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The arcane mage haste soft cap and what people do about it.
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Post by
Djane
With the introduction of our Tier 10 arcane mages have encountered something hitherto unheard of, it is a fearful and frightful thing, this fiend...this monster this demon of math. The soft haste cap.
Unless my maths are quite awry the soft haste cap is 908 haste and with ICC gear that is quite obtainable. The most optimal use of our cooldowns is to stack them, particularly with bloodlust/heroism and yet at greater than 908 haste and under BL/Icy veins, tier 10 and potions of speed our casts go below 1 second.
I find I actually lose a significant amount of efficiency at this point as going below the GCD causes my quartz server lag compensations to be considerably less effective, and I occasionally end up casting nothing when I mistime by fractions of a second.
Two solutions exist at this point and I'm interested in opinions as to what would be the most beneficial.
A)Stagger cooldowns to ensure Icy veins doesn't class with bloodlust/potions of speed/T10 and push below the GCD
B)Stack SP gems instead of using reckless ametrine where appropriate to bring haste down to 908
C)Spam arcane blast to void T10 whilst under all haste effects.
I am currently using a mixture of A and C, judging mana where appropriate but wondering whether the diminishing value of haste past 908 is significant enough to make Runed cardinals ultimately superior dps to the reckless even when factoring in yellow socket bonuses
Post by
303016
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Squishalot
The math probably isn't awry, but it'd be somewhat.... stupid.. to blow all your cooldowns at once for a linear DPS increase (which is what Haste is) just for the sake of hitting 1sec ABs, when spacing it out would be more effective.
Besides, at 1100 haste, you get a DPS increase when you space out your CDs to maximise the benefit from Pushing the Limit. See Fyuu's link for more details.
Post by
Djane
I think you misunderstand my question there Fyuu. What you state is what I suggest as solution A.
And to squishalot, I'm not stating "blow every CD whenever you can." I'm talking about using our cooldowns in the optimal dps manner, which is to intelligently stack them wherever possible. Holding onto arcane power for a few seconds so you can use it with mirror images for instance, holding onto icy veins and your second pot of speed for BL. Unless you hold on so long you lower the number of times you can pop it in the fight, you are increasing your dps. Therin lies the crux, a lot of fights BL/Heroism is used at the start, prepop a potion of speed, blow all CD's immediately. Doing anything else would be a statistically significant dps loss.
Most simply if you consider arcane power, 15nukes at 1.2X power is obviously superior to 12-13nukes at 1.2X power.
My question is a little more complex than "what can we do?". I've specified the options as I've seen them, although note i forgot a fourth -> Use potions of wild magic instead of pots of speed. The problem is all are suboptimal, but -which- one is the least suboptimal.
Staggering cooldowns is less than maximum efficiency, you lose a nuke or two of arcane power, maybe one of lightweave embroidery, abyssal rune proc, whatever you may of stacked together. But it avoids hitting the haste soft cap.
Stacking SP gems instead of haste to push yourself under the haste cap would ultimately mean you lose a few stats in total, maybe...10-20SP equivalent in total, but maybe that would be less of a dps loss than A?
C) Not really an option due to the mana intensity of a lot of fights, it's a half fix.
D)Use potions of wild magic instead of potions of speed, but if you consider the stats you gain from Wild magic, they -are- just inferior potions for us especially since in ICC gear we're already critting way above 50% so crit is somewhat diminished.
As for spacing out CD's to take advantage of pushing the limit? That doesn't make much sense at all. The proc has an uptime of anywhere from 25-50%. (data taken from my own logs ->
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/6u93cv1gkwfxwoho/details/11/?enc=kills
) Taking advantage of a proc with such a high uptime isn't really feasible and quite suboptimal if you're suggesting you pop cooldowns whenever they're available and pushing the limit has procced.
And in regards to how "diminished" is haste past the haste cap, the above logs have me under bloodlust for 12% uptime, which to me is significant enough particularly when you consider the close values of SP and haste as is.
Post by
365547
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
303016
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Djane
Remember that the DPS you save when avoiding being hasted past the 1 second timer has to be offset with the DPS you lose with the slower casts during standard DPS phases. I've personally run with as high as 1000 unbuffed Haste and can verify that you're better off staggering haste cooldowns with a smile on my face.
Yes, exactly. If you are at 1k haste and aren't staggering cooldowns you will lose dps. I'm not debating that at all. What i'm wondering is if you'd see a net dps increase if you regemmed instead of staggered. The difference in dps on staggering cooldowns is small, probably less than 100, the difference in dps when regemming is small, definitely less than 100. I agree with all the facts you've stated and am not attempting to have a closed discussion at all. I apologise if i've missed variables, it's definitely possible.
They're only inferior if the excess Haste from a Speed potion suffers from some sort of diminished return, which it will be if you use one to push yourself under a 1 second casting timer; the same point I've now had to try and make multiple times.
I'm a little confused as to which potion you're talking about here. Mathmatically potions of speed are dramatically superior to potions of wild magic even when you're pushing under the GCD. 500 haste where haste is nigh on equal to spellpower is just so much more than 200 crit and 200 SP. So using a potion of wild magic whilst avoiding the haste soft cap entirely is still going to be inferior dps to using a potion of speed even if it pushes us under the GCD.(This does assume minimal server lag and good reflexes). As I said I'm confused, if that's what you're saying, great we agree. If not and you're saying potions of speed are inferior then I don't agree. Could you clarify?
The uptime % is irrelevent, the fact is that you have (some) control on when the PTL proc occurs, unlike most other proc effects, so it's a cinch to sync your cooldowns with such an effect. Once your haste cooldowns are active, activating further procs are a more common occurance statistically.
I disagree strongly with this due to the nature of the proc. The important thing is it's regularity(which is reflected in its uptime which I assumed and didn't clarify which I accept was poor). It's procced every 5-10 seconds or so, depending on playstyle. Because of that it's up continually at similar intervals. Timing cooldowns around this is somewhat suboptimal as you can be sure that whilst it's relative uptime during cooldowns I agree will be different, it won't be -that- different.
If we take arcane power to demonstrate and assume an average proc of once every 7.5 seconds(5 casts for me)
Casting arcane power the moment pushing the limit procs would result in 2x5second procs, for a 66% uptime during arcane power.
Casting arcane power before it procs would result in between 1.5-7.5seconds before first proc, for an uptime of between 33-66%.
Significant I agree. However...it is not as significant as popping arcane power with mirror images or icy veins, potion of speed, light-weave embroidery or any trinket proc. I appreciate my math there is very much napkin math but I hope it illustrates why I believe pushing the light is not an important factor in deciding how to stack cooldowns. Whilst it does have an impact, it's just not as big as one as all the other cooldowns we have.
it wasn't my intention at all to pidgeon hole but I appreciate that that's how you've perceived it and I definitely see your point in how i initially phrased it so I'll state I'm more than willing to discuss this. I asked because I simply do not know which of those options would be better, and couldn't think of any others. I've empirically tested but the difference is too small to be statistically significant enough to draw meaningful conclusions from. Whilst I appreciate from that a lot of people might say "what's the point?" answers are fun to search for.
Post by
365547
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Djane
If you don't stagger > use wild magic as you don't benefit fully from the haste. Assuming BL+IV puts you at/over the haste cap, a speed pot will be worth 0 dps.
That's not necessarily true. The lessened value of haste is still superior to 200SP/200crit unless you were looking at something like 15-20% depreciation. And that amount of depreciation IS possible I imagine when you're looking at ICC25/ICC25 heroic gear but is not likely to be an issue for the majority of people and certainly not for me. Potions of wild magic are always inferior in pure mathmatical terms until about 20% depreciation. A speed pot would not be worth 0 dps as you claim, only the haste beyond the cap would be worth 0 dps. The further above the haste cap you are, the more of a potion of speed is worthless under full-haste conditions.
How is the uptime of PtL poor?
That's not what I said. My comment there was that I had made an assumption in how I explained my views on the proc and hadn't clarified and that not clarifying that assumption was poor. I then went on to explain the uptime of PtL is both high and regular. I agree PtL will have a much higher uptime during bloodlust/heroism. But that wasn't the point I was making. I was stating basing cooldowns such as arcane power around PtL uptime was suboptimal as the difference in uptimes between planned stacked use and unplanned use is not as significant as stacking cooldowns such as arcane power with other cooldowns such as arcane power.
I.e PtL is up regularly and constantly, you can rely on a 33-66% uptime during any arcane power usage if not more. It's better to stack Arcane power with other CD's such as mirror images, multiple gear procs and icy veins then stacking it with PtL.
Post by
303016
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
Djane
*blinks* I never argued for using potions of wild magic although I did state there could be situations where you're sufficiently over the cap for them to be superior, but it would have to be a significant overeaching...
Post by
303016
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
Post by
365547
This post was from a user who has deleted their account.
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