Haste as a stat for a Shadow Priest

[heriana]

I've noticed that with the overall increase in shadow priests gear that a lot of priests are stacking a decent amount of haste. In my opinion, the shadow priest priority (I don't like the word rotation as I don't think it fits) revolves around casting Mind Blast as often as you can (once every 7 seconds assuming 0 haste and 5/5 Improved Mind Blast). With 0 haste, you can cast 4.5 seconds worth of spells in the 5.5 second MB cd:

Mind Flay + DP, VT or SWD
or
DP, VT, and SWD

You can also cast 6 seconds worth of spells during the 5.5 second cd:

Mind Flay x 2
or
Mind Flay + 2/3 of (DP, VT, SWD)

You can also clip mind flay when MB becomes available. For the purposes of simplifying my argument, I'm going to ignore this possibility as I don't think clipping is a very promising strategy anymore. This leaves you either wasting 1 second waiting for MB to become available or not casting MB for .5 seconds after it becomes available. The first option in my opinion seems stupid. Wasting an entire second worth of dps every 7 seconds is ridiculous. The second option is not ideal, but at least time is not being wasted. However, it is being used inefficiently.

With 300 haste you get 9.12% faster casting speed, which allows you to cast 6 seconds worth of spells in 5.5 seconds. This allows you to virtually always either be casting MB or have it on cd. Now I'm not trying to say haste is greater than spellpower, crit, or hit; but as it often comes as part of an item's itemization, it is still useful and not wasted itemization.

Now, my problem/question is why would you want more than 300 haste? In my opinion, having over 300 is haste is partially wasting itemization. If you have more than 300 haste, you're having to sit there wait for mb to become available or leave it available while you cast another spell. I do recognize that having more haste decreases the cast time of MB and thus increases your "MB rotations", but you're still hindered by the 5.5 second cd and thus the haste is only partially used.

I understand a lot of gear has haste on it, and that it's not always easy to find a replacement that has less haste on it, but having 400-450 haste is essentially wasting 100 haste worth of itemization which could be crit or spell power. I've never seemed to have a problem staying at 300 haste. Am I missing something? Is there a valid reason to have above 300 haste?

I'd love to see thoughtful and even argumentative responses/thoughts.

[Adamx]

I don't know if you've looked at any good shadow priest parses lately... but MOST of our damage now (30%ish) is coming from MF... more and faster MF ticks while MB is on cooldown = more DPS. So yes... stack haste to the fucking roof son.

That is more because of Mindflay crits. You wont see many good shadow priests arguing against 300 haste and then stack crit and spell power.

[Adamx]

You bring up a good point. Clipping could for sure be a factor that we will have to wait and see on for sure. Seems pretty inefficient though because it would be an expensive process since mind flay costs more so that would surely factor in to mana usage. While the alternative would be just having gaps in dps until you could stack enough haste to safely fit three mind flay casts in to 5.5 seconds which we need to agree on is not an option. You can't just have gaps.

It's a good idea to be decently balanced. I seem to hover around 21-22% crit and 360ish haste. But I still prefer crit. Remember crit benefits dot damage as well.

[Worshaka]

There is a couple of reasons why more than 300 haste is a good thing.

1. Not all encounters allow you to stand still and allow you to do your max dps output, some require you to move around, some require you to dispel, some require you to never use SW (at least for part of the encounter), some require you to switch off the boss to deal with adds, etc etc etc... you will actually do more encounters in less than optimal dps circumstances. Haste will allow you to cast MF quicker & quicker so you get to the MB cast quicker under this pratical conditions.

2. Lag means that you will never exactly fit 2 MF's at 2.7sec cast inside a 5.5sec MB CD, at least that's my experience dealing with Aussie ping.

3. Simcraft (thousands and thousands of test dps) tells us that each haste rating is worth about 0.56 PP compared to crit which is 0.61, the sample data assumes something around 450 haste, so there is evidence that shows more than 300 haste isnt a bad thing.

4. My speculation is that haste will become a better stats as your natural SP gets higher n higher... the simcraft weights are only true for the assumptions that are made... as stats increase weights change and I suspect that as you head towards 2500 SP that haste will overtake crit.... i'll be interested to see simcraft data with uludar gear assumptions.

Lastly, the idea isnt to stack haste or crit, or even spellpower... the idea is to select pieces of gear which provide dps increases... some will come in the form of heavy haste gear and some in crit... you want to select a gear set that balances the stats and gets as close to the simcraft simulation assumptions of 2200 SP, 450crit, 450 haste and hit capped... you can see the info in detail at www.shadowpriest.com just click on the WotLK best gear thread at the top of the page.

[Adamx]

Do you mean 2500 spell power unbuffed and not counting dragonsoul trinket? Because I was under the asumption we were already around that Level in raiding situations. I was sitting at a static 2650ish give or take last night doing mally not counting trinket procs.

[Nezoia]

Remember people, both crit and haste is not static damage increase as spellpower is.

They get better/worse per point. So you would have to recalculate it for every point.

[Adamx]

Remember people, both crit and haste is not static damage increase as spellpower is.

They get better/worse per point. So you would have to recalculate it for every point.

Good ole' Simcraft

[Worshaka]

Do you mean 2500 spell power unbuffed and not counting dragonsoul trinket? Because I was under the asumption we were already around that Level in raiding situations. I was sitting at a static 2650ish give or take last night doing mally not counting trinket procs.

Unbuffed... so when you start pushing 2800 to 2900 SP raid buffed the values of haste & crit will change... whether they get better or worse is speculation, I haven't bothered to do any sim testing myself although I did write a simulation macro at some point but it became too big of a project for me to spend time on.

[Lostprophet]

in perfect Circumstances imo u should have as much haste that it fills 2 MF between MB CD. It makes all less complicated.

That means the Casttime from MF should be ~2.75. But u have to include Raidbuffs i.E Shaman totem with 5% haste and/or Moonkin aura (dunno if they stack).

I dont see a really good reason to stack Haste since its our worst stat. Ok it should be (if mf fixed) equal to crit. But Crit doesnt change playstyle while haste does. (Clipping MF , using sw:d as a gabfiller etc)

[Knf]

Haste is always the last thing (just before spirit) that I look for, but thats just my personal liking. I still have 400+ haste, since everything has **** loads of it, and some pure haste items are so bloody good (Malygos25man boots for egzample). But when it comes to point vs point I think crit and haste are on about the same lvl. The better your PC / connection is, the better haste gets TBH...

[Lehto]

So how much crit % do u guys got? Do u stop looking for crit when u reach a certain % and the try get haste?
Here is my char atm, I got kinda much crit imo. Is it too much maybe?
http://armory.wow-europe.com/charact...spine&n=Mlehto

Any suggestion on gear upgrades? Except ring that I will go for Lost Jewel as soon as it drops :P
What do u think about sarth +3drake bracers?

[Nezoia]

Personally I'm happy with around 20% crit, and want to focus a bit more on haste before Ulduar.

The bracers from Sartharion is very good, and I would get them unless you could get your hands on the ones with hit from Razavious first.

For you, gear upgrades:

Rings: Lost Jewel (as you said). Keep the spellshock ring.
Wand: Gemmed Wand of the Nerubians
Belt: Leech Magic from Malygos
Shoulders: Tier 7
Headpiece: From Malygos25
Bracers: From Sarth+2
Neck: Malygos quest (10man!) for the hit.

I envy your luck with Necromatic Power and chestpiece.