Change and Effects
On the latest build of the 9.2 PTR, the Vengeance 4 piece set bonus
Rapacious Hunger has been changed from extending
Immolation Aura if active or granting 2 seconds of it if not, to reducing the cooldown of either
Immolation Aura or
Fel Devastation by one second per lesser
Soul Fragment absorbed.
This change fixes 2 major issues with the previous set:
- The cancelaura interaction with our talent Fallout no longer exists, so we can no longer gain absurd stacks of Blind Faith making us effectively immortal in all situations.
- We can no longer get infinite uptime on a single Immolation Aura, so our damage doesn't scale as high from Growing Inferno.
However, the new set does still introduce some new issues and reinforces some existing issues with the base spec as well.
- There is a major resource conflict on our GCDs
- Optimizing for damage or defensiveness can lead to degenerate gameplay
- It adds multiple layers of randomness to our spec, whether directly or indirectly
Strengths and Weaknesses
We can summarize the strengths and weaknesses in this set quite simply: The new 4 set is still borderline overpowered in large scale AoE while offering very little benefit on ST or low target AoE.
Random factors
There are 3 primary sources of randomness created by this set:
- Each soul absorbed will randomly reduce the cooldown of either Immolation Aura or Fel Devastation if both are on cooldown. If only one is on cooldown, that spell will always get its cooldown reduced
- Soul spawns from both the 2-set and Fallout are percent chance to proc and contribute to resource conflict in our rotation
- Darkglare Boon is a percent chance to proc and affects our rotation
Single Target
In ST, the set offers less of a damage boost than the current Shards of Domination system by an order of magnitude. Considering that our ST damage is among the lowest, if not the lowest of all tanks, this poses an issue when dealing with a high DPS co-tank such as Protection Paladin as we are unable to hold agro properly when they have cooldowns available. Currently, the Blood set offers around 15-20% of our overall damage on ST, while
Immolation Aura provides about 8-10%. With the increased uptime from the new 4 set, we can expect to see about a 30% increase in uptime in most situations meaning the estimated value of the set bonus is somewhere around a 3% DPS increase when played to maximize the value of GCDs and
Growing Inferno ticks by only pressing
Immolation Aura when it expires. This does require us to track the duration rather than pressing
Immolation Aura as soon as it's available, as using it immediately resets the stacks of
Growing Inferno.
Defensively, it is a decent gain, as we can expect to see an increase in
Metamorphosis uptime from ~26% to ~35% when played normally, with up to ~43% when playing for maximum defensiveness. However, in most situations, much of this uptime would be wasted as we don't want to be using it for melees over tankbusters unless the encounter is a high uptime patchwerk-like encounter similar to
Fetid Devourer where we want as much uptime as possible. In that case however, we would have to use a specialized build that does even less damage, by taking
Feed the Demon and never using
Immolation Aura or spending any resources on
Soul Cleave or
Spirit Bomb, as well as cancelaura on our
Fel Devastation casts.
Small AoE (2-9 Targets)
On low target counts, the set bonus is decent, but not super strong. We can expect to sustain approximately 4 souls every other GCD from all sources combined, allowing for a good amount of damage from
Spirit Bomb, as well as decent sustain from the extra souls spawned and increased
Metamorphosis uptime. In this case, pressing
Immolation Aura early is no longer as much of a detriment, as the bonus souls generated from
Fallout allow for more
Spirit Bomb, making up the lost damage from the final ticks of
Growing Inferno while providing increased cooldown reduction. Similar to ST, waiting until the ticks run out is slightly better defensively, as it provides more cooldown reduction on
Fel Devastation allowing for more
Metamorphosis uptime.
Large AoE (10+ Targets)
Once we get to 10 targets and beyond, this is where the set bonus becomes borderline overpowered. Due to the 2-set bonus scaling with number of targets, we effectively generate enough souls every GCD to press nothing but
Spirit Bomb and refresh
Elysian Decree,
Immolation Aura, and
Fel Devastation as necessary, never pressing our single target generator as it simply isn't needed anymore. The extra souls generated also provide more cooldown reduction, allowing us to sustain upwards of 50% uptime on
Metamorphosis, increase our versatility by significant amounts during
Blind Faith windows, and provide significant amounts of healing, making us more durable on larger target counts, while becoming vulnerable as target count diminishes from enemies dying.
Interactions
Covenants
Kyrian is a clear winner here for covenants in any multi-target situation, as the versatility and fury provided by
Blind Faith allows for a near-infinite cycle of spenders as well as providing fairly consistent damage reduction. Venthyr may be competitive in single target, potentially surpassing Kyrian, but is not as consistent.
Talents
We'll have a few talent builds depending on the situation, but the major change is that
Fallout becomes significantly stronger than the other talents in its row, and
Spirit Bomb will likely become the standard.
This should be the standard, most flexible build for most situations. It provides a good mix of damage and survivability. In extremely high fortified keys where large pulls are still possible, it may be preferred to switch to
Feed the Demon for more defensive uptime as the loss of damage isn't particularly high in AoE.
This talent build would provide the most uptime on
Metamorphosis at the cost of nearly all DPS. Oddly enough, the third row becomes entirely useless because you would never press any button other than
Elysian Decree, cancelaura
Fel Devastation, or
Shear to maximize soul generation for extra uptime.
This is the same as our current standard build for high uptime on
Fiery Brand which works better on magic damage fights.
Legendaries
With the way everything is currently going, assuming we run Kyrian and the standard talent build for most situations, we will continue to use
Razelikh's Defilement for maximum damage in ST,
Fiery Soul for magical defense with the brand build, and adding
Darkglare Boon for maximum
Metamorphosis uptime. If Venthyr ends up being stronger, we'll likely use
Darkglare Boon and hope for high rolls to maximize the
Sinful Brand extension.
Our most effective legendary in AoE will likely become
Darkglare Boon as the GCD conflict causes us to be unable to spend most of our fury as generating and spending souls becomes more important. This means that
Soul Cleave doesn't get used, making
Razelikh's Defilement and
Fiery Soul provide very little value. Despite being random, with the number of rolls being increased due to the cooldown reduction from the set, we can generally expect around 4-5 resets in a 6 minute boss encounter, and it becomes generally more reliable in keys.
Resource and GCD conflict
Due to the influx of fury from
Blind Faith and more uptime on
Immolation Aura, as well as the increase in souls from
Burning Hunger and
Fallout, we will often find ourselves overcapping fury due to being unable to spend quickly enough before receiving more. In addition, the extra souls mean we are pressing
Spirit Bomb rather than
Soul Cleave, reducing the value of our legendaries that depend on
Soul Cleave. On top of this, due to the extra resources, we have neither spare GCDs nor need for our generators (
Shear or
Fracture) in AoE situations. While it's possible to play without
Spirit Bomb, it becomes net neutral with using a legendary such as
Razelikh's Defilement, but at the loss of potentially gaining more from other legendaries. On the other hand, in Single Target, we alternate between feast and famine in a standard build, being flooded with resources which we lack free GCDs to spend during the
Blind Faith window, and being somewhat starved outside that window. Alternatively, if playing a more defensive build, we simply ignore all resources and maximize generating souls as much as possible, which is rather degenerate gameplay.
Final Thoughts
With no other changes to our spec, this set bonus will be lackluster in raid, cementing our status as the lowest DPS/threat tank, while providing little useful defensive benefit. Without a gimmick such as the kiting strategies used in
Castle Nathria, and the strength of Havoc, I don't expect Vengeance to be a favored pick in raid with this set. I'd like to see a more significant bump to our damage, whether it's from this set or from spec changes.
In Mythic+, the situation is completely different. This set will be a large increase in both survivability and damage and I expect Vengeance to be quite enjoyable, especially when pulling larger packs as the set scales powerfully and we do get a shakeup to our selected talents and legendaries which is a first for Shadowlands.
All in all, this set bonus is somewhat more balanced than the previous one, but is a bit lackluster on lower target counts and seems slightly lacking, especially when compared with other tank sets. The new layers of randomness are also not ideal for tanking, though they can be played around.
