Food, flasks, etc?

[almightybooka]

Hey guys,
Any advice on what food and flasks are best value for a prot pally just starting N raids?
TY in advance

[Skye1013]

I'd imagine that would be answered by the following (theck/treck/whomever else might have better knowledge, feel free to correct me):

1) Are you hit/expertise capped? If no, hit/exp (though if you're geared enough for raiding, I'd imagine this probably won't be an issue)
2) Does the boss consistently burst you down (even with optimal SotR?) Stamina
3) Is the boss primarily physical or magical damage?
- Physical: Mastery or Haste
- Magical: Stamina

[almightybooka]

Thanks for the reply.
I was guessing stamina was always going to be the most likely, but for a small 10m guild we're finding flasks in general rather expensive to supply. It would be interesting to see how much you lose by choosing the (generally) cheaper elixir option, if anything. Of course, persisting through death is worth considering for progression content.

[Skye1013]

Persisting through death and swapping from boss to boss (as I'm sure some people do) will cause their values to definitely change quite a bit. Honestly, I think it's easier/cheaper to swap the food buffs, so maybe stick with stam flasks and vary your food buff based on the fight.

[theckhd]

Remember that you only get Stamina or another stat from food now, not both. Stam flask + Stam food seems like the reasonable "default" option. You'll be able to hit/exp cap pretty easily in ilvl 470+ gear.

[daishan]

How valuable do you think the armour elixir is? Think someone said it's got a lower budget than it had, but then it's the only way to get more armour besides higher ilvl items.

[theckhd]

I think armor is now budgeted at 3:1 instead of 4:1 like it was in cataclysm. That said, I'm sure the armor elixir is good; armor+mastery or armor+haste is probably the budget option for consumables. The flask is quite a lot better though.

[Extermi]

At least according to my character sheet, the armor elixir increases the DR from 51% to a bit more than 52%, thus cutting the post-armor damage by ~2%, which is not bad. I use this together with mastery/haste elixir and STA food, yet for more than LFR and 10N raids you will problably not want to miss the raw HP the flask offers (roughly 5% of total HP).