Diabolist
Diabolist Season 3 Tier Set Bonuses
Implementation & Gameplay
The theme of the season 3 Diabolist really does fit the vibe that is Diabolist.
The set bonus states that it’s only Chaos Bolt and Rain of Fire granting you stacks, and not Shadowburn. This is something that’s likely going to slightly alter how we’re spending our soul shards in the future. I’m going to mention this a little bit more during the feedback segment below, and why I actually think it’s a good idea that Shadowburn doesn’t factor in here.
The only real gameplay changes we can expect, are when looking at how we spend our soul-shards. Aside from that, we might consider picking up a talent like Channel Demonfire over Shadowburn, although it’s hard to beat the movement and execute potential that Shadowburn offers.
Strength & Content
As with all things in current development, this is subject to change and will depend on final tuning. That being said, as of writing this the damage output from the 2-piece is very very high. The eyes deal a huge amount of damage, and the passive intellect you gain may not sound like much, but a good uptime on 6% intellect is quite significant. The way the 2-piece reads, it deals 457% spell power damage to your main target, and then 304% spell power damage to all other enemies within 10 yds. of your main target. That means, in an AoE or cleave situation, you’re going to be cleaving very heavily with this bonus as well.
For a long time, Diabolist has only really been competing with Hellcaller on straight single-target, and a set bonus that differs between single-target and cleave might give us a place where we can tune numbers up and down in order to bring Diabolist back on the menu. It’s hard to see how the 2-set proc would be able to compete with the amount of damage Blackened Soul does in content such as Mythic+, as well as cleave raid fights. But there’s potential here, rather than the season 2 bonus which was essentially just a passive stat buff.
Feedback
If Shadowburn would grant stacks of our 2-piece, we would very likely always just proc Diabolic Ritual and then instantly be able to spend soul shards with Shadowburn and Chaos Bolt, bringing us to 3 stacks right away. The downside of the set bonus not mentioning Shadowburn is that there’s a real chance we might not pick up Shadowburn anymore, which will affect our playstyle quite a bit. Especially if we look at the sub-30% damage profile of Destruction, we see a significant spike in DPS outside of cooldowns, as well as how mobile we are. This is because of Shadowburn + Blistering Atrophy. If we’re not able to utilize our set bonus and have to choose between the two, that might result in us looking elsewhere — either hero talent or spec wise. If I was to throw anything on the table that would help with the movement issue caused by the loss of Shadowburn, it would be making Channel Demonfire castable while moving. This would give us something to do while moving, other than sub-optimally use Conflagrate.
It’s very hard to see, considering the current strength of Hellcaller while looking at the season 3 set bonus of this, how Diabolist is going to take the crown. It’s always going to come down to final tuning, but my initial impression would be that it’s not unrealistic we might be looking at another Hellcaller tier for Destruction.
That being said, it does feel like a cool set bonus when you’re looking at the damage spikes you do, and the theme fits Diabolist quite well.
Hellcaller
Hellcaller Season 3 Tier Set Bonuses
Implementation & Gameplay
Both of these set bonuses revolve around how we deal damage passively with the talents granted through the Hellcaller talent tree, but that doesn’t make this any more boring than a lot of the previous set bonuses Destruction has seen. There’s actually a little more to it than at first glance. We might not change a lot with how we’re playing or setting up our character, but with the current state of Destruction that’s not something to be mad about.
Hellcaller still offers the same quality of life we’re experiencing currently, which means we’re still able to play Shadowburn granting us great damage on the move, while Blistering Atrophy gives us even better movement and damage during execute. In Mythic+ and AoE in general we’re still able to deal very large amounts of damage to targets that live long enough for us to stack up Wither, and this is actually even more true with these set bonuses.
Strength & Content
The 2-set bonus may not seem like a lot, but actually is pretty damn strong. The extra damage percentage of Blackened Soul is great, but the increased stack count applied by Malevolence is where the money is at. Malevolence on its own grants Wither 6 stacks, and with it now granting 8 meaning it collapses and starts dealing loads of damage from Blackened Soul.
The first part of the 4-set bonus reads that we get 2 stacks of Backdraft when popping Malevolence. It’s worth mentioning that we cannot exceed 2 stacks of Backdraft. This means, if we pop a Conflagrate prior to Malevolence on pull, we waste 1 stack. This effect is likely more of a quality of life addition that makes your Malevolence seem slightly better due to faster casts, but this is not where the power from our 4-set bonus is found. Blackened Soul is such a huge part of our damage when playing Hellcaller, and being able to gain not only additional stacks from the 2-piece, but generate stacks while Blackened Soul is dealing damage even faster is a much much bigger damage buff. This is especially going to be strong when fighting large groups of enemies that live for a prolonged period of time, really allowing you to stack up Wither with Rain of Fire spam. This is not only going to be strong in AoE, but also significant in both single-target, where Hellcaller is already Diabolist, and on cleave where Hellcaller has been proven to be super strong.
The 4-piece also reads it stops Blackened Soul from consuming Wither stacks for 8 seconds, but not that it stops us from generating even more stacks of Wither. This gives us a little extra time to spend soul-shards, building more stacks before Wither reaches 0 stacks.
Feedback
Hellcaller tier set is probably going to be the strongest for Destruction, and possibly even for all Warlock tiers in season 3. Hellcaller has been incredibly strong on multiple targets, because you’re not target capped at all, where a lot of other specs are limited. We actually just become gradually stronger and stronger the more targets you introduce. With this set bonus, this is the case more than ever. Which does beg the question, is this intended? As with all things, the viability is going to come down to final tuning, but the interactions with Blackened Soul damage and how Malevolence has a little more depth to it, is something that’s going to make Hellcaller feel great to play.
It feels weird that we’re somehow encouraged to choose between overcapping Backdraft, or playing Conflagrate sub-optimally with the addition of Backdraft stacks to Malevolence. A quick solution to this could be upping the limitation of Malevolence stacks to 3, which I don’t think would really ruin much. Most of the time we’re literally unable to spend Malevolence on more than 2 Chaos Bolt casts in a row, unless we want to sit afk and wait for Wither ticks to grant us additional soul shards. This means we’d just end up spending a single stack of Backdraft on Incinerate, which wouldn’t change much, but it would at least not make you feel like you’re doing something wrong.
Diabolist vs. Hellcaller
I think it’s pretty clear that Hellcaller is likely going to take the cake in most situations here. Diabolist lacks some basic abilities that Hellcaller just excels at. This is a thing such as damage while moving. We’re through Diabolist encouraged not to spend soul shards with Shadowburn, because we’re sometimes losing out on set bonus uptime. Where as Hellcaller doesn’t care if we spend soul shards on Shadowburn, we get the Wither stacks regardless. A super minor thing here is Hellcaller turning Immolate into an instant cast as well.
For Mythic+, it’s very hard to see how Diabolist is going to beat out the already dominant Hellcaller, when Hellcaller gets more Blackened Soul damage through the season 3 tier, and this is already one of our largest damage output abilities. In order for Diabolist to somehow beat out Hellcaller, the AoE proc from the set bonus would have to be insane. It’s worth mentioning, I do see a world where Diabolist might actually be the move in super short burst windows where you can proc Diabolic Ritual on targets that barely live long enough for Wither to stack up, but that’s more or less the only scenario in which I see Diabolist being the go-to choice.
All in all, I do like the theme of both of these hero talent based set bonuses, and it’s all going to come down to the final iterations and tuning. Regardless of which ends out on top, I think it’s going to be a fun tier set to play Destruction Warlock with.
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