Warlock Tier 14 (T14) Set Bonuses

[Zagam 1,982]

The latest Tier 14 set bonuses are now available. They are:

T14 2P Bonus - Increases the damage done by your Corruption spell by 10%, increases the damage done by your Incinerate spell by 5%, and increases the damage done by your Shadow Bolt, Touch of Chaos, and Demonic Slash by 2%.

T14 4P Bonus - Reduces the cooldown of your Dark Soul abilities by 40 sec.

Analysis:

2P - Your basic entry tier set bonus for DPS. Affliction gets a 10% Corruption bonus, Destruction gets a 5% Incinerate bonus, and Demonology is snatching up a 2% Shadow Bolt bonus in caster form and a 6% damage bonus to Demonic Slash in Metamorphosis form. Overall, can't complain, but really nothing to get excited for in terms of mechanic or rotation changes. Do what you do, you'll just hit a bit harder.

4P - The reduction of your Dark Soul abilities is a pure DPS gain. Destruction's Dark Soul ability gains 30% extra crit for 20 seconds, Demonology's Dark Soul ability gains 12,317 mastery rating for 20 seconds, and Affliction's Dark Soul ability gives 30% haste for 20 seconds. All of the Dark Soul abilities have a 2 minute cooldown, so without your 4P set bonus, your theoretical max uptime is 20sec/120sec = 16.6%. With the 4P bonus, your theoretical max uptime shoots up to 20sec/80sec = 25%. This will also be greatly beneficial in PVP situations.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Damien
Update for Patch 5.1.

[Peelyon 416]

Remind me to like this when I have my quota back again!!

Whats your take on the bonuses Zagam? Happy with them or? They seem a little boring to me. Nothing to get really excited about.

Need to link this to my warlocks :)

Edited June 29, 2012 by Peelyon

[Zagam 1,982]

Remind me to like this when I have my quota back again!!

Whats your take on the bonuses Zagam? Happy with them or? They seem a little boring to me. Nothing to get really excited about.

Need to link this to my warlocks

Nothing to get worked up about. 2P doesn't change anything except the numbers on recount. The 4P makes you press your Dark Soul button more often. That's about it. Dark Soul isn't a wide open, game-changing cooldown. This is the trend for DPS set bonuses at the beginning of an expansion. Take a look at this, back to T7:

T7 2P: Your Corruption and Immolate periodic effects have a chance to increase the critical strike chance of your next Shadow Bolt or Incinerate by 10%

T7 4P: Casting Life Tap grants you an additional 300 spirit for 10 seconds

Rather dull bonuses, and the 2P was really...crappy. It could just not do anything if you think about it. The 4P just provided a small DPS boost.

T8 2P: Increases the damage done by your Unstable Affliction by 20% and your Immolate by 10%.

T8 4P: Increases the critical strike chance of your Shadow Bolt and Incinerate spells by 5%.

No mechanic changes at all, but a much higher damage bonus for both set pieces. Dull, still, but effective.

T9 2P: Increases your pet's critical strike chance with all its attacks by 10%.

T9 4P: Increases the damage done by your Immolate, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction spells by 10%

Again, no mechanic changes, but you buff all specs with both set bonuses. Note that each spec got 2 buffs from the 4P set bonus (Aff: UA + Corr, Demo: Corr + Immo, Destro: Corr + Immo). Boring but effective (notice a theme?)

T10 2P: The critical strike chance of your Shadowbolt, Incinerate, Soulfire, and Corruption spells is increased by 5%.

T10 4P: Each time your Immolate and Unstable Affliction spells deal periodic damage, you have a 15% chance to gain 10% damage done by you and your pet for 10 sec.

Now we're talking. The 2P set bonus was AMAZING for Demonology Warlocks as they essentially got a static 5% crit buff as they were the only spec to use all 4 spells. The 4P bonus made you watch for your buffs to reapply DoTs to get their maximum output. This set bonus was truly amazing for Warlocks battling their way to kill the Lich King.

T11 2P: Reduces the cast time of your Chaos Bolt, Hand of Gul'dan, and Haunt spells by 10%.

T11 4P: Periodic damage from your Immolate and Unstable Affliction spells has a 2% chance to cause your next 2 Fel Flame attacks to do 300% damage.

The 2P bonus annoyed me. Chaos Bolt, HoG, and Haunt were already fast casts. I think I played Destruction mostly in T11 and the .1 second reduction from the set bonus didn't feel like anything. It was especially noticeable during Bloodlust when I received no benefit from the set bonus at all. The 4P bonus was designed to force us to use a spell that should only be used while running...but they wanted it built into the static rotation IF it proc'd. Annoying to watch for, frustrating to build into the static rotation, but amazing if it proc'd while you were moving and already casting it. Overall, as an expansion entry tier set bonus, these two were my least favorite ever.

T12 2P: Your periodic damage has a chance to summon a Fiery Imp to assist you in battle for 15 seconds.

T12 4P: Your Shadow Bolt, Incinerate, Soul Fire, and Drain Soul spells have a 5% chance to increase all Shadow and Fire damage you deal by 20% for 8 seconds.

MORE IMPS! The 2P bonus was fun to just have Imps pouring out of your soul pretty often. The 20% damage buff was pretty exciting, too. A damage buff equivalent to Paladin wings randomly for 8 seconds...kinda fun. Really crappy on some fights where it proc'd 1 time in a 5 minute fights. Wonderful on fights where it proc'd 6 times in a 4 minute fight. Warlocks have learned to embrace and curse RNG at the same time.

T13 2P: The duration of your Doomguard and Infernal summons is increased by 30 sec and the cooldown of of those spells is reduced by 4 min.

T13 4P: Soulburn grants a 10% increase to your spell power for 10 sec, and Soul Fire cast with Soulburn active now grants a Soul Shard.

This is my favorite set bonus ever. Having a 10 minute CD that is part of your major DPS rotation was a terrible idea. On any progression attempts, many Warlocks like me will remember looking great on one pull because you got to use your Doomguard...then someone would mess up and cause a wipe. The next attempt, people were calling out your DPS because Blizzard, in their infinite wisdom, decided we could only be efficient every other attempt. The 6 minute cooldown made this much more manageable except when people messed up the first Hour of Twilight or forgot to pay attention to Fading Light...ROAR The 4P bonus just made Demonology and Destruction do more damage. It was a great addition for them. Affliction got the clunkiness of adding a Soulfire to their already action-packed rotation to get a 10% buff to their spell power. I believe I read talks about them making Doomguards and Infernals have a 5 minute CD...I hope those talks solidify, because I would hate to go back to losing my consistent power during progression.

You can see that the trend is to give rather dull bonuses early and slowly power them up. The T10 and T13 bonuses are vastly superior to their earlier forms. I expect T14, 15, and 16 to follow that trend.

[Boodizz 10]

Very boring bonuses. Fiery Imp was probably my fav bonus!

[Zagam 1,982]

If they don't reduce the cooldown of the Infernal and Doomguard to 6 or 5 minutes baseline, then we will all miss our T13 bonus. If they don't reduce it, here's what elite Warlocks will be expected to do...I wish I was kidding...

Keep 2 pieces of Tier 13 in bags, equip them, summon Doomguard pre-fight (like a pre-pot), then switch out to your main gear right before the pull. Do you know how obnoxious that will be? But you'll have to on progression fights...or it'll be like progressing in Heroic Firelands...one pull you look awesome cuz you had your Doomguard...on the next, you look far worse. I know DKs whine about Army of the Dead being a 10 min CD, but that isn't a major contribution to your DPS. We are gimped without it.

As for the Fiery Imps, I do recall having 4 Fiery Imps out, 2 Ebon Imps, and my real Imp. I missed out on that amazing screenshot because of my sheer amazement =(

[Customs 0]

Not sure if you guys know this or not, but our Doomguard CD is reset after every wipe/boss kill. So they fixed the progression thing, but it's still stupid to have a class balanced around a 10 minute CD.

[Zagam 1,982]

Not sure if you guys know this or not, but our Doomguard CD is reset after every wipe/boss kill. So they fixed the progression thing, but it's still stupid to have a class balanced around a 10 minute CD.

Do you have verification of this? I have never seen any spell/ability be 'reset' after a death/boss kill. If it's true, surely they would do this for DK's Army of the Dead and any other 10 minute cooldowns. I've just not seen anything of the sort yet.

[Damien 1,514]

Not sure if you guys know this or not, but our Doomguard CD is reset after every wipe/boss kill. So they fixed the progression thing, but it's still stupid to have a class balanced around a 10 minute CD.

I haven't had the chance of witnessing this, as I mostly play on my Mage and have no very long cooldown.

[Zagam 1,982]

Editted to accomodate 2P bonus of Shadowbolt and Touch of Chaos to 2%.

Editted to accomodate 4P bonus of Demon Soul values (30% crit for Destruction, 12,317 mastery rating for Demonology, 30% haste for Affliction)

[Damien 1,514]

Editted to accomodate 2P bonus of Shadowbolt and Touch of Chaos to 2%.

Editted to accomodate 4P bonus of Demon Soul values (30% crit for Destruction, 12,317 mastery rating for Demonology, 30% haste for Affliction)

Thank you for doing that. I should go and edit the other topics when I find the time :)

[SIl 3]

I don't understand why the demonology's dark soul isn't percentage based. It will not scale with better equipment

[Zagam 1,982]

I don't understand why the demonology's dark soul isn't percentage based. It will not scale with better equipment

18,000 Mastery = 30%. They didn't want to say 30% for some odd reason, but open your character sheet, observe your current mastery, use Dark Soul, watch mastery go up 30%.

[Kravn 5]

Has there been any math done on the relative value of the set bonuses? I imagine 4-piece is relatively easy to calculate - We receive a 30% real-world buff to Dark Soul, our best cooldown. The 10% additional Corruption damage is a bit harder to visualize. I imagine it really pays off in multi-target fights, but is less impressive on single target fights.

[JvChequer 43]

Has there been any math done on the relative value of the set bonuses? I imagine 4-piece is relatively easy to calculate - We receive a 30% real-world buff to Dark Soul, our best cooldown. The 10% additional Corruption damage is a bit harder to visualize. I imagine it really pays off in multi-target fights, but is less impressive on single target fights.

With the 4717 haste breakpoint, the 2p bonus looks like more powerful, because you will have 11 ticks instead of 9 or 10.

[Zagam 1,982]

Corruption is a source of our self-healing. This will benefit our self-healing and our 3rd most powerful ability. It will also be more powerful during ticks of Drain Soul. Both of our set bonuses are amazing. Acquire them at all costs.

[Atsui 0]

Quote Not sure if you guys know this or not, but our Doomguard CD is reset after every wipe/boss kill. So they fixed the progression thing, but it's still stupid to have a class balanced around a 10 minute CD.

^^Thats actually quite true. Also, a question on sets. The 2P set says "..+10% on Corruption" but is that a multiplier on the base dmg of the spell? the dmg of it gettin ur Intel stats or also +10% on top of potent afflictions??

Cause leaving aside the fact how Affli is the King currentl on dps, the 2P Bonus seems to boost the Demo spec more as it gives +10 to corruption and +2% to both Shadow Bolt and Touch of Chaos. However if the +10% is added on top of Potent Afflictions (mastery ) for Affli then its downright sick!

[Zagam 1,982]

The 2pc bonus behaves as an independent multiplier. When all the other factors are built in, the final number is multiplied by 1.1 to get the output Corruption damage. So yes, it does benefit from the Mastery percentage, but not as much as your interpreted excitment leads you to believe. The 2% bonus damage to Shadowbolt and Touch of Chaos is so small that it can hardly be seen as a balancing figure for Demo against Affliction, but it does provide a slight lift.

The real prize of the 2pc bonus is your AoE as Affliction. Fights like Wind Lord where you are fighting him and 5-7 of his adds boosts your AoE damage by a stacking amount based on the number of adds your Corruption is ticking on.