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Comment by LaurelRaven

There is a significant issue with this set for Affliction Warlocks who use Inevitable Demise for survivability: As of the time of this writing, having the full 8-piece bonus active will cause Inevitable Demise to proc erratically and often not at all.

When using Agony with the Inevitable Demise talent activated, every tick should add a stack of Inevitable Demise, up to 50. Frequently with the full bonus of this set, however, it actually activates much, much less frequently. A full run of Agony (without anything to modify it, should be 10 ticks) should give 10 stacks of Inevitable Demise, but frequently during my testing, it was getting between 3 and 6. Continuing past a full run often didn't grant any additional stacks, and even casting Agony on every dummy on one side of Sinfall (11 total) didn't cause it to proc enough to keep the timer from running out (20 seconds) and losing all stacks. Meanwhile, without the last piece, I was able to hit 40 stacks of ID by the time I finished casting Agony on all 11 dummies and hit the cap within 17 seconds total.

My testing was done at 8/9 (for full set bonus) and 7/9 (to remove bonus; simply removed my helm), at iLvls 184 and 172 (respectively). In the partial set, without any ID stacks I was averaging 174 dmg per tick of Drain Life (normal; 349 per crit), while at 10 stacks (1 full run of Agony) I was getting 436 per tick (871 per crit). With the full set, I was getting 205 per tick and 411 per crit without ID; for the same full run of Agony getting between 3 and 6 stacks of ID, I was getting {3: 253/505; 4: 278/558; 5: 305/610; 6: 331/662} (number of ID stacks: normal tick/crit tick). That's a significant loss of both damage and healing, especially when one of the big advantages of Inevitable Demise is if you get swarmed, you can spam Agony and quickly get full 50 stacks for seriously overpowered Drain Life casts that melt opponents and rapidly refill your health meter, but that doesn't work if you aren't getting hardly any stacks. I haven't tested for overall performance, but based on this, I suspect it would actually be better overall to go without a piece entirely than almost entirely losing the benefits of ID.

If you rely on Inevitable Demise on your Affliction Warlock for survivability, you should probably either look for another method or pass on two of the pieces in the set until they fix this.

I've not tested this with any other proc, but since I got the idea to check this because it was the cause of a Maldraxxus WQ not being completible earlier today without removing a piece (defend ballistas being repaired, the bar would reset constantly), I suspect there are other things this set is breaking, procs not happening that should (harder to pin down if it's a percentage chance to proc rather than on every tick like ID is). Basically, if you're noticing an issue with something not proccing like you think it should since getting the full set bonus, try swapping pieces until you're down to at least 7/9 and see if that fixes it. Hopefully Blizzard fixes this one soon; I've submitted a bug report, but they've got a lot on their plate, so fingers crossed they can get to it soon (I really want to keep my 190 ilvl gear and the extra 80 int)

Edit to add: I'm not 100% sure on this, but with some quick rudimentary testing, it looks like it might also affect Affliction's chances of generating soul shards. Same 11 dummies produced enough soul shards from Agony ticks to make it difficult to wipe them out with Malefic Rapture without the full set, but with the full set, they produced them at a pretty slow rate overall. Again, not at all conclusive, just a quick test, but might be worth additional testing.

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Soulbreaker's Ebony Vestments

Soulbreaker's Ebony Vestments is an item set that contains 9 pieces. Has set bonuses at 3, 5, and 8 pieces.

	Soulbreaker's Ebony Drape (1)
	Soulbreaker's Ebony Handwraps (1)
	Soulbreaker's Ebony Hood (1)
	Soulbreaker's Ebony Leggings (1)
	Soulbreaker's Ebony Mantle (1)
	Soulbreaker's Ebony Sash (1)
	Soulbreaker's Ebony Slippers (1)
	Soulbreaker's Ebony Vestments (1)
	Soulbreaker's Ebony Wraps (1)

Set Bonuses

Wearing more pieces of this set will convey bonuses to your character.

Soulbreaker's Ebony Vestments

Set Bonuses

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