Both the 2 and 4 set bonuses for Destruction revolve around Channel Demonfire and its damage. This is a talent that has not seen a lot of play in the early stages of Dragonflight for a few reasons. One of the weaknesses Destruction has had for a long time is movement. A talent such as Channel Demonfire which requires you to stand still and cast for a 2.5~ second cast does not help combat this weakness.
Because Channel Demonfire has not been played a whole lot in season 1, the question is if that’s going to change. You can still proc the set bonuses from Immolate and Incinerate without picking up Channel Demonfire. If this is the case that means your playstyle will not change at all. You simply play the same setups and gain a slight bit of flat damage ever so often. If however we do end up picking up Channel Demonfire then the playstyle and talent setups will vary slightly from what we saw in season 1.
Overall Strength?
From the looks of it the set bonuses don’t look very strong right now. You will be able to passively proc Demonfire bolts from casting Immolate and Incinerate, which can also trigger the 4-set bonus effect. Speccing into Channel Demonfire, which fires 15 bolts per cast, will only give you more control over when you trigger the 4-set bonus, as well as give you slightly more 4-set procs. The 4-set proc deals “damage to enemies within 8 yards” of the Demonfire bolt, which means the set bonus will be stronger in content such as dungeons, as well as on raid fights that have adds or stacked cleave.
The exact percentage damage increase from these bonuses will depend on the final tuning. This is also when we will be able to see the damage difference between playing the Channel Demonfire talent, and not playing the talent.
Feedback
In order to make this set bonus more exciting it either has to get its numbers buffed, have something more added to it, or get a complete rework. As mentioned above, one of the main underlying issues with the Destruction spec has for a long time been movement. Trying to better this through a set bonus would be an interesting addition to the playstyle of the spec. This could be done by making Channel Demonfire castable while moving as an added effect to either the 2 or 4 set.
The season 1 set bonuses for Destruction didn’t change anything playstyle-wise, but rather it buffed all of your damage by a base %. As long as that damage % buff is sufficient, it will be something desirable to pick up. All in all the season 2 Destruction set bonuses don’t feel exciting at all. It’s not likely something that will make Destruction the go-to choice for this tier unless something changes.
