The Elemental Shaman tier set puts a lot of emphasis on our baseline cooldown
火元素. By reducing the cooldown and increasing the duration of the elemental, this synergizes very well with
狂乱生长之种 (the Night Fae legendary) and could potentially allow for 100% uptime on
火元素. This shouldn’t be particularly impactful to the rotation aside from the additional
熔岩奔腾 procs. However, it is likely we’ll start using
熔岩爆裂 during
风暴元素 now as well. This also may open the door to legendaries and talents we haven’t used much in the recent past, such as
升腾 and
根深蒂固的元素 (no promises).
While we don’t have exact numbers to share, this tier set does seem to be quite powerful on single target. If I had to estimate, I’d place it between a 10% and 20% DPS increase. This becomes a little more complicated (and awkward) on AoE, as we typically play
风暴元素 for AoE and casting
熔岩爆裂 during that may not be worth it. Granted, it would only take 3-4
熔岩爆裂s to get a second
狂风怒号 use which will likely be quite good if the AoE lasts long enough.
There are a few noteworthy issues with this set bonus as it stands. For example,
风暴元素 emphasizes
闪电箭 and
闪电链; casting
熔岩爆裂, especially on AoE, is going to feel weird and may not even be worth it. Personally, I’d like to see the bonus change when talented into
风暴元素 to be tied to Lightning abilities or maelstrom spenders. Another major issue with this set is that we can only have 1 elemental out at a time while using
元素尊者. This generally wouldn’t be an issue, but
土元素 provides non-trivial defensives between
硬化外皮 and
活力冲积. In order to use these, you’d have to dismiss your
火元素 or
风暴元素. This has the potential to cause a very large damage loss. Additionally, as a spec, Elemental is already very consistent and generally lacks burst damage. I would personally like to see this set bonus changed to enhance
火元素/
风暴元素 rather than extend it if it’s going to be focused around that cooldown. This would allow Elemental to have a more noteworthy burst window while also reducing the impact of the
土元素 issue.
On the surface,
治愈灵魂 (2-Set) is quite simple: casting
治疗链 on a person with
激流 will buff the whole spell by ~30% from the increased crit chance. That does mean that you'll want to
always cast
治疗链 on a
激流 person as now if you're not doing that, you're losing potential throughput, which restricts your target options by a lot. This set bonus should bring
治疗链 back to the forefront as its currently one of the lesser used spells, and along with it (potentially) the talent
浪潮汹涌.
There's quite a few synergies as its basically anything that
治疗链 already interacts with. Examples:
- 浪潮汹涌 - 30% free crit applied to no jump reduction is not insignificant.
- 洪水 and 元素回响 - 洪水 seems okay on the surface but its likely that only your initial target will have a 激流, and 元素回响 allows you to pocket a 激流 charge which you can use to select your 治疗链 target freely.
- 生命释放 - very strong combination, 2-Set buffed 治疗链 is the strongest spell to use it on outside of 收割链.
- 约纳特的自然专注 - decent but so much overheal potential.
- 灵魂行者的潮汐图腾 - burst window gets quite a bit stronger.
- 始源之潮核心 / 始源之潮 - more freedom for target selection as you'll have more 激流 active at any given time.
Overall this set seems fine, while its just a straight buff to a spell it nonetheless makes you change around your gameplay a little by encouraging
治疗链 usage. The dependency on only being able to cast it on specific targets is not great, but easy to deal with and might make you strategically place
激流 in a way that you have access to your
治疗链 for multiple groupings of people.
Not a massive throughput gain unless synergies, the
治疗链 button and external mana are abused, but also not on the weak side. That said since you have to cast
治疗链 the set is prone to be weaker for very spread encounters.
治愈灵魂 (4-Set) has an inherent synergy with the 2-Set which means they have to be looked at in combination. Every cast of
治疗链 reduces the cooldown of
灵魂链接图腾 by 0 to 8 seconds, depending on how many hits are critical strikes. Simply reducing a mitigation CDs cooldown duration inherently doesn't lead to a lot of gameplay impact or anything exciting really. If your raid leader starts to assign your
灵魂链接图腾 to events that are less than 3 minutes apart, that is when you'll feel it the most as you're forced to look for opportunities to cast
治疗链 enough times. But if
灵魂链接图腾 isn't assigned (new boss, less structured raid or m+) and cast rather freely you might get an opportunity every now and then to use it early, but most of the time it'll likely have no impact at all.
Looking at the high amount of crit we're going to have next season, combined with the 2-Set crit bonus (assuming the
治疗链 is consistently casted on
激流 targets), each cast of
治疗链 will reduce
灵魂链接图腾 by 5 to 6 seconds on average - or in other words it would take around 12 2-Set buffed casts of
治疗链 to reduce
灵魂链接图腾 by a full minute. That number can be influenced by luck (less/more crits), targeting issues (all
激流 targets are positioned awkwardly), mana issues (
治疗链 is expensive) and there simply being nothing to heal.
The 4-Set bonus has synergies with anything that provides crit, so depending on covenant or legendaries you might see some difference in reductions but its too many small things to list out, with most of them not being too impactful.
It's hard to tell how much reduction you'll see though, as we're currently not using
治疗链 a lot and we had no preview of the new raid yet, but judging by old logs (which had a differently tuned and cheaper
治疗链), you often see 5 to 6 casts of
治疗链 a minute, which means that the
灵魂链接图腾 cooldown with 4-Set should usually be around the 2 minute mark instead of 3 minutes.
Overall I'm not a fan of the 4-Set bonus and would've rather have seen something else. While it can be useful and may sometimes save a pull in m+ while also letting you use
灵魂链接图腾 more frequently in raids, most of the time it won't add anything of value - and a situational tier set bonus does not feel great. Realistically this bonus may only see usage on a couple of fights per tier in actual gameplay, as they tend to space heavy raid damage out.