Priest War Within Season 2 Tier Set Bonuses Reviewed – Guide Writer First Impressions

As a spec, Shadow already has a lot going on and adding more for players to think about can make it overwhelming. however we still want a set bonus that impacts the gameplay and makes playing Shadow in Undermine feel different to playing it in any other patch. Shadow Priest’s Undermine Tier Set Bonus strikes a good balance between being noticeable and impactful whilst not adding additional clutter to the rotation. The 2 Piece Bonus is entirely passive, launching an empowered Void Bolt at your target roughly 2-3 times a minute, and the 4 piece bonus plays off the 2 piece by providing you 5 seconds of Power Infusion whenever it procs, as well as increasing the damage of your direct damage spells for the duration of both the proc Power Infusions and your regular Power Infusion spell.

In terms of strength, this set bonus seems ok but there are some questions about what specifically “200% effectiveness” means when it comes to Void Bolt that will need to be tested before we know for sure. Firstly does the Void Bolt proc generate Insanity? If it does, is the Power Infusion generated increased by the “200% effectiveness” or does that only apply to damage. There are also some concerns with how the proc Power Infusion is going to interact with regular casted Power Infusion, we’ve seen in the past that when casted procs of cooldowns overlap with the main cooldown that they provide extension instead of simply being eaten or overwritten. The concern here is what happens if you already have the set bonus Power Infusion when you want to use your main one. Do you (And your potential PI target) have to wait until the proc is over in order to extract maximum value, delaying and desyncing cooldowns in the process, or will casting Power Infusion just add 15 seconds to the initial proc?

There are a number of potential synergies that will need to be tested, but as of now it looks like either of Shadow’s hero talents could be a contender in the Undermine raid. Void Bolt has interactions with Void Eruption which favours Archon, but the increased damage from the 4 piece bonus favours the direct damage heavy playstyle of Voidweaver, buffing Void Blast and playing nicely with Dark Ascension. As always it comes down to tuning and I personally would prefer another raid tier where both Archon and Voidweaver have their times to shine, or even where which one is best isn’t even clear after multiple hundreds of boss kills.

The decision to make role specific 2 set bonuses for Undermine overall feels like a step in the wrong direction to me, but there are aspects of it I like and would like to see better fleshed out. Firstly the downsides, a role based 2 piece bonus lacks the ability to tap into mechanics and interactions unique to a spec, and while the 4 piece bonus isn’t necessarily role based it still uses the 2 piece as an anchor for what spell or mechanic it’s going to focus on. On the other end of things, idea of everyone getting something which sells the theme of the raid though is good, but I wish they had gone further with it by adding items that interact with the standardised set bonus effects. It’d be cool to see a caster staff or trinket that has additional interactions for “Jackpot” or “Insurance” as an example.

Overall I’m satisfied with Shadow’s set bonus in 11.1. There are some question marks and issues surrounding it (Power Infusion overlaps mostly) and I think the whole role based thematic set bonus concept is a little underbaked, but Shadow really doesn’t need much from its tier sets when it has such a fleshed out core rotation already.