Sun Cleric - Valkyrie DPS PvE General Build

Sun Cleric Valkyrie is a Melee Titan's grip class that feels like a mix between a classic Retribution Paladin and a Fury Warrior with a some added uniqueness that makes it stand out. Sun Cleric Valkyrie utilizes an arsenal of both defensive and offensive cooldowns ranging from 45 seconds to 8 minutes. This culminates into a class with tremendous burst damage potential, incredible AoE clear, and very respectable single-target damage.

This build guide is a work in progress by someone playing the class in real-time, I will try my best to be prompt in updating any information and seeking out advice however please understand I'm just a player like you, I will never claim to be the end-all be-all of knowledge for this class, if you feel my opinion is wrong please feel free to share and I will try my best to respond in respect :)

CONS

Vows are on the GCD which makes for very unsatifying gameplay when you need to switch Vows mid-fight.

Vow of the Valkyrie is very weak without the Dawn buff active and there is no way to maintain 100% uptime on the Dawn buff.

Suggestions

-Firstly, Take Vows off the GCD.

Then any ONE of the following would greatly improve the flow of gameplay and Dawn uptime.

-Vow of the Valkyr / Vow of Dawn grant 2 Solar power up from 1.

-Change the Devoted to the Sun Talent from a 5 second reduction to a 10 second reduction.

-Change Solar Invocation: Conquest from granting 10 Solar power to 15 Solar power.

This is just my rationale for picking these talents. if you disagree with me, feel free to pick whatever you'd like. Ideally, Divine Retribution should be MORE DPS overall than Knight of Dawn however since this class already has so many cooldowns to manage I wanted to pick something that would be a decent damage increase without adding any stress to the already cluttered playstyle.

--Class Talents--

Horusath Blast: Our Highest Damage Dealing Ability

Solar Prayer: Excellent instant heal that can be used while stunned

Swift Justice: Increased Haste by 6%, more haste = more damage (until you hit haste soft-cap)

Sun Stride: Useful Utility, increased movement speed useful in a lot of situations

Solar Might: 10% increased Strength and Intellect is always good

Devotee: Increased effectiveness of all your buffs, useful for you and your entire group/raid.

Sintorcher: Flat damage increase always welcome

Solar Invocation: Conquest: One of our bread and butter abilities for upkeeping the Dawn buff.

Blessed Armor: Armor = Spell Power is good but mainly we take this to unlock that middle row.

Solar Invocation: Revelation: useful utility heal/movement speed. Mainly taken for the nodes below it.

Devoted to the Sun: YOU NEED THIS FOR SMOOTH GAMEPLAY. Reduces the cooldown of Solar Invocation: Conquest!

Solar Guardian: You will thank me for this one later, we have no CC break.

Pure Light: Flat Damage increase for any opening damage on anything. Very good.

Suncharged: Judgement day now does damage yay!

Holy Conquest: Reduced Mana costs for some of our MOST costly abilities.

Glare: Very useful AoE Stun and damage.

Guiding Glow: Grants up to 5 additional casts with the Dawn buff active, this is INCREDIBLY useful.

Hegemony: Increases the duration of Radiance which = more dps.

Fortuitous: Removed the cast-time of glare when above 80% health, making it an instant cast damage/CC.

Unbreakable Focus: Reduces the cooldown of Gavels and Horusath blast by 20% = more DPS.

Nysoni's Blessing: gives a nice 6 second haste buff from activating Dawn.

New Day: Major Cooldown that refreshes other Major Cooldowns.

--Valkyrie Talent's--

Glorious Execution: Bread and butter, You'll prioritize casting this whenever Slam/Horusath Blast are on cooldown.

Odyn's Vanguard: Self explanatory and required to grab anything else.

Sunsworn: More damage / Mana restoration

Sunslam: Your hardest hitting melee ability (also prone to bugging out)

Justice: AoE cleave, one of your regular rotation abilities.

Radiant Marks: Makes Sunslam more useful by compressing the damage window. Same amount of hits, but faster.

Valkyr's Grip: Makes your off-hand weapon deal more damage.

Fervor of the Sun: Increased Sunslam Damage.

Champion of the Sun: Major CD for increasing DPS.

Fanaticism: Increases Gavel and Horusath Blast Damage.

Judgement of the Valkyrie: Reduced cooldown for Judgement Day

Impartial: Increased Strength and Expertise

It's Always Sunny: Reduced Cooldowns for some of our best CDs.

Gift of the Sun: Increased Crit on first 20% of enemy's health. lots of damage potential for first 20% of boss health.

Trial of Valor: Reduces cooldown for Horusath Blast one of our strongest abilities.

Blessed Hammer: required for smooth gameplay and reducing the cooldown of Solar Invocation: Conquest.

Blessed Magic: Casting Horusath Blast now resets the Cooldown of Glorious Execution. = more DPS.

March of the Valkyr: Great little raid buff and flat damage increase.

Vindicator: More Glorious Execution Buffs.

Solar Empowerment: One of your strongest AoE effects. Will deal incredible amounts of damage in large groups.

Knight of Dawn: EVEN More Glorious Execution buffs.

The Rotation when waiting on cooldowns is less of a "Rotation" and more of a "Priority List".

Currently I suggest pre-planning which Vow you'll need before starting combat, switching Vows in combat feels quite awful, it's on the global cooldown which doesn't feel great to use in the middle of a rotation, hopefully with enough player feedback we can get some improvements made during the upcoming balance changes.

Solar Power is your main resource to manage, you ideally should never really go OOM at 60 if you're playing your rotation correctly and have Replenishment active.

--Priority--

Maintaining the Dawn buff will be your NUMBER ONE priority. This buff is activated by storing 20 Solar Power generated from your Vows. At 20 Solar Power you can activate Dawn, which will give you a different effect depending on the active Vow.

If you've selected the correct talents activating Dawn will give you a 1 minute buff with 15 stacks. Every time you cast an ability it will consume a stack of Dawn.

The Dawn ability you originally pressed to activate the buff will now be called Radiant Conversion, this ability will take all your REMAINING stacks of Dawn and turn them back into Solar Power. Using this mechanic and our Solar Invocation: Conquest (immediately gives 10 stacks of Solar Power) we will attempt to maintain uptime on our Dawn buff as much as possible.

To achieve this, ANYTIME your Dawnstacks reach between 7-9 stacks you will cast Radiant Conversion > Solar Invocation: Conquest which will put you at 17-19 stacks of Solar Power, followed by a couple ability casts or auto attacks (depending on Vow) will max out your Solar Power allowing you to almost immediately reactivate Dawn.

In my current experience playing the class there is no way to maintain 100% uptime of Dawn, there will always be a time when you will either be waiting for Solar Invocation: Conquest's cooldown or be starved of Solar Power from having consumed too many stacks of Dawn.

I have linked a simple little Weakaura I made that will show you your stacks of Dawn when the buff is active and alert you when to refund them (default is 8 stacks however this can be edited in WA)

When out of combat use Vow of Grace to passively regain Solar Power and top yourself off before going into a fight. You can also spam Solar Invocation: Conquest. I often use a combination of both if there's nothing around to hit for a couple seconds.

--Rotation--

-This includes Cooldowns-

1. Activate Vow (Dawn for AOE / Valkyrie for Single-Target)
2. Dawn
3. Paragon
4. Dawnfall
5. Radiance
6. Champion of the Sun
7. Judgement Day
8. Glare (if above 80% health)
9. Sunslam
10. Radiant Conversion
11. Solar Invocation: Conquest
12. Dawn

Regular Rotation Begins

1. Horusath Blast
2. Glorious Execution
3. Gavel
4. Justice

Stat Priority:

--Primary Stats--

Strength > Agility > Intelligence

Ideally, Strength is all that really matters however Agility gives us melee crit and Intelligence gives spell crit so if nothing else they provide some kind of a bonus to overall damage.

--Secondary Stats--

I wouldn't focus on these stats as much until we have actual tier sets with raids

In the meantime here's my take.

1. Hit (9% cap) we get 6% passively. You technically want AS MUCH AS POSSIBLY under 27% hit for your off-hand but you will likely NEVER hit cap for off-hand so I wouldn't worry about it too much past the 9% you need to cap your mainhand hit.

1. Haste until softcap (i'm not 100% sure what softcap is on Ascension, I'm trying to find out) ideally hit softcap and then don't worry about getting any more haste beyond that.

1. Critical Strike, fairly self explanatory, more crit = more damage.

1. Spell Power, Not useless, but not entirely useful.

Most of our damage will come from melee abilities and auto attacks. This is mostly useful for AoE damage than anything else and perhaps there is potential for some crazy spellpower AoE centric builds but that's not really what i'm going for here.

1. Armor Penetration, not entirely sure about this stat in particular, will depend on how much armor bosses have and the contribution this stat will provide overall.

No tier sets yet and I haven't played enough to get enough gear to test everything out.

I would suggest just looking for iLvl upgrades that correspond to the Stat Priority above.

For now, i'd suggest sticking to doing Heroic Dungeons and working your way up to Mythic.

I'm personally trying to get either pieces of the Valor or Lightforge dungeon sets, these sets have interesting set bonuses that i'd like to test out and I think maybe there might even be a nice 3-set/3-set bonus coombination with the sets.

To get these pieces in particular I've had the most luck doing

Lower Scholomance

Upper Scholomance

Stratholme (Service Entrance)

Stratholme (Main Gate)

Lower Blackrock Spire

Upper Blackrock Spire

Not 100% Sure about this list since I haven't been playing on Ascension very long but it seems to be what the community and other guidemakers agree are the best melee enchants to pick up.

Head: (Depends on if Expertise Capped)

Warrior's Might (Strength, Stamina, Armor Penetration) or Death's Embrace (Attack power, Stamina, Expertise)

https://db.ascension.gg/?quest=1508184

https://db.ascension.gg/?item=19784

Shoulder:

Zandalar Signet of Might

https://www.wowhead.com/classic/item=20077/zandalar-signet-of-might

Cloak:

Rampager's Cloak Lining

https://db.ascension.gg/?item=967224

Chest:

Greater Stats

https://www.wowhead.com/classic/spell=20025/enchant-chest-greater-stats

Wrist:

Superior Strength

https://www.wowhead.com/classic/spell=20010/enchant-bracer-superior-strength

Weapon:

Brutal Crusader

https://db.ascension.gg/?item=967789

Ranged:

Iron Sights Scope

https://db.ascension.gg/?item=967206

Gloves: (Depends on if Expertise Capped)

Greater Strength (Strength) or Lesser Expertise (Expertise)

https://www.wowhead.com/classic/spell=20013/enchant-gloves-greater-strength

https://db.ascension.gg/?item=46517

Belt:

Warlord's Belt Buckle

https://db.ascension.gg/?item=967191

Legs: (Depends on if Expertise Capped)

Warrior's Might (Strength, Stamina, Armor Penetration) or Death's Embrace (Attack power, Stamina, Expertise)

https://db.ascension.gg/?quest=1508184

https://db.ascension.gg/?item=19784

Boots: (Depends on if Hit Capped)

Greater Agility (Agility) or Lesser Accuracy (Hit rating)

https://www.wowhead.com/classic/spell=20023/enchant-boots-greater-agility

https://db.ascension.gg/?item=45628

This is largely an endgame guide, I feel like leveling is really an individual experience and unfortunately this guide is not centric to "how to level", I suggest doing quests in whatever zone you like and the occasional dungeon and you should be just fine.

Not a PvP guide sorry. :(

Melee Abilites:

#showtooltip

/targetenemy [noexists][dead]

/cast Placeholder

/startattack

(Just replace Placeholder with your melee ability i.e. Justice, Glorious Execution, Gavel of Light)

Lazy 2-minute Cooldowns Macro:

#showtooltip

/cast Radiance

/cast Champion of the Sun

/cast [@player] Dawnfall

/use 13

/use 14

Solar Invocation: Revelation (Self Cast Only) Macro:

#showtooltip

/cast [@player] Solar Invocation: Revelation

Judgement day / Glare Cast Sequence Macro:

#showtooltip

/castsequence reset=10 Judgement Day, Glare

Weakauras:

Dawn buff Weakaura (Tells you when to press Radiant Conversion) (Default is 8 stacks remaining or lower)

https://wago.io/UtvGNLPwc

Maintain Dawn Buff Uptime

Make sure you're using the correct Vow

Never Eat Soggy Waffles.