Haste vs. spellpower

[Jr]

Hey,

the affliction 3.3 raiding guide, and various random players tell me spellpower is better than haste. When I check the guildox list, it actually values haste higher than spellpower.

I heard there's some 'magic number' after which haste becomes better than spellpower. Is this true? Can someone clear this up for me?

[gherkin]

3300, no buffs (not even fel armor)

I'm at iLVL 260 on average, and sitting at 2975 or so. You'll need iLVL 277 to reach this number, or dual +sp trinkets.


Edit: Having a hard time recreating this number using 3.3.3 SimCraft. I'm starting to believe the Life Tap change may have altered this.

[Jr]

Thanks, I will stay with spellpower as my priority then as I won't get that kind of gear.

What stat weights do you use for your gear setup as affliction?

And, why does haste become better after this specific amount of spellpower?

[gherkin]

I simcraft my own, but if you want some generic ones:

(Accurate ~enough~ for 3.3.3)
SP 1.9
Haste 1.8
Crit 1.1
Spir 1.1
Int 0.6

And Haste scales like this because it is +% Damage while Spell Power is +# Damage. 1% Haste is basically 1% dps, so once your dps hits a certain mark, it is more beneficial to increase your overall damage by 1% than it is by X Spell Power. I can't give an example because 1% Haste is not exactly 1% dps. It's more like .75% dps, but the moral of the story is that at over 11000 dps you start gemming for haste because it is a larger return due to this percentile nature.

However, as per my edit above, I don't know if this is the case in 3.3.3 anymore. SP affecting our Life Taps as well may have pushed the switchover number so high that it is unreachable.

[Deleted]

...Haste scales like this because it is +% Damage while Spell Power is +# Damage. 1% Haste is basically 1% dps, so once your dps hits a certain mark, it is more beneficial to increase your overall damage by 1% than it is by X Spell Power. I can't give an example because 1% Haste is not exactly 1% dps. It's more like .75% dps, but the moral of the story is that at over 11000 dps you start gemming for haste because it is a larger return due to this percentile nature.

I don't think that's quite accurate.

Going 0-1% haste is a dps increase of exactly 1% (or rather 1% of the dps component which comes from haste affeted spells).

Going 50-51% haste is a dps increase of 0.66%, subject to the same conditions as before.

Spell power works in exactly the same way. The reason why different stats are quoted in different fashions is roughly as follows:

SP - always quoted as a rating and never a percentage. This is because the percentage gain due to Spellpower is determined on a spell by spell basis, so the percentages would be different for each spell. However, it is possible, for any particular spell to arrive at a particular value for spellpower which represents a 1% gain in damage.

Haste - quoted as rating in your stats which is then turned into a percentage. This is because all haste on gear is added to give a total rating which applies to your gear. This represents a % increase in cast speed. However, haste from other sources, such as BL or backdraft which is quoted as % increases are then applied to this multiplicatively. (If you have 20% haste then during BL you will have 44% haste, not 40%.)

Crit - quoted as a percentage in your stats since crit gains are always additive.

[Jr]

Thanks a lot both of you.

By the way, those stat weights, if I am under the hit cap should I put hit on 1.0?

[gherkin]

I disagree on the Haste portion. Any 1% gain below any sort of a soft cap is a flat out X% dps increase, regardless of going 0-1% or going 9-10% or even 49-50%. After the softcap it starts going down in value.

Cast 100 spells, 100% damage
Cast 102 spells, 102% damage, depending on crits on these last two spells.
Casting 150 spells, 150% damage, depending on crits again.

Thanks a lot both of you.

By the way, those stat weights, if I am under the hit cap should I put hit on 1.0?

Hit should always be valued at two different numbers: 1.0 and 3.0

You use 1.0 if you are at or near the cap. You use 3.0 if you are in desperate need of hit gear. You specifically should never have to use the 3.0 number because you're at a sufficiently high enough gear level.

[Jr]

Thanks.

I have too little knowledge about these calculative things yet, so I will leave this discussion open for you.

[Bakis]

haste for the win, both in pvp and in pve(heroic)

[Deleted]

I disagree on the Haste portion. Any 1% gain below any sort of a soft cap is a flat out X% dps increase, regardless of going 0-1% or going 9-10% or even 49-50%. After the softcap it starts going down in value.

Yeah. I don't disagree with that. I wasn't really thinking about caps at all, I was purely talking about the fact that if x haste rating represents 1% haste, this is a y% dps increase only if you don't have any haste already. If you're already casting at 150% of base casting speed, the same x haste rating is only worth 0.66y% dps (ignoring all caps), since it's 1% of your base casting speed, not your current (this only applies to additive haste effects, i.e. +N haste as opposed to things like BL, which are +M% cast speed and which are multiplicative). in the same way SP and crit suffer 'diminishing returns' - purely due to the fact that 1% of whatever is a lesser proportion of (100 + x)% than it is of 100%. (x>0 ofc)