With crit at 200% and on all DoTs, will haste still be superior? (Cataclysm)

[Sedryn]

As far as I know, Affliction has been stacking haste for quite a long time. Now that crit will be effective for 100% of our DoTs and drains, will we see crit jump in value? What about for demo and destro?

I ask because I plan on changing my warlock to Worgen, and I am wondering how effective the 1% crit will be, as well as crit rating overall.

If this has been covered before, then please just let me know and don't flame.

[gherkin]

This brings haste and crit closer together, because while they added haste/crit to everything, they nerfed everything to match as well.

Haste, for a warlock, is still the recommended stat.

[Deleted]

I guess there will be multiple haste cap, which can create new clips to the last one moment ( Duration dots, except for CoA is a 3x seconds)

(excuse my awful english )

[Spectral]

In Cata, at level 85, Blizz has stated that the intention is that you won't begin to approach Haste caps, as Haste scaling was simply out of control in Wrath.

Additionally, they've stated that while it's fine for stats to be of differential value, they don't intend for it to be anywhere near as severe as it presently is. You can safely expect Haste and Crit to be closer in value than they are on Live at present.

[adynn]

I guess there will be multiple haste cap, which can create new clips to the last one moment ( Duration dots, except for CoA is a 3x seconds)

(excuse my awful english )

You forget that we don't usually have to reapply corruption, which means it'll never cause even a slight haste cap. UA and CoA might, but because they are on different timers, it'll probably be unnoticeable.

[ComputerNerd]

You forget that we don't usually have to reapply corruption, which means it'll never cause even a slight haste cap. UA and CoA might, but because they are on different timers, it'll probably be unnoticeable.

Not the cap in the traditional sense of diminishing returns, but instead the thresholds at which a given amount of haste will grant an additional tick.
I am not entirely sure, but if I interpret that correctly and I make the same assumption myself then would that not cause a variable return, by which haste becomes more valuable towards that threshold and less valuable away from it.

[mahananaka]

The thing is with the amount of haste needed, you'll have a plateau where you get a huge boost, I think this is at 12.5% haste (its really 25% but it rounds up), but the next extra tick for most spells isn't until like 37.5% haste which I think is just beyond hitting anytime soon. Thus I think you'll see haste stacked to hit 12.5% then crit will be better until its possible to hit the next new tick. Which might not even happen at all.

[aethereal]

Not the cap in the traditional sense of diminishing returns, but instead the thresholds at which a given amount of haste will grant an additional tick. I am not entirely sure, but if I interpret that correctly and I make the same assumption myself then would that not cause a variable return, by which haste becomes more valuable towards that threshold and less valuable away from it.

Like he said, this won't matter (at least for corruption). Since corruption is refreshed via SB, you will never reach the end of its duration for the presence or absence of that last tick to matter anyway.

[Jessicka]

Bear in mind all the +Crit chance talents are gone, those kind of things are now in Masteries, with Affliction getting Crit as part of the Mastery, I can't see gearing towards Crit being desirable at all. Demonology on the other hand has no such 'free' Crit anymore, so it will be a useful stat, but not quite so useful as Mastery; whether it outweighs Haste I'm not sure, as that is in the Mastery so there will be 'free' Haste in there - whether that's sufficient to discount Crit as a gear stat remains to be seen. Destruction gets neither Haste nor Crit, but Haste has been good all this expansion for it, and probably will be again, although with ISF, Backdraft and 2 nukes on hard cooldowns it's value will plateu at some point.

All that said, the 1% Crit from the Worgen racial, and whether Crit is useful is a non-question. Crit is, was, and always has been a 'useful' DPS stat; as having some > having none. Aside from already having a lot of Crit from the Intellect on gear and Talents devaluing Crit per point as explained by DR in the above posts, another part of the reason of it's poor value in Wrath has been it's expense; 1% Crit required gaining more rating than 1% Haste but 1% of either had similar effects on output. Whether they have, or intend to fix that disparity in cost I don't know, but doing so would do a lot to bring them closer together in value.

[Deleted]

Soft caps for gaining additional dotticks will definately be our first goal to achieve (besides hitcap).
But since Corruption not being affected by this and fillers still benefitting from haste (aswell as casting UA, Haunt) its still to be seen if Haste is not anymore desireable after reaching certain soft caps.

For PvP though, Haste will be the most desireable stat (gemming/reforging) due to Siphon Life & Nightfall procs + overall utility.

[nemex]

As far as I know from what I've read the first "extra" tick you get on a dot with a 3 second base-tick timer is 12.5% haste, second is 25%, third 37.5%, etc. Not sure how this will scale with the extra 5% haste from raid buffs, being additive or multiplicative.

EDIT: This was specifically recorded with Living Bomb, being a 12 second DoT with four 3-second ticks with 0 haste. I think values will change depending on total DoT duration and Tick-periods.

[gherkin]

There are points where haste is bad and haste is good. Consider the above test: what if you had 12% haste? Your Unstable Affliction will have a duration of 13.4s and therefore you have to re-cast UA 1.6 seconds earlier, every time. After 9 applications of UA, you officially have to cast one more UA and therefore lose a GCD.

If you added the .5% haste, you gain not only the haste for the spell (and all other spells) and also the faster ticks, but you also get back the duration of UA and the extra tick, which in turn gives you an extra GCD every 2 minutes. It's not a lot, but that 12 --> 12.5% haste is going to be worth a hell of a lot more than 11.5 --> 12.0% due to all of these gains.

lol @ stat simplification.

[Jessicka]

Soft caps for gaining additional dotticks will definately be our first goal to achieve (besides hitcap).
But since Corruption not being affected by this and fillers still benefitting from haste (aswell as casting UA, Haunt) its still to be seen if Haste is not anymore desireable after reaching certain soft caps.

For PvP though, Haste will be the most desireable stat (gemming/reforging) due to Siphon Life & Nightfall procs + overall utility.

The problem with this is between Heroism, Potions, Trinket Procs, Power Infusions, Haste buff bearers dying, Eradication procs, Improved Soul Fire procs, Backdraft, Demon Soul cooldown for Demonology etc; Haste is a very dyanamic stat in combat; calculating optimum amounts would be impossible.

[gherkin]

Destruction doesn't have to worry about gaming the Haste levels because it's sole dot (corruption isn't too important) is extended by Fel Flame, which should be used at 85. Demonology is in a similar boat.

Fel Flame hits for nothing as Affliction and thus you should let UA fall off. Affliction will be gaming the numbers if at all possible.

[Doomcloud]

Destruction doesn't have to worry about gaming the Haste levels because it's sole dot (corruption isn't too important) is extended by Fel Flame, which should be used at 85. Demonology is in a similar boat.

Fel Flame hits for nothing as Affliction and thus you should let UA fall off. Affliction will be gaming the numbers if at all possible.

I fail to see why you would want to fel flame when it,

A. Hits for less than the direct portion of immolate
B. Only adds 6 seconds to the immolate

Granted there are movement fights but the first choice during movement should be conflag and required lifetaps, followed by corruption (if the fight is a movement fight you should take corruption out of your rotation when standing still and use it during the movement)

Yes Fel Flame will be useful on HEAVY movement fights, but to say oh you shouldn't game plan on getting the extra immolate tick because of Fel Flame is ridiculous.

[gherkin]

Felflame is affected by Destruction mastery and, being instant, bypasses the stupid queuing mechanism.

[saulverde]

I fail to see why a little dmg instant spell that refreshes ua should not be used over the 1.5 sec recast of UA which doesn't immediately tick anyways. Maybe it doesn't work the way I think it does.

[Simca]

the stupid queuing mechanism.

Which will HOPEFULLY be fixed soon (please before 4.0.1 goes live).

[Doomcloud]

Felflame is affected by Destruction mastery and, being instant, bypasses the stupid queuing mechanism.

That hardly makes it better than recasting immolate normally, the direct damage portion of immolate is also affected by destruction mastery...

I fail to see why a little dmg instant spell that refreshes ua should not be used over the 1.5 sec recast of UA which doesn't immediately tick anyways. Maybe it doesn't work the way I think it does.

It doesn't refresh UA it only adds 6 seconds. If it refreshed it would be superior though it would probably be frustrating as you would either have to cast it way early or run the risk of missing it and having to both Fel Flame and UA.

[gherkin]

^ What doomcloud said.

You would have to cast Felflame 2.5 times to refresh 1 UA to full (or 5 times to refresh 2 ua's to full)
The numbers just say that your GCD will be better spent on recasting UA twice and getting 3 other GCD's on other spells.