When to break set bonuses?

[Schied]

Hi all, long time mage player (since vanilla) and former hardcore raider (Midwinter) but first time poster! I took a break at the start of pandaland and came back about a month before Legion and I am wondering when is the best time to break the Nighthold set bonus, maybe even set bonuses in Legion in general?

Back in the day, it was pretty straightforward, you just broke it with the next tier of content and replaced it with your new set bonus. But with things like mythic+, warforge, titanforge, I am wondering if there is a general break even point or census in the community about this. I don't have the time to really raid anything beyond normal, so my set is a mix of raid finder/normal nighthold loot with a few pieces upgraded through the rng process.

So I'm wondering if it begins to become a viable thing to break a set bonus when you get a 10 or 20 ilvl upgrade to that individual piece of armor (of course with proper stats)? Does the ilvl upgrade need to be higher? Do you need to replace 2 pieces for this to be more viable, say lose the 3rd and 4th pieces of the set to make way for 30-50 ilvl upgrades?

For example, I am currently wearing the 860 set cloak from LFR. What if I find a cloak with good stats for fire, lets say, that is ilvl 890 (which I don't actually have right now, but lets pretend). Would it make sense to swap these two out to gain the 30 ilvls but break the 4pc in the process, assuming also that I couldn't rearrange other pieces to retain the 4pc?

Oh, and if legendaries factor into the picture, you should know that mine suck. I have the Shard, Norgannon's, Belo'vir's, and Sephuz's.

This is the general sort of thing that I am wondering. Let me know what you guys think!

[House]

This is one area where sims actually do a really good job. Change the piece out and SIM the result.

[Schied]

This is one area where sims actually do a really good job. Change the piece out and SIM the result.

So just swap out the gear to break the bonus, log out, and run Simulationcraft? Man, if its that easy, then thanks!

[Forrader]

So just swap out the gear to break the bonus, log out, and run Simulationcraft? Man, if its that easy, then thanks!

It's even easier if you install ingame addon SimulationCraft - no need to log out