Frost has received a Dragonflight tier set heavily focused on our
Obliterate and
Frostscythe, and their interaction with
Killing Machine. The 2-set simply buffs the critical strike damage of these spells. Since
Killing Machine guarantees crits of these abilities, and since
Obliterate generally is considerably empowered when consuming a
Killing Machine (with
Frostreaper), the majority of the gain from our 2-set will come from consuming procs of
Killing Machine. Currently the 2-set only buffs the "extra" damage you get from the crit, and not the base damage of the ability. If you do 50 dmg with an
Obliterate, 100 with a crit, the tier set only increases that extra 50 damage. For
Frostscythe, the extra crit damage is relatively higher (3x the normal hit amount), meaning that the 2-set gives more benefit to
Frostscythe! A crit of
Obliterate will see a total 7.5% increase and a crit of
Frostscythe will see a 11.25% increase. The 4-set further leans into our
Killing Machines by giving a 15% chance when consuming the buff to not lose it.
The tier set has very strong synergy with any talent that buffs our
Obliterate and
Frostscythe damage, as well as anything that increases the number of
Killing Machine we generate. This includes
Improved Obliterate,
Icy Talons,
Frostreaper,
Cold-Blooded Rage,
Might of the Frozen Wastes,
Obliteration and
Icecap (through
Obliteration). This is really a noticeable synergy with builds focusing on
Obliteration with them gaining almost twice the benefit from the tier set compared to builds focusing on
Breath of Sindragosa. When it comes to the impact on our rotation, it's pretty much exclusively related to our
Obliteration windows. Outside of these, we just feel like we generate more procs of
Killing Machine. In the windows, we need to be quick to react to any 4p proc so as to not waste the
Killing Machine by pressing
Frost Strike/
Howling Blast or
Glacial Advance. This requires short latency, fast reflexes and most notably more resources. The
Obliteration cannot support back-to-back
Obliterates unless we properly pool for it. I think, in general, we'll want to pool a bit more for the window to ensure we can leverage the procs of the 4p when they come!
The tier set is mostly powerful in single target and cleave. One might think that the increased damage of
Frostscythe is useful in AoE. That would be true if
Frostscythe was actually tuned high. As it stands now, it simply doesn't do enough damage for us to pick it in AoE scenarios. This indirectly leads to the tier set being less powerful in AoE, as it doesn't buff the damage of spells that do good AoE damage. In single target and cleave though, the increased damage to
Obliterate really works well!
Obliterate can reach up to 50% of our overall damage in single target and 2-3 target cleave, making any increase to its damage significant for us! As I said before though, if you don't pick up
Obliteration, you will see significantly less gain from the tier set in any scenario!
I think the tier set will feel good when you play, who doesn't like seeing big number on your screen right? I'm a bit worried that the 4-set will feel bad if you overlap procs of
Killing Machine in your
Obliteration window. Being the first tier in the expansion, our haste levels might be low enough for this not to be an issue. I'm excited to try out the tier set as it's released and will reserve my final judgement for then! I'm also keen to test whether or not the 4-set has anti-synergy with spells that otherwise work with consuming procs of
Killing Machine. It's unclear if
Bonegrinder and
Murderous Efficiency will proc off a
Killing Machine that is prevented from being consumed. Overall though, I think the tier set has the right amount of impact associated with it. It will make us consume more procs overall, as well as increasing our big number hits!
The tier set announced for Unholy is a maintenance buff for buffing our main pet's output, as well as a feedback mechanic to our own damage and haste. For full uptime on the 2-piece, we'll want to burst one
Festering Wound every 5 seconds. This will affect our gameplay slightly as we'll try and space out our
Scourge Strike a bit. The upkeep of
Plaguebringer is already committing us to that 5 seconds
Scourge Strike window and we have a lot of resources to play around with, I don't think it will feel bad! Increasing our pet's damage and haste has strong synergy with all talents that buff our main pet, or rely on its attacks.
Ghoulish Frenzy,
Eternal Agony and
Unholy Command will all become more powerful since they're directly attached to our ghoul's power.
Infected Claws will also synergise well as the increased haste allows our pet to cast more
Sweeping Claws, generating more
Festering Wounds.
Unholy's tier set bonus is generally strong as it's very versatile. Our pet's damage is a large portion of our overall throughput in both single target and AoE. Furthermore, the 4-set buffs our own damage and haste, resulting in good gains in any situation. It's also nice that it feeds into our
Festering Wound quadratic scaling gameplay in Mythic+ due to the increased generation of wounds! I also like the fact that the 4-set gives us haste. Regardless of overall power level, a haste proc always feels good to get and will make the tier set more fun to play with.
I'm overall happy with the Unholy tier set. I think we the 2-set buff might be a tad too short. Forcing a wound burst every 5 seconds can feel like a chore. However, we have
Plaguebringer working with the same timer as well as a lot of resources to play around with. It's currently unclear how strong of a feedback mechanic there is between the 4-set and 2-set given that the wording is vague. Initial tests on the beta indicates that it provides triple the proc chance, so 15% to 45% on each ghoul melee. This means the 4-set buff uptime would go from around 50% to 90% with proper 2-set management, a sizeable increase! 90% uptime on the 4-set sounds great and will make the rotation feel more exciting and rewarding. I'm happy with the tier set and can't wait to obtain it once Dragonflight launches!