Have a quick question that (with my limited understanding of the none melee classes) i was hoping some of the more experianced raiders here could help me with.

Our guild has a bit of a problem in that only paladins seem to be interested in one half of the AQ set pieces and only rogues/warriors in the other so we're leaving some to rot :( With the way our dkp system currently works this may well be because people are saving dkp for naxx (We're looking at converting to a EJ style of upgrade pricing, but it takes time to work out all the complications) but i was wondering if anyone could give a definative guide on which sets are upgrades (Raid PVE wise) for their respective classes?

Im aware DD is a clear upgrade, and Conq is a nice dps/tank mix afaik. Oracle seems very PvP orientated and Genesis seems... erm, wang? What about the other sets? Anyone got any numbers on them that i can show to guildies who are uncertain about getting them?

(We're alliance, farming C'thun happily, the easy 5 down in naxx so far, incase that helps)

Cheers :) Will look more into the number of those that 'like' then and try and work out why they arent taking em :)

Since most likely items are known in both Naxx and AQ, consider this approach:

1. Develop a price structure for the "best of class" items for each slot. The officers should do this. Base these prices on the amount of churn that you intend for your system.
2. Publish this set list. Then, use polling of either class leaders or the general guild to determine relative reasonable prices as compared to the "best of class" items. For example, how much is a AQ chest worth compared to a naxx chest? You MAY need (want) to use the same price for each set token as opposed to the end reward - so perhaps price the shoulders and feet for 4 classes the same using som compromise figure.

If this dosent work to your satisfaction, and you feel guild progress is stinted by people passing upgrades for de'ing, then consider a forced looting approach. Particularlly for DPS classes.

If you are a small-medium guild with limited control of class compositions in raids, you may want to encourage forced looting (at lower DKP prices) of the gear for all classes simply because there may be times in naxx where you absolutely need some traditional healing classes contributing to DPS. People may scoff at this, but you will realize they are wrong the first time you try to do a double gargoyle pull and you have a healer heavy raid mix with minimal people on the waitlist to tweak composition.

Realistically, just about every class should want thier AQ set pieces. For many the entire set or at least several pieces are raiding upgrades from BWL. Everyone else will want them just to use for leveling to 70.

Netherwind vs Enigma.

Stereotypical mage with full BWL loot:

http://ctprofiles.net/2553307

For all intents and purposes let's say they're running 30 Arcane/21 Frost (Frost specs without Arcane Instability will do a little less damage) and no outside factors such as Winter's Chill, Brilliant Wizard Oil, etc.

Assume a +5% damage bonus adjustment for 8 piece Netherwind.

Flat (noncrit) DPS: 458.13
Crit-factored DPS: 523.27

Same mage, just swap out the relevant 5 pieces for Enigma.

http://ctprofiles.net/2553385

Flat (noncrit) DPS: 444.13
Crit-factored DPS: 511.05

However, that's somewhat foolish - let's swap in the C'Thun and exalted Bronze Dragonflight rings (since it's no guarantee your raid will ever see Ritssyn's), and the best of the other available loot from the zone in the other slots.

http://ctprofiles.net/2553615

Flat (noncrit) DPS: 461.91
Crit-factored DPS: 534.73

There are some big intangibles, though: streakiness of the Netherwind proc, +hit, crit rate, mob resists and mlvl. A fully enchanted Netherwind mage is only going to have +5% hit from equipment and no more. The Enigma mage will have +7% hit from equipment and will get more on demand as he needs it; the maxed-out Enigma mage will have +9% hit from equipment, and more as he needs it.

Let's assume the Netherwind mage gets no Netherwind procs in a given fight:

Flat (noncrit) DPS: 436.31
Crit-factored DPS: 498.35

Also, if Netherwind procs less than 10% of the time in a long fight, he will inevitably do less DPS than his Enigma-geared counterpart since the net DPS gain will be lower than 5%.

Another thing to take into consideration is that Netherwind procs eat mana faster (unless of course you happen to get Clearcasting at the same time). If you're forced to burn mana timers faster, you hasten its emptying, and once you're dry you're going to be wasting time regenning mana and losing DPS.

The third intangible is crit rate. Critical strike can be pretty streaky and some people just have better luck with landing them than others. That factor is entirely out of anyone's control.

Mob resists: if the mob has frost resist the person with the Enigma set is going to have the advantage. With just some quick calculations the bearer of Enigma will land around 12% more spells on a frost resistant mob than one without Enigma.

Final factor: mob level. There are persistent rumors that Kel is level 64. If that ends up true in empirical testing that means his to-hit is 72% (disregarding any frost resist/immunity he may have). Again, due to the stacking +%hit buff the mage with Enigma is going to have a decided advantage.

I completely understand why people are reluctant to give up Netherwind. The "I win" buff is extremely alluring and hard to ignore. However the math simply shows that with proper gearing the Enigma mage will over time outdamage a Netherwind mage given similar gear.

Take this with a grain of salt if you must. I do not have 8 piece Netherwind and have never been able to do any testing with it. I probably will not still have it until months down the line from now (if ever) due to being locked out of the last 3 pieces I don't have. Also, fuck the drakes and their lousy ass glove dropping system.

If I ever go after the hunter 2.5 set, I will want to either wear all of it, or none of it. There is a slight increase in stats, but the reduced cooldown on Rapid Fire is the only attractive option in my mind, worth spending the dkp for. Plus the fact that you want to spend dkp on other things like C'thun's cloak, Barb of the Sand Reaver and Huhuran's Stinger.

Any warlock who doesn't want 5-piece Doomcaller isn't paying attention to how they spend their time in boss fights.

No, the individual pieces aren't a big upgrade. Nemesis hat + ZG enchant is pretty much exactly equal to Doomcaller's Circlet without. DC boots are meh. Overall it's hard to justify breaking up 3-piece Nemesis for Doomcaller stuff (I still haven't). But the five-piece set bonus is simply irreplaceable.

In another thread on here I did some calculations about fights like Patchwerk, where we're expected to DPS non-stop. With no downtime, Life Tap becomes a huge timesink. I figured I spent almost 20% of a given fight spamming Life Tap instead of Shadow Bolt. That's a significant drop in DPS, more than a few choice bits of gear can overcome.

Enter the 15% Shadow Bolt cost reduction. That means nearly 15% less Life Tapping, or 3% more of the total fight DPSing. In a 6-minute fight, that's 10.8 seconds' worth of Shadow Bolts, or 4 complete casts, at least 4,400 damage for me - and I don't have Ruin or a great deal of +crit gear. Overall it's a 12.2 DPS upgrade on Patchwerk, equivalent (in a 0% crit environment) to 42.8 +damage. Given that individual pieces of Doomcaller are generally better than or equal to their Nemesis counterparts, Doomcaller is a vastly superior loadout to use in mana-intensive fights.

I assumed no Flask of Supreme Power in those numbers (because lately, Gurg only brings enough for the mages :angry: ), and of course crits would further increase the value of Doomcaller. Regardless, that should give you some idea just how good DC is in boss fights longer than 2-3 minutes.

I don't think comparing bwl rings/necks/capes to the upgrades in AQ in a comparison in upgrades in damage from 8/8 NW to 5/5 Enigma is exactly fair.

With elemental precision the 5/5 enigma bonus really doesn't add that much damage over the course of a boss fight, with full NW it's possible to achieve 9% hit which is a 98% hit rate on bosses.

The only think you really can compare is the mana efficiency of the NW procs, and how much +dmg/crit you have to gain to warrant breaking the 8/8 NW. There are also fights where full NW hurts on mana (Nef, C'thun, Anub, Patchwerk, Grobbulus, Gluth, Maexxna) that you'd be better off using a collection of random damage epics and Enigma's spirit/mp5.

Rogue Set is definitely a dps upgrade. The 5 parts bonus becomes more interesting with the review and evis becomes a more viable finisher as soon as the fights includes a lot of movement from and towards the target. The only problem is that the incentive in our lootsystem to get this set is negative. (yes, our dkp system sucks more everytime I think about it....we nearly sharded archimtros last sunday though it only went to a hunter, a pally and a tank...nobody else wanted it).

Im not sure how you figure Netherwind 8/8 on a forst spec mage adds 5% dmg. I can understand on a fire mage, due to inst pyro and longer casting time on fireballs, but frost mages cant get a 5% overall dps buff from netherwind focus. A frost spec mage has a 2.0 cast on frostbolt, and the global cooldown which gets invoked on a netherwind instafrostbolt is 1.5 seconds. So everytime netherwind focus procs, you net a 0.5 cast time difference on Netherwind. That gives you a net 5% dps upgrade?

For me the big thing about enigma is the pieces make the set, not the set bonus.
For NW its basicaly the other way around, the 8peices set bonus makes the set.

Thus when im picking up frostfire pieces(well the few im picking, need more non-set pieces), its an immediate upgrade in power, where a mage with NW is stuck using his NW full set until a few pieces or he goes down in power because he has to use shitty nw pieces (helm shoulders bracers belt comes to mind)