Class Changes
Developers’ notes: The goal of this change is to make Dream Breath a flexible heal that can once again serve as a powerful heal over time effect or a burst heal when charged. This also further differentiates it from spells like Verdant Embrace and Merithra’s Blessing, which have filled a similar role as an on-demand burst heal.
Merithra’s Blessing has been updated – Now increases all healing of Dream Breath by 60% (was 250%, and previously applied only to its instant healing).
Font of Magic has been updated – Now also reduces the empower time of Dream Breath and Fire Breath by 20%.
Dream Breath instant healing reduced by 50%. Dream Breath periodic healing increased by 118%.
Temporal Barrier absorption increased by 30%.
Minor Changes But Noticeable
There are only a few Preservation changes in 12.1 so far, but it's a good slate all the same. We'll discuss what these mean in a bit more detail later in the article but there are a few points I want to hit on first. In Season 1, it felt like you had three healing buttons that were very similar: Verdant Embrace, Merithra's Blessing and Dream Breath. All three were chunky instant heals (two of them AoE) that applied a weaker HoT. This often saw them all compete for similar resources like Echo and reduced the different type of answers we might have for various damage patterns. It also didn't matter what rank you cast Dream Breath at because all four did basically the same thing. This Dream Breath change (which is also a net 10% buff to the spell), moves a lot of its power into the heal-over-time effect instead, however if you uprank Dream Breath you'll get similar up-front healing to now. You gain more choice over which rank to send Dream Breath at, and have a powerful new HoT-option. Fantastic.
Buffs to very weak talents like Font of Magic and Temporal Barrier are good, though unlikely to be sufficient enough for either to see play.
Tier Set
2-Set Bonus: Consuming Essence Burst sends forth a Living Flame at your target at 150% effectiveness, or at a nearby injured target if your primary target is at full health.
4-Set Bonus: Green spells restore 5% more health, and Verdant Embrace has a 100% chance to grant Essence Burst.
A few quick notes on how these work:
The freebie Living Flames can proc Essence Burst. It currently procs at a reduced rate but this appears to be a bug.
If you are Chronowarden, then you will get Chrono Flames instead.
If you cast Disintegrate with Essence Burst, then you will cast an offensive Living Flame as well.
You only get one Essence Burst per Verdant Embrace cast - even if you Echo it.
This is a great 2pc bonus. It is simple enough that you can grasp it easily, but it can have a decent impact on your rotation. These Living Flames both proc off, and proc Essence Bursts. So you end up in a cycle where you drop Emerald Blossoms or Echo and proc even more of each as you go. It also improves talents like Lifeforce Mender by adding a larger splash of red to our healing breakdown - even if it might not be enough to include them in a default build. It's just the right amount of RNG where it will make each pull feel a bit unique without changing how you materially approach the fight. I'm feeling lucky.
The 4pc is a little less inspired. The Verdant Embrace portion gives you a way to recharge your Essence Bursts once you run out, and that might be the spells only purpose in raid now. A 5% bonus to green spells is of sufficient strength and will fit well with the extra Emerald Blossoms we're able to drop via the 2pc bonus but it feels a bit basic.
Overall, the set plays very well, and they do fit together - but only just.
Where We Stand
Raid: Flameshaper Ascends
In Season 1, we had two closely competing hero trees with slightly different strengths. Chronowarden had better access to single-target healing, an extra burst cooldown, and could go wider on Merithra's Blessing ramps leading to larger peaks in healing. Flameshaper filled in the gaps between healing bursts better by improving Emerald Blossom and Dream Breath. It also had better mana efficiency. The Season 2 tier set and Dream Breath changes are both more beneficial to Flameshaper than Chronowarden. That could see Flameshaper take over as the stronger build overall - instead of a late farm play like in Season 1.
The changes also open up our talent options a lot, and I think we'll see a ton of fight-by-fight variation based on how stacked or spread a fight is - or how much we value sustained healing vs burst. It'll be one of the most competitive talent trees that I think I've seen in the game.
Playstyle wise, expect the core that you hopefully loved in Season 1 to stick around. You will still cast a lot of Echoes, and you will still consume them with Merithra's Blessing. You'll continue to cast Emerald Blossom to do a ton of healing in between bursts and to gain Twin Echoes stacks. What changes, is that you will have significantly more Essence Bursts stacks than before due to our tier set and you will even be able to chain cast them for a while depending on your RNG. Mana will also feel even better because you are not paying for half of your casts.
If you enjoyed Preservation in Season 1, then I think you will like it even more in Season 2.
Mythic+: A Tricky Spot But Look at that Firepower
Preservation has, with the exception of a brief few weeks in early Dragonflight, never been "meta" in Mythic+. I could write an article on that topic alone, and others have in the past. Our raid buff is bad, our healing pattern can be awkward, and the skill required to pilot the spec in difficult keys is high. It can also just feel like the spec doesn't bring a unique strength that would have you take it over a more mainstream healer - particularly given Augmentation is also very popular.
With our Season 2 tier set, maybe we can be the healer that excels in doing a lot of damage. We already do very good damage for a healer, and now we're gaining 150% strength Living Flames on every Essence Burst -> Disintegrate cast. That could be an interesting niche, and will definitely be fun in all key levels.
If you haven't healed a key as Preservation in a while, then I recommend giving it a go. We've had a lot of quality-of-life changes over the last several patches - many aimed at improving how the spec feels in dungeon content.
