Teach me how to use Shalun's Wrath

[drspendlove]

According to the wiki:


"Shalun's Wrath

- A single-target melee attack that buffs the paladin for 3 turns upon dealing damage to his/her target.
- The buff increases damage and critical hit chance by a large amount, and can be taken advantage of by other talents, such as Slay.
- The heat cost is double Slay's and it doesn't deal quite as much damage, ignoring the buff, leading open the strategy to invest equally in Slay and Shalun's Wrath and only use the latter when the buff has, or is about to, run out.
- This skill isn't used in counter-attacks but the buff from it can be."

I get the basics here, as I wrote this wiki entry, but I feel like I'm missing out on the best uses of this talent. Do any Paladin experts have insight to supply here?

[Carl]

Shalun’s wrath essentially buffs all attacks you have on your character. If you wanted to have a strong staggering blows and a strong counter attack, you could invest 19 points into slash and staggering blows to get them to a level 10 standard, or 10 points into wrath and 1 point into staggering blows to activate the buff and then have both powerful counterattacks and staggering blows.

Additionally, it’s the only crit increase in paladin talents so if your team is focused on that, that’s the way to go. In general it’s higher heat but the buff makes it a stronger attack per point than slash.

[drspendlove]

I hadn't thought of using this with staggering blows. Very clever!

[fusei]

Keep in mind that you'll have only 6 staggering blows charge at level 1 compared to 14 when maxed.

SW is a more offensive option than righteous embrace for hammerdin because you'll want to put some points into focus to take advantage of that crit chance (less in fortitude/willpower).
Also you'll want to have some points in tactics (max it actually) meaning, with warrior being a must, no medic before new game+++ playthrough.
It means no war machine which is VERY handy for a hammerdin believe me.
On the other hand, it allows you to get warding fire or inspiration (if you really wanna go aggro).
With WF the hammerdin will bring a nice defensive buff to the team however, might struggle holding his/her ground if you start becoming unlucky on auto-block procs.

Also to take into consideration, SW is a lot more reliable than RE,as the latter needs very specific conditions to be worth something.

Can work out in an apropriate team as a buffer and damage dealer that might need bit of a hand every now and then. Melee, permadeath and auto-block as the only mean of defense... hum don't like the sound of that