Since everyone is putting up their thoughts on the Tier 12 previews, and today’s post was kind of short, I figured I’d give you my thoughts. It will be like ripping off a Band-Aid, short, quick, and still painful enough to make you cry. Just how Warlocks like it.
First for those who haven’t read them, here is what we have so far
- 2 Piece Bonus: Your periodic damage has a chance to summon a Fiery Imp to assist you in battle for 15 sec.
- 4 Piece Bonus: Your Shadow Bolt and Incinerate spells have a 5% chance to increase all Shadow and Fire damage you deal by 20% for 8 sec
Regardless of anything I say in this post, and whatever the tier pieces turn out to be let me be clear about one thing: No matter what I will still do everything in my power to get a complete set of T12 gear, because let’s face it, gear sets in general rock.
That being said, I hate these set bonuses. When the little blue teaser about using the raid’s trash as inspiration for the bonuses came out, I was giddy with excitement. Then these came out and the party was all over.
My first complaint, the 4 piece set bonus is less interesting than the 2 piece set bonus. Completing, or nearly completing I suppose should be rewarded by a much cooler set bonus. By cooler I mean just cooler. Not only more powerful, stronger, or numerically a positive. I want it to make people go “Ooooo”.
Swap the two set bonuses around and I’m still not happy. And it’s because of a little spell in our spell book. You destruction warlocks out there might be familiar with it as Bane of Doom. Take a loot at that spell’s explanation text, or more specifically this part of it:
When Bane of Doom deals damage, it has a 20% chance to summon a Demon guardian.
Guess what the “Demon guardian” is that procs? An Ebon Imp.
In Tier 12 with my destruction spec I’ll no longer feel like a master summoner controlling demons to do my bidding. I will feel like I’m running an Imp day care center. Our tier 12 set is supposed to be modeled after those fire spiders right? So make the summoned demon look like the fire spiders. Maybe give their flame a purplish or greenish tint so they look more demon-y.
The general consensus seems to be that these are placeholders and they will change over time. That’s certainly happened before. Guess we’ll wait and see.
I do hope they change it – it sounds pretty plain and unimaginative for now. Especially considering that most specs use Bane of Doom at this point for boss fights, which means we already have the Ebon Imp. As Destruction we already run with our regular Imp as well. How many Imps are we expected to have?
I like your idea of making it fire spiders instead. Or even better, a different thing alltogether. The Ebon Imp already isn’t a very big dps boost – I doubt the Fire Imp will be much better.
Ideally I’d love to see more interesting things happen in combat. There was a video of a bot getting banned in Guild Wars. Imagine if just out of nowhere a giant demon swarmed up from the ground and hit the enemy, for just one hit. It would be awesome and I would want to wear my tier set every day for the rest of the time I play this game.
“I will feel like I’m running an Imp day care center.”
I admit I laughed a lot at that line.
Being a Demo lock I am stoked by the bonuses, and here is why:
2 piece: additional imps!! Assuming that these proc in addition to the shadow imps from BoD it will be even more damage from demons (which is increased by Demo mastery), and more DPS = us doing our ultimate jobs better.
4 Piece: as Demo I use both SB and Incin. as well as a combination of the 2 types of damage
Honestly I suspect that this set will help level the playing field (at least a little) for Demo, since both Destro and Aff got a boost in the 4.1 patch while Demo was assed out.
As a Demo lock, you’re probably spot on about the bonuses being tailored for you, and if it’s as big a bonus as it seems it could be, I wouldn’t be surprised to see people respeccing the Demonology when they got their tier 4. If the imp proc doesn’t work with your mastery through that would be an issue, and not unheard of when it comes to Blizzard. Does the Bane of Doom Ebon Imp work with the Demonology mastery?
Yes the Doom Imp does feed off Demo mastery. As to if the Fire Imp would as well I think I may throw that in on my next post in the main forums and see what I get.
If the Doom imp works with the Demonolgy mastery, then yea I agree it stands to reason the T12 procced imp would as well. If it doesn’t that would be a major inconsistency IMHO so let’s hope it does. I also stick by my original statement that proccing a demon is good, but I want something besides an imp!