T7 Set Bonuses

[ramano12]

This is my first time posting here, and searched for this topic but couldn't find it. I was wondering if there was any number crunching done with the 4-piece set bonus. Would this bring another spell into an AffLock rotation? Life Tap to keep up the spirit buff? If I remember correctly it is 300 Spirit for 10 sec which would give 90 SP right? That sounds like a lot of SP to overlook, so in theorycrafting if we add this to the rotation is it worth it? Just seeing if anyone has punched any numbers up for this..

[ksem]

There is a pretty good discussion of this over at elitistjerks. It sounds like you shouldnt worry about life tapping any more than normal, but it isnt a bad dps increase.

Basically, if you know you're going to be tapping anyway, chaining the bonus means each life tap gives you more mana per tap as well as the dps increase. However, it would not be worth it to use extra GCDs to tap when it is not necessary (i.e. having lots of mana when the boss dies means you tapped too often). Starting a pull with rank1 life tap is a neat little boost though.

IMO if you don't have significantly better gear for those slots, go for the 4 bonus the extra damage cant hurt as you will be tapping anyway. Here is a link to the elitistjerks thread: http://elitistjerks.com/f80/t38476-value_4t7/

[Crusemissile]

I just got the 4 set about a week ago. and from what i can tell the 4 set is a nice passive bonus, everytime i go to lifetap for the sole purpose of the extra spell power i offset my rotations and it hurts me much more. But in my normal rotation i Lifetap once per every 2 cycles and its a nice passive bonus.

[Merc1138]

I played around with it for a bit on the target dummies, and trying to keep the 4pc bonus up all the time resulted in a dps loss vs not even bothering wearing 4 pieces in the first place. Honestly I think our set is pretty crappy for the most part other than the helm and gloves.

[dyson]

I've been analyzing some of my WWS's, and Spirit of the Damned seem to have a 20-30% uptime on bosses (lifetapping like I normally would doing nothing special to keep it up), translating to an average of just 22 spellpower throughout the fight. I think there's more gain in "doubletapping" than anything else with this bonus, ie let your mana drop to 40-50%, then do a double lifetap to get back to almost 100%.

[Prideaux]

The 4 peice bonus is not meant to be a damage increase for us its meant to be a less of a dps drop when we have to life tap.

If your using it for the fun to gain the extra spell power then stop as thats not what its designed for. With 4 peices your life tap means less of a DPS drop than compared with not having 4 peices...

Works a treat.

[lrs078]

Affliction builds benefit less from the 4x bonus simply due to having improved LT to begin with. Demo taps alot and for not very much so the 4x helps it more. (ie few taps/time getting mana back more time dps'ing) Deep destro I'd take the full 5 in soul/imp soul leech so less tapping there. The 2 set bonus is nicer imo. For an afflock I'd only go for the 2 and stack best in slot elsewhere. A demonologist (including the hybrids 0/41/30 and 0/30/40+1) I'd recommend 4x bonus.

Honestly I think the 4x bonus is more to help locks w' their new spirit addiction as a stat than anything. As higher item budgets allow more balanced gear in the future it will be less of an issue. Until then go for the bonus or have fun fighting the holy priests for gear. (more than we do already anyhow)

EJ can give you all the math you want though if you are one of those folks. If you are replacing just one slot....lose the T7 chest and get the gown of the spellweaver or heigan's putrid vestments....imo the best in slot atm depending on your personal flavor.

[rodobson]

I never understand why people try to see a BONUS as something that should compare to OMG GAMEBREAKING. Locks life tap no matter what, adding spirit and thus spellpower derived from it is to help offset the wasted GCD, it is not a buff large enough to warrant basing a rotation around. Our sets are fine, some classes have it worse.

[JustNa55ty]

Have you ever though of not using the biggest life tap all the time?

I have 3 hotkeyed

Biggest
Med
and lowest

[dyson]

Have you ever though of not using the biggest life tap all the time?

I have 3 hotkeyed

Biggest
Med
and lowest

Other than for PvP, why the hell would you do that?