DoT haste breakpoints?

[Deleted]

Heya, been checking shadowpriest.com and I found it to be a complete mess atm with random info spread all over the place 3.3.5 info, 4.0.1 info post nerf/prenerf and beta info all entangled within each other. Since I don't follow every thread and post there religiously (spriest is my alt), I gave up trying to find any meaningful answer to this question.

Anyway here goes:

What are the current haste breakpoints for our dots? Like for each dot, how much haste rating would I need to add an extra tick.

Any charts been made to give an overview of this?

---------- Post added 2010-10-30 at 04:54 AM ----------

[/COLOR]Well the info is completely scattered around the different forums, some is in the old forums, some is in the cataclysm forums, some is hidden away in random discussion threads, most of the info is not even stickied or been added to the FAQs.

So yea, finding the info you need there isn't very intuitive, most of the FAQs have old and misleading information.

Anyway I just looked at that post you referred to

%haste unbuff (rating needed with 5% buff and 3% talent, multiplicatives)
#base_ticks -> +1 tick - +2 - +3 - +4 - +5
4 -> 12.50% (0132) - 37.50% (0890) - 62.50% (1648) - ...
5 -> 10.00% (0056) - 30.00% (0663) - 50.00% (1268) - 70.00% (1876) - ...
6 -> 08.34% (0006) - 25.00% (0511) - 41.67% (1017) - 58.34% (1522) - ...
8 -> 06.25% (0000) - 18.75% (0322) - 31.25% (0701) - 43.75% (1080) - 56.25% (1459)

How do I know this information is accurate? and if it is, how do I know what the base ticks of my three dots are? I dont have access to wow, so cant strip naked and check.

[Worshaka]

As far as I understand things, if you have x amount of haste that isnt enough for an extra tick you still reduce the duration of the spell by the applicable amount... that would seem to me to imply haste scales linearly and these points where extra ticks occur can be ignored.

---------- Post added 2010-10-30 at 09:19 PM ----------

Keep in mind that what I mean is the duration of the spell is reduced until an extra tick can occur, in which case the duration returns back to full... so 15 sec can be reduce down to nearly 12 then goes back up to 15 with an extra tick and so forth.

[harky]

Break points are pretty severe DPS gains, actually. Not as severe for things like Afflic/Shadow as Destro Locks (1 haste can be worth 5-10% DPS for them), but pretty severe.

Anyway, the GCD cap and the break-point on VT is 1269. After that the value is greatly diminished so there's very little reason to go beyond that mark.

[Worshaka]

I don't really agree with that figure... while 1269 puts you at the hard GCD cap it still scales your DoTs and MF linearly and those spells make up a far great proportion of your DPS than spells at the hard GCD cap... i'm sure haste starts to degrade somewhat and the fact that you've ignored crit makes crit become more attractive than usual but I don't buy there is no point having more. Haste never runs into a hard cap unless all your spells are limited by the hard GCD cap and are exactly 1.5 sec duration casts to start with.

Anyways, after doing some calcs I came up with the following required haste ratings to get +x ticks. Keep in mind that i've rounded the haste ratings up to the nearest integer as you can't get less than 1 haste rating.

+1 tick -> 360
+2 ticks -> 957
+3 ticks -> 1573


Under BL/Heroism you're looking at the following

+3 ticks -> 187
+4 ticks -> 620
+5 ticks -> 1053
+6 ticks -> 1486


And if you're a troll like me, under BL & Beserking
+5 ticks -> 331
+6 ticks -> 692
+7 ticks -> 1053
+8 ticks -> 1414

[Rorixis]

If you refresh your dot before it expires then you don't need to worry about the above issues as the dot will continue.

As a general rule cast VT when there is 3 seconds left, and DP/SW:P when there is 2 seconds left.

[Popesickle]

So if one looks at his gear and sees that 1573 haste is not achievable, is it better to drop haste down to as close to 957 without going under and just boost your crit? Are you talking about any particular spells, because I tried VT with 722 haste, 824 haste, 904 haste, and 1054 haste, and it ticks 7 times per cast no matter what. And all it does is shorten mind flay channeling time, I still only get 3 ticks. Does haste only affect SWP and DP? And since mind flay keeps SWP ticking, wouldn't a haste value be better when it shortens the time between ticks rather than adding more, like finding that magic number right below where you would get an additional tick?

[Bigslick]

@ Worshaka:

Wouldn't the required haste vary for different channeled and over-time spells based on each spell's tick frequency (# of ticks / base duration)?

[harky]

I don't really agree with that figure... while 1269 puts you at the hard GCD cap it still scales your DoTs and MF linearly and those spells make up a far great proportion of your DPS than spells at the hard GCD cap... i'm sure haste starts to degrade somewhat and the fact that you've ignored crit makes crit become more attractive than usual but I don't buy there is no point having more. Haste never runs into a hard cap unless all your spells are limited by the hard GCD cap and are exactly 1.5 sec duration casts to start with.

There's a couple problems with this. First is that I never said there's no point to having more. I said there is little reason to get more. At that point all of your other stats are superior. Secondly all your figures are wrong. The amount of haste needed to get another tick changes depending on the duration of the DoT. They're also inaccurate because of the way DoTs work.

Here's why 1269 is the 'go-to' number: DoTs adjust to +/- 50% of the tick duration.

This means it does not take 360 haste to get +1 tick on VT. It takes 57. It does not take 957 to get +2 ticks. It takes 663. It does not takes 1573 to get +3 ticks. It takes 1269. You did your math assuming you needed 15/6 to get 6 ticks, but you actually need 15/5.5.

Then consider DP (24s) and SW:P (18s) at 50% haste as well. DP gets 12 ticks over 24 seconds. SW:P gets 9 ticks over 18 seconds.

To get 13 on DP you would need 1,458. To get 10 on SW:P you would need 1,775.

The problem becomes how much those ticks are worth overall in comparison to an equal amount of any other stat. 1,269 is a very good spot. 1,458 if you can hit it would drop MF to 1.6 from 1.66 so you'd get some gain there as well. However because you are reducing the duration of VT and SW:P that will also reduce some MF damage in exchange.

[Popesickle]

Upon further testing with haste and Vampiric Touch:

Keep in mind I have 8% haste from shadow form and darkness talent.

With 0% haste on gear, VT ticked 5 times per cast.
With 2% haste on gear, VT ticked 6 times per cast.
With 21.32% haste on gear, VT ticked 7 times per cast.

Even with 30% haste on gear I cannot get another tick.

Thanks for the info Harky, I was in the middle of posting this when you posted yours.

[harky]

Yeah, a lot of people think haste can only reduce the duration, but it can actually increase the duration as well. I would assume with that 21.32% your VT ticks 7 times, but also has a duration of just over 16 seconds.

At 50% (38.7% unbuffed) VT also lasts 16 seconds, not 15.

The interesting thing you'll find is that naked a Shadow Priest's VT lasts around 13.8 seconds, but with 57 (1.74%) it lasts 16.35. Which is the longest and shortest VT can last.

[Rocketsurgeon]

It is important to remember that since we refresh duration on our dots, haste doesn't need to be clipped like this in general. Course I still aim for the clip points myself Because sometimes boss mechanics have me doing things that make it difficult to refresh in time, and with weak AoE I'm spamming dots on adds and trash which likely won't get enough attention from me to refresh my casts.

I agree that the shadow priest benefits too much from Haste beyond GCD cap to stop building the stat.

[harky]

Err. Huh? That's not the case at all. When you clip a DoT it adds the remaining duration until the next tick of the previous DoT to the full normal duration of the DoT. So if you are at the GCD cap and land a new VT at 14.2 seconds your next VT would be 17.8 seconds long and give you 8 ticks + 1 that you clipped. This would mean you had a total of 16 ticks over 32 seconds for those two casts. Now at 45% haste you do the same thing, but now your second cast is only 14.6 seconds and only ticks 7 + 1 times. This means you had 14 ticks over 28.4 seconds. That means you got not only more ticks per second average, but also got an extra 3.6 seconds of DPS time. Being at a break point is a much larger DPS increase than you're thinking and a large part of it is because it increases the DPET of the DoT, rather than just increasing the DPS of the DoT.

[Deleted]

Thanks for the replies guys, it seems like there hasn't really been that extensive tests done on this yet? or atleast feels like a lot of the info is still up in the air.

I do know, that the impact of individual haste breakpoints in PvE is nothing to really be that concerned about (since a new application prolongs the dot duration anyway), but for PvP I could see it being beneficial to know. Since you sometimes only get the chance to apply a dot on your opponent once, knowing the breakpoints for when you get an extra tick can be quite detrimental.

Say your DP starts to tick 9 times at 980 haste (just random numbers I'm throwing out here) and you are running with 972 haste in your pvp gear, you might want to swap a 10int/10haste gem into a 20 haste gem to get that extra tick kinda thing.

If anyone finds the accurate haste breakpoints for our 3 dots it would be greatly appreciated if you could copy/paste them in this thread

[Jigawatts]

Please check the shadow priest guide I just put together here. It contains information on the break points for a shadow priest with Darkness and Mind Quickening up.

[Deleted]

Please check the shadow priest guide I just put together here. It contains information on the break points for a shadow priest with Darkness and Mind Quickening up.

Fantastic, exactly what I was looking for.

+rep if I could

[Worshaka]

@ Worshaka:

Wouldn't the required haste vary for different channeled and over-time spells based on each spell's tick frequency (# of ticks / base duration)?

Yes it does and I thought I posted an amendment saying that the above calcs would only apply to VT, but it appears to not have saved or whatever...

So out of curiosity I worked out VT & DP for the situations I described... so VT remains as above, DP is below.

3% Haste & 5% raid buff haste
+1 -> 132
+2 -> 511
+3 -> 890
+4 -> 1269
+5 -> 1648

Under BL/Heroism
+5 -> 241
+6 -> 511
+7 -> 782
+8 -> 1053
+9 -> 1323
+10 -> 1594

Under BL/Heroism & Berkserking (Troll Racial)
+7 -> 105
+8 -> 331
+9 -> 556
+10 -> 782
+11 -> 1008
+12 -> 1233
+13 -> 1459

No point doing it for SW:P as it's always on so you always get the ticks regardless.

I still think these plateus aren't worth worrying about... if you're inbetween say +3 & +4 ticks the length of the dot is reduced accordingly to the level of haste you have (or as i understand it) so you can reapply it quicker which should have the same general effect as an extra tick. Admitadly you are using GCD's more often in that situation... however we're talking a very minor level so while it won't scale exactly the same it's still scaling.

---------- Post added 2010-10-31 at 08:09 PM ----------

There's a couple problems with this. First is that I never said there's no point to having more. I said there is little reason to get more. At that point all of your other stats are superior.

And i'm still highly skeptical of that analysis... while haste doesnt scale DPS in a pure linear fashion, it scales considerably better than crit. So just using the haste vs crit as an example, I don't believe that haste gets so devalued as to make crit better, particular considering the levels of crit we can reach with 277 gear and full raid buffs devalues crit quite a bit.

I might buy the argument that Int (or sp if u like) pulls ahead because the 2 stats were roughly the same and all of a sudden you get haste devaluing to a point where Int simply provides better returns.

So in terms of all other stats I dont see crit trumping, mastery certainly doesnt, spirit doesnt do anything, you're hit capped anyways... so what you're basically saying is Int becomes better... and thats probably the case but thats hardly all other stats.

[harky]

Worshaka, no offense intended, but every single one of those numbers is wrong. Not just off by a couple, or some rounding error, but completely wrong.

DP gets new ticks at: 0, 322, 701, 1,080, 1,459
SW:P gets new ticks at: 6, 511, 1,016, 1,521
VT gets new ticks at: 57, 663, 1,269

The difference between being at break point compared to being just before the break point is always 2 GCDs. So for instance on a 3 minute fight being at 1,269 instead of 1,268 would free up ~12 GCDs in addition to VT having roughly identical DPS (<.01% higher DPS). Worst case scenario you're talking about 5 extra casts of Mind Flay. Each point beyond this will in fact reduce Mind Flay's cast time. By going to 1,459 which is the next major point you shave .06 seconds off Mind Flay. Over that same fight length this would give you 1.5 more casts. However this would also be causing you to recast VT more often, which drops it down to only 1 additional cast, instead of 1.5. Now, this might balance out and then you'll get the new tick on DP, but devalued is an understatement. You just got nearly no increased damage for 40%+ of your DPS. More if you're casting SW: D, or MB.

And Duckwtq; Worshaka is the only one coming up with this sort of math. If you'd check the Shadow sticky at the top of the forums you'll see the same numbers as provided on EJ.

[Worshaka]

I did say I might be wrong, I did the figures quickly in excel inbetween bg queues and didn't confirm some assumptions about my understanding of haste.

I would have thought to get +1 ticks to VT you need 6 ticks in 15 sec instead of the base 5, so 6/5 is 20% haste required. And the figures I posted are based on that assumption. Why VT gets +1 ticks with only 12.8% haste is not obvious to me so i'll have to do some reading when I get the chance to see why that's the case.

---------- Post added 2010-11-01 at 11:17 AM ----------

I did say I might be wrong, I did the figures quickly in excel inbetween bg queues and didn't confirm some assumptions about my understanding of haste.

I would have thought to get +1 ticks to VT you need 6 ticks in 15 sec instead of the base 5, so 6/5 is 20% haste required. And the figures I posted are based on that assumption. Why VT gets +1 ticks with only 12.8% haste is not obvious to me so i'll have to do some reading when I get the chance to see why that's the case.

[harky]

This might help you: (( tick speed / ( duration / ( duration / tick speed + ( bonus ticks - .5 ))) / ( 1 + hasteB * .05 ) / ( 1 + hasteT * .01 ) / ( 1 + Lust * .3 )) - 1 ) * 3279

Where tick speed and duration represent base values, bonus ticks represents the number of additional desired ticks, hasteB the presence of lack of the 5% haste buff, hasteT the number of points in any haste talent (Darkness) and Lust is the presence, or absence of Bloodlust.

This formula will produce the required haste for any given value of bonus ticks. All numbers should be rounded up and any negative treated as '0'.

[Bjornn]

Reading over this looking for a definitive answer, i did not find one. What would you say was the best, overall haste stat for a Shadow Priest in 3.3.5? That is, assuming you don't have to worry about getting to that stat.

Regards, Bjornn