Are there still haste thresholds / plateaus? Or have new mechanics made them a thing of the past? If there are still thresholds - what are some good values to shoot for?

Hey guys, I've been a lurker off and on for a while. Pandaria is the first time I've not been able to find out the information I need elsewhere. Plus this is my first time actually playing a warlock as my main.

So I'm starting to get comfortable with affliction, I'm wildly fluctuating with my dps because of wasting shards too often for refreshing dots. The root cause of this I've determined to be not understanding how procs and dots relate to each other.

To start with I'd like to confirm something. When I cast a dot, say corruption, that corruption spell is modified by all of the buffs that I currently have on me. So if I have Dark Soul: Misery + Blood Lust and have an 89% haste then my corruption will have an 89% haste for the duration of the corruption spell, correct?

Then let's say that both Dark Soul: Misery and Blood Lust expire with corruption having half its duration remaining (Thus getting the full benefit from Pandemic). If I recast corruption do I now gain a new corruption with normal haste lasting for 1.5x the duration of a normal corruption?

I know I have more questions but I think I can refine them better if I get the right information on this.

Thanks!

Immolate gains an extra tick at the following Haste thresholds: 10.00%, 4250 Haste; 30%, 12750; 50%; and, 70%.

AFAIK, Haste functions the same way Mastery does now; the % contribution updating dynamically, rather then being based on the amount when the cast is made as it did in Cataclysm.

Expertise + Hit = Spell Hit

1) I had the same question and decided to test this last night on the target dummy with Skada. I would cast one DOT and let it last until it exprired then recorded it's damage. Did this about 20 times to get a rough average damage number. I then did it again but cast Haunt after the DOT cast, also 20 times. And the same with haunt first. I found that the Haunt damage bonus applies to the DOTs regardless when the DOT is cast, however, you can get DOT ticks without the bonus. So in conclusion, the haunt damage bonus applies to all damage when haunt is applied, but you still want the bonus applied to all ticks, therefore using SB:SS is ideal so you get the most damage ticks under the buff before it expires.

2) Yes since cancelling a channel right before a tick can still be a DPS loss. Granted, it's not much of a problem since the level 90 spell gets rid of the problem is DOT clipping, so in most cases you can wait until a channel is finished before reapplying.

3) In my experience, it depends on the fights. Since I have a trinket with a chance to increase SP significantly, I save my soul shards for when it procs to cast haunt, DS:M, and SS:SB my DOTs to gain the SP/haste increase to do a ton of damage.

4) Not sure, and this is something that can be calculated with DPET. Calculate MG with a 50% increased duration to get the DPET and then the DEPT for FF.

5) The DPET for DOTs take in to account the full duration of the spell. If you constantly refresh a DOT slightly under the 50% mark, you're still not getting DPS from the last half. I still let DOTs run their full duration so I can get more MG spam in, and refresh early when I get a short term buff or if I know I'll need to move and can't refresh later.

DOTs when cast will take your haste/crit/mastery/sp values at the time they are cast. So if your buff runs out during the DOT duration and you recast, the new cast will change the damage modifiers to what you currently have. So you want to let the DOT run it's full duration before reapplying if your buffs ran out.

Yes, it does grant spell hit, although the paper doll won't show additional hit rating number, only changes the percentage. It is a 1-to-1 distribution, so one expertise is good for one spell hit. It allows you to reforge to expertise even if a piece of gear has hit on it.