Prot tier 15 ... Am I missing something ?

Hello guys,

I was looking at my gear strategy on AskMrRobot and it came up with Tier 15 items... I must be missing something here, because I think that the tier 15 set bonus are, simply put, completely awful and useless.

So am I just being dumb here or is AMR simply giving me bad information ?

Thanks !

Theck did a nice analysis of the bonuses a while back http://sacredduty.net/2013/01/24/protec ... t-bonuses/

The short short version is: 4-piece is good, and probably worth getting. But the 2-piece is probably at best a “meh.” It lowers the opportunity cost of having to use WoG, which is probably good because SotR is such a huge amount of mitigation to give up.

Personally I can't decide how soon I'll try to get the tier, will depend a lot on what non tier drops and how badly our priests and holy pally want the tokens.

I did see somewhere, where someone mentioned they were able to get the 100% uptime on the 2p bonus and still use SotR to a great success. Let me see if I can find that again.

edit: I may have thought I read that in a late night valor capping stupor. At worst, the 2P would let Divine Purpose be a little better, being able to cast SotR and proc the 2P bonus right after.

Wonder if I can get Theck to figure out the HoPo/sec with 11k haste unbuffed would be in a boss fight.

3.57 CD on CS --> 1/3.57 = 0.28 hopo/s
4.77 CD on J --> 1/4.77 = 0.20 hopo/s
GC ~ every 20 s = 0.05 hopo/s

=> approximately 0.53 holy power per second at 11000 haste rating (25.9% haste). So you would expect to be able to cast a finisher about every 5.66 seconds.

I don't get why people say the tier bonus is awful.

I agree its not imba but for panic situations where you are having to use WoG to keep yourself alive, it's pretty useful.

It's why i prefer on use trinkets, even if they are are a little less effective over the course of the whole fight, I have them up when I need them rather than a proc when I am at 100% health and healers are not behind on raid healing.

Theck and had a bit of a back and forth on his recent Sacred Duty post about my biggest concern with the tier pieces, which isn't so much their generally shoddy itemization or the awesomeness/mediocrity of the set bonuses, it's that they're no longer competing with offset pieces of the same item level. Thunderforged 528 gear has a not insignificant amount of additional stamina and armor on it, and that's before you consider the fact that there are equally or better itemized non-tier pieces in all five slots. He's indicated he'll be simulating the 4 piece value compared to the survival stat loss for not using superior 528 gear, and I hope he's got some way to ponder the 2 piece as well (since, based on my napkin math, the 2 piece is much more attainable since the tier shoulders are excellent). Stay tuned.

Fetzie wrote:3.57 CD on CS --> 1/3.57 = 0.28 hopo/s
4.77 CD on J --> 1/4.77 = 0.20 hopo/s
GC ~ every 20 s = 0.05 hopo/s

=> approximately 0.53 holy power per second at 11000 haste rating (25.9% haste). So you would expect to be able to cast a finisher about every 5.66 seconds.

J is not a 6-second cooldown. It's a 6.75-second effective cooldown because of CS clashes, and thus turns into a 6.75/1.2588=5.36 second cooldown with 11k haste.

Alternatively, it's just easier to think in terms of unhasted values.
CS HoPo = 1.12/4.5 = 0.2489 HP/sec (including GC procs from CS/HotR, hence 1.12 instead of 1)
J HoPo = 1/6.75 = 0.1481 HP/sec
GC: assuming 30% avoidance, it's a 12% chance per avoid, or 0.12*0.3=0.036=3.6% chance per boss swing. For a 1.5-second swing timer, that's 0.036/1.5=0.024 HP/sec (nearly negligible, and worse for longer swing timers, time off-target, or bosses that pause to cast).

Net HP gen at 0 haste: 0.2489+0.1481+0.024=0.4210 HP/sec, which is also your SotR uptime (42.10%).

Net HP gen at 11k haste (25.88% haste): (0.2489+0.1481)*1.2588+0.024=0.5237, or 52.37% SotR uptime. (note that the avoidance contribution to GC does not scale with haste).

Hard choice !
Should I keep Lightning Emperor's Faceguard which gives me the 4p bonus, or replace it with the Puncture-Proof Greathelm that I just got ?

I like the 4p bonus, but that's a big ilvl difference even with the double avoidance stats.

I've been passing all of our tier over to the others in the raid on our token. I find both tier bonuses to be pretty meh at least in the 10H scene.

I'm stuck on the same question (for multiple toons/specs). I have a few pieces of 502 that could replace some 483 tier, and even 522 nonsets for 496 set pieces. At what point are the raw stat upgrades better than the set bonuses? Cause Mr Robot seems to reaaaaaally value the set bonuses over ilvl.

I reckon that as soon as you see ~20 item level difference, screw set bonuses unless they are godly awesome (and T14 aren't).

culhag wrote:Hard choice !

What did you end up deciding? I'd argue that d/p points are far inferior to xpt/mast+4pc, but good god that's a huge chunk of ilvl, and a gigantic stamina boost.

Stubblerump wrote:At what point are the raw stat upgrades better than the set bonuses?

Depends on the class/bonus. I'm really, really loathe to give up the t14 4pc on my priest, but I ditched paladin t14 set bonuses while it was still current.

fuzzygeek wrote:

culhag wrote:Hard choice !

What did you end up deciding? I'd argue that d/p points are far inferior to xpt/mast+4pc, but good god that's a huge chunk of ilvl, and a gigantic stamina boost.

Stubblerump wrote:At what point are the raw stat upgrades better than the set bonuses?

Depends on the class/bonus. I'm really, really loathe to give up the t14 4pc on my priest, but I ditched paladin t14 set bonuses while it was still current.

Meh,with all the SotR-able specials in this tier i'm not so sure ditching t14-4 is that easy

At least,I'm still sitting on it even with 2p t15 and an offset helm in my bag

Fenris wrote:At least,I'm still sitting on it even with 2p t15 and an offset helm in my bag

Try farm content without the 4pc bonus and see if it makes a noticeable difference. If your healers can't tell which set you're wearing, it might be okay to swap pieces out.

fuzzygeek wrote:

culhag wrote:Hard choice !

What did you end up deciding? I'd argue that d/p points are far inferior to xpt/mast+4pc, but good god that's a huge chunk of ilvl, and a gigantic stamina boost.

I've kept the 4p bonus for now (I really like the free HoPo) but the question is still nagging me.

I think I'll make the switch if I can get a heroic piece to replace another normal tier piece at the same time.

Personally I think that situationally the T15-2pc bonus in conjunction with the Holy Avenger talent can allow one to be virtually immune to physical damage for 20 secs every 2 mins, which isn't too bad on physical fights (Horridon Tank), but close to useless on More Magic fights (Megaera-Red Tank).

Holy Avenger guarantees SotR uptime for 18-20 secs (I have used it excluseivley this xpac for that reason), and can easily accommodate a couple WoGs for the T15-2pc which would bring a geared tank close to being Block capped. 25% (nerfed) Block + 50+% SotR is an insane physical wall for 20secs every 2min, or more if you manage HP well. I personally suspect that is WHY they nerfed Pally block in 5.3

You are already practically immune to damage with HA up though.

I think the prot tier bonuses are not really a concern whatsoever this tier, because the itemization of non-set pieces is simply too good. The 2-piece seems to have some situational strength (that's not really entirely necessary though), but I'm very concerned that the 4-piece is not consistent with the control/haste playstyle, specifically on fights with telegraphed physical specials to mitigate.

If there weren't specials to bank holy power for, the 4-piece would seem very strong insofar as throughput dmg reduction on average, but the playstyle I use for a lot of bosses this tier is to bank 5 HoPo and spend only within 3 sec of the next HoPo generator coming up, so as to guarantee coverage of any physical boss specials, and using extra HoPo generation in-between to smooth out regular melee dmg intake. The prot 4-piece seems to incentivize spending below 5 so as to minimize wasting HoPo gains, which is something that I would routinely employ suboptimally, and I personally would much rather go for better haste itemization to support that playstyle.

Going 2-piece is very viable simply because the head and shoulders are reasonably well-itemized (and there really aren't better alternatives), but as far as the other slots, it's fairly obvious that the ret tier chestpiece is the best choice, for pants the ones that drop of Dorumu, and gloves the ones that drop of Primordius.

I personally ran with 2-piece on gloves and pants early on because of extremely good luck with coin rolls, but quickly replaced those slots with more optimal secondaries.

Hrobertgar wrote:Holy Avenger guarantees SotR uptime for 18-20 secs (I have used it excluseivley this xpac for that reason), and can easily accommodate a couple WoGs for the T15-2pc which would bring a geared tank close to being Block capped. 25% (nerfed) Block + 50+% SotR is an insane physical wall for 20secs every 2min, or more if you manage HP well. I personally suspect that is WHY they nerfed Pally block in 5.3

1) The T15 2-piece bonus does not get you anywhere near block-capped.
2) They did not nerf paladin block at all in 5.3, they nerfed SotR's base mitigation.