Spiritual Guidance: Set bonuses and legendaries in patch 7.2.5

The PTR has been hopping with updates and getting tweaks here and there, but it seems the big changes are in and here to stay while the specific numbers may change slightly. Tier 20 set bonuses have been on the PTR for a bit, which are exciting and getting more relevant the closer we get to Tomb of Sargeras. However, new legendaries were recently introduced along with legendary class rings shared across each spec. Healing Priests can look forward to three new legendaries, one each for Discipline and Holy and the class ring as the third.

Tier 20 Set Bonuses

Discipline

• 2 Piece Bonus: The first bolt of light from your Penance deals an additional 100% damage or heals for an additional 100%.
• 4 Piece Bonus: Power Word: Shield has a 15% chance to cause your next Penance to be free and have 50% reduced cooldown.

The 2 piece bonus is basically Castigation from your talent tree. There have been a lot of shakeups for Discipline on this PTR cycle and Twist of Fate was added to the level 15 talent row, making it directly compete with Castigation. It’s likely to be the more preferred option, especially on progression, and the 2 piece set bonus will give you back the little bit of Penance burst. The 4 piece set bonus buffs Penance even more, reducing the amount of time you have between Penance cooldowns and providing a little more even burst rather than in huge chunks with Light’s Wrath. Penance is a hard hitter and it’s pretty reminiscent of the set bonuses back in Hellfire Citadel.

Holy

• 2 Piece Bonus: Serendipity reduces the cooldown of your Holy Words by up to an additional 1.0 sec.
• 4 Piece Bonus: Your Holy Words have a 40% chance to trigger a 50% reduced cooldown.

Holy’s set bonuses look pretty good and add a lot of synergy with your Holy Words and Cosmic Ripple healing. The 2 piece bonus is a straight cooldown reduction, though it was slightly longer at 1.5 seconds in an earlier PTR patch. The 4 piece set bonus is a chance to halve the cooldown, providing a lot of burst healing in a small window, but the mana costs could be worrisome. This is always what Holy has excelled at and the tier bonus is basically giving Holy twice as many Holy Words, which means twice as much mana used. Holy Words can be mana-intensive already so you’ll have to watch their usage even more with the tier bonus unless you have mana regen trinkets.

New Legendaries

First off, we have a brand new legendary class ring. The base benefit is the same for every class and spec, two talents for the price of one, but its usefulness varies drastically since not all talents are equally appealing.

• Soul of the High Priest: Gain one of the following talents based on your specialization. (Discipline: Twist of Fate, Holy: Surge of Light)

This is an interesting ring, as it basically allows you to pick up two talents in a single row. It will definitely vary as far as being useful, especially depending on what legendaries you may have. The secondary stats are budgeted lower than the other legendaries to compensate for having the use of two talents. Discipline Priests will likely find more use out of this legendary ring than Holy Priests due to the talent choices offered.

For Discipline, you gain Twist of Fate, which has been moved to the first row of talents. Your other options here are Castigation and Schism. Typically Castigation has always been taken, for lack of better options, as Schism is very mana-intensive and more for when you have the extra time or mana to focus on DPS. Twist of Fate has always been a progression-oriented talent, providing a lot of uptime on newer fights when you’re taking a great deal of damage. Discipline Priests will already be looking at taking Twist of Fate in 7.2.5, and this ring provides a bit more burst, allowing them to pick up Castigation with Twist of Fate. The tier 2 piece set bonus already provides a front-loaded first bolt of Penance, combine that with Castigation for an additional bolt, and increased healing and damage with Twist of Fate, and you’re looking at a lot of healing on progression.

For Holy, however, the ring finds less use. It’s a nice thing that’s not really needed if you have any of the other legendaries. The ring offers Surge of Light, which can be found in the level 75 talent row. Surge of Light’s use was decreased drastically when its interaction with Blessing of T’uure and Trail of Light was changed, moving our attention to Piety, especially after the changes to Benediction. Surge of Light is great in Mythic+ where we’re focusing more on single target healing and the instant casts in the face of heavy damage, but it has less use in raiding. Having a couple extra free Flash Heals over the course of a fight doesn’t really make much of a difference. It has a really hard time competing with the likes of the cloak, pants, or trinket. However, if you don’t have many legendaries or everyone’s most wanted ones, then this one is decent to use.

Next we move to the new spec legendaries. Discipline has a new pair of shoulders.

• Inner Hallation: Power Word: Radiance has a 25% chance to grant you Power Infusion for 9 sec.

This one looks nice at first because it has a bit of a haste boost for normal play, but the recharge system on Power Word: Radiance interferes with how useful it could be. The one spell that would benefit from it is the one that activates it, but Power Word: Radiance is on a 2 charge system and you’ll have at most one charge left if you’re lucky, or no charges if you’re unlucky and it activated on the second cast. Mana costs have been heavily adjusted on PTR, and giving a mana decrease to your other Atonement spreading spell, Plea, that is already low mana doesn’t help much. If you’re lucky then your Atonements would already be out but that’s reliant on RNG for a mere 25% chance. Discipline relies on extreme control and planning and the random procs introduce too much RNG, especially when you can’t take advantage of the proc. There are too many other useful legendaries, with passive benefits or on-use activations for control, to want to use this one. However, like always, if it’s your only legendary then go wild. Just replace it as soon as you get any other.

As for Holy’s new legendary, it comes in the form of a new helm.

• The Alabaster Lady: Prayer of Mending has a 15% chance to grant you Apotheosis for 8 sec.

The first thing that comes to mind is that this legendary is meant to help alleviate some of the mana problems that could be caused with Holy’s tier set bonuses. Apotheosis makes your Holy Words cost no mana, and several Apotheosis procs over the course of a fight could really help with the extra Holy Words from the reduced cooldown. The tier set bonus gives you faster Holy Words and the legendary would make them free. If the proc rate were once every minute, you could get almost a full Apotheosis or two out of a fight, depending on the fight length. Essentially you’d get a free Holy Word every minute. On the other hand, the proc chance is pretty low and makes us dependent on RNG. Having Apotheosis for only 8 seconds means you’d only get a couple casts out of it, perhaps not even enough to get another Holy Word out if they had just been used. The Apotheosis proc timing is also at the mercy of RNG and could potentially happen when nothing’s going on, whereas we can control when to use the actual Apotheosis as a talent. This could find use with a full tier set, but it could also be overshadowed by the other legendaries and good mana-regen options.

Overall, the tier bonuses look great and a lot of fun. It’s something we’ll definitely want to go for as soon as possible, even dropping item level if you can get a full set. If you’re raiding with a guild, you might have to wait a bit as they prioritize DPS classes for maximum efficacy. The new legendaries aren’t much to look at, but at least we have other options from the rest of the legendaries available. The ring will definitely find more use than the other two, though your mileage may vary.