Glory automatically cast a free
Shield of the Righteous. This would include any free
Word of Glory casts from three stacks of
Shining Light.
Vanquisher's Hammer improves your Holy Power efficiency significantly making it easier to keep Shield of the Righteous active for those dangerous moments. On average,
Vanquisher's Hammer is worth ~15% more
Shield of the Righteous uptime. One lesser known note is that the free
Shield of the Righteous does damage and it can proc. talents like
Divine Purpose making this ability fit in nicely with the Shadowlands Protection kit and talents. I personally like this covenant class ability a lot.
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. It potentially has nice interactions with datamined Soulbind abilities such as
Emeni's Magnificent Skin because
Vanquisher's Hammer can be used more frequently allowing for more stacks. However, this ability suffers from two problems. First, you 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.
Night Fae
Blessing of the Seasons is a tedious ability that is just functional. It provides four unique buffs to your party members in the form of some passive damage, cooldown reduction, lower enemy movement and attack speed, and increased healing taken and done. It's tedious because you need to track which one you currently have up, which one is next in the rotation and when you want to activate it. It's an ability that will require a Weakaura to use effectively because it can be hard to track otherwise. Additionally, there are some minor quirks with the ability on Alpha. First, the cooldown reduction doesn’t function with anything that is flagged as having charges in the spell data. For example, it doesn’t work on
Judgment because it can have extra charges with
Crusader's Judgment. Second, if you have two Paladins in the group with this ability, they can overwrite each other. The group can only be affected by one Blessing at a time.
Soulshape is a movement ability that helps you get around when needed. The blink effect is limited because of its short range. It does give you some control if you need to move frequently in a short duration. It's not the best covenant ability but it could be useful for a class with limited mobility options like a Paladin.
