wow Upcoming Demon Hunter and Warlock Tier Set Bonus Changes on the 9.2 PTR

[Staff 1,488]

Blizzard is changing the existing Demon Hunter and Warlock Tier Set bonuses in an upcoming Patch 9.2 build.

Demon Hunter Tier Set Bonus Changes

The goal of the DH set changes is to make them more appealing to a broader array of combinations of talents and other borrowed power systems.

(Source)

In a future PTR build we’ll be making the following changes to Demon Hunter set bonuses, with the goal of making them exciting to a broader array of combinations of talent/legendary/covenant powers. We heard the feedback that the prior Havoc bonus was limiting your build diversity, and wanted to address that so that everyone’s excited about their tier set. As a result, Havoc’s 4pc has been completely replaced and 2pc updated, and Vengeance is being changed as we’d previously discussed.

Havoc
• 2PC: Increases Blade Dance and Chaos Strike damage by 20%. This bonus also applies to Death Sweep and Annihilation while in Metamorphosis.
• 4PC: Metamorphosis duration is increased by 6 sec. Every 60 Fury you consume reduces the cooldown of Metamorphosis by 1 sec.

Vengeance
• 4PC: Consuming a Lesser Soul Fragment reduces the remaining cooldown of your Immolation Aura or Fel Devastation by 1 sec.

While these numeric values are still subject to change, we’re looking forward to getting this bonus in your hands.

Warlock Tier Set Bonus Changes

Multiple Warlock tier set bonuses have been updated. You can read through all the changes below.

(Source)

Greetings, warlocks!

Thank you for your patience and apologies for the wait with regards to an update on the tier set bonuses coming in 9.2. We’ve been watching the discussions happening on and off the forums surrounding the Warlock bonuses and appreciate all the feedback provided.

We’ve made some changes to the tier set bonuses that should help each mesh better with their respective specialization’s toolkit. Without further ado, here are the changes you should see in the next PTR build:

Affliction

Set Bonuses:

2-piece

• Malefic Rapture’s damage is increased by 15% and each cast extends the duration of Corruption, Agony, and Unstable Affliction by 2 sec.

4-piece

• While Agony, Corruption, and Unstable Affliction are active, your Shadow Bolt has a 20% chance to make your next Malefic Rapture cost no Soul Shards and cast instantly.

Changes:

2-piece

• When Malefic Rapture extends Absolute Corruption, it instead causes the target to take damage equivalent to a tick of Corruption.

4-piece

• Drain Soul’s chance to proc a free Malefic Rapture was increased from 4% to 10%.

Demonology

Set Bonuses:

2-piece

• Call Dreadstalkers has a 100% chance to summon an additional Dreadstalker.

4-piece

• Your Hand of Gul’dan has a 15% chance per Soul Shard to summon a Malicious Imp. When slain, Malicious Imp will either deal Fire damage to all nearby enemies of your Implosion or deal it to your current target.

Changes:

2-piece

• No changes.

4-piece

• Malicious Imps no longer grant a Demonic Core.
• Malicious Imps no longer grant a Soul Shard when slain.

Note: Malicious Imps granting Soul Shards created a huge reliance on addons to maximize their potential. Rather than having value potentially lost, the throughput of this set bonus has been moved to the Malicious Imp’s damage and uptime.

• Malicious Imp’s on-death damage has been increased by 388%.
• Malicious Imp chance increased from 5% per Soul Shard to 15% per Soul Shard spent.

Destruction

Set Bonuses:

2-piece NEW

• Every 10 Soul Shards spent makes your next Chaos Bolt or Rain of Fire free to cast.

4-piece

• When Rain of Fire or Chaos Bolt is freely cast, you summon a Blasphemy for 8 sec.

Changes:

2-piece

• This bonus has been changed (see above).

4-piece

• No longer summons a generic Infernal, but now summons a Blasphemy.

• A Blasphemy behaves as a normal, Rain of Chaos Infernal would (this won’t change tuning or numbers).

• If a Blasphemy is already active and would be summoned again, its duration is extended instead and does impact damage at its current location.

Note: We’re extending the duration rather than summoning additional Blasphemies to make sure this bonus remains reasonable in terms of performance and readability. The impact damage on extension is to ensure extending isn’t a value loss.

• Blasphemy grants Rain of Chaos, if talented, for its duration.

Several bug fixes have been made as well and those will appear in the next PTR build. We appreciate all the reports as they’ve been immensely helpful in tracking down and fixing issues with the tier set bonuses. Thank you for your feedback and we look forward to seeing you in Zereth Mortis!