Den of Nalorakk

The loadout in `COMBATANT_INFO` resolves to Herald of the Sun, all fourteen hero talents, with Crusade, Avenging Wrath and Execution Sentence taken and Radiant Glory not taken. That is the build 71% of logged Retribution Paladins run in Mythic+ and the one every written guide currently recommends.

The previous key was a raid loadout on the Templar tree. Its defining property was that Avenging Wrath was a manual button the player did not know they had to press, because the Mythic+ build they had used before made it fire automatically. The result was eighteen and a half minutes of a twenty-two minute fight with no Wings at all, and Hammer of Wrath -- which is gated behind that window outside execute range -- unavailable for the same stretch.

Everything downstream of pressing it followed. Hammer of Wrath now comes every 7 seconds instead of once a minute. Execution Sentence, at roughly 1.5 million damage a cast, went from a talent the player owned to a button they use. Four combat potions were spent, against none in either key the night before.

Overcap went from 13% to 25% -- 341 of 1,367 generated Holy Power thrown away. That is now the largest single thing left on the table, and it is a side effect of the build working rather than a mistake carried over.

Three things in the new build generate Holy Power that the old one did not. Walk Into Light hands over 2 Holy Power every time Avenging Wrath is cast, and Wings is now being cast eighteen times instead of six. Aurora grants a free Holy Power spender after every Wake of Ashes, and there were 37 of those. Hammer of Wrath generates, and it is being pressed nearly three times as often.

So the income tripled in places and the spending rate did not follow. The fix is not a new button; it is spending earlier inside the Wings window rather than holding for a five-Holy-Power cast, because at that point in the fight the resource is arriving faster than a spender every three seconds can consume it.

Ruby Whelp Shell is still in the second trinket slot. It is a Dragonflight trinket, three expansions old, and across two keys it has now contributed zero damage in both. The slot is functionally empty.

Personal defensives came back this key -- 11 Divine Protection presses and one Divine Shield, against none at all in the previous one. They were not in the right window, though: the player died at 21:28 to Demoralizing Scream with nothing up, as part of a cascade that killed three of the party in fourteen seconds. Demoralizing Scream and Overwhelming Onslaught between them account for four of the five killing blows in this key, and both are absorbable.

Interrupts went slightly the other way -- 8 stops against 10 expected, down from 12 against 11. Rebuke was pressed twelve times with a median gap of 98 seconds against a 15-second cooldown. The party as a whole stopped 26% of what it could reach, so this is a group problem rather than an individual one, but the individual number did not improve.

Correction, 2026-09-06: an earlier version of this analysis said Shield of Vengeance was talented and never pressed, and told the player to start pressing it. There is no such button in 12.1. The talent is spell 1261562, flagged `Passive spell` and `Not In Spellbook`, and its own text reads "Divine Protection reduces damage taken by an additional 10% and casts Shield of Vengeance." Measured across three keys: 0 casts of Shield of Vengeance against 11 and 8 Divine Protection presses that produced exactly 11 and 8 Shield of Vengeance buffs. The grader has been fixed and these records re-graded; the line is gone from the measured half.

Advice given to the player alongside the previous key -- in conversation, not on that record, which never mentions Divine Arbiter -- said that when the Divine Arbiter buff is up the correct play is to press the opposite Holy Power spender to the one being used. That is not supported by this log and should not be followed.

Measured here: Divine Arbiter damage followed Final Verdict 67 times and Divine Storm 14 times, so it is not tied to one spender. Pairing each Arbiter application with the spender that consumed the Divine Purpose before it, and with the spender the resulting Arbiter fired off, gives 38 of 59 on the other spender and 21 of 59 on the same one. A rule that is right 64% of the time is not a rule.

What the evidence does support: 27 of 62 Divine Arbiter buffs ran their full 20-second duration, and the set bonus states a new one cannot be granted while one is active. Holding it therefore costs procs outright. Spend it promptly; which spender does it is unresolved and needs more keys before anything is asserted.