Gloves: Crit/Mastery Red Socket (60 Int bonus)
Helm: Hit/Haste Yellow Socket (180 Crit bonus)
Legs: Crit/Haste Yellow/Blue Socket (120 Int bonus)
Chest: Hit/Mastery Red Yellow Blue Socket (180 Int bonus)
Shoulders: Crit/Haste Red Yellow Socket (120 Haste bonus)
2pc Bonus Affliction: While
2pc Bonus Destruction: While
2pc Bonus Demonology: While
4pc Bonus Affliction:
4pc Bonus Destruction:
4pc Bonus Demonology: Spells generate 10% more
Gear Analysis: Affliction
Gloves: reforge Crit to Haste or Hit; decent socket bonus. Definitely grab these.
Helm: reforge Haste or Hit to Mastery; crappy socket bonus. Watch for a better helm to pop from a boss somewhere to use as the off-piece
Legs: reforge Crit to Mastery or Hit; good set bonus. Grab these.
Chest: reforge Hit to Haste; great socket bonus. Grab this.
Shoulders: reforge Crit to Mastery or Hit; lackluster bonus, but take for 4pc.
Affliction overall: Gear has tons of Crit and not as much Mastery...this is sad, but reforging options should work out well. 2pc set bonus is nice...it buffs the duration of Haunt by 4 seconds providing 50% more uptime if utilized and not clipped during Dark Soul. This will generate a higher opening buff as well as increasing your damage by 25% an additional 50% of the time that you would have Haunt up but only during Dark Soul, which will have a 16% uptime. Dark Soul will be up for 20 seconds every 120 seconds. Since Haunt will last for 12 seconds now, the goal will be to go into Dark Soul with 3 Soul Shards so that you can cast one as soon as you pop Dark Soul, another 12 seconds into Dark Soul, and one more right before Dark Soul wears off. This set bonus will generate you about 6 extra seconds of Haunt every Dark Soul application which comes down to about a 25% damage buff every 2 minutes, or about a 1-2% dps gain. 4pc set bonus has crappy language, but a blue post reiterated that all DoT damage done during Malefic Grasp and Drain Soul will be buffed 5% as well (the DoT tick and the DoT hit). Since the 3 DoT ticks and the 3 DoT hits during MG and DS are about 75-80% of our total damage, I'm seeing the 4pc bonus as a 3.7-4.0% damage buff. Overall, the 2pc and 4pc bonuses feel pretty powerful. Acquire at all costs.
Gear Analysis: Demonology
Gloves: leave alone, good set bonus. Grab these.
Helm: reforge Haste to Crit or Mastery. Great socket bonus. Grab this.
Legs: reforge Haste to Mastery or Hit. Grab these.
Chest: reforge Mastery or Hit to Crit. Grab this.
Shoulders: reforge Haste to Hit or Mastery. Grab this.
Demonology overall: Gear has tons of Crit and that is good for Demo. 2pc bonus will extend Metamorphosis by a substantial amount. Since a majority of the time spent in single target situations involves spamming Touch of Chaos, this is a direct DPS gain modified by your ability to use Metamorphosis correctly. Touch of Chaos consumes 40 Demonic Fury, but the 2pc bonus will modify this to cost 28 Demonic Fury. This will essentially give you 4 Touch of Chaos's at the cost of 3. This would also extend the duration of Immolation Aura, allow you to spend less DF putting Doom up, and other such abilities. Both of these abilities require Dark Soul to be active, so it will be interesting to see how much harder Demo's burst is. The 4pc bonus increases your DF generation in caster form thus decreasing the time spent in caster form and increasing the time spent in Metamorphosis. The 2pc and 4pc work together with high synergy to have you spend more time in kickass purple demon form. This set bonus might put more emphasis on Haste to speed up DF generation or more emphasis on Mastery to do even higher damage more often with the increased uptime on Meta. Lots of Simcraft work to be done!
Gear Analysis: Destruction
Gloves: leave alone. Grab these.
Helm: reforge Haste to Crit or Mastery. Grab this.
Legs: reforge Haste to Mastery or Hit. Grab these.
Chest: leave alone. Grab this.
Shoulders: reforge Haste to Mastery. Grab these.
Destruction overall: Gear is itemized pretty well for Destruction. Shoulders could be replaced with the off-piece you find elsewhere. 2pc bonus increases Destruction's burst during Dark Soul uptime. Currently, Chaos Bolt and Shadowburn consume an entire Ember when cast. With this set bonus, CB and SB will consume 0.8 embers. If timed well, this means you could get off 5 Dark-Soul-empowered Chaos Bolts instead of 4 by having 4 full Embers going into Dark Soul. The 4pc bonus makes it so that you always have an 8% chance of generating double Embers. This will increase the number of Chaos Bolts and Shadowburns able to be cast during the entire encounter. Hard to put a % gain here, but it will be noticable.
Overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the changes. I'll be sad to give up my 80 sec CD Dark Soul, but empowering other abilities with Dark Soul up should make up for it. An empowering activated 2pc bonus with an overall passive DPS gain 4pc bonus should give Warlocks a very high incentive to snatch the new set ASAP. It will be a hard decision to break the 4pc T14 to grab the 2pc T15. Simcraft should model how much different it is.

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