I was messing with some gear today and I noticed that if i put on 2 piece t9, applied the molten armor buff, and then switched off one or both of the pieces, the 2 piece bonus to molten armor still applied.

I was wondering if this was just a UI error, or an actual bug where you can get the 2piece t9 bonus without having 2 pieces of t9 equipped?

Thanks for the clarification.

I was talking about mage fireball spec. With more than 781.59 haste and taking into account only Wrath of Air totem (100% uptime) + Swift Retribution / Improved Moonkin Form (100% uptime) + T10x2 bonus , you get your GCD < 1sec. So its not a 20secs situation. Now you can add into account heroism, power infusion, black magic proc, haste potion, etc and find a number that better suits your fights. I said 800haste for the sake of easy math calcs, the exact number is 781.59 haste rating.

I'd like to see the actual numbers you are using because i have over 1050 haste self buffed and I dont get close to GCD with all cooldowns.

I would also like to see the numbers on this. I believe you are calculating the way haste works incorrectly. The spec you choose is irrelevant, they will all require the same haste number to be under the GCD.

Even if you are correct, this will not take a Fireball cast under the GCD. Since a majority of a Fire Mage's cast time is spent casting Fireball, I stand by my statement that you should not shy away from haste until you reach absurd levels.

i suggest you use Spellhastecap Calculator, there are most (if not all) haste buffs/procs/whatever listed you could possibly have.

and there IS a difference if you're arcane or not: 3/3 Netherwind Presence awards 6% haste.

oh and dont mistake the GCD (1.5sec) with other casts like FB (3 / 2.85sec)

The 781 haste is specifically in reference to pyro and LB going below the GCD. That would happen all the time and not just during hero. To put some more impacting numbers behind this I took a look as some of my recent logs (private or else I would link) to compare the ratio of fireball casts to pyro/LB casts. Over several fights that are single target only (so I'm not putting out multiple LBs at once) about 65-70% of my casts were fireballs, the remainder pyro or LB. That is the number of casts, so converting those numbers to cast time would push the ratio to around 75%-80%. The situation in question would be for 20%-25% of the fight not just 20 seconds. The situation described above would be the highest percentage of fireballs cast on a fight. Any fight with multiple targets to cast LB on would for one result in more LB instants cast, and secondly would probably have more pyros if the targets are within close proximity.

That being said I agree that haste is still going to have a noticeable increase in DPS even after your instant casts are below the GCD. Having a shorter cast time 75%-80% of the time is still a great thing. I think the original question was how should this play into gear selection . Crit isn't so far ahead of haste that you would want to take a lower level crit piece over a higher item level haste piece even in spite of the 25% of the time that you do not benefit from the stat. When in doubt use a gear optimizing application. I cannot speak for sure but I imagine that they factor in GCDs into the spell rotations used to calculate optimal DPS.

My gear has 926 haste, using Rawr to add raid buffs puts me at 38.69% (fire spec 18/53/0). I use the +63 dam mainhand enchant instead of Black Magic (difference of only 25 dps, or 0.2%, anyway) because I prefer damage over a proc. My cast time for instants is just over 1 sec and my FB is 2.1 sec (using the spellhaste calculation web page) under normal conditions outside of CD and BL. Under 2pT10 proc FB drops to a cast time of to 1.8, what my instacast are under these conditions dosn't really matter, you shouldn't be casting them while you have the proc up. Yes, there will be times that you have to but they should be the exception and 99% of the time you'll be casting a FB.

As mentioned above time spend under BL, PI or Breserking is a small percenatage of an overall fight and shouldn't influence gear/gem selection.

Again using the spellhaste calculation web page, it would take 1250 haste on my gear to push my instacast under the 1sec GCD under normal conditions (no CD/BL/potions/etc). Stopping at any level before this makes no sense.

Elaborate calculations are unncessary for HS, because pyroblasts hit harder than fireball by default. This means that HS procs will always be of higher priority than fireballs even if fireballs were 1 second casts. One can argue about the chance for addtional HS procs, but the assumption here is that you already have an HS proc up.

LB is the same scenario except at extreme haste and crit levels. Barring some sort of ridiculous cooldown stacking at Loatheb that allows for 100% crit fireballs at near 1 second cast, LB will still be higher priority.

To clarify, I don't worry about my instacast getting under the 1 sec GCD by a small amount due to haste/2pT10 proc since I'm mostly casting FB. While I have the 2pT10 proc up I do try and avoid casting instacast spells but I will cast LB if it has expired. If I have to cast LB while under the proc I can only get two hasted (1.8 sec cast) FB off, if not I can squeeze 3 in if I get the spell queing right. I read somewhere here that back to back insta pyros was a good way to invite ignite munching. I use a spell casting sequence macro for my instacast pyros so that I avoid casting two insta pyro's in a row if by chance I get back to back procs. This macro lets me always get a hasted FB off between procs. I'll keep an eye on the time remaining on LB and if I get a HS proc but LB will need to be refreshed in a few seconds I'll hold onto the proc until after I've recast LB so I can get three hasted FB off instead of only two.

In the case of not having to refresh LB, am I wrong in getting more hasted FB cast off vs using HS procs right when the pop-up?

And to Snwborder52, not sure if it's just a UI error with molten armor cast with 2pT9 stays at the inflated crit rate when you swap the gear off. I played around with it and I can get an extra 2% crit according to the UI and mods by swapping the T9 chest and legs (gemed them for spirit for max change) for T10 pieces, getting full raid buffs then casting Molten Armor and swapping back into the T10. This reminds me of back when you could buff someone with FM, swap specs to a non-FM spec, and the FM buff would stay. However, logs show me right around the expected crit rates for spells that Rawr gives me so idk if you actually gain anything by doing this.

Full fire BiS does infact include all 5 pieces of t10,75

Would you mind showing here that macro?

And about the 2pT9 bonus, you don't need to gem for spirit, the only bug happening here is that the molten armor modifier remains the same when you swap back to your T10 and it calculates the spirit of your current gear.