You seem to not grasp that even though 10% haste only take 0.15s off Life Tap, it still is the same benefit as taking 0.25s off Shadow Bolt. Haste is quite uniform in this aspect. I'll calculate the formula to try and explain the concept.


For destro it is fairly straightforward:
Let A be your dps with no haste. Take your total damage over a given time frame, say T seconds.
Unhasted damage = A * T.

If you now obtain haste rating B, you'll be able to cast the same spell sequence faster, doing the same damage, but in less time.
The new time is T / (1 + B / 1577)

To calculate your new dps, you divide total damage A*T by the new time frame T / (1 + B / 1577). This gives you the following formula:

hasted dps = A * (1 + B / 1577)

Mind you, there is a cap at 33% haste (500+ haste rating), because you can't speed spells up below 1 second.


For affliction it's less beneficial. Aside from reducing the dot gap, which is probably not that big of a deal, you'll have more time to cast shadow bolts which are your your lowest dps filler spell. There have been a few attempts in this thread to model it, I'm sure you can dig around in those. This is assuming one target. Multiple targets will make haste a LOT more attractive.

For demonology haste is obviously less important since it doesn't add dps to your demon. It'll still be good though.

Either way, the spreadsheet should accurately tell you what your benefit from haste is.


In my opinion haste is pretty damn good aside from the spreadsheet conclusions. It effectively lowers your reaction time with spells that have a cast time like banish/fear. It also increases your aoe abilities significantly, and none of the other stats do this.

I agree that the Elements pants + 4 pc T6 is "the best" but I wasn't asking about "the best" overall. I was just asking what was better full T6 or Rhonin + 4 pc T6.

On a side note is there a set lifetap rotation or ideal life tap rotation for destro locks? For example 5 bolts 2 taps or 4 bolts 3 taps. etc etc. Is there such a thing or is it too dynamic do to encounters and does the spreadsheet show this somewhere.

The rotation is "Always be casting something" -- if you need mana, tap. In fights with lots of damage, it's probably best to sprinkle life taps over time to avoid a death. If health isn't a concern, life tap when all cooldowns are down and you're doing the least possible damage.

Good post, but if you call 33% haste a cap you should mention other caps. 33% haste cap isn't very significant as it applies only to lifetaps. The "hard cap" would be when your shadowbolts are cast at 1 second which would be 2366 haste rating, with a "heroism hard cap" at 1456 haste rating. So basically haste is still quite effective after 500 rating.

edit: Oh yeah Galzohar is correct, LT caps at 50% haste (789 rating), not 33%.

Lifetap will reach the cap at 50% haste, not 33%. Haste is a speed increase, not a cast time reduction. And even if you magically reach that, it just means haste goes back to its almost-as-good 2.3 values (affecting everything except 1.5s cast or instants).

As for 10 haste vs spell damage, the reason changing your stats makes the "winner" actaully change is that they're already extremely close to start with. While it's not a horrible assumption to make that your haste will drop in value vs +damage as you gear up with sunwell gear, remember that:
A. Your spell damage will also go up (maybe not as much as haste, but enough to not pre-jump to conclusions about haste vs damage without further research looking at full sunwell gear).
B. They're so close that even if damage ends up surpassing haste (per itemization point, 1 haste rating is realistically always better than 1 spell damage but costs more (see: gems)), it doesn't really make a difference. So much that the inaccuracy of even the spreadsheets is probably bigger than the difference between the stats.

As for maxDPS.com, I would advise avoiding it, as I noticed a few errors in it before even seeing how it actually calculates things - and heard it also calculates things wrong (such as using a 1 roll system which had been shown to be most likely incorrect - while doesn't make much difference on results when you're near the hit cap it shows the site is unreliable). Stick to spreadsheets that actually let the public see how things are calculated and give feedback so you get minimal amount of errors.

[Leggings of Channeled Elements] offpiece is slightly better than [Vestments of the Sea-Witch] as the offpiece which is a little bit better than [Cowl of the Illidari High Lord] as the offpiece in most spread sheet tests I've done. I can't recall off hand, but I think T6 chest is slightly behind [Robes of Rhonin] test it on the sheets with your gear to be sure.

As far as haste and mana scaling, the only area where this is an issue now that life tap speed scales is other mana regen methods (pots, blessing, totem, sp). But since the majority of our mana still comes from life tap its not as significant, but it is definitely something to think about when gathering large amounts of haste over damage.

While there are diminishing returns with haste due to taking less advantage of your mana regen from non-lifetap sources, the actual effect is quite neglicible if you look at the spreadsheet. The main thing that makes more haste cause other stats to become better is simply becuase any stat you stack will make the other stats better due to them being multipicative (dps = damage per spell * crit multiplier * debuff multiplier * speed * etc...), so the partial derivative of dps by any of your stats will be higher when you increase any other stat but not when you increase the stat itself. That means that the more you increase crit, for example, the more dps you'd gain out of hit/damage/haste/etc but crit will still give the same increase (taking first order approximation of the dps increase of those stats, which is pretty damn close to their true value for realistic item upgrade changes).

I've actually found that +10 haste is showing up as the best dps in my sheet.

You might find the last couple pages a good read. Or even the last post.

Reading a thread before you post in it? Blasphemy.

Anyone found a way to measure ISB uptime from a WWS report? I know the spreadsheets have estimated values, but I don't think my raids are getting close to that number. I often see all 4 charges used before I can get my next cast off.

I know I'll be, for the first time in like, ever, socketing for bonuses. With all gear filled with reckless pyrestones/spinels.

As it stands atm T6 shoulders + Illidan Head for meta fixin' seem like the best choice, to be replaced by a probable KJ head (at least haven't found a better combo yet which is why, unless I will find it, I'm setting myself in line for a "ninja" on Illidan head, which, just like Greatstaff and RoAK, I've passed plenty of times and now there's half the casters fighting over).