wow Dragonflight Season 1 Class Set Tuning: October 7th

[Staff 1,488]

Blizzard have shared a lot more tuning coming to the Season 1 class sets in the next Beta build, with 8 classes getting improvements.

October 7 (Source)

We’ll be making a number of tuning and functional changes to Class Set bonuses in the next beta build. These changes are influenced both by your responses and feedback, and by our goals for their tuning and complexity level. These changes make some of the narrower bonuses valuable in a wider variety of content and smooth out the benefits of others that could vary a lot in value based on talent choices.

Druid

• Balance
  • (2) Set Bonus: Damage bonus to Wrath or Starfire changed to 20% per stack (was 50%).
  • (4) Set Bonus: Damage bonus to Starsurge or Starfall changed to 35% (was 50%).
• Feral
  • (2) Set Bonus Ferocious Bite and Rip damage bonus increased to 6% (was 5%).
  • NEW (4) Set Bonus: For each combo point spent, finishing moves increase your Rip, Rake, and Thrash damage by 2% and increase the chance for Shred, Rake, Swipe / Brutal Slash, and Thrash to Critically Strike by 2% for 4 seconds.
    • Developers’ note: Changing the (4) Set Bonus to a more targeted effect. A lot of the value of the previous version was getting successive Ferocious Bites during Convoke & Berserk. This version puts passive power into your bleeds and adds more crit to your builders to generate more combo points at all times.
• Guardian
  • NEW (2) Set Bonus: Using Mangle with Gore also deals 30% of damage dealt to nearby enemies, damage reduced beyond 5 targets. It also increases your damage done and reduces damage you take by 5% for 6 seconds.
  • NEW (4) Set Bonus: Gore has a 5% increased chance to trigger. Using Mangle with Gore heals you for {0.5*AP} health over 6 seconds.
    • Developers’ note: The previous version was low in power compared to other tank bonuses. This design make Mangle with Gore procs give consistent durability and damage, and gives Mangle an AOE component so it’s worth hitting over Swipe in AOE to maintain the buff.
• Restoration
  • (4) Set Bonus Lifebloom power proc can now only proc once from each tick of Efflorescence, instead of once for each critically healed target. Increase to Lifebloom healing changed to 5% per stack (was 10%).

Hunter

• Beast Mastery
  • NEW (4) Set Bonus: Barbed Shot damage increased by 5% and Barbed Shot increases damage of your next Kill Command by 20%.
    • Developers’ note: We heard you that focus was not a valuable reward in all scenarios so we changed this bonus to grant more damage to the abilities enhanced by the (2) Set Bonus.
• Marksmanship
  • UPDATE (2) Set Bonus: Arcane Shot & Multi Shot critical hits cause your next Aimed Shot to cause targets hit to bleed for 40% of damage dealt over 6 seconds.
    • (2) Set Bonus no longer reduces the casting time of Aimed Shot and bleed effect increased to 40% of Aimed Shot damage (was 20%).
    • (4) Set Bonus increase chance for ranged auto-attacks to trigger effect to 15% (was 10%).
    • Developers’ note: We removed the Aimed Shot cast time reduction from the (2) Set Bonus because Aimed Shots were becoming uncomfortably short during Trueshot.
• Survival
  • (2) Set Bonus damage bonus increased to 15% (was 10%).
  • UPDATE (4) Set Bonus: Raptor Strike / Mongoose Bite, Carve, and Butchery have a 20% chance to make your next Raptor Strike / Mongoose Bite, Carve, or Butchery cost no Focus and deal 50% increased damage.
    • (4) Set Bonus chance to make Raptor Strike / Mongoose Bite, Carve, or Butchery cost no Focus increased to 20% (was 10%) and free abilities now also deal 50% increased damage.

Monk

• Mistweaver
  • Fixed an issue preventing Mistweaver’s 4-piece bonus from working with the Essence Font heal applied by Faeline Stomp.
• Windwalker
  • UPDATE (4) Set Bonus: Fists of Fury now instead enhances your next 3 Rising Sun Kicks or Spinning Crane Kicks and enhanced kicks increase damage your next Fists of Fury deals by 5%, stacking up to 3 times.
    • (4) Set Bonus now only increases the damage of Fists of Fury by 5% for each stack, instead of granting Versatility during Fists of Fury for each stack.
    • Developers’ note: We decided that flat damage was more appropriate for a DPS class bonus than Versatility.

Paladin

• Holy
  • NEW (2) Set Bonus: Holy Shock increases the critical strike chance of your spells by 4% for 10 seconds.
  • NEW (4) Set Bonus: Holy Light, Flash of Light, Light of Dawn, and Bestow Faith healing is increased by 6% and their critical effects increase the damage or healing of your next Holy Shock by 20%.
    • Developers’ note: The Holy Class Set was more rotationally impactful than we like. We replaced the (2) Set Bonus with an easily maintained buff to your healing. For the (4) Set Bonus, we added some passive healing bonuses to give consistent value and removed the ability for Holy Shock to trigger enhancements to itself.
• Protection
  • (2) Set Bonus: Versatility buff increased to 5% for 10 sec (up from 4% for 4 sec).
• Retribution
  • NEW (2) Set Bonus: Judgment, Blade of Justice, and Wake of Ashes damage increased by 15%.
  • NEW (4) Set Bonus: Templar’s Verdict / Final Verdict and Divine Storm damage increased by 10%.
    • Developers’ note: We heard you that the previous class set was going to impact your rotational decisions negatively and that it had limited value in AOE. The new (2) Set Bonus empowers your strongest Holy Power generators and the (4) Set Bonus boosts your big damage spenders.

Priest

• Discipline
  • (4) Set Bonus: Amount that Penance empowers Power Word: Shield reduced to 60% of its damage or 18% of its healing (was 100% / 30%).
• Holy
  • (4) Set Bonus: Bonus changed to 10% critical strike for 6 seconds (was 15% for 8 seconds).
• Shadow
  • (2) Set Bonus: Damage buff reduced to 12% per stack (was 20%).
  • (4) Set Bonus: Bonus reduced to 4% Haste (was 5%).

Shaman

• Elemental
  • 2-piece and 4-piece bonuses now work with Elemental Blast if taken.
  • (2) Set Bonus: Now increases the damage of your next Earth Shock / Elemental Blast or Earthquake by 5%, stacking 5 times (was 2.5% stacking 10 times).
  • (4) Set Bonus: Increases your Mastery by 8% for 5 seconds (was 10% for 10 seconds).
  • Fixed a bug cause the 2-piece bonus to activate from every hit of Chain Lightning. Now activates once per cast.
• Enhancement
  • UPDATE (2) Set Bonus: Stormstrike increases the damage of your next Fire, Frost, or Nature ability by 10% and causes it to generate 1 stack of Maelstrom Weapon.
    • Now affects all Fire, Frost, and Nature direct damage abilities, Flame Shock excluded.
  • NEW (4) Set Bonus: Consuming Maelstrom Weapon stacks increases your Haste by 1% for each stack consumed for 4 seconds.
    • Developers’ note: We heard your feedback that the (2) Set Bonus only affecting Lava Lash impacted your talent decisions, so we broadened it to affect whatever you want to use. Flame Shock is not affected because its direct damage component is very low and we don’t want players to have to track variations in its damage over time. The (4) Set Bonus bonus granted cooldown reduction, which often isn’t valuable, so we replaced it with a consistent bonus that still rewards generating Maelstrom Weapon stacks.
• Restoration
  • NEW (4) Set Bonus: Your critical heals have 215% effectiveness instead of the usual 200%.
    • Developers’ note: The previous (4) Set Bonus was providing an enhancement during a time you were doing less healing and had variable uptime depending on talent choices. We replaced it with a consistent throughput bonus that is enhanced by the (2) Set Bonus.

Warlock

• Destruction
  • NEW (4) Set Bonus: Your critical strikes deal 208% damage instead of the usual 200%.
    • Developers’ note: We agree the previous (4) Set Bonus had too much randomness and limited value for AOE abilities. We replaced it with a consistent critical damage bonus that’ll enhance your Chaos Bolts and combo with the critical strike chance from the (2) Set Bonus.

Warrior

• Protection
  • Ignore Pain granted changed to 5% of damage dealt (was 10%).

[Zelebra 7]

These are Welcoming sights, not only do these feel more impactful to have on our classes/specs, but seem more streamlined buffs to our classes instead of rotational changes or upkeep buffs. Especially for ret pally, this set just makes more sense especially when considering the nerfs to the damage recently. Holy pally looks more fluid and not that i didn't have an issue with the previous version of the set bonus, this just makes more sense! all in all, the set changes to a vast majority of classes looks strong!