Demonology Warlock: Analysis of the 9.2 Tier Set Bonuses - Soul Shard Generation Removed

In last week's PTR build 41827, Demonology Warlock received a major rework for their 9.2 Tier Set bonus! Our Demonology Warlock Guide Writer, Not, has provided an updated hands-on look at all the recent changes to the Demonology Warlock Tier Set bonus which includes significant buffs to the new Malicious Imp.

Demonology Warlock Tier Set Bonus Changes 2-Set — Ripped From the Portal — Call Dreadstalkers has a 100% chance to summon an additional Dreadstalker. 4-Set —   Your Hand of Gul'dan has a 5%15% chance per Soul Shard to summon a Malicious Imp. When slain, Malicious Imp grants a Soul Shard and will either deal (19%85% of Spell power) Fire damage to all nearby enemies of your Implosion or deal it to your current target.

Not, our Demonology Warlock guide writer, has given more extensive thoughts on the Demonology Warlock Set bonus change!

After much waiting we finally got some feedback from Blizzard about our tier bonuses and there were some significant changes for Demonology. What does this mean for us? It means Blizzard recognized the Soul Shard problem and the fact that the tier bonuses design was not the best as it forced players to have outside resources to track very specific timings for the 4-piece as to not overcap on Demonic Core. Unfortunately the overall damage of the Malicious Imp was not terribly good to begin with. During previous raid testing, the Malicious Imp was around 8% of your overall damage; however, this included a much higher uptime on Malicious Imp due to spawning at roughly 50% chance per Soul Shard spent instead of the intended 5%. When modeled at the correct 5% per soul shard spent spawn rate, the old 4-piece was approximately a 3% damage gain. With the updated 15% per Soul Shard spent Read more on wowhead.com