We now know the set bonus for Protection Paladin that will be released in the Guardians of the Dream content update. The core idea is that you'll buff your
Consécration casts through
Jugement then do some extra damage and healing while standing in an Empowered
Consécration. The idea is a different direction from the last few bonuses and that is welcome but the implementation of what we see on the PTR is deeply flawed.
Let's go over the flaws with this bonus.
Consecration is Recast Constantly
It’s quite frequent that we recast
Consécration. The last two end bosses, Sarkareth and Razageth, both had mechanics that forced you to move out of
Consécration, before it would expire. Even dungeons coming in Season 3 like Atal'dazar have mechanics that force you to move out. It's why
Consécration 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
Consécration 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
Consécration 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
Égide de Lumière. 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
Bouclier du vertueux 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
Sépulcre des Fondateurs,
Caveau des Incarnations, and
Aberrus, le creuset de l’Ombre provided 3-4x damage reduction than the set from
Amirdrassil, l’Espoir du Rêve 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
Consécration dans les flammes, and
Jugement du croisé. It could create incentives to take
Voie dorée or
Sceau de miséricorde but those will be dropped if we need to take
Bénédiction de protection or
Bénédiction de 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.
Consécration 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
Consécration casts to line up with
Courroux vengeur or vice versa? We already have this choice with
Sentinelle and
Courroux vengeur : colère 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.
Consécration is already a large damage reduction increase because of
Maîtrise : Rempart divin 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
Consécration where it just bugs out and the game doesn't apply
Maîtrise : Rempart divin 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
Consécration 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 la Cruelle 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 Consécration 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.