Sanctified can be a pretty good system if executed well but a lot of people myself included are worried that this will straight up force certain playstyles. Why would it force certain playstyles?
Because you can’t not wear sanctified gear past a certain rank of the seal of dawn trinket.
No single piece of gear or set bonus is worth giving up 25% damage per slot or even 10%.
Especially for paladins this will feel extremely bad. Paladins are very reliant on tier bonuses at the moment and the tier bonuses that are currently on the tier 3 that are just straight up not good and not fun.
2 set 20% damage to divine storm: this set bonus is less than a 2% dps increase, exodin was projected to not even use the divine storm rune at all
4 set Holy wrath cdr and no cast time: holy wrath costs way too much mana it will not be worth to spam this because you will be oom after the 3rd casts
6 set exorcism and holy wrath damage increase: arguably the most worthwhile of the set bonuses but its still not great because this would only ever be good for exodin or a sealstacking paladin but both of those playstyles lose all support if you consider sanctified pieces interfering with tier bonuses from old raids.
Just these 4 piece tier 2.5 ret and 4 piece tier 2 ret set bonuses make up almost 33% of an exodins power but that is not even all of it, these set bonuses make the spec enjoyable.
So paladins that were hoping on playing exodin or a similar playstyle going into naxx will lose not only a good chunk of power but also a good chunk of enjoyment that are all are very reliant on the 2-3 set bonuses you will lose.
I believe the main issue is that the Sanctified system takes flexibility out of gearing and playstyles. Currently both exodin and twisting are completely valid playstyles that are both fun but they both rely on 2 and 4 piece ret t2 being baseline in any gear setup and this assumption is just impossible with naxx gearing.
Yes, the shoulder enchants are a pretty good idea but its not enough. Most people wanted to add an old bonus like sealstacking to exodin or using the aq10 3 set for twisting but now you can’t do that with naxx gearing.
I have discussed with other paladins and read what other paladins think and most people agree that some sort of compromise is likely the best solution.
- limit the amount of sanctified pieces count toward the trinket bonus to a number that is less than all the slots that are possible to have it. Most people think 8 is a good sweet spot.
- let us reforge the set bonuses on the new tier, basically bring back coreforging and let everyone use the sets they want
- make 2 piece tier 2 draconic baseline for paladins (this would not solve the issue but its something basically every paladin or even any player that has ever looked at paladins likely agrees with)