How many of you actually use Tier Set Bonuses (Affliction)

[SaltLakeAtrocity]

With the abundance of crit on tier, and the availability of non-crit off pieces (which also have the added possibilities of being thunder forged, and therefore potentially numerically better than tier as well), how many of you guys actually aim for tier 2-set or 4-set bonuses?

[Deleted]

I thought about this for affliction but decided it would probably be worth going for the set bonus. You can get the 2 set with the chest and helm, which have no crit on it (apart from that lousy socket bonus on the helm, durp). As for the shoulders, the only alternative without crit is a hard to come by trash drop that has no thunderforged or heroic equivalent. So picking up the shoulders is still one of the best options. That leaves you with only the gloves or legs to take the 'inferior' option. The set bonus does make up for one piece of gear with crit imo, although this is all guesses and not simmed.

[jaymzkerten]

I thought about this for affliction but decided it would probably be worth going for the set bonus. You can get the 2 set with the chest and helm, which have no crit on it (apart from that lousy socket bonus on the helm, durp). As for the shoulders, the only alternative without crit is a hard to come by trash drop that has no thunderforged or heroic equivalent. So picking up the shoulders is still one of the best options. That leaves you with only the gloves or legs to take the 'inferior' option. The set bonus does make up for one piece of gear with crit imo, although this is all guesses and not simmed.

Lost Shoulders of Fire

[Hatelocker]

I'm contemplating going for neither the 2 set or 4 set atm. First, the set bonuses aren't all that great and my guild is currently working on heroic Horridon. Now, once that damn dinosaur dies (should be tuesday) that means I will have access to heroic/heroic TF for hands, helm, legs and shoulders from just the first 2 bosses in the tier but only ilvl 522 tier pieces.. While they may not be itemized perfect it's still a crap ton of extra int + stats that I can reforge. Plus our set bonus is only really good for single target as the more adds the get the more shards you get thus devaluing the bonus. Also, most of my guild mates are focusing on getting their tier sets so basically I have the run of the off pieces.

[Deleted]

Lost Shoulders of Fire

I stand corrected, it was listed as trash drop in atlasloot. Still pretty hard to come by

[SaltLakeAtrocity]

I guess it comes down to whether the bonuses; 4sec longer Haunt duration and 5% MG damage; outweigh the damage bonus of much better itemization. I haven't found any reliable sim comparison (granted this whole tier is pretty anarchic simcraft wise), but intuitively it really feels weaker if you can assume you'd eventually grab a few TF pieces.

Using helm off dark animus, I'm already like 50 rating above hit cap as it is (without being able to reforge out of any more whatsoever), so tier seems off limits there until i can rid of hit rating pieces elsewhere (or get rid of the god-awful Wushoolay's trinket). I got heroic shoulders off Jin'rohk and a thunderforged normal (unfortunately crit, just to swallow my own words) chest off primordius. Still using 517 T14 gloves for haste thresholds (not much haste in this tier either o.O), and using tier pants because my only alternative are 496 ones.

In order to aim for 4 piece, which seems like the only bonus that's any kind of realistic dps gain, I'd be dropping (a)haste thresholds (b)several item levels with shoulders and chest (c)putting myself much further over hit cap than I currently am forced to live with. I'd say that's an intuitive 'no' for set bonus in my case, until I kill heroic tier bosses at least.

[Betrayerx]

I guess it comes down to whether the bonuses; 4sec longer Haunt duration and 5% MG damage

The 2 set bonus is great for openers and lets Aff sustain opening burst dmg. Being able to channel MG for 4 more seconds per Haunt means you can save shards during Dark Soul to keep Haunt up longer afterwards. You can even launch one before DS ends to get a 2 set duration haunt off. The 4 set bonus was confirmed by GC a while back on twitter to not only buff MG and Drain Soul dmg by 5% but the ghost dots as well. Seeing as 90% of Aff's dmg is dots, MG, and DS the 4 set is very strong.