So Mythic have changed a couple of bits for different classes (primarily removing the WS upgrade for the DPS set for Chosen and Swordmasters, and changing how things proc). It doesn't overly affect how the sets work for us, but gives me a good excuse to look back on the sets with a bit more time.
The new sets look like the following:
(Primary) Defensive Set
Tou - 232
Wou - 134
Init - 116
Str - 106
Spi - 294
Cor - 289
Ele - 289
6% reduced chance to be crit
4% block
60 hp/4s
4 AP/s
2% reduced armor penetration
3 piece - 85 Tou
4 piece - 85 Wou
5 piece - 200 HP/4s
6 piece - On Being Attacked: 10% chance to reduce all damage you take by 6% for 10s.
7 piece - On Being Attacked: 10% chance to increase parry/block/disrupt/dodge by 10% for 10s.
8 piece - 2m cooldown - Up to 9 targets within a 20 foot radius have their movement speed reduced by 60% for 5s.
(Secondary) Offensive Set
Str - 232
WS - 134
Tou - 116
Wou - 106
Spi - 294
Cor - 289
Ele - 289
6% melee crit chance
40 melee power
4% parry strikethrough
3 AP/s
2% parry
3 piece - 85 Str
4 piece - 85 Wou
5 piece - 5% DPS
6 piece - On Hit: 10% chance to increase melee power by 130 for 10s.
7 piece - On Hit: 10% chance to increase parry/block strikethrough by 10% for 10s.
8 piece - 2m cooldown - Up to 9 allies within a 20 foot radius have their movement speed increased by 60% for 5s.
If you compare this to our current sovereign set.
Tou - 224
Wou - 100
WS - 99
Init - 20
Str - 103
WP - 8
Spi - 294
Cor - 289
Ele - 289
3 morale per second
2% block
2% parry strikethrough
4% melee crit
2% reduced armor penetration
3 AP/s
3% reduced chance to be crit
3 piece - 85 Str
4 piece - 85 Wou
5 piece - 5% Melee crit
6 piece - On Hit: 10% chance to lower all of targets resistances by 200 for 10 seconds.
7 piece - On Hit: 25% chance to steal 80 toughness from your target for 10 seconds.
8 piece - 2m cooldown - Defensive target will absorb 487 damage over 10 seconds.
Both new sets are a lot more appealing but can they replace for example a Sov/Warlord/Invader combo set for 3x strength bonus? Without knowing the exact numbers on pieces I'd have to say yes. Using the triple strength stack (without talismans but including the Shroud of Assassins) you are receiving +376 strength without any set piece bonuses other than the + to strength. The DPS set, using all 8 pieces will grant you +317 strength but with +40 melee power added and a 5% DPS bonus. The DPS bonus is always hard to work out but with high end gear I'm sure it will add a few more points onto the damage bonus.
As for replacing a defensive/tanking set that's more tricky. For PvE tanking there's a lot more pieces out there which have better effect in PvE as well as some of the procs and bonuses being pointless. Toughness has NO effect in PvE at all for anything of any use and thus should be completely ignored, so you lose your first set piece and in effect 232 stat points. Wounds and HP regen is nice as is the parry/block proc. The 6% damage reduction proc is too low to be worth anything when you're getting cleaved for 4000 damage. Overall the defensive set is NOT for PvE tanking so don't use it as such.
Well how about the defensive set being useful for RvR? Much better yes. In scenarios I still prefer to run a more offensive build (triple str stack for example) so for scenarios I'll be sticking with the offensive set, for open RvR out in the lakes running with the warband it's much more interesting to look at the set. Multiple targets hitting you with AoE will set the defensive procs off enough to keep it up (though that also depends on internal cooldown), add in the AoE snare and general survivability with toughness, wounds, reduction in being crit and block and you have a good open RvR set.
Overall though, it's looking good. For single target DPS, scenarios etc I'll be running with a Sov set, though I might swap out a couple of pieces as the parry strikethrough I don't rate too much with the low proc rate and the speed boost while I like it, it will depend if I can fit in the invader two piece bonus (+72 strength) which I'd prefer or the Ferocity of the Crocodile set (+90 melee power).
