Haste

[Schwarz]

Tonight I should be getting new pants for my 5 shaman. Pants ('http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34934')

I have been arguing with a guy at work if I should be going haste or spelldamage. Up until yesterday I was convinced that I should be going straight spell damage. With these new pants my spell damage will be 1020ish. The arguement that really made me starting thinking twice about haste was the following. As you increase your haste you see an exponential growth. For every other stat out there you see linear growth.

I am really tempted to go back and regem over my +12 spell damage gems in favor of +haste/+crit or +hast/+spell damage or for maximum effectiveness just +haste gems.

So here is the question would you lose +60 spell damage for +50 haste?

[Frosty]

I've never done much research on haste in WoW.

I can see the potential for a problem but it may already be addressed.
If you cast spells faster, your DPS will go up, but your mana will drain faster. Unless haste also affects mana regen?

[Fizzler]

You will not use any more mana though just use it faster but than the MOB should be dieing faster.

Reminds me of something a friend of mine said during a horror movie. "Don't run you will just die tired"

[Schwarz]

I think this is a nonissue. If your dps goes up then the boss dies faster so you shouldn't have mana problems. I would think this would come up more often in a raid situation than 5 mans/kara.

[Aradar]

Yeah, haste makes the fight go the same way, just faster, which can be huge on some fights where bosses do certain mechanics based on time in the fight. However, more spell damage will also make the fight go faster and I'm not sure at what point the two stats are equal.

Assuming all stats stay the same and you just add haste, nothing really changes except the speed of the fight. On the other hand, additional spell damage will decrease the length of the fight as well but with the added bonuse of more damage/mana.

According to WoWHead's weight scale which I believe is directly from Elitist Jerks, elemental shaman should weigh thier stats as follows:

Damage = 100
Crit = 78
Haste = 62
Mana Regen = 30
Int = 25
Hit = 5

Which if my math serves me well means they equate 1.61 haste to 1 damage and therefore your answer is no, you shouldn't give up 60 damage for 50 haste, it would have to be around 97 haste to even be equal.

Edit: And grats on the pants.

[Ken]

The biggest damage-related problem with haste is that it does not influence instant-cast damage spells, while spell damage does.

[Drizzit]

does not influence instant-cast damage spells,

I believe it decreases the global cooldown and cooldown of spells.

[Multibocks]

yes it does, although global is limited to 1sec minimum iirc.

[Karthas]

to get to a 1 sec GCD, you need 785 haste rating. haste increases DPS, but DPM will stay the same, so you will go oom earlier.

The value of haste also gets higher depending on your other stats too, it is not just a linear function.

[Drizzit]

According to WoWHead's weight scale which I believe is directly from Elitist Jerks, elemental shaman should weigh thier stats as follows:

Damage = 100
Crit = 78
Haste = 62
Mana Regen = 30
Int = 25
Hit = 5

Which if my math serves me well means they equate 1.61 haste to 1 damage and therefore your answer is no, you shouldn't give up 60 damage for 50 haste, it would have to be around 97 haste to even be equal.

So is Aradar right then. Only get haste when you get 1.61 per 1 damage? Well if your hit rating isn't that good haste might be a better option.. if you think about it with no haste you can get 20 LB in 1 min and 30 LB with haste. On average you miss on every tenth one, so +spell hits 18 times and +haste hits 27 times. The extra 7 times could be a little more then the spell damage.

But on the other side when you crit, you will get a bitter damage done by the +spell. Dam blizzard making us chose.

[Schwarz]

So I think we can all agree that 785 haste rating is almost impossible. But assuming that 15 haste = 1 then when you are bloodlusted you would only need 335 rating. Which might be possible.

I guess I don't understand fully what happens when you get to the point that the gcd is lowered to 1 second.

I am thinking about taking a hit on one of my guys and regemming him for full haste and seeing what kind of results I get. They are all geared the same so it shouldn't be a big deal.

edit:
I think idealy there would be 2 things happening
1) reduce the cast of lightning bolt to 1.5 seconds so when you are normally dps you are waiting on the gcd not the lightning bolt
2) while bloodlusted reduce the gcd/lightning bolt cast time to to 1 second

If i have a base cast of 2 seconds to get that down to 1.5 seconds I need 25% haste. 25*15 = 375. So is 375 the magic number on haste?

[Aradar]

So I think we can all agree that 785 haste rating is almost impossible. But assuming that 15 haste = 1 then when you are bloodlusted you would only need 335 rating. Which might be possible.

I guess I don't understand fully what happens when you get to the point that the gcd is lowered to 1 second.

I am thinking about taking a hit on one of my guys and regemming him for full haste and seeing what kind of results I get. They are all geared the same so it shouldn't be a big deal.

This is probably your best bet and the easiest way to figure it out.

[TheBigBB]

You don't get exponential growth from haste as compared to other stats. I mean, as a shaman, you get a huge bonus for your crits, and with as high as most ele shamans have their crit rating, you get a gigantic boost from your spell damage! Also it takes a huge amount of haste to make a noticable difference in casting speed. AND the first couple of hits don't even benefit at all. It doesn't matter if your initial blow cast .07 seconds faster or whatever, but it would matter if you hit for more on your first blow. So right from the start you're playing catch-up with where you would have been. Unless you had some godly spell haste items you wouldn't surpass it. Haste can be great, but for ele shamans I'd think that you'd want it mixed in with a mail caster piece, not adding it on your gemming or enchants.

[Drizzit]

if you can wait till you get to WotLK they have practice dolls there that you can just beat on. Spec one +damage and the other +haste and see what is better. No matter what way you go you will only have to re-do one of them. The other thing is other people will be using these dolls for the same reason so you might not even have to do the math.

[Schwarz]

I think you can get to the 375 point where Lightning bolt cast time will be down to 1.5 seconds and when bloodlusted the gcd/lightning bolt cast will be 1 second

belt +34 haste (+10 haste)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34935

Trinket
+40 haste
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35327

Shoulders
+33 haste
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=33970

neck
+21 haste (+10 haste socket)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35319

legs
+38 haste (+20 haste socket)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34934

hands
+24 (+20 haste)
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34791

ring 1
+30 haste
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35320

ring 2
+18 haste
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34704

chest
+51 haste
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=34933

back
+16 haste
http://www.wowhead.com/?item=35321

total 355 haste

Throw in 2 more +10 haste gems somewhere and you should be golden.

[Aradar]

I think you should just switch one and see what happens but assuming epic gems and disregarding socket bonuses (+10 haste has the same criteria), you've just given up 72 spell damage in the sockets mentioned as well as another 24 in the sockets that get you "golden". Not to mention the spell damage lost in your gear by going for +haste gear. You may want to check out www.warcrafter.net so you can see the end numbers.

Edit: I'm bored so I ran the numbers for you. I dropped your Icon for the Battlemaster trinket and the two crit/damage gems you still had after switching out the gear for the other two +haste gems.

Spell Damage: 981->888
Crit Chance: 14.32%->9.86%
Haste %: 4.4->24.4
Hit Chance: 86.8%->85.1%
MP5: 27->23

Like I said before, I don't know the point at which the two equate but maxing it out definately appears to be overkill. You're talking about losing almost 9.5% of your spell damage along with almost 4.5% less chance to crit.

[Schwarz]

Sweet thanks I couldn't figure out how to socket the items.

If you do reach the point where you have 1.5 second lightning bots that mean you are casting 10 times more per minute. With blood lust poped you would be casting 30 more times per minute.

To get all this gear together I would still need ~120 badges and 70kish honor I am leaning toward just socketing for spell damage right now if/when I do get the honor together trying it out.

Oh and according to warcrafter.net the magic number I think I need is 395(15.8 haste per 1% and i want 25%) not 375.

[Fizzler]

even

HA! I have suggested practice dolls a few times over the years on the suggestion boards. I am so glad they implemented it. Of course in UO you could actually level your weapon skill off of one.

*edit*

Some decent discussions/information on this topic.

http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t12882-mechanic_primer_-_haste_-_how_works_what_means/
http://www.sourced.me.uk/forum/gw_ratings.php
http://elitistjerks.com/f31/t12038-spell_haste_rating/
http://www.wowwiki.com/Spell_haste

[Anastasiya]

The trick question is if your raiding or doing 5 mans and PvP.

Haste is a great stat for raiding. provided you are at a certain point in your gear.
40% crit is where you want to be sitting at. after 40% you actually get a diminishing return on 1% crit. after 40% it's like 1% increase is about .6% DPS increse.
1100 Spell damage is the min you want to get to before you start stacking haste. Before 1100 Damage is 1:1 and haste is 1:.6 After damage is 1:1 and Haste is 1:1.2

i personally use a Dam/Crit set for anything but raiding. and i only use my Haste set on Boss fights, where you have time to actually make those extra casts worth casting. Most mobs i 2-3 shot wile doing Dailies and for 5 mans you just don't have the mana return that you need to really take advantage of Haste. I always have a Shadow Priest right now in my group when raiding, to keep my DPS up because haste is such a huge mana drain, as i'm casting about 30% more lightning bolts then with out it.

Hope that helps out. if you need any information on Shaman just send me a PM, and i can probably help out.

[Aradar]

Sweet thanks I couldn't figure out how to socket the items.

Right click any item and it should give you the option of entering edit mode if you aren't already in it. Once you are in edit mode, right click again to change equipment, socket gems or enchant the item.

[Catamer]

I suggest checking out maxdps.com and looking at the suggested gems for the elemental shaman.

I believe +spell is king, followed by (+spell/+haste) followed by +haste.

the difference doesn't seem like that much but over 5 shaman and over multiple gems it starts to add up.

[Fastway]

I have 1002 spellhaste with procs, and it blows.

[Oldin]

The thing about spelldamage stats is that every point in Spelldamage makes Crit and Haste better, Every point in Haste, makes Crit and Spelldamage better, and every point in haste makes both Spelldamage and Haste better.

If someone has the time and effort they might make a three point chart of it showing equality curves for all the three stats. (don't really know the proper terms, but whoever knows what I'm talking about should know what I mean)

However, the DPS increase from haste is linear after patch 2.2 I think. Haste increases casting speed, it doesn't give a cast time reduction. 10% casting speed increase you can cast 1 extra spell in the same time you could previously cast 10 making that 11 1.5second cast time spells in 15 seconds. If it was a cast time reduction you you could cast 11.1 and this would make the increase exponential. Now it is linear.