Blizzard needs to change how set bonuses work in tww or there will be tons of friction between hero classes and set bonuses. A good present example of this is for frost mage, both frostfire and spellslinger synergize stronger with the left half of the tree but the current df set bonuses force gs. Additionally, alot of hero specs emphasize particular talents and if sets continue to do the same thing, people will be forced to take hero classes with less friction against the current set bonus. That’s potentially awful. Set bonuses may have to become alot more neutral/vanilla come tww. Or players will need to be given options they can pick themselves.
Set bonuses this expansion forced me down into abilities, playstyles and talents I didn’t want. It’s not a good design but they keep doing it.
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To be fair, they did say they were going to.make 1 tier focused around an ability of their choosing.
The other 2 were pretty open
I agree. I previously asked on the forums what most people like about tier, the bonuses or the looks and most responded with the looks. If they’re going to force us to use set bonuses, we need more choice over what the set bonuses do.
Except feedback from Frost mages to Blizzard is that under no circumstances should Cold Front and Fractured Frost ever be considered the best option and the synergy for FrostFire stops at Glacial Assault which isn’t really that hard to get.
Cold Front and Snowstorm need to get removed and maybe Splitting Ice moved up to where Snowstorm is now.
You’re just looking at the capstones, not everything in between. How pray tell does gs and icicle talents work better with splinters or ff? It’s also moot compared to my main point anyway: hero specs emphasize talents and so do sets. There’s going to be friction there.
Only one of the talents I mentioned was a capstone.
If your point is that Frostfire is in a bad spot because it requires Comestorm and the set wants GS, that’s simply not true because the Cometstorm talents are accessible. If it’s that Spell slinger is in a bad spot because of “left side synergy and the need for glacial spike”, other than CF which shouldn’t be in the game, this isn’t really true.
The only situations you are going to take coldest snap are AOE and that’s because double orb by itself is great and that choice has nothing to do with Spellslinging frozen orb buffs. Freezing rain doesn’t meaningfully give you more blizzards over time, and not much else has crazy synergy with Spellslinger. As a hero tree goes this tree has basically has no impact on your rotation or talent choices at all.
If your point is just “set bonus tied to specific talent selection reduces choice” I’d agree in principal. I don’t really have a problem with hero trees having a talent focus as long as it’s flavorful.
Last 2 seasons ele shaman has been forced into a play style that I really hate. I ended up playing enhance because I just couldn’t stand playing ele like this.
I hope they do not repeat the same problem in TWW with tier bonuses and hero talents.
Looking over the datamined Set Bonuses, it seems to be super generic. I don’t see any friction?
For example Affliciton is just MR enhancements which is baseline.
Hunter is 20% to Arcane Shot and Precise Shots which is basically baseline.
If I recall from DF season 1, Tier sets are intended to be kind of dull for the first tier while we get used to the changes,
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I think tier sets should just act like the legiondary ring that gave a free talent (2pc is general tree, 4pc is spec tree). Top/mid/bottom of tree would all have unique implications if they enable building off of it despite not having the ones above. Then add class trinkets (archimonde) as a raid staple and you can have some hero trees pursue the class trinket while others pursue extra talent points as their major power creep.
Shadow’s tier is going to force me into using devouring plague, this is ridiculous.
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Given that anyone can get tier sets now through the catalyst anyway and its just sort of something to check off the list, personally I’d like to see them go away. I don’t like getting pushed into specific builds, and hero talents are already going to do that too. I love the catalyst for getting the transmog sets; I’d like if they just used it for that and did away with the set bonuses.
Lately it almost reminds me of a less drastic version of Diablo 3, where the seasonal sets pick your build for you.
EDIT; To be fair after just going and looking through the Season 1 TWW bonuses that are out now, these do look very generic and probably won’t really push any specific builds like they did in DF.
Oh nooooo!
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I’m outraged! Tell the press! Tell everyone!
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I don’t want to see tier go away. We had expansions where tier didn’t exist. It was boring.
But… in this you’re right:
I haven’t looked at them yet, my bad. I’ll check it out, thanks. 
Im fine with what ever im not running for President
Specifically for me, primordial wave as an enhancement shaman. I hate that talent so much. The storm build had such a clean rotation, why couldn’t they keep it viable?
Someday, Blizzard is going to have to explain to me why they keep designing the Shaman class around an ability from a bunch of dead people in the Shadowlands.
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From the undead zombie plague zone at that. About as far away from shamans as you can get.
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No. It goes deeper but i’ll agree it’s been a pain point throughout dragonflight.
I’m going to disagree with your assesment that deathborne doesn’t have strong synergy with frostfire. As frostfire bolt builds both types of mastery and maxing it causes additional effects, just casting it that much more often means more brainfreeze procs and comet storm. I made the mistake of assuming you weren’t wrong initially.
Ergo, there is friction if we get another gs bonus set. But i will say capstones have no business being set bonuses, period. They’re often things players want to explicitly opt in or out of because of how difficult it is to get them in the tree.