This bonus isn’t actually available on the PTR yet, but it’s at least fairly straightforward so we’ll only need to make a few assumptions – mostly in regard to our 2pc. We’ll assume that if we echo a Spiritbloom that it’ll give us a HoT, and we’ll assume that the HoT is based on raw healing not effective healing. If either of these aren’t true, then they should probably be changed.
Playstyle Changes
Our 2pc bonus does see some variance based on build, but at minimum it’s a very good set. It’s really solid no matter what you’re playing since it builds off the power of two of our strongest spells. There are some synergies with Nozdorumu’s Teachings and Spiritual Clarity but you’re almost guaranteed to get significant value from it whether you’re in raid, mythic+ or out in the world. The set will further emphasize using your empowers regularly which is already often a sign of good play. This will also give us the ability to have 6 HoTs active on a target at once (2 reversions, 2 dream breaths, 2 spiritblooms) – an incredibly helpful improvement to our single target healing.
Our 4pc bonus is much more interesting. You’re looking at around 4 free essence bursts from it per minute, even more with Nozdormu’s Teachingss. Every build is able to get good value out of these, but the higher value your essence spenders the more you’re able to leverage it. That means that Emerald Blossom heavy builds are slightly happier than the rest. That doesn’t mean that only Emerald Blossom builds will be viable though!
The Power
Raw Power
With a mythic geared character, our 2pc is worth around 4-6% healing without changing how you currently play. It could climb even higher if you echo Spiritbloom a lot, or if you spec into Nozdormu’s Teachingss and Spiritual Clarity. The 4pc bonus is much more difficult to put a number on without going into build specifics. Emerald Blossom builds should comfortably be able to pry 8-10% healing from the set with good play, while Echo-based builds will get a bit less.
Comparisons with our current Tier Set
Our current tier set has two keys strengths:
- The 2pc is very good for raid builds that play around maximizing Reversion healing via Resonating Sphere.
- The 4pc is very good in Mythic+ where it offers competitive damage.
Our season 2 set adds more healing, offers more essence bursts, and more ways to express your skill, but is less damage.
Feedback
Our new 4pc is not particularly easy to use. A set with high skill expression is generally a positive, but it could be made easier to use for little power gain by also giving us the ability to stack Essence Burst 1 additional time when using the set (to a maximum of 2 by default and 3 with Essence Attunement). That would make them more difficult to waste and would reduce the amount of buff management required to use it well.
The 2pc is great as-is. Thematically it would be cool to see Fire Breath on the 2pc to complete the “empowered spells” theme. The spiritbloom portion of the bonus would also benefit from being able to be Echo‘d but this might already be in place.
There’s a risk that depending on how other systems land in 10.1 that wearing our season 1 and 2 tier sets together could be a viable option (2pc + 2pc). This becomes very difficult for new players who will feel compelled to do old content to try and catch up. Nerfing the season 1 set going into season 2 would be a fine solution.
