Introduction
Our 10.1 tier set is currently disappointing compared to our last few tier sets, both in impact and design. It attempts to tighten up the rotation with a minimal strength boost and cooldown reduction to
Bombe de feu de brousse as well as strengthen in
Ordre de tuer with a back-and-forth rhythm with our pet that many see as an identity to the spec's overall themes. Unfortunately, the praise stops there as the tier-set bonus is currently significantly less powerful than our 10.0 tier set and introduces several conflicts to our rotation and priority. Finally, this tier set is especially awkward when playing with both of our cooldowns
Fer-de-lance and
Assaut coordonné which is explained in further detail in the drop down below.
Numbers
Very, very early napkin math (and some shenanigans in a sim) puts the combined 10.1 2/4 piece set at
about a
~5-6.5% ST gain and about a
6.5-8% AoE gain. This is fairly weak for a set bonus and especially in contrast to our s1 set bonus which provided somewhere around
~17% ST. Its AoE performance was similar to what the expectations of the new set could achieve.
What does this mean? Well, unless the 10.0 sets are entirely disabled as legacy content,
with current tuning there might be scenarios where you wouldn't want to replace your old set for a long time, (or at all!) for some encounter types. This is surely not the intention of a shiny new tier set bonus.
Sentiment
Many in the Survival community (such as the Survival channel in the Trueshot Lodge discord!) are generally disappointed at the 10.1 tier set.
It's significantly weaker and more disruptive than our current tier set. The biggest problem of the tier set bonus is the fact that it enhances
Bombe de feu de brousse—this is an incredibly problematic ability (and has been our entire history). The way
Bombe de feu de brousse works in doing the same damage both single-target and AoE presents a very tough balancing act: it is either strong and desirable in single-target and thus wildly overpowered in AoE, or it is strong and balanced in AoE and extremely weak in single-target. Ever since the 50% nerf to
Tactique de guérilla in the transition from Shadowlands to Dragonflight (as well as the removal of Rank 2 of
Bombe de feu de brousse),
Bombe de feu de brousse is just not appealing to use in single-target. This is understandable to make it more reasonable in AoE and to tune our AoE to other tools such as
Boucherie, but it significantly impacted the single-target.
The most immediate and perhaps most actionable solution to this could be to introduce a baseline separate scaling knob to
Bombe de feu de brousse and allow it to deal increased damage to your primary target (much like
Poings de fureur from Windwalkers or scaling AoE from our ranged Hunter friends in
Enchaînement funeste or
Tirs piégés) which allows it to be tuned both in single-target and AoE separately. A second solution would be the tier-set taking
Bombe de feu de brousse off of the GCD, allowing it to be used without conflicting other, more appealing abilities as well as removing any awkward interactions with cooldowns.
Further Discussion about 2/4 piece bonus
Two - Set
The two piece-set bonus offers a damage buff to an already not-so-strong ability in
Bombe de feu de brousse (and presumably the
Infusion de flambée variants) as well as an occasional yet predictable buff to our generator,
Ordre de tuer. It's a bit hard to get a feel for the intention of this as the first half (
10% increase to
Bombe de feu de brousse) is really not great in single-target as
Bombe de feu de brousse is very weak in single target. For example, the damage difference between your average
Morsure de mangouste and
Bombe de feu de brousse is incredibly tiny, even without 10.0 tier-set and factoring in 10.1 tier set. It isn't until you introduce extra targets to cleave does
Bombe de feu de brousse start to outperform
Morsure de mangousteThe second half of the bonus (a
50% increase in damage to your next
Ordre de tuer after you use
Bombe de feu de brousse) is equally confusing in intent as
Ordre de tuer has 0 AoE applications and only does single-target damage. One could argue that due to the four-set and the increased frequency of bombs we would enjoy more frequently buffed
Ordre de tuer in AoE but the fact of the matter is we have more Focus generators in AoE (
Frappe latérale or even
Bombe de feu de brousse through
Exécution coordonnée). On top of that our AoE rotation isn't nearly as Focus hungry, which means the 2-set loses a bit of the synergy it has with the 4-set. Simply put, we don't utilize
Ordre de tuer as much in AoE.
One could think of it as a buff to both single-target and AoE, but it numerically falls very flat in both aspects, especially compared to our 10.0 tier set.
This bonus also introduces a bit of awkward conflict in our single-target cooldown enhancement:
Fer-de-lance /
Duo mortel. During this cooldown, you already want to avoid using
Bombe de feu de brousse as it's a GCD spent on something other than
Morsure de mangouste or generating resources for
Morsure de mangouste, so throwing a
Bombe de feu de brousse lowers the value of
Fer-de-lance and this avoidance of
Bombe de feu de brousse means you won't even be enjoying the buff to
Ordre de tuer during your big, flashy
Fer-de-lance moments.
Four-Set
Our new four-set is equally as unimpactful and conflicting. In a different time we would have really appreciated the extra cooldown reduction on
Bombe de feu de brousse as it used to be a far more powerful ability. Unfortunately, in Dragonflight that is not the case. In single-target we avoid using
Bombe de feu de brousse typically unless there's nothing else we could be doing and in AoE we use it because, well, it's one of our two rotational AoE abilities. This bonus might also end up giving us too much CDR as recently
Charge been reworked to provide CDR to
Bombe de feu de brousse as well as the litany of other cooldown reduction effects we have such as
Frappes effrénées or
Exécution coordonnée and more uses of a weak spell will not end up feeling or performing well.
Finally, the cooldown on this can drive an awkward wedge in our other, more AoE damage focused cooldown,
Assaut coordonné. This is due to the talent
Exécution coordonnée reducing the baseline cooldown of
Bombe de feu de brousse as well as making it generate Focus. This could cause a situation during
Assaut coordonné where will you be generating too much Focus to spend, sitting on too many uses of
Bombe de feu de brousse as well as wasting valuable
Assaut coordonné empowerments on a weak
Bombe de feu de brousse, as the empowered
Tir mortel hit far, far harder than an empowered
Bombe de feu de brousse.