If/when (hopefully when) holy weapons are rewritten, it would be great if they functioned more like warmages' summon weapon, just without the weapon... summoning part. So, I'm thinking it could work as follows:
• At the end of the Holy weapon quest, rather than placing a holy weapon at the altar, you pray at the altar (I don't think this is spoiling anything...). In other words, you're forged with the ability to create a holy weapon at this point rather than your weapon being forged with it.
• With the quest, you learn glyph renew and the ability to create a basic holy weapon (what we've got now). You can create your holy weapon at any Chadatru altar by performing a ritual that drains you of soul juice and vitality and adds a death's sting-like debuff. Because the process bonds you to the weapon, you can't make more than one at a time.
• If you want to change your holy weapon, you can go to any Chadatru altar and release your current holy weapon and then perform the ritual on another weapon, or perform a different ritual on the same weapon.
• Holy weapons no longer have charges. Instead, they grow with the user until they reach full power (blinding with holy power). Using a holy icon now eases the holy weapon creation process by eliminating the vit hit and sting.
This seems like it doesn't change much, but I think it does. Now, you have a system that supports different holy weapons and enhances an ability that's very unique to this guild. It also sounds less complex than what the current holy weapon system is, and eliminating unnecessary complexity is usually a good thing.
What sorts of different holy weapons? Well, maybe at 75th circle, you get the ability to create a defensive holy weapon that adds some parry abilities (arrow/thrown parry again, please) and a counter-attack. Maybe at 100th circle, you become strong enough to create the same "holy" bond with a shield as well as a weapon. This runs in line with my thought that paladins should have a strong focus on augmenting their armaments.
