Yup, with 3.3 on the PTR, and Icecrown Citadel yummies sitting off in the horizon (not to mention a change to how Emblems of Triumph are gotten that is in line with the recent change to Emblems of Conquest), Blizzard has released the new set-bonuses for the last tier set of W0tLK!

Of course, playing a Priest and Druid, you know where this post will be focusing.

So, let’s look at Balance Druid’s bonuses first!

2 Pieces (Balance): When you gain Clearcasting from your Omen of Clarity talent, you deal 15% additional Nature and Arcane damage for 6 seconds.
4 Pieces (Balance): Your critical strikes from Starfire and Wrath cause the target languish for an additional 5% of your spell’s damage over 4 seconds.

The Clearcasting proc buff is kind of neat, though technically it *shouldn’t* be a Balance bonus- Omen of Clarity is actually in the Restoration talent tree. Granted, many a moonkin will snag the talent (myself included), because hey, mana-free casts are made of win! Still though, I don’t really keep track of my OoC procs, and it seems most of the time it procs when I don’t need to cast anything again (usually when I’m buffing with Mark/Gift of the Wild or Thorns). Or at least, I only notice the procs when I don’t need to cast anything else. Is it going to be as strong as a bonus as T8/8.5′s 2-piece is/was? Not sure, I’m sure testing on the PTR will give us a better idea, though.

As for the 4 piece bonus. I’m kind of meh about it, honestly. So after critting for say, 12000 damage with a Starfire that means that the target will take and extra 600 damage on top of that over 4 seconds? Meh. It might bump you on the meters a little (I know during Lunar Eclipse I put out ridiculous numbers with Starfire crits), but I have a feeling it’s only going to be a marginal increase. We’ll see I guess.

They did post the druid models though for the gear. While I am *so* not feeling the headpiece (I also have a certain affinity for my Sailor Moon crown), the shoulders are pretty freaking bad ass. Which of course is going to mean they’re going to be damn near impossible for a fairly casual raider to get, knowing Blizzard.

Druid Tier 10 graphics

Onto Priest bonuses! We’ll look at Shadow first.

2 Pieces (Damage): The critical strike chance of your Shadow Word: Pain, Devouring Plague, and Vampiric Touch spells is increased by 5%.
4 Pieces (Damage): Reduces the channel duration and period of your Mind Flay spell by 0.5 seconds.

Okay. Wow? VT and DP crit a lot to begin with (VT crits a crapload for me, actually), so this is going to be a nice DPS increase. Although, even being marginally geared for ToC25, I still put out pretty pathetic numbers (I don’t like being 11 and lower on the meters ). Anything that bumps Shadow DPS is welcome though, and since Tier 9′s bonuses were, in my opinion, pretty lame, this is a pretty nice change.

4 piece? Oh wow. While half a second isn’t a lot, it will be enough for me to sneak Shadow Word: Death back into my rotation. Assuming, as stated above, I don’t have to jump through ridiculous hoops to snag the 4 piece bonus (I really like how they set-up distribution for Tier 9 actually. Even if I barely have enough emblems to get my 2 piece). The only thing I can see being a little bit of annoyance here is with a Heroism/Bloodlust pop. Although, it might mean being able to add in an extra MF anyway, which is going to mean a sizable DPS increase, honestly.

Okay. Yummy healing bonuses now!

2 Pieces (Heal): After your Pain Suppression and Guardian Spirit talents expire on your target, they grant your target 10% increased healing received for 10 sec.
4 Pieces (Heal): Your Flash Heal spell has a 15% chance to reset the cooldown on your Circle of Healing and Penance Spells.

2 piece is nice, especially for Holy priests who have GS glyphed. This is going to mean I’ll need to make a macro for PS for raid purposes (time to learn how to tie a macro with Clique -.o). In a situation where you’re popping wither of those two cooldowns, you’re anticipating your target (usually a tank) taking a HOLYCRAP lot of damage (initial Auriaya pull, anyone?), so that bonus healing after the effect wears is going to be really nice.

4 piece… oh god. Oh. God. Anything that lowers Penance’s cooldown for me is welcome. And lord knows I’m usually spamming Flash Heals when Penance is on cooldown. So yeah, kind of in love with this.

I’ve noticed though, that a lot of the priest bloggers I’ve read are kind of meh about these. Honestly, I think these bonuses are worlds beyond the kind of crappy tier 9 bonuses (especially when someone ran the math to find the bonus to Divine Aegis on the 4 piece was a laughable increase at best). Maybe I’m just a little less experienced (and a little more idealistic?) than some of them though. We’ll find out the average rate of refreshing the cooldown though, once testing on these sets opens up on the PTR. I’m still feeling positive, though. Just hoping now that the graphics of this set are prettier than Tier 9 was. That shit (for Alliance, anyway) is fugly as hell.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 9th, 2009 at 11:54 am and is filed under Druid, Priest, WoW. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.