Let’s go over the flaws with this bonus.
Consecration is Recast Constantly
It’s quite frequent that we recast Consecration. The last two end bosses, Sarkareth and Razageth, both had mechanics that forced you to move out of Consecration, before it would expire. Even dungeons coming in Season 3 like Atal’dazar have mechanics that force you to move out. It’s why Consecration has a short cooldown. The button must be flexible enough to recast it if you move. It’s also “Limit 1” so you can only have one active at any given time. In practice, once you consume Sanctification, the next Consecration will be a normal cast as the Empowered one will go away.
It’s going to be the case that you build and use your Empowered Consecration then be forced to recast and lose it because some mechanic forced you to move. This will feel horrible.
No Defensive Value
This tier bonus has effectively zero defensive value. It does give armor, but it only affects base armor from gear like Aegis of Light. Currently, it’s estimated that you’ll have 6% more base armor or ~900 armor which will have no noticeable impact. Protection Paladin is already sitting at ~38,000 armor with just Shield of the Righteous active and this bonus will amount to <2% of your total armor.
Assuming you average six stacks of the armor buff, you will take ~1% less damage from melee swings. This value is low enough that you won’t notice it and it will make no meaningful difference. At best, it will be buff bar clutter. For context, the tier sets from Sepulcher of the First Ones, Vault of the Incarnates, and Aberrus, the Shadowed Crucible provided 3-4x damage reduction than the set from Amirdrassil, the Dream’s Hope will.
The armor you gain will not only have a marginal effect on physical mitigation; armor as a mechanic does nothing against Magic or Bleeds. Armor is a “win-more” stat for Protection Paladin in their current state and because of how armor works, it adds a lot less value than it would on another tank spec. A better and more impactful defensive mechanic would be increasing parry chance, block chance, or passive damage reduction so it fits better into the current mitigation profile.
No New Talent Interactions
This tier set creates no new talent interactions that we aren’t taking already. We already take Consecration in Flame, and Crusader’s Judgment. It could create incentives to take Golden Path or Seal of Mercy but those will be dropped if we need to take Blessing of Protection or Blessing of Sacrifice or anything else for utility in the class tree. The talent builds we will be using are all the same compared to 10.1, especially in the Protection tree.
Conflicts of Damage vs. Damage Reduction
The bonus creates conflicts in how we should be playing. Consecration is a substantial portion of our damage mitigation toolkit. Should we be risking taking more damage to do more damage? Should I hold my Empowered Consecration casts to line up with Avenging Wrath or vice versa? We already have this choice with Sentinel and Avenging Wrath: Might and it feels awful and very punishing. The set bonus recreates the same feeling by making me choose between having to live and my ability to hold threat.
Doubles Down on Spec Weakness
It doubles down on our spec weakness. Consecration is already a large damage reduction increase because of Mastery: Divine Bulwark due to passive DR, and the ability to block magic dots while in it. And if you tie some of our damage/threat to it, it just tethers us even more. Set bonuses should not make weaknesses more apparent.
Tier Set Bugs
There are a few bugs with this bonus.
Major Consecration Bug
There is a major bug with Consecration where it just bugs out and the game doesn’t apply Mastery: Divine Bulwark for standing in it. This bug has been around since Legion and the solution is to usually to recast it as soon as its off cooldown. If your Empowered Consecration bugs out like this, you will either be forced to recast it and lose the Empowered bonus or just live without the damage reduction component for 14 seconds. Neither situation is desirable.
Practical Data Analysis
With raid and dungeon testing open, we can answer the practical question of “how bad is it?” and looking at the data, it’s unbelievably bad.
Here is sample data from raid testing the Igira the Cruel encounter. This fight should be good for the bonus since tanks can just plant and do not have to move all that much for large portions of the fight.
Here is how much damage it did.
Here is how much healing was gained from it.
On a boss that could be considered ideal, the bonus is not doing anything of any real value. It does no meaningful damage. It does no healing. It adds close to zero defensive value. Now if you consider a boss or situation that is not ideal, then the bonus is just as bad.
It’s ok for there to be situations where the bonus is good or where it’s bad. That’s referred to as texture but for there not to be any situation where the bonus shines shouldn’t be a thing. That signifies that this bonus has a fundamental flaw in its tuning and design.
Based on the data we’re seeing in raid and dungeon testing, unless something changes, Protection Paladin will not have a meaningful set bonus in 10.2.
Fixing the Bonus
This bonus is savable with some major changes. Here is what I would do:
- Allow any Consecration to be considered Empowered for a short duration as long as Sanctification is active. Currently, it lasts for 30 seconds but can be reduced to 15. This would completely remove the overwriting problem.
- Buff the damage and healing throughput by a large amount
- Change the armor bonus to passive damage reduction
- Fix all the bugs listed above
Allowing the bonus to be mechanically easier to use would go a long way to making the bonus more palatable. Under current functionality, there are going to be a lot of situations where you will be playing like you won’t have a set bonus at all.
Closing Thoughts
It’s obvious that the set bonus needs work. The implementation doesn’t mesh well with how Protection Paladin plays in Dragonflight. Content design and its power level will invalidate this bonus more than anything else. Additionally, set bonuses should feel good to earn and use. They should change gameplay and not feel like this invisible thing that you don’t realize you have. This bonus is not good enough or exciting enough. If this bonus does not change, Protection Paladins will not have a tier bonus next tier. It will be just some clutter on item tooltips.
