Elemental Tier 16 2 Piece/4 Piece Set Bonus

[Graeye 0]

Hi all,

 

I've been scouring the internet for the past few weeks looking for an analysis of the Elemental Tier 16 2 and 4 piece set bonuses, including their effect on dps and their desirability in lieu of other (either higher ilvl or off-set) gear. 

 

The specific question I have is whether I should use the head and shoulder pieces that I got from Ordos, or stick with the LFR (upgraded to 536) Tier 16 head and shoulders for the 4 piece bonus.  Ask Mr Robot seems to think the 4 piece bonus is better, but it would be nice to have some understanding of the numerical value of the 4 piece bonus.

 

Thoughts appreciated.  Thanks.

[Stoove 347]

I'd be interested in this, too. I haven't been able to find the 4pc damage on Recount! :(

 

I definitely like the 2pc though.

[Graeye 0]

Totally agree.  And I'm not unhappy with my dps as it stands with the 4 piece bonus, either (plus the lightning elemental is cool to watch). 

 

What I really should do is run some simulations with the two different sets of gear, but I have never been able to get Simcraft to do anything more than yell at me in computer language.

[Ogudei 0]

The 4pc nets me a passive dps bonus that accounts for 1-3% of my damage done. You need to look at the stats the items give you. The tier pieces all have desirable stats for Elemental, while the pieces dropped off Ordos all have spirit, which is useless. Although the intellect on the Ordos pieces will be very desirable.

 

Your current ilvl also should be taken into account. At <540ilvl haste pulls ahead of mastery. >540ilvl mastery pulls ahead. I'd trust AMR as it's taking all of this into account.

 

The Ordos gear, in the end, is like a warforged piece of gear missing a stat. Spirit is utterly useless.

 

Also, Skada seems to take into account the lightning elementals damage done.

[kitsu 55]

the only elemental gear in SoO is the tier.

 

no matter how much crit you have, having less crit and more haste or mastery is always better. if you can stay within 1% of the hit cap, ignore the set bonuses and just gear for stats. int is reasonably strong for ele, so ordos vs raid finder gear would be good if its spirit/haste or spirit/mastery, but spirit/crit isnt an option for ele.

 

bis tier for ele is the helm, so if you get the anytoken from garrosh, get that first.

[Graeye 0]

Thanks Ogudei and Kitsu.  It's the intellect that made me wonder, despite the Spirit/Crit combo, because the difference is almost 1,000 int.  If I had the Flex versions, it would seem to be an easier call due to the secondary itemization.  So I guess I have a shopping list, at least ...  Also, I've been using recount, too, so I will switch to Skada for a bit and see what it tells me.

[kitsu 55]

if you just have no luck with flex or reg gear, and want to try crit gear, go mastery heavy with your gems and just be the add specialist, until you get more gear. crit and mastery make CL pretty awesome, but you need haste and mastery to really do any single target damage.

 

it's tough to be ele because there isnt much you can do if your gear is holding you back. once you get a full set of ele gear from any tier, it's very fun to just go from previous bis to current bis and just keep all the spirit crit gear for a heal set.

 

once you do have good gear you can sway your haste and mastery with gems, but it really doesnt affect your dps all that much. mastery is theoretically better, but every hard cast you clip by moving impacts you much harder. haste is more fun and is more kind to you if your rotation/execution isnt elite.

[Graeye 0]

Interesting idea.  I don't think anyone would accuse my rotation/execution of being elite, but I do well enough that when I pug a flex or a normal no one complains.  It's not so much bad luck as time -- I just don't have time to raid regularly at any level -- but I have the Normal tier hands and pants from the celestials paired with the LFR chest and head tier pieces, so I don't have that far to go.  I was/am curious because there really isn't a whole lot out there that I could find on the number value of the 4 piece bonus.

[kitsu 55]

yeah no one really calculates it because theres not much bonus. it adds a tiny bit of damage, but if it spawns on an add and the add dies it will just sit and patiently await it's own death. the fact that you can only have one at a time makes it so unnoticeable that the thing just scares you sometimes, even if youve had it for a while.

 

its just 1-3% of my damage. it's free bonus damage, but not much. they're always afraid that if they make ele too good no one will roll anything else, so a lot of our set bonuses are made to be easily editable flat damage procs. that way they can tune us down if we figure out a way to get on the top half of too many charts.

[SparkSovereign 61]

The elemental also stops casting if you move.  I think they used the same code as the frost mage water elemental, but we don't have the option to glyph it to cast while moving (nor would it be worth so much as a minor glyph slot even if we could).  Ignore the 4pc when evaluating your gear.  For that matter, ignore the 2pc when evaluating your gear, because in the best case it's a 4% gain but in actuality is lower due to uptime issues.  (The 2pc also works better with a mastery build than a haste build, which is one of the many reasons to pick mastery over haste when all else is equal.)

 

The reason your DPS skyrockets when you get tier gear is that the itemization on it is dramatically less awful.  The devs kinda... overreacted... to the itemization differences between Resto and Ele back in ToT, and thus we find ourselves with only about 20% of available gear not having spirit or hit on it.  (I'm much less bitter now than I have my helm, but it still stings.)  The actual bonuses themselves are to be treated as incidental bonuses, and should be completely ignored when deciding what gear to use.

 

Off the top of my head I'm willing to endorse using haste/mastery gear if it's at most 20 ilvls behind your spirit/crit gear, otherwise the Intellect gain overpowers the itemization issues.  (i.e. use flex but not raid finder in place of Ordos gear).  If there's need or want I could crunch the numbers on that a bit more and come up with something more exact, but it should be a useful rule of thumb.