Tier 12 Set Bonuses - Feedback

Below you'll find the latest tier 12 set bonuses for all classes. Nearly all of these should be live on the PTR, if not implemented very soon. We thank you all for the feedback you've provided us thus far, as it's allowed us to make a few necessary tweaks. Feel free to let us know how the current bonuses are looking. Also, be sure to read the additional information in the section below all of the class listings, as it contains a few clarifications based on commonly asked questions about these sets.


Death Knights

• Blood 2-Piece Bonus: Your melee attacks cause Burning Blood on your target, which deals 800 Fire damage every 2 seconds for 6 seconds, and causes your abilities to behave as if you had 2 diseases present on the target.


• Blood 4-Piece Bonus: Increases parry chance by 15% for 12 seconds after Dancing Rune Weapon expires.


• Frost/Unholy 2-Piece Bonus: Your Horn of Winter ability also grants you 3 runic power every 5 seconds for 2 minutes.


• Frost/Unholy 4-Piece Bonus: Your Obliterate and Scourge Strike abilities deal 6% additional damage as Fire damage over 4 seconds.

Druids

• Balance 2-Piece Bonus: You have a chance to summon a Burning Treant to assist you in battle for 15 seconds when you cast Wrath or Starfire.


• Balance 4-Piece Bonus: While not in an Eclipse state, your Wrath generates 3 additional Lunar Energy and your Starfire generates 5 additional Solar Energy.


• Feral 2-Piece Bonus: Your attacks with Mangle, Maul, and Shred deal 10% additional damage as Fire damage over 4 seconds.


• Feral 4-Piece Bonus: Your finishing moves have a 20% chance per combo point to extend the duration of Berserk by 2 seconds, and when your Barkskin ability expires you gain an additional 10% chance to dodge for 12 seconds.


• Restoration 2-Piece Bonus: Your periodic healing from Lifebloom has a 40% chance to restore 1% of your base mana each time it heals a target.


• Restoration 4-Piece Bonus: Your Swiftmend also heals an injured target within 8 yards for the same amount.

Hunters

• 2-Piece Bonus: Your Steady Shot and Cobra Shot have a 10% chance to trigger a Flaming Arrow, dealing 80% instant weapon damage as Fire.


• 4-Piece Bonus: You have a 10% chance from your Auto Shots to make your next shot cost no focus.

Mages

• 2-Piece Bonus: You have a chance to summon a Mirror Image to assist you in battle for 15 seconds when you cast Frostbolt, Fireball, or Arcane Blast.


• 4-Piece Bonus: Your spells have an increased chance to trigger Brain Freeze, Hot Streak, or Arcane Missiles. In addition, Arcane Missiles can now be cast while moving.

Paladins

• Holy 2-Piece Bonus: Healing with Holy Shock has a 40% chance to grant you 6% of your base mana.


• Holy 4-Piece Bonus: Your Divine Light, Flash of Light, and Holy Light spells also heal an injured target within 8 yards for 10% of the amount healed.


• Protection 2-Piece Bonus: Your Shield of the Righteous deals 20% additional damage as Fire damage.


• Protection 4-Piece Bonus: When your Divine Protection expires, you gain an additional 12% parry chance for 10 seconds.


• Retribution 2-Piece Bonus: Your Crusader Strike deals 15% additional damage as Fire damage over 4 seconds.

Retribution 4-Piece Bonus: Increases the duration of your Zealotry ability by 15 seconds. [/li]

Priests

• Discipline/Holy 2-Piece Bonus: Your Flash Heal, Heal, Greater Heal, and Prayer of Mending spells cause you to regenerate 2% of your base mana every 5 seconds for 15 seconds.

• Discipline/Holy 4-Piece Bonus: You have a chance when you cast a helpful spell to summon a Cauterizing Flame at the target’s location. Each second the Cauterizing Flame will heal an injured party member within 20 yards for 9250 to 10750. Lasts 5 seconds.


• Shadow 2-Piece Bonus: While you are in Shadowform, your Shadowfiend deals 20% additional damage as Fire damage and its cooldown is reduced by 75 seconds.


• Shadow 4-Piece Bonus: While you have Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch active on the same target you gain Dark Flames, which reduces the cooldown of Mind Blast by 3 seconds.

Rogues

• 2-Piece Bonus: Your melee critical strikes deal 6% additional damage as Fire over 4 seconds.


• 4-Piece Bonus: Your Tricks of the Trade ability also causes you to gain a 25% increase to one of your combat ratings at random for 30 seconds.

Shaman

• Elemental 2-Piece Bonus: Your offensive spells have a chance to reset the remaining cooldown on your Fire Elemental Totem.


• Elemental 4-Piece Bonus: Your Lava Surge talent also makes Lava Burst instant when it triggers.


• Enhancement 2-Piece Bonus: Your Lava Lash gains an additional 5% damage increase per application of Searing Flames on the target.


• Enhancement 4-Piece Bonus: Your Stormstrike ability also increases Fire damage you deal to that target by 6%.


• Restoration 2-Piece Bonus: Your periodic healing from Riptide has a 40% chance to restore 1% of your base mana each time it heals a target.


• Restoration 4-Piece Bonus: Your Chain Heal spell no longer consumes your Riptide effect on the primary target.

Warlocks

• 2-Piece Bonus: Your periodic damage has a chance to summon a Fiery Imp to assist you in battle for 15 seconds.


• 4-Piece Bonus: 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.

Warriors

• Arms/Fury 2-Piece Bonus: Your Battle Shout and Commanding Shout abilities also cause you to deal 10% increased physical damage for 6 to 12 seconds.


• Arms/Fury 4-Piece Bonus: Your Mortal Strike and Raging Blow abilities have a 30% chance to trigger a Fiery Attack, dealing 100% instant weapon damage as Fire.


• Protection 2-Piece Bonus: Your Shield Slam deals 20% additional damage as Fire damage over 4 seconds.


• Protection 4-Piece Bonus: When your Shield Block expires, your parry chance is increased by 6% for 10 seconds.

Additional Information & Clarification

• The Fire damage-over-time effects from some set bonuses work like Ignite, and will accumulate and refresh damage just as it does.


• The Mirror Image summoned by the mage set (2-piece bonus) does not cause him/her to drop threat. It summons a guardian who appears like the mage and casts Fireballs by his/her side.


• Mage 4-piece bonus stats: +15% proc chance to Brain Freeze, +30% chance on single critical effect to Hot Streak, and Arcane Missiles will always proc by the 4th cast.


• The rogue 4-piece bonus never picks hit or expertise, and never picks the same rating twice in a row.


• The warrior 2-piece bonus gets its duration reduced based on the number of talent points the warrior has in Booming Voice. It lasts 12/9/6 seconds at 0/1/2 points spent in Booming Voice.


• The hunter 4-piece bonus does not get consumed by shots that do not cost focus.


• For an image preview of the tier 12 armor sets which have been completed, head to the front page of the community site: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/blog/2705803

05/14/2011 12:50 PMPosted by Åristotle

I am not sure if this issue has been raised, but I noticed that all the DPS set bonuses give added fire damage. This seems weird, shouldn't we be gaining a fire resistance instead of doing fire dmg to fire elementals? This is more of a PvE question but it is something that kinda caught me off guard. Are these fire beasts going to be weak to fire dmg?

Creatures in the Firelands will not be immune to Fire damage. Giving raid mobs and bosses immunity to a school of magic just doesn't work well, given that some classes/specs are dependent upon the damage output from that school.

Instead, we've themed many of the set bonuses around the Firelands.

Thank you all for the great feedback! Here is some additional information based on your posts:

05/14/2011 01:04 PMPosted by Xilodon

Does Kill Command count as a 'shot' for the purposes for the hunter 4pc?

Good point. Kill Command will be added to the hunter 4-piece set bonus. :)

05/14/2011 01:06 PMPosted by Amarixs

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

Please please tell me this scales to character stats (ie - Hit Rating). The Ebon Imp does not, and is pretty worthless honestly as it misses 50% of the time, and its actual hits are all "Glancing Blows."

The summoned guardians from the druid, mage, and warlock sets gain increased armor, resistance, Intellect, and hit chance from their master’s stats. They do not gain increased damage done in any way.

Thanks for the update on the bonuses, but I have a question about the Shadow Priest 4-Piece bonus.

Shadow 4-Piece Bonus: While you have Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch active on the same target you gain Dark Flames, which reduces the cooldown of Mind Blast by 3 seconds.

Will [Dark Flames] stack with [Improved Mind Blast]?


[Improved Mind Blast]
"Reduces the cooldown of your Mind Blast spell by 2 sec., and while in Shadowform your Mind Blast also has a 100% chance to reduce all healing done to the target by 10% for 10 sec." http://www.wowhead.com/spell=15313


Assuming I've got Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch active on the same target, will I get a 5 sec reduction in cool down ...

3 sec from [Dark Flames] + 2 sec from [Improved Mind Blast] = 5 sec total

... or will [Dark Flames] take priority over [Improved Mind Blast] and I'll just get a 3 sec reduction?


Thanks. :)

Yes, Dark Flames and Improved Mind Blast will stack.

Will the damage increase affect DoTs already on the target?

Things like Demon Soul/Trinket procs currently work in that to gain the effect you have to re apply your dots. This is very annoying in that starting off a rotation you need to DoT to proc everything Demon Soul and Re DoT to gain maximum effect. Although they last after the effect has ended, it is still very annoying to re dot according to your Demon Soul.

So I want to know before I get there. If the 4 Piece Warlock bonus procs will we have to Re DoT the target to see the increase in damage? If not would you mind applying this to Demon Soul?

No, effects in World of Warcraft generally do not work this way. If a set bonus (or a trinket) gave a spell power buff temporarily, it would not change existing DoT effects either.

05/14/2011 01:18 PMPosted by Argentan

Mages2-Piece Bonus: You have a chance to summon a Mirror Image to assist you in battle for 15 seconds when you cast Frostbolt, Fireball, or Arcane Blast.

Would you consider allowing this to proc from Frostfire Bolt? Otherwise, this is going to ruin the whole purpose of Frostfire Bolt and its glyph.

Good call! Frostfire Bolt is being added to the mage 2-piece set bonus.

Blood 4-Piece Bonus: Increases parry chance by 15% for 12 seconds after Dancing Rune Weapon expires.

This bonus feels poor compared to similar tanking set bonuses. While the avoidance is greater then other class' bonuses, probably to compensate for the 90 sec cooldown on dancing rune weapon, I'd rather 10% tied to an ability on a 1 minute cooldown like bone shield, or possibly vampiric blood. Also DRW's perennially high cost to use makes it all the less attractive to tag this bonus to.

Alternatively if this bonus reduced the cost of DRW to say, 30 runic power to use, it'd probably be a lot better.

We feel DRW is a very good cooldown, and getting 60 RP is not an unreasonable cost or a detriment to this bonus.

05/14/2011 01:42 PMPosted by Siku

Lol, everything gets fire bonus damage hahahahaha

Let me fix that:

Everything get BUGGED fire damage.

Because each and every one of those set bonus is based on Ignite, which is one of their most bugged mechanics due to Client-Server interaction.

Be ready to lose 20+ % of the damage those sets SHOULD be doing...Just like Ignite.

There was a serious bug with rolling DoT mechanics like Ignite that were fixed in 4.1. They were not doing the correct damage. However, Ignite and mechanics like it got a bad rap in the meantime. The remaining issues with Ignite-type mechanics were caused by near-simultaneous events triggering it too close together, such as a periodic crit and a Fireball crit at the same exact moment. Making Ignite not able to be triggered by periodic crits should have resolved this issue completely.

05/14/2011 03:37 PMPosted by Vortie

Restoration 4-Piece Bonus: Your Chain Heal spell no longer consumes your Riptide effect on the primary target.

What other ideas have been thrown around for the 4p bonus besides this and +1 to chain heal jump? both so far seemed a tad bit weak for a 4p.

Chain Heal is the signature shaman healing spell, so we feel a set bonus that interacts with it is entirely reasonable. Some of the alternate Chain Heal bonuses suggested in this thread are too powerful or technically infeasible.

We're still reading, so your continued feedback is appreciated. :)

05/17/2011 05:26 PMPosted by Nazuvious

Will the Unholy 4 pc Bonus use both the physical and shadow portion to calculate the fire damage?

Yes. Sorry, I forgot to mention that one the first time around. :)

05/17/2011 05:24 PMPosted by Dmighty

With regards to the Balance druid 2 piece set bonus: You've already stated that mirror image/ebon imp will cast, will the druids treant be casting spells or performing melee attacks?

The Burning Treant, Mirror Image, and Fiery Imp all cast spells and do not melee.

05/17/2011 05:24 PMPosted by Dmighty

I'm curious because if it acts the same as moonkin treants the bonus will be losing significant amount of time due to travel to the mob to melee. Even if it takes 3 seconds to travel to the mob our set bonus will inherently be 20% less effective then other classes with similar set bonuses. Will the treant spawn on the target being attacked by the druid?

Since it is ranged, travel time doesn’t matter.

05/17/2011 05:24 PMPosted by Dmighty

On top of that I am curious as to why starsurge was left out of the mix. Are mages/moonkins going to have a much higher % chance to proc there 2 piece set bonus compared to warlocks? As ability to keep up a perodic effect is significantly easier then to be consistently hard casting.

It is balanced for our target DPS improvement without Starsurge being included. All three of these “proc a pet” bonuses have a high chance to proc combined with a cooldown, so they should be overall close to spec/class neutral.

The discussion continues here: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/2548785989#1

05/17/2011 07:37 PMPosted by Miloomar

I am a little disappointed that this was the one spriest post that got a blue reply. Instead of answering a post that was actually constructive you respond to one that really was common sense.

It was easier to answer. Even if I haven't answered specific questions in this thread, I'm still discussing those questions with our developers until I can glean a good answer. :)