[Warlock] Haste question

[Ravemstr]

Well i didn't do any actual testing but...
A normal, Backdrafted Incinerate is what(decent haste levels) 1.2-1.3 seconds? Add Hero/Lust to that and you should go bellow the GCD but you still don't hit the GCD... Short simple answer? The GCD is lowered too.

[Dethh]

The GCD becomes 1 second at 1269.
You cannot lower the GCD anymore from that point on but any more haste you get still lowers the cast time of your spells. That's why it's considered a "soft" cap.

The only spell that needs to be hasted to a gcd(1 second cast)is Incinerate since its the most cast spell. So when you say the gcd becomes 1 second at 1269 what GCD are we talking about?

[Lichiz]

I have been stacking haste for all my time in WOTLK and I had a revelation last week
Haste is ONLY used to smoothen your cycle... I did around 10k in ICC when i was haste stacking and after my complete respec to full SP gear, I did 13.
I found it very hard to believe that SP was actually better then Haste because I was a haste whore but it really is.. so go regem all ur haste gems in 12SP/12haste (or hit) gems and get socketbonusses plus offhand-mainhand and your DPS will JUMP up

Lichiz out.

PS. Plus you'll be losing alot of dps time cause you need to lifetap alot.

[Ravemstr]

what are we talking about?

The GCD is the cooldown which starts every time you start to cast a spell. At 0 haste and excluding talents(Amplify Curse) that is 1.5 seconds.

How does haste work?
Haste does two different things:
- reduces the GCD
- reduces the cast time of spells and abilities as well as reducing (some) DoT's duration by reducing the time between individual ticks(and therefore it's total duration)

The first part of this can be hard capped. What that means is that at 1269 haste you will have the GCD lowered at 1 second and it cannot go any lower that. Meaning that if you get say... 2500 haste the GCD will still be 1 second.

The second part is tricky.

First of all let's get a few things out of the way. To "haste cap" a spell means to lower it's cast time to(or bellow) the GCD. That's easier for some spells under certain circumstance then it is for others.

But why is that important?
Well... if you get a cast time under the GCD that means you will have to wait to use another spell until the GCD finishes. You will "hit" the GCD if you want to use another spell. That's what happens with instants - you press it, you wait the GCD and then you use another one.

And why is that bad?
That's bad just like having more then 17% hit is bad. If most of the spells you are using go bellow the GCD(cast time is lower then 1 second) then, from a DPS PoV, any haste that takes your spell casts under the GCD is worth 0. Just like any hit above 17% is worth 0.

So how does that affect us locks?!?
It doesn't! We don't have a haste cap. Most of our spells have long cast times(Shadow Bolt, SoulFire) or long duration(Corruption). That means that trying to get them to the point where they "hit" the GCD is almost impossible.
Like Gherkin said, you need about 4000 haste rating from gear to make a 2.25 second cast into a 1 second one. And you can't get that.

But we do have some short casts
Yes! We have UA, Immolate, Incinerate under Backdraft etc. Those spells are the only ones in any danger of "hiting" the GCD. But as far as gameplay goes, you use those spells much too scarcely to worry about them. At high enough haste levels you will hit the brick wall that the GCD is but since you do it only 4-5 times a minute that's acceptable.

What about Destro? They have Immolate and Backdraft!
Yeah, they do! Destro is easier to cap then our other specs. It's so easy that it actually has a cap they can reach - about 1300 haste. That's because under Backdraft Incinerate gets to a 1 second cast time. Any more haste then that and Incinerate's cast time will go bellow the GCD making you wait until you can fire another one. That's bad because, as i said, that haste is worthless and could(should imo) be replaced with crit(for example, or spell power) to give you more DPS.
Hope that helpes in understanding haste and it's effects. If i made any mistakes please excuse me. It's 6AM and i'm still having my cofee(god damn early morning meetings ) Correct me as you see fit!

[Dethh]

The GCD is the cooldown which starts every time you start to cast a spell. At 0 haste and excluding talents(Amplify Curse) that is 1.5 seconds.

How does haste work?
Haste does two different things:
- reduces the GCD
- reduces the cast time of spells and abilities as well as reducing (some) DoT's duration by reducing the time between individual ticks(and therefore it's total duration)

The first part of this can be hard capped. What that means is that at 1269 haste you will have the GCD lowered at 1 second and it cannot go any lower that. Meaning that if you get say... 2500 haste the GCD will still be 1 second.

The second part is tricky.

First of all let's get a few things out of the way. To "haste cap" a spell means to lower it's cast time to(or bellow) the GCD. That's easier for some spells under certain circumstance then it is for others.

But why is that important?
Well... if you get a cast time under the GCD that means you will have to wait to use another spell until the GCD finishes. You will "hit" the GCD if you want to use another spell. That's what happens with instants - you press it, you wait the GCD and then you use another one.

And why is that bad?
That's bad just like having more then 17% hit is bad. If most of the spells you are using go bellow the GCD(cast time is lower then 1 second) then, from a DPS PoV, any haste that takes your spell casts under the GCD is worth 0. Just like any hit above 17% is worth 0.

So how does that affect us locks?!?
It doesn't! We don't have a haste cap. Most of our spells have long cast times(Shadow Bolt, SoulFire) or long duration(Corruption). That means that trying to get them to the point where they "hit" the GCD is almost impossible.
Like Gherkin said, you need about 4000 haste rating from gear to make a 2.25 second cast into a 1 second one. And you can't get that.

But we do have some short casts
Yes! We have UA, Immolate, Incinerate under Backdraft etc. Those spells are the only ones in any danger of "hiting" the GCD. But as far as gameplay goes, you use those spells much too scarcely to worry about them. At high enough haste levels you will hit the brick wall that the GCD is but since you do it only 4-5 times a minute that's acceptable.

What about Destro? They have Immolate and Backdraft!
Yeah, they do! Destro is easier to cap then our other specs. It's so easy that it actually has a cap they can reach - about 1300 haste. That's because under Backdraft Incinerate gets to a 1 second cast time. Any more haste then that and Incinerate's cast time will go bellow the GCD making you wait until you can fire another one. That's bad because, as i said, that haste is worthless and could(should imo) be replaced with crit(for example, or spell power) to give you more DPS.
Hope that helpes in understanding haste and it's effects. If i made any mistakes please excuse me. It's 6AM and i'm still having my cofee(god damn early morning meetings ) Correct me as you see fit!

You wrote all that for no reason. Question I asked "What GCD do we reach at 1269?" Answer GCD of spell becomes 1 second. Since we cast incinerate the most it won't always be under backdraft so having more haste isn't exactly a bad thing. I don't gem for haste but I have 1356 as destro from gear and trinkets currently. Basically what I didn't understand was why we would care about a GCD anyway when all of our spells are longer than a GCD. What I didn't realize was people were talking about the general GCD of all spells not one in particular. Thats what had me confused and you did explain that for me so TY: )

[Deleted]

why are you all destro? ;_; its a completely inferior spec..
if you have more than 1.1k haste I'd say go affliction, you'd do alot more DPS, haste scales too well for affliction.

[Jessicka]

why are you all destro? ;_; its a completely inferior spec..
if you have more than 1.1k haste I'd say go affliction, you'd do alot more DPS, haste scales too well for affliction.

It's not that far behind, in fact at certain gear levels Destruction is ahead, it's only at relatively high levels they cross and the gap opens.

That said, I know plenty of people who just don't like the playstyle of Affliction - you'll actually loose a lot more DPS playing in a style you dislike and aren't comfortable with than you'd gain from how far ahead Affliction actually is because the gap is so small.

[Dethh]

It's not that far behind, in fact at certain gear levels Destruction is ahead, it's only at relatively high levels they cross and the gap opens.

That said, I know plenty of people who just don't like the playstyle of Affliction - you'll actually loose a lot more DPS playing in a style you dislike and aren't comfortable with than you'd gain from how far ahead Affliction actually is because the gap is so small.

Pretty much this^ I like to play destro. If I wanted a superior dot class I'd play my shadowpriest. I like destruction, the play style the burst and the flow of the spells. I like Affliction also and sometimes spec it with over 1400 haste in that spec but I always find myself going to Destro if Affliction isn't needed for w/e reason. As far as dps on identical fights for the two specs I break 14k on Rotface as both so really it doesn't matter he's gonna die either way. I'm not going for world records so if affliction is like 6-800 more dps but I like destro and no gimmicks from Affliction spec are needed I'm going destro because I enjoy it more.

[Maeno]

What about Destro? They have Immolate and Backdraft!
Yeah, they do! Destro is easier to cap then our other specs. It's so easy that it actually has a cap they can reach - about 1300 haste. That's because under Backdraft Incinerate gets to a 1 second cast time. Any more haste then that and Incinerate's cast time will go bellow the GCD making you wait until you can fire another one. That's bad because, as i said, that haste is worthless and could(should imo) be replaced with crit(for example, or spell power) to give you more DPS.
Hope that helpes in understanding haste and it's effects. If i made any mistakes please excuse me. It's 6AM and i'm still having my cofee(god damn early morning meetings ) Correct me as you see fit!

For destro the GCD does become lowered with backdraft. Here is a post from elitist jerks.

"In other words, it used to just give you 30% reduction, applied in the same way as bloodlust (ie, multiply by 1/1.30) . If your GCD without backdraft was 1.2 sec, it used to just multiply that, giving you a 0.92 sec cast on immolate, but leaving the GCD at the 1 sec hard cap.

Now, it actually reduced the GCD too, meaning your GCD can go below the usual hard cap. That is to say, a new minimum GCD of 1/1.30 = 0.77 seconds with backdraft.
Now, for backdraft you simply multiply your normal hasted GCD (still with the 1 sec "hard" cap) by ~0.77.
So, if you have excactly 50% haste = 1 sec base GCD, your backdraft GCD will be 0.77 sec. If you have over 50% haste, your base GCD will still remain 1 second (though your immolate cast time will be shorter), and your backdrafted GCD still 0.77 second (and your backdrafted immolate cast time even shorter).

Kinda hard to explain, but hope you get the gist of it.


If you've played a destro lock with a decent amount of haste (20% or so) pre-3.0.8, you would have noticed this when under bloodlust. This would give you a base cast of 1.19 seconds on Immo, giving you a backdrafted cast of 0.92 seconds, meaning for 0.08 seconds after an immolate, you are under the GCD. When chaining spells (by this i mean, if you try to cast a new spell in the last ~10% of the cast of the previous spell, it will auto-cast the new spell after the previous finishes), you would get a "this spell is not ready yet" error, kinda messing up your flow, and underutilizing your haste. And due to the new glyph of conflag, you will rarely cast immolate backdrafted, diminishing the problem with bloodlust+20% haste (a base cast that's lower than base GCD).

The consequence of this new way backdraft affects the GCD, is obviously that deep destro locks will enjoy haste a lot more. Not only has it always scaled better than crit when fully raidbuffed (ie, ~20% base+5% devastation+5% boomkin+3% wrath+10% imp scorch+8% 2-piece t7 setbonus average+7% Empowered Imp average ~= 58% crit average), but it no longer has that annoying "clipping" when using backdrafted immolate.

_Zexion "

[Deleted]

Pretty much this^ I like to play destro. If I wanted a superior dot class I'd play my shadowpriest. I like destruction, the play style the burst and the flow of the spells. I like Affliction also and sometimes spec it with over 1400 haste in that spec but I always find myself going to Destro if Affliction isn't needed for w/e reason. As far as dps on identical fights for the two specs I break 14k on Rotface as both so really it doesn't matter he's gonna die either way. I'm not going for world records so if affliction is like 6-800 more dps but I like destro and no gimmicks from Affliction spec are needed I'm going destro because I enjoy it more.

Bolded certain bits.. Hope you are joking about that DPS..
To get 'over 1400 haste' you need both DFO and Halion haste trinket, so you have to be in a some what 'ok' guild.. So your fights are either stupidly long, or you're doing something wrong there.. (as affliction at least)
In my opinion affliction has got alot easier now that SB refreshes corruption, its not to much different to destruction now, especially at those haste levels.

[Flcrewpolo]

Bolded certain bits.. Hope you are joking about that DPS..
To get 'over 1400 haste' you need both DFO and Halion haste trinket,

i currently run over 1500 haste with spell stone with out having both dfo and halion trinket as i only have the heroic DFO and sindy trinket

so it is possible to get 1400 with out both =p

my current stats are 1301 haste 41% crit 3678 sp before felarmor or any buffs

dps as demo was 15.1k last rotface heroic

[Dethh]

Bolded certain bits.. Hope you are joking about that DPS..
To get 'over 1400 haste' you need both DFO and Halion haste trinket, so you have to be in a some what 'ok' guild.. So your fights are either stupidly long, or you're doing something wrong there.. (as affliction at least)
In my opinion affliction has got alot easier now that SB refreshes corruption, its not to much different to destruction now, especially at those haste levels.

I have heroic DFO and Halion trinket. I am not joking about that dps I usually do 14k. What does the length of the fight have to do with anything? Since you say I'm doing something wrong I can suppose 14k is waaaay to low compared to your dps on the fight?

[Mudkiper]

I have heroic DFO and Halion trinket. I am not joking about that dps I usually do 14k. What does the length of the fight have to do with anything? Since you say I'm doing something wrong I can suppose 14k is waaaay to low compared to your dps on the fight?

Longer fights (aka less raid dps) = less time with bloodlust, less time with potions, less time with personal CD's.

Basically, are you bottom of your DPS, if not then it might be a raid DPS issue, warlock's seem to be pretty low on DPS in ICC anyway.

Our affy this week did 18.7k on saurfang, but we had 377k raid dps (2 min kill time).

[Dethh]

Longer fights (aka less raid dps) = less time with bloodlust, less time with potions, less time with personal CD's.

Basically, are you bottom of your DPS, if not then it might be a raid DPS issue, warlock's seem to be pretty low on DPS in ICC anyway.

Our affy this week did 18.7k on saurfang, but we had 377k raid dps (2 min kill time).

Yes your raids dps is higher if you kill Saurfang in 2 mins. Also I didn't say Saurfang I said Rotface.

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

By saying "Good luck with that", I was referring to capping it unbuffed, which would be a monumental ~4100 haste rating.

I'm almost GCD capped unbuffed =D
Does that count?

[Schippi]

GCD= global cooldown, there is no "specific GCD"

[Singularity]

So basically I will not see a difference in casting time whether I have 960 haste or 1100?

[v2prwsmb45yhuq3wj23vpjk]

GCD= global cooldown, there is no "specific GCD"

GCD = 1.5 seconds. There are some, somewhat rarely, that trigger shorter ones. For intensive purposes, GCD = 1.5 seconds.

So basically I will not see a difference in casting time whether I have 960 haste or 1100?

What gave you that impression?

[Singularity]

GCD = 1.5 seconds. There are some, somewhat rarely, that trigger shorter ones. For intensive purposes, GCD = 1.5 seconds.


What gave you that impression?

I was told that every bit of haste lowers your casting time. Although it will be almost nothing between 960 & 1100 haste

[Deleted]

I have heroic DFO and Halion trinket. I am not joking about that dps I usually do 14k. What does the length of the fight have to do with anything? Since you say I'm doing something wrong I can suppose 14k is waaaay to low compared to your dps on the fight?

yeah, I did 18.9k on rotface with DFO + sindra trinket.
I would give you world of logs links, but I can't put url's in yet, not enough psots -,-
but feel free to go to WoL. I'm on [EU]Auchindoun in a guild called Secrecy, same name as my account here.

i currently run over 1500 haste with spell stone with out having both dfo and halion trinket as i only have the heroic DFO and sindy trinket

so it is possible to get 1400 with out both =p
..

gief armory link, I wanna know where I'm missing nearly 150 haste without a 2nd haste trinket, whilst being in virtually BiS gear. Unless you gem full haste ;D
(Also, i'm talking about affliction, not the cheating 300% spell stones from demo!)