Balance Druid 2nd haste cap question

[Unison]

Quick question, what's the average ilevel to have before you try to go for the 2nd haste cap? (10289)

Also is it best to gem haste for the cap or gem crit reforge haste?

Help me out ^.^

[Cybb]

"Average ilvl" isn't a good gauge for when to switch to the new haste cap, it deals more with how much crit and haste you have an exposure too. In my personal testing, going for the 10289 cap is a DPS increase if you are able to retain around 11000+ crit. This DPS increase changes depending on fight, incarn vs treants, as well as trinkets (Lei shen trinket I find procs 30-40% more often running the second haste cap (At 7.2k haste without going for second cap).

If you provide your armory I can give you my recommendation.

[Slippykins]

"Average ilvl" isn't a good gauge for when to switch to the new haste cap, it deals more with how much crit and haste you have an exposure too. In my personal testing, going for the 10289 cap is a DPS increase if you are able to retain around 11000+ crit. This DPS increase changes depending on fight, incarn vs treants, as well as trinkets (Lei shen trinket I find procs 30-40% more often running the second haste cap (At 7.2k haste without going for second cap).

If you provide your armory I can give you my recommendation.

11,000 retained crit sounds a little high. I've been advocating switching if you can retain a minimum of 5k crit from what I've seen in WrathCalcs and SimCraft. I switched when I had 6k crit rating left, and I only just made it back to 10k crit with the legendary cloak.

Regardless, WrathCalcs will tell you haste > crit no matter what crit rating, but I don't believe that's completely true. SimCraft shows a break-even point at around 5k crit, so I've usually said stick around that and you'll be fine.

[Cybb]

11,000 retained crit sounds a little high. I've been advocating switching if you can retain a minimum of 5k crit from what I've seen in WrathCalcs and SimCraft. I switched when I had 6k crit rating left, and I only just made it back to 10k crit with the legendary cloak.

Regardless, WrathCalcs will tell you haste > crit no matter what crit rating, but I don't believe that's completely true. SimCraft shows a break-even point at around 5k crit, so I've usually said stick around that and you'll be fine.

The reason I advocate trying to retain the 11k crit is based on the fights in H ToT. Movement is regular in almost every fight this tier, and crit drastically helps on fights with movement.

[Slippykins]

The reason I advocate trying to retain the 11k crit is based on the fights in H ToT. Movement is regular in almost every fight this tier, and crit drastically helps on fights with movement.

Yeah, but it's not completely clear-cut like that. It's a misconception to assume crit is vastly better than haste for movement, since SS procs still have a 30% modifier on top of crit, and you're still susceptible to SS proc waste at high crit levels. Haste allows you to lower the GCD, enabling more instant MF direct damage, increasing the tick rate of your DoTs, and also allows you to get some more hard casts in that you normally couldn't. Moreover, I just made a post over on EJ today funny enough: http://elitistjerks.com/f73/t130885-...4/#post2301411

I also did a couple of SimCraft tests with Light Movement enabled, and it showed haste was still ahead for those scenarios. Crit may well be slightly better, but I don't think it outweighs the value of haste for movement.

Link to SimCraft stuff if you're interested: http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/...1#post21140318

[Cybb]

Yeah, but it's not completely clear-cut like that. It's a misconception to assume crit is vastly better than haste for movement, since SS procs still have a 30% modifier on top of crit, and you're still susceptible to SS proc waste at high crit levels. Haste allows you to lower the GCD, enabling more instant MF direct damage, increasing the tick rate of your DoTs, and also allows you to get some more hard casts in that you normally couldn't. Moreover, I just made a post over on EJ today funny enough:

I also did a couple of SimCraft tests with Light Movement enabled, and it showed haste was still ahead for those scenarios. Crit may well be slightly better, but I don't think it outweighs the value of haste for movement.

Link to SimCraft stuff if you're interested:

Yeah, but it's not completely clear-cut like that. It's a misconceptionn to assume that SimCraft is the best way determine stat priorities, when it doesn't take into account many boss mechanics that change the way we play. I don't kill and collect loot from training dummies.

[Slippykins]

Yeah, but it's not completely clear-cut like that. It's a misconceptionn to assume that SimCraft is the best way determine stat priorities, when it doesn't take into account many boss mechanics that change the way we play.

It's not exactly just SimCraft being used to determine stat priorities, but rather a combination of SimCraft, WrathCalcs, logs and some logical reasoning. I'm sure you're using the same tools for your own arguments, so we can agree to disagree.