1. #1

    Actual Value of Haste

    This may be somewhat of a moot point because I generally prioritize secondary stats (after hit/exp) crit > mastery > haste, but I'm rather curious about haste and potential gains versus actual gains, and I'm hoping that better understanding this will inform my play and not just my gearing. Also, this is as a SV hunter, though it is still translates to BM and MM.

    As I understand it, haste decreases time between auto-attacks, decreases cast time of non-instants (e.g. cobra shot), and increases passive focus regen. [I don't think it affects pet attack speed, but I could be wrong. I believe it also has a breakpoint where it, 50% of the time, adds an extra DB swing.]

    I understand that the passive effects (quicker auto-attacks and increased focus regen) are easy to reap the benefits of. My confusion surrounds the value of decreasing the cast time of your focus regen shot. In a vacuum, that sounds great, but with a 6 second cd on your signature shot, how often does that decreased cast time translate into an extra shot/extra dps?

    After an explosive shot (barring LnL procs), you have 5 GCDs to work with. You don't want to be casting CoS when ES comes off CD. So let's say you get off 2 cobra shots (with 1.7 second cast times) and an AS. Assuming 0 latency, instant response time, etc, you have 0.6 seconds before an ES should be fired. What good is that 0.6 seconds? Do you queue up another CoS and just delay the ES? If not, would a 1.9 second cast time have been just as effective as far as getting the most out of your GCDs?

    I understand there are times in a fight when it may make an appreciable difference (under bloodlust/heroism or rapid fire, getting a LnL proc during a CoS, etc). But my thoughts are that it may not be meaningful in a default setting. And even if you get below 1.67 seconds, how often are you going to be casting 3 CoS's in a row? (It seems like it would require you to deplete most of your focus a lot more.) Ofc, if 1.5 seconds becomes doable in higher gear, I can see that being pretty strong.

    Not even looking at AoE situations where mastery is clearly better than haste for SV, I feel more comfortable with mastery since it's a flat increase. Haste's value, in my understanding, diminishes more quickly with less-than-perfect play than mastery does.

    TL;DR-Is haste less valuable than it sims for most players who don't play with the response time, foresight, and precision of spreadsheets?

    Related (and perhaps the cause of some of my confusion), how much time are you willing to push back an ES to get off a CoS (versus sitting on your thumbs waiting for the CD)?

  2. #2
    I believe most of this is correct, as i've read most of this-or similarly-in other posts. I still feel that haste is stronger than people put it out to be considering it's no longer a shot rotation and more of a shot priority now, but it is still lesser than mastery. With a lot of the new talents involving a summoned pet or physical damage we should benefit from haste more. Survivals mastery is strong, but a lot less of our damage is actual magic now. If you also take barrage, haste lowers the channel on that. Many still argue that mastery is better and I think they may be right, but they under value haste greatly, and maybe over value mastery. A lot of gear has haste on it and isn't avoidable, and very difficult to max out crit and mastery, unless lucky and farming everything every week, so I suggest just doing the best you can to get more mastery, but don't sweat about it.
    Last edited by Suffocatingsight; 2013-01-21 at 08:56 PM.

  3. #3
    This is how I see haste. As of right now, almost every shot hits harder than cobra shot. Even improved serpent sting gets up there as well. Now, the only real benefit I see from more haste is the decreased time in your Cobra Shot cast. You may get more auto shots, your pet may attack a couple times more, but not enough to beat out the Crit > Mastery build. The only time you should be casting Cobra Shot is to refresh SS or regen focus. That's pretty much it.

    So unless they make one of our dots tick more because of haste, we should never prioritize it over Crit/Mastery. I do not believe Sims do this debate justice, you really have to see it in game.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Dole4011 View Post
    As I understand it, haste decreases time between auto-attacks, decreases cast time of non-instants (e.g. cobra shot), and increases passive focus regen. [I don't think it affects pet attack speed, but I could be wrong. I believe it also has a breakpoint where it, 50% of the time, adds an extra DB swing.]
    Haste does actually effect your pet's attack speed, however attack speed will not. This means that haste from gear and heroism will increase your pets attack speed, while the effects from Rapid Fire, Steady focus, and serpents swiftness (or any variation of this buff), will not. You will notice that the tooltips in these abilities specifically state "attack speed" rather than "haste".

    All that being said, I personally wouldn't go for the 1.67 cobra breakpoint in the gear available to me, and even then I would only do it if I chose to spec into Dire beast. When you spec into Thrill of the Hunt for those aoe fights there are far too many free instant cast shots to justify the reduced cast time on cobra shot in my opinion.

  5. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Dugley View Post
    Haste does actually effect your pet's attack speed, however attack speed will not. This means that haste from gear and heroism will increase your pets attack speed, while the effects from Rapid Fire, Steady focus, and serpents swiftness (or any variation of this buff), will not. You will notice that the tooltips in these abilities specifically state "attack speed" rather than "haste".
    To clarify, your pet's attack speed scales from any melee attack speed bonuses you get. This means that the 10% physical attack speed buff does affect your pet's attack speed. However abilities which specifically buff ranged attack speed, like rapid fire, do not affect pet attack speed.

    However, pets inherit their focus regen from your ranged haste modifiers, which means although rapid fire only affects your attack speed and not your pet's, your pet's focus regen does increase when rapid fire is active. This also means your stampede benefits from rapid fire since the extra focus can mean more specials and/or wild hunt attacks.

  6. #6
    Yeah I also see it that way. haste doesn't really allow you to do more specials, as your rota is bounded by Explo, you really only gain autoshots/attacks/passiv focus.
    with a minimum haste build, you will still be sitting at about 1.75s Cobra cast time. and trying to use the 5sec in between 2 explos as best as possible, I try to use:
    3x Cobra = 5.25s
    1x Cobra + 3x Instants = 4.75s
    this leaves you with only 0.25s ES delay or dead time.
    2 Cobras + 1 or 2 Instants leave you with 0.5s dead time or ES delay.
    thats why I try to only use the 2 first mentioned "rotas", which is often feasable thanks to ToTH.
    as I now seldom use 3x Cobra or 2x Cobra + 2 Instants, haste only helps on a fraction of my regular spell usage => doesn't help that much.
    (and likewise under bloodlust, where 2xCobra+2 Instants is more optimal, but thats independant of haste on gear [at least at current stat budgets] => again not much benefit from haste)

  7. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Dole4011 View Post
    TL;DR-Is haste less valuable than it sims for most players who don't play with the response time, foresight, and precision of spreadsheets?
    Well the response time should be 0ms anyway because of spell queue. When you for example cast CS and an ES afterwards and spamming your ES key in the last 0,5s before the end of CS the ES gets queued on the server and instantly shot. So there should be absolutely no lag problem... (?)

  8. #8
    Yep, mastery all the way for SV and BM. The dps difference in sims is very very little between the 2 and literally all the fights favor mastery heavily over haste.

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  9. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Draeblin View Post
    Well the response time should be 0ms anyway because of spell queue. When you for example cast CS and an ES afterwards and spamming your ES key in the last 0,5s before the end of CS the ES gets queued on the server and instantly shot. So there should be absolutely no lag problem... (?)
    I meant human response time, not server response time. I'm familiar with spell queueing. Just one example where John Henry loses to the machine: LnL procs as you're going to hit an AS. The spreadsheet prioritizes LnL while your finger may already be committed to that AS.

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