Hey ho,

Warning: This post will have spoilers.

the 8.2 PTR was uploaded and many new things are emerging. I want to take a minute to collect all promising effects in this post and highlight some of the potential synergies for our spec. If I missed a synergy, tell me about it on Discord.

Disclaimer: This post is about synergies. Nothing described here is in any way, shape, or form an outlook at future dps.

General Information

Once 8.2 hits, we’ll get a call from Magni Bronzebeard. He’ll let us talk with MOTHER, who will introduce us to the new Azerite related mechanic. Head, Shoulders, and Chest will stay the same as now and all new pieces will be fully unlocked, too. But now our necklace can and will be enhanced. For that we’ll collect heart of azeroth essences from various sources. Some sources are even achievements.

Once you got some of these essences you can use the Heart Forge next to Magni and MOTHER to freely switch between these powers. As you’ll notice in the next chapter each essence has a major and a minor effect. The necklace has ultimately one major and two minor slots (one minor slot at first and a second one at Azerite level 65). The essence in the major slot has its major and minor effect activated. Minor slots activate only the minor effect of an essence.

Options

Name Main effect Minor effect
Spec specific    
Memory of Lucid Dreams Clear your mind and attune yourself with the Heart of Azeroth, increasing your Maelstrom generation rate by 100%, and your Leech by 874, for 10 sec. 3 minutes CD, instant cast Your spells and abilities have a chance to refund 50% of the Maelstrom spent on them and immediately heal you for 10,860. When Lucid Dreams refunds some Maelstrom to you, gain 543 Versatility for 8 sec.
Vision of Perfection Your spells and abillities have a chance to activate Fire Elemental for 50% of its base duration. When the Vision of Perfection activates, the cooldown of Fire Elemental is reduced by 10 sec. Reduces the cooldown of Fire Elemental by 16.5% and increases your Versatility by 85. When you activate Fire Elemental, immediately heal for 5% of maximum health.
General    
Blood of the Enemy The Heart of Azeroth erupts violently, dealing 38,825 Shadow damage to enemies within 12 yds. You gain 25% critical strike chance against the targets for 15 sec. Increases your critical hit damage by 35% for 15 sec. 1.5 minutes CD, instant cast Your critical strikes with spells and abilities grant a stack of Blood of the Enemy. Upon reaching 25 stacks, you gain 1,052 Haste for 12 sec. Each stack of Blood of the Enemy grants 29 Critical Strike. Blood of the Enemy has a 25% chance of only consuming 15 stacks.
Crucible of Flame Blast your target with a ball of concentrated flame, dealing 21,720 Fire damage to an enemy or healing an ally for 21,720 and granting you Ancient Flame for 5 sec. Each cast of Concentrated Flame deals double damage or healing of the last. This bonus resets after every third cast. Max 2 charges. 30 seconds CD, instant cast Your spells and abilities have a chance to grant you Ancient Flame for 10 sec, increasing your Critical Strike by 150 and your Leech by 64, and causing your damage and healing spells to engulf their target in cleansing flame for an additional 10% of the damage or healing done over 4 sec.
The Unbound Force Unleash the forces within the Heart of Azeroth, causing shards of Azerite to strike your target for 12,225 Fire damage over 2 sec. This damage is increased by 300% if it critically strikes and has a 25% increased critical strike chance. Each time The Unbound Force causes a critical strike, it immediately strikes the target with an additional Azerite shard, up to a maximum of 5. 1 minute CD, instant cast Each time you critical strike, you gain a stack of Reckless Force, up to 7. Every 10 sec, your next spell or ability will blast your target with a bolt of Azerite energy, dealing 758 Fire damage per stack of Reckless Force.

This is not an complete list. The listed essences are the ones I deem synergistic with something else from our toolkit. Let me know if I overlooked one.

Synergies

Memory of Lucid Dreams Minor + (Aftershock) + Surge of Power

  • More Maelstrom is more Maelstrom is more Maelstrom, which fuels Surge of Power and its Lightning Bolt and Lava Burst effects. As you’ll see soon enough going for the Lava Burst effect might become interesting…
  • On another note…who doesn’t want gambling to make a come back in a different form? This time we could combine Maelstrom resets from Aftershock with this essence to get a refund of up to 90 MS. But even if those procs don’t happen at the same time, as long as we don’t choose Storm Elemental and Primal Elementalist, more Maelstrom in combination with the Lava Burst effect from Surge of Power means more Fire Elemental, which means more Maelstrom from Flame Shock ticks. Do you see the loop? During legion the “more Maelstrom” came from Ascendance to create a positive feedback loop.

Vision of Perfection Major + Echo of the Elementals

  • Each randomly activated Fire Elemental/Storm Elemental summons the tiny Elementals from the Azerite Trait at the end of their own lifetime. A known issue is the talent Primal Elementalist for this essence, because the talent transforms our guardian into a pet and a player can have only one pet active at any moment. This leads to a despawn of the original elemental AND the essence one if the original was active when the proc happened.

Blood of the Enemy Major + Ascendance

  • Aligning 2 CDs which benefit from each other is always a powerful option. Ascendance makes us cast (almost) only critting spells, and these benefit from increased critical strike chance and increased critical strike damage. Having to stand next to the target to hit them with the essence is a pain, though.

Blood of the Enemy Minor + Mastery: Elemental Overload + (Echo of the Elements)

  • Might be a bug on PTR, but this effect stacks from Flame Shock critical ticks and all critical Overloads. Dot many things, cast overloading, criting spells, voilà.

Crucible of Flame Minor

  • Not necessarily a real synergy, but increasing damage by flat out X% (even if it’s only for a limited duration) is a really powerful effect.

The Unbound Force Major/Minor + our critical strike chance

  • A weak synergy but a synergy nonetheless. We’re quite likely sticking to stacking crit, which benefits both effects of this essence. Casting more Lava Burst benefits its minor effect some more.

Conclusion

I’m excited to follow the development of our two spec specific essences. Maybe we’ll be able (or forced, depending on your viewpoint) to combine them to create something much more powerful.

A potential big synergistic combination could be:

Master of the Elements is probably the weakest of the bunch. This build might not allow the necessary freedom to cast Lava Burst before Earth Shock, because the primary goal is to reduce the CD of Fire Elemental further and further.

Let me know what you think, take care, and have fun.

Yours sincerely,
Bloodmallet(EU)