[Ret/Prot] Haste cap

[Deleted]

I have some question about the haste cap of ret/prot paladins. Several guides, both for ret and prot, mention 17000 haste as the haste softcap, but don't really tell why. I also read somewhere (can't find it any more) that 21000 is the hardcap.

So lets do a bit of theory:

• 17000 haste equals 40% haste.
• Take the 10% melee haste raidbuff and we have 50% haste.
• 50% haste reduces the GCD from 1.5s to 1.0s. It cannot be reduced any further even with more haste.
• 50% haste means our Sanctity of Battle reduces the cooldowns of our main abilities also by 50%.

Conclusion:
Having more that 50% haste would be useless to us, since even if our abilities had a lower CD, the GCD wouldn't allow us to use them more often, so the only effect increased is melee attack speed, making haste less useful than mastery or crit after this point.

But while this sounds logical, it isn't how it works.

• Even if Sanctity of Battle explicitly says "Melee haste effects" and the 10% haste raidbuff reads "melee and ranged attack speed", having the raidbuff doesn't have any influence on our ability cooldowns.
• Having 40% haste and the 10% raidbuff will not give us 50% haste, but 54% haste. (I have no idea why, it should be either 50% or 44%, but the ingame tooltip says 54%)
• I have no idea if the 10% melee haste raidbuff lowers the GCD or not.

So, what is the explanation for a softcap at 17000 haste?

Is the cap at 15455? (36,4%+melee haste raidbuff = 50%)
Is the cap at 18113? (42,6%+spell haste raidbuff = 50%)
Is the cap at 21250? (50% without raidbuff) = possible hardcap?

[Jackielope]

Haste effects multiply together. For example, SoI (10%) and the raid spell haste buff (5%) multiply together to get 15.5%.

However, the way haste modifies cast or swing time is a bit tricky to get at first. Basically you start off at 100%, and the haste effects add on to that. The above 15.5% with SoI and the raid buff results in 115.5% "effective" haste. It's done this way because that's how it would actually allow for 15.5% more casts and such in the same period of time. 100% extra haste results in effectively 200% haste, doubles the number of casts in a given time. To see how your haste levels affect a given spell, just divide the spell's normal cast time by 1 + haste/100 (converts percent into decimal).

In the case of Sanctity of Battle that means you divide 1.5 (normal GCD) by 1 + haste% converted to decimal. 50% converts to .5 in decimal, thus we see that 1.5 divided by 1.5 equals 1 second, which is the lowest the GCD can go.

If these people think that 40% haste is a "soft cap" then the only possible reasonable explanation is it's an inflection point where another stat edges out haste in value. That exact haste value, however, cannot be the only point where another stat trumps haste because there are millions of combinations of gear and ability use and the inflection point will change based on the entire gear setup and how one uses it.

Sanctity of Battle is not affected by spell haste buffs nor is it affected by the melee attack speed buff because attack speed is not the same as actual haste. 50%/21250 haste is the only non-arbitrary cap on haste. The explanation for 17000 haste is simply that the people do not know how haste works for paladins and thus have come to wrong conclusions.

[nes4u]

10% raid haste buff does not reduce our gcd, it only increases our attack speed

[anaxie]

omg don't overthink it. You're going to hurt yourself

First step is to understand how raid haste buffs work. Clearly you do not.

[Deleted]

Haste does so much more for you than just lowering Global cooldown... haste reduces the cooldowns of all the abilities, meaning you can use more HoP generating abiltie and therefor able to cast more SotR, also your EF ticks a lot more... I see absolutely no reason to not keep stacking haste at all.

[Jellospally]

17,000 Haste = 40%(Rets desired cap) - idk if rets actually stop here or go 50% but i believe they stop here...ret sucks so don't look at this one to be true or not
21,250 Haste = 50%(Prots desired cap)

You need to know nothing more than that. Just get that rating. It is a lot easier to understand shit just looking at ratings not %'s most caps for Dots, Breakpoints, and anything else already takes Haste % buffs into account(which they don't affect here) when X rating is said to be the cap.

[Jackielope]

Haste does so much more for you than just lowering Global cooldown... haste reduces the cooldowns of all the abilities, meaning you can use more HoP generating abiltie and therefor able to cast more SotR, also your EF ticks a lot more... I see absolutely no reason to not keep stacking haste at all.

For prot, haste's value past 50% is quite poor. In the case where the GCD is capped at 1 second reducing the cooldowns on abilities is meaningless until you hit another breakpoint where the CD allows us to change the CS-J-X-CS-X-J-CS-X-X rotation. That doesn't happen until 100% haste where J comes down to a 3 second CD and the rotation then looks like CS-J-X-CS-J-X repeat. Since there's no chance in hell of us getting to 100% haste just from gear, the biggest reason to use haste in the first place is obliterated past 50%. At the 50% haste cap the best survivability stats to go for are mastery or stamina because haste's value simply isn't there anymore.

[Scinder]

omg don't overthink it. You're going to hurt yourself

First step is to understand how raid haste buffs work. Clearly you do not.

Do you always have to act like a douche when someone asks a question or does it just come naturally? You love to parade around this forum as if you're the God of ret paladins (sorry king as you like to put as your title /rollseyes) and while I suspect you are good, that doesn't give you the right to constantly put people down.

Grow up.

[shynoz]

Do you always have to act like a douche when someone asks a question or does it just come naturally? You love to parade around this forum as if you're the God of ret paladins (sorry king as you like to put as your title /rollseyes) and while I suspect you are good, that doesn't give you the right to constantly put people down.

Grow up.

yep , even he/she acts like the new reborn holy jesus his/her points about Ret's are pretty accurate tho . but the douche attitude still there.

[anaxie]

yep , even he/she acts like the new reborn holy jesus his/her points about Ret's are pretty accurate tho . but the douche attitude still there.

No need to call me Jesus. Anaxie is fine. I will also accept The Divine Anaxie

[shynoz]

No need to call me Jesus. Anaxie is fine. I will also accept The Divine Anaxie

yep i like to call you Diva.

[anaxie]

yep i like to call you Diva.

omg yes plz

[Deja Thoris]

omg don't overthink it. You're going to hurt yourself

First step is to understand how raid haste buffs work. Clearly you do not.

Why don't you just explain it instead of going out of your way to be an arse?

[Fhi]

OP has gotten their answer, so closing this.