Change and Effects
On the latest build of the 9.2 PTR, the Vengeance 4 piece set bonus
Gieriger Hunger has been changed from extending
Feuerbrandaura if active or granting 2 seconds of it if not, to reducing the cooldown of either
Feuerbrandaura or
Dämonische Verwüstung by one second per lesser
Seelenfragment absorbed.
This change fixes 2 major issues with the previous set:
- The cancelaura interaction with our talent Kollateralschaden no longer exists, so we can no longer gain absurd stacks of Blinder Glaube making us effectively immortal in all situations.
- We can no longer get infinite uptime on a single Feuerbrandaura, so our damage doesn't scale as high from Wachsendes 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 Feuerbrandaura or Dämonische Verwüstung 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 Kollateralschaden are percent chance to proc and contribute to resource conflict in our rotation
- Dunkelblicksegen 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
Feuerbrandaura 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
Wachsendes Inferno ticks by only pressing
Feuerbrandaura when it expires. This does require us to track the duration rather than pressing
Feuerbrandaura as soon as it's available, as using it immediately resets the stacks of
Wachsendes Inferno.
Defensively, it is a decent gain, as we can expect to see an increase in
Metamorphose 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
Fauliger Verschlinger 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
Den Dämon füttern and never using
Feuerbrandaura or spending any resources on
Seelenspalter or
Seelenbombe, as well as cancelaura on our
Dämonische Verwüstung 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
Seelenbombe, as well as decent sustain from the extra souls spawned and increased
Metamorphose uptime. In this case, pressing
Feuerbrandaura early is no longer as much of a detriment, as the bonus souls generated from
Kollateralschaden allow for more
Seelenbombe, making up the lost damage from the final ticks of
Wachsendes 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
Dämonische Verwüstung allowing for more
Metamorphose 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
Seelenbombe and refresh
Elysischer Erlass,
Feuerbrandaura, and
Dämonische Verwüstung 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
Metamorphose, increase our versatility by significant amounts during
Blinder Glaube 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
Blinder Glaube 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
Kollateralschaden becomes significantly stronger than the other talents in its row, and
Seelenbombe 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
Den Dämon füttern for more defensive uptime as the loss of damage isn't particularly high in AoE.
This talent build would provide the most uptime on
Metamorphose at the cost of nearly all DPS. Oddly enough, the third row becomes entirely useless because you would never press any button other than
Elysischer Erlass, cancelaura
Dämonische Verwüstung, or
Abscheren to maximize soul generation for extra uptime.
This is the same as our current standard build for high uptime on
Flammendes Brandmal 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
Razelikhs Entweihung for maximum damage in ST,
Feurige Seele for magical defense with the brand build, and adding
Dunkelblicksegen for maximum
Metamorphose uptime. If Venthyr ends up being stronger, we'll likely use
Dunkelblicksegen and hope for high rolls to maximize the
Sündhaftes Brandzeichen extension.
Our most effective legendary in AoE will likely become
Dunkelblicksegen 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
Seelenspalter doesn't get used, making
Razelikhs Entweihung and
Feurige Seele 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
Blinder Glaube and more uptime on
Feuerbrandaura, as well as the increase in souls from
Brennender Hunger and
Kollateralschaden, 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
Seelenbombe rather than
Seelenspalter, reducing the value of our legendaries that depend on
Seelenspalter. On top of this, due to the extra resources, we have neither spare GCDs nor need for our generators (
Abscheren or
Fraktur) in AoE situations. While it's possible to play without
Seelenbombe, it becomes net neutral with using a legendary such as
Razelikhs Entweihung, 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
Blinder Glaube 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
Schloss 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.