The Tier Sets in Season 1 of The War Within are intentionally made to be simple, and the Holy Paladin one is no exception. The
2-set continues the trend we have had throughout Dragonflight of the tier sets buffing
Holy Shock. The
4-set is a little more interesting, with it buffing our Holy Power spenders depending on how many
Holy Shock you manage to cast.
Let's break down what this Set Bonus means for the spec.
The 2-sets ImpactWhile I don't mind having Tier Sets buff
Holy Shock, this is now the fourth Set Bonus in a row that buffs it. This obviously make sense as
Holy Shock is our main rotational spell, but I cant help but feel like the spell could probably use some help that isn't dependant on Tier Sets.
Holy Shock has, sadly, become a spell that we mostly press to make other things happen and to make the rest of the spec work, be it
Glimmer of Light,
Infusion of Light, to generate Holy Power, or to make various Tier Sets function. The spell it self doesn't do much healing, so the 10% buff from this
2-set is very lacklustre, and even though the spell is also receiving a baseline 20% buff in The War Within, its healing still feel like a drop in the ocean of players health pools.
Additionally, I have some concerns about the validity and reasoning behind the cooldown reduction portion of the
2-set, and I do not understand why it isn't simply a Crit chance increase instead. It is frankly a strange choice to grant
Holy Shock cooldown reduction when its cooldown just got increased in the latest build, and when we are already unable to consistently cast the spell on cooldown due to mana concerns. I can't help but feel like the cooldown was simply increased to facilitate the implementation of this tier set,
In Dragonflight, the majority of our mana expenditure comes from casting
Holy Shock, but with the changes to
Infusion of Light that make
Flash of Light no longer free, and turn
Holy Light into a "mana dump" spell, Holy Paladins mana economy is now in question. We haven't had any way to turn excess mana in to healing until now, but now we instead have almost no way to rotationally conserve mana while healing, and it is important that this is addressed somehow or the spec simply cannot function on longer boss fights.
Turning
Holy Light in to a "mana dump" spell while also increasing the cost of
Flash of Light seems illogical to me. The
Holy Light changes on the Beta are clearly made with the intent of making the choice between
Flash of Light and
Holy Light with
Infusion of Light procs more interesting, but with the increased mana cost of
Flash of Light,
Holy Light is now multitudes better from both a Healing Per Mana and a HPS perspective so there is no case where you should ever cast
Flash of Light. If
Flash of Light had still been free, we would have had a much more interesting choice of how to spend
Infusion of Light procs.
While a 2 second cast time is too long to expect most Holy Paladin players to welcome, I think it is a great idea to give us a mana dump in
Holy Light, and even with its long cast time, it feels incredibly satisfying to cast on the Beta, but you have to retune the mana economy of the rest of our kit to facilitate this change.
The 4-sets ImpactThis
4-set feels good and it helps make our Holy Power spenders better. I especially like that it works with the
Holy Shocks from
Divine Toll and
Rising Sunlight, which lets us stack this bonus immediately. I appreciate the idea behind having the
2-set and
4-set synergize by increasing the amount of
Holy Shocks you can cast, even if it doesn't really work out that way in practice.
I do have some concerns about adding further large and semi-uncontrollable modifiers to our Holy Power spenders though. The 30/60% buff from
Blessing of Dawn is already a so big that the difference between casting spender with or without it is like night and day. Adding more modifiers will only widen that gap. Holy Power spenders need to feel good and be worth casting at 5 Holy Power in all scenarios, regardless of what temporary modifiers you happen to have active. As things stand, Holy Power spenders and
Awakening are more strong enough that you will want to waste as little Holy Power as possible, so we are thankfully not going to intentionally overcap Holy Power, like we did for a large portion of Dragonflight.
Conclusion
I do not mind that the tier sets are intentionally kept simple and straight forward. With some mana changes to enable us to actually cast
Holy Shock on cooldown, I think this tier set is as good as we could ask for. It simply buffs Holy Power spenders and
Holy Shock, and it always feels great to get stronger core spells, and the synergy between the
4-set and the
Holy Shocks from
Divine Toll and
Rising Sunlight makes it quite satisfying to play with.
I want to add that it has been very clear to me that Holy Paladin feedback is being heard and acted upon which motivates me greatly to write pieces like this. It is impossible to satisfy everyone, but I, for one, do appreciate the changes that have been made thus far. Keep up the great work!
