New and Reworked Warlock Tier Set Bonuses Revealed for Patch 9.2 - Affliction, Demonology and Destruction

PTR Posted 2022/01/07 at 3:30 PM by Squishei

Blizzard

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!

Comment by mEqDaitoMan I hope the dude who bombed the havoc/vengeance set update because he’s upset locks are stuck to RNG like 3 minutes ago gets in here.Comment by ProjectSixamA Blasphemy? Wonder if it'll just be an Infernal with a different name or actually is a different demon.Comment by PerrycoxThey literally explain what the Blasphemy is in this postComment by SapoQLxdMan I hope the dude who bombed the havoc/vengeance set update because he’s upset locks are stuck to RNG like 3 minutes ago gets in here.Comment by ProjectSixamThey literally explain what the Blasphemy is in this postComment by QwagsoirBooComment by dotkeeperAffliction 4p set bonus is still cringe to use in pvp, no way to ever talent into Drain Soul or cast Shadowbolt.
but look at the bright side of the thing, we have to farm out only the 2p bonus.Comment by TheMoneyHaterPlease BM change, make it not only single target. The current one feels so weird gameplay wise and not as smooth as before.Comment by afmercadoA Blasphemy? Wonder if it'll just be an Infernal with a different name or actually is a different demon.Comment by CooferI bet its gonna be a red infernal. Wouldn't be Blizzard without recolors.Comment by LykaiosWell, for demonology, I'm very thankful, overcapping soul shard is a huge lost of value, now the new Imps are more powerful, making them special for AoE. The RNG upgrade gonna make the Tyrant more powerfull, but this is RNG, so the ST Burst will vary. So, I think these are good changesComment by TehquoBuff Destro.Comment by PuryGood changes for all specs, very nice.Comment by kpiaumWhat kind of feedback are they reading about the Affliction set? The 2p effect change is a "added" or that line is now the new effect?

Another thing that everyone is asking for, is for the 4p proc to be transferred to Unstable Agony, for something similar to the Shadow Priest set proc.

The effect of this set has exactly the same problem that Shadow Priest had, and the reliance on having to cast spell filler to activate the effect, even more so in an environment where you have to move constantly. In a fight with movement, the set's 4p effect is useless.Comment by BladeMasterzsweetComment by DegnoAmazing improvements for all 3 specs, it's just really cool, I can't wait to play those sets on all 3 specs. They were already all really cool and or powerful (except destruction which was on the weaker side), it just gets better.Comment by DegnoWhat kind of feedback are they reading about the Affliction set? The 2p effect change is a "added" or that line is now the new effect?

Another thing that everyone is asking for, is for the 4p proc to be transferred to Unstable Agony, for something similar to the Shadow Priest set proc.

The effect of this set has exactly the same problem that Shadow Priest had, and the reliance on having to cast spell filler to activate the effect, even more so in an environment where you have to move constantly. In a fight with movement, the set's 4p effect is useless.Comment by kpiaumWhat kind of feedback are they reading about the Affliction set? The 2p effect change is a "added" or that line is now the new effect?

Another thing that everyone is asking for, is for the 4p proc to be transferred to Unstable Agony, for something similar to the Shadow Priest set proc.

The effect of this set has exactly the same problem that Shadow Priest had, and the reliance on having to cast spell filler to activate the effect, even more so in an environment where you have to move constantly. In a fight with movement, the set's 4p effect is useless.Comment by hashtagfredAm I the only who didn't have a problem or at least didn't with capping soul shards for demo? I felt like it was minimal and was loving the rapid fire turret feelComment by HulkamusNot bad. The demo changes are perfect. I have to agree with a lot of the locks out there with the Aff set. It really should use UA as the trigger over SB and DS. Aff is kind of being punished to move in fights the way it currently works. This won't feel good. Using UA would reward the player for 100% UA upkeep.