Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Celestial Focus, Haste, and ICC Gearing

The WotLK expansion has been out for quite a while, and over the past year and a half we "experts" have said a lot of different things regarding haste and such. That is why I try to be understanding when it comes to questions where the answer seems obvious to me.

The question of the week seems to be centered on Celestial Focus and Haste. I've seen several questions asking what is the value of Haste? Should I drop Celestial Focus for another talent since I am way over the Haste Cap? Should I Gem Haste or Crit?

In this post I hope to answer some of these questions or show you where to find the answer and also explain why we "experts" seem to be contradicting ourselves.

The Value of Haste:

I can't give you a precise value for Haste Rating. That depends on a lot of things that are different for everyone. How I value Haste will be slightly different then how you value haste. If you do want a precise value of Haste Rating I suggest you read this post I wrote a few months ago.

That said, I can try and give you the big picture. As a general rule Haste Rating is better the Crit rating for ICC geared moonkin. Moonkin that are geared with ToC and Ulduar level epics will value Crit Rating more then Haste because it is unlikely that they have reached the Lunar Crit Cap. Prior to that it doesn't really matter because you should be running as many instances as possible to get badges and 5man epics.

Why is Haste > Crit Now?

I know what some of you are thinking. Last year everyone was telling you that Crit is better then Haste. What changed? What did we "experts" screw up? Well, we didn't mess anything up. The truth is that two things changed.

The Lunar Crit Cap is the first thing that changed. Having some of your Crit Rating rendered useless for 30% of the fight does diminish the marginal value of Crit Rating. That said, the Lunar crit cap is probably over credited for the late rise of Haste Rating. The fact is that the marginal value of Crit Rating was already pretty low if you have a 99% crit rating during Lunar Eclipse. Taking it over 100% doesn't change a lot.

The less obvious reason is Spell Power. Many people forget just how well Haste scaled with Spell Power for Starfire in TBC. Haste Rating was and still is more valuable on a point for point basis then Spell Power for well geared moonkin if you only consider Starfire. So, with the massive amounts of Spell power we are receiving by upgrading to ICC level gear, haste is improving dramatically even with the soft cap.

I won't detail the math but take a look at this graph.


What I did here was find the marginal gain in DPS by adding 1 point of Haste Rating and Crit Rating to various levels of Spell Power for the spell Starfire. The base levels of Crit and Haste were held constant at 55% and 31% respectively.

Notice that the gap between the lines at the start of the graph is much smaller then the gap at the end of the graph. This shows that the slope of the +1 Haste line is bigger then that of +1 Crit, and therefore Haste scales better with Spell Power then Crit Rating does when not held back by a soft cap. When you combine this with the fact that we've been holding our Haste levels relatively low and the dramatic increase in Spell Power we have received from ICC, it is easy to see why Haste Rating is surging in value relative to Crit Rating.

Yes, You Do Want Celestial Focus.

I can understand why some new moonkin would consider dropping Celestial Focus from their talent build. We "experts" tell everyone that Haste drops significantly in value after you reach 400 Haste Rating, and any moonkin who makes the right gear choices will be well over 400 haste rating by the time they are raiding ICC. Logically, if the soft cap diminishes the value of Haste Rating it also diminishes the value of Celestial Focus. If you don't have a lot of experience with the balance tree you may question if there is a better talent option past 400 haste. The answer is no, there is not.

First, as I showed above Haste Rating is very good for Starfire well past the Soft Cap of 400 haste rating. While that extra 1%-3% of haste that CF provides may be useless to Wrath and the instants, it is still very good for a good portion of your rotation with Starfire.

Second, if you drop Celestial Focus you are ignoring the value of pushback protection. In today's raiding environment it isn't a huge need, but it does help your DPS. Therefore, it is important to remember that if you drop CF from your talent build you are loosing more then just the Haste.

Finally, where else are you going to put the points. Genesis sucks. If haste is unimportant to you then Mana Regen should be as well. Brambles and Owlkin Frenzy are only minimally useful. Typhoon and Gale Winds are only situationally use full. Fact of the matter is, even though Celestial Focus is diminishing in value with our increasing level of Haste Rating, there is no better place to put the talent points.

TL-DR:

If you want to find a precise valuation of Haste Rating you will need to use a tool like WrathCalcs or SimulationCraft, but I am confident in saying that Haste Rating is better then Crit Rating for ICC geared moonkin. I realize this may confuse some people given the number of times we "experts" have flip flopped on the value of Haste over the course of this expansion, but it is true.

When you combine the huge amounts of Spell Power we receive ICC with the Lunar Crit cap, haste surges in value as we close out this expansion, though it is still lower then it would be with out the Soft Cap.

This also shows that the Haste provided by Celestial Focus has value even past the soft cap. Given that there are no better options on how to spend those 3 talent points and Haste is still very valuable for Starfire, Celestial Focus should remain a part of the core moonkin talent build.

43 comments:

Maestro said...

I don't think that it's going to make much of a difference here, but increasing haste by 1 point and increasing crit by 1 point gives different percent increased in the values of haste and crit. Given that each point of haste is worth more of a percent than each point of crit, i can see where it would seem to scale better on a per point basis. I suppose then the question becomes whether one point of haste is equivalent to one point of crit in terms of item budget. I honestly don't recall the answer to that. I was just wondering.

Anonymous said...

Indeed, for Starfire, Haste is the way to go, but keep in mind that by stacking crit, you increase the value of Wrath in your rotation. Since Wrath and Starfire are at about the same percent damage-wise during a fight, and also the fact that more crit=more Nature's Grace uptime, i'd say don't value Haste so much over Crit. In my opinion, until we get to levels of 90-100% Nature's Grace uptime, crit is very close or even slighty higher than Haste. But of course i didn't test this using some simulation, it's just my logical answer to Haste vs Crit :)

Anonymous said...

A lot of people also don't understand that the "haste soft cap" is binary. It doesn't really matter if you are a little bit over or a lot over it.

Dentex - Dragonblight said...

I think you are overconsidering haste.
Im running at 40%+ crit unbuffed in night elf form, and 544 haste.
during a whole boss fight starfire crits 90% of the times and wrath 70%
If you add starfall , natures grace is up probably 80% of the time.
That means that wrath benefits of more haste only when i dont land a crit (30% of the times or less)
Stacking haste and losing crit means NG is up much less.
Im still convinced crit>haste besides what wrathcalcs says.

That said, it seems that some dudus with high haste skip solar eclipse and spam starfire all the time. I am definetely not one of them!

Graylo said...

@Maestro/Relevart

Yes, Haste and crit have the same itemization value. People have worked it out with green items, but you can also tell with gems.

@anon1

Sorry but math trumps guesses. I don't know how you are geared but Most ICC25geared moonkin I know are already close to 90% NG uptime. You also missed the main point of the post.

Haste scales better than Crit.

Crit does increase your NG uptime but not much. That is a much overstated benefit. Crit also is does not scale as well with spell power. So at the high levels of ICC SP Crit is inferior.

@Dentax

Ignoring the math is dumb. Your only hurting your DPS. You may be getting 90% SF crits but your gettting them slower.

If you guys want to argue with what I've said, then bring math, otherwise your arguement means nothing.

Dentex - Dragonblight said...

The only dumb thing i see is having a main cast spell (wrath) constantly below the gcd just to spam starfire faster.

I dont do spreadsheets but take a look at this:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-44tbkoj7w8oqqq5r/details/11/?s=2399&e=2642

This is your latest DBS kill graylo (the kind of fight where you can measure spell dmg without "disturbing" things like malleable goo, impaling or sindragosa debuff)

This is my most recent kill:

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/72i58np7rpte996y/details/7/?s=2434&e=2650

Look at numbers (my wrath vs your starfire) here's my math.

You should write in the title of the post "for those who love to spam starfire, haste is better than crit"

Cheers

Dentex

Sehana said...

With 1000+ for both, I am still socketing potent rather than reckless.

Where there is target swapping, I'm often missing 3% crit since we don't run with an ellie shaman, and there's rarely a muti/ret on my target.

I'm also often missing a further 5% unless the warlock happens to be on my target.

Haste wins on a boss, yes. If we're target swapping it generally means that something needs burned down fast, hence why I've been working out my gemming assuming I'm lacking crit buffs.

Duskstorm said...

Graylo, is it worth it to consider the value of crit vs. haste wrt to eclipse procs?

In a very movement intensive fight, there are a lot of times when you are dpsing without an eclipse currently up. During this time, your dps is fairly low; I would imagine (but don't have math to back this up) that crit, point for point, improves the average time it takes to proc eclipse, but haste also improves the starfire dps when you're specifically trying to proc solar eclipse.

Of course, theoretically,if you're casting wrath and NOT proccing Lunar eclipse, then most likely you're aren't critting, hence NG isn't up, hence haste cap is different.

OK, let me back up... this is too complicated. Are there models that take in account random segments of your rotation that are interrupted by 3-7 seconds of movement?

IMO maxing dps around movement is essential for anyone concerned with maxing out their characters potential. However, there's a lot more simulations and theory crafting around the idea of standing in place and nuking.

Dentex - Dragonblight said...

I want to add something:
What is the purpose on getting shitloads of haste to lower starfire to a 1.5 sec cast, adding another cast in a 12 sec buff duration (when probably your next starfire is gonna crit anyway) and not considering stacking crit for chain critting 20k/25k wrath during solar eclipse?

Refreshing your mind:
Lunar eclipse = 40 % crit to starfire (60% chance to proc from wrath critical strikes. benefits marginally from haste, and fully from spell power procs)
Solar eclipse = 40 % dmg to wrath (100% ONEHUNDREDPERCENT chance to proc from starfire critical strikes. it doesnt benefit from haste, but it does from IIS, critical stike rating and spell power procs)

Guess who wins

Boomkins are made to crit. Leave haste to mages

Maragon said...

Dentex:

Starfire is our primary nuke for a reason. Starfire has a 1.0 +spelldamage coefficient whereas wrath only has a coefficient of .57.

I don't know what you're hoping to prove by posting your logs and Graylo's - I have parses of me ruining your DPS while severely favoring haste over critical strike rating.

Here's my world 60-something Saurfang kill:
http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/rt-9ravpoestkp6xabv/sum/damageDone/?s=2047&e=2251#Alaterial

I'm running with 981 haste and less than 32% critical strike out of form. And if you peruse the higher DPSing moonkins, you'll see similar haste values.

Unless you can provide us with mathematical data explaining why crit should be valued over haste, then we'll have to dismiss this as merely your opinion.

Maragon said...

Also:

You state - "Refreshing your mind:
Lunar eclipse = 40 % crit to starfire (60% chance to proc from wrath critical strikes. benefits marginally from haste, and fully from spell power procs)"

Please explain how you've come to the conclusion that lunar eclipse(aka starfire) benefits "marginally" from haste.

In reality, starfire benefits FULLY from haste. Hence why haste is such a powerful stat.

Silveria said...

I'm perfectly fine with the math saying haste wins. I prefer to have a balance of my stats - so I don't completely factor out haste. I believe I'm at 880 or something in my gear.

However, I do favor crit. Experience has told me time and time again that crit has always helped me with Eclipse fluidity. I don't ignore the math - however, I don't follow it completely.

It's always going to come down to a matter of personal preference - for now - until a MAJOR gap between the two is made apparent. I do not believe the gap between Haste and Crit for Balance druids is that major (think Shadow Priest, Affliction Warlock, Elemental Shaman gaps, etc).

@Maragon: The highest DPS moonkin - me - favors crit: http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/wr7fk090zbdidk3k/sum/damageDone/?s=1974&e=2160#Silveria

It's just personal preference, for now. I prefer a balance of the two with a slight lean towards crit.

Ube said...

Everyone that posted a log:
Your log is ONE possible thing to happen with your favor for crit or hast. Run the fight like 9999999999 times and maybe you get some better facts to share... statistics is a bitch!


(I'm really sorry for my probalby crappy english)

Maragon said...

@ Silvera:

It's hard to say that you "favour crit" when you have 883 haste and only 36.51% crit. You may GEM crit, but you could certainly pick out pieces that would afford you more crit than haste - which you're not doing. Your pants are a good example of you choosing better stats - haste, spellpower and hit - over more critical strike.

And I should hope you're out-dpsing me in your gear which is practically BiS - and nice PI, brah.

Silveria said...

@Maragon:

It's not a hard decision to choose a piece that is itemized better over the tier 277. One more socket, more overall spellpower - I would be an idiot not to choose them considering how close I value them. If they had crit on them I would like them more, but they don't.

Your hostility is cute. I have some fantastic gear, yeah, I'm lucky. I got one PI, great. I wasn't trying to make this a DPS competition, all I was doing was stating MY opinion, which is an OPINION - I prefer crit. It has done me well (evidenced by my logs). I consistently perform well with it, PI's or not, and although the math states that haste has a higher value, which I do not doubt, I feel that the values are close enough to where you could prefer one or the other - or simply a balance, which is mostly what I go for. Like I said, I lean SLIGHTLY towards crit - which is why I made the better decision regarding those pants. I gem crit because that's what I prefer.

Dentex - Dragonblight said...

@ Maragon:

60k more dmg over almost 3 million is not "ruining" my log. I could do better on a lucky RNG try and your 277 trinket with half your haste.

Anyway i didnt post the link to the dps section to showoff, but i did post the link to the specific spell dmg just to show that you can do better and/or similar results with different stats.
I still believe haste is overconsidered, because spreadsheets are one thing. the real fight is another thing.

Spell dmg coefficient is directly proportional to the cast time. with a base slight bonus to wrath. solar eclipse is the only one adding a damage bonus, which doubles every crit. thats why is win in my opinion

Im sure in the next future i will need to raise haste because of the gear itemization, i will not cry about it.But for now i keep my crit, and encourage people to stack it before starting to stack haste.

Maragon said...

Dentex:

"I could do better on a lucky RNG try and your 277 trinket with half your haste."

Prove it - or it's heresay, which is as worthless as your other opinions on haste and critical strike values.

Just because you SAY you could match my numbers doesn't mean you can anymore than my saying I could match Silvera's numbers if I had his gear and a PI means that I could.

@ Silvera

"Your hostility is cute. I have some fantastic gear, yeah, I'm lucky. I got one PI, great. I wasn't trying to make this a DPS competition, all I was doing was stating MY opinion, which is an OPINION - I prefer crit. "

I hardly think I'm being hostile - I'm merely reacting to your direct challenge to my log by posting your log. You could have stated your opinion without posting a log.

If you really want to dispute the current theories, bring some math to do so.

Dignam said...

@Maragon

There simply isn't that much theorycrafting regarding how crit can affect fluidity of Eclipse transitions, especially where you are cycling through different targets that are not fully raid debuffed (i.e. 70% of ICC fights, the most important of which being LK) Those sort of factors can close the 'gap' between crit vs haste, and even end up favoring crit substantially.

I choose to gem sp/crit rather than sp/haste just for that edge. The rest of my pieces are essentially chosen because they're better pieces (like the tier pants vs plaguebringer's discussion that happened earlier).

WTB Balance dots scaling w/ crit. :( I think that would end the 'debate'.

- Dignam, Crushridge US

Dignam said...

Also, forgot to mention this regarding the crit vs haste debate.

When it comes to Lunar Eclipse 'clairvoyance', there is a level of haste where watching your natures grace and predicting (I normally predict at 1-2 simultaneous refreshes) where you end up finishing your Starfire before you actually gain the Eclipse buff, screwing you over pretty hard. Generally, being excellent at predicting the transition has always been one thing that separated good Moonkin from horrible ones, and now its suddenly become incredibly hard to do.

- Dignam, Crushridge US

Lespaul said...

The case being argued here is flawed from both perspectives. The only time when you should ever be considering whether to stack crit or haste over one another is when gemming. How many yellow sockets do you have on your gear where the socket bonus is worth taking? (im assuming all yellow sockets are worth gemming reckless/potent except in situations where you need 2 yellow gems to get the bonus...) 4? 6? possibly 8 at a pinch? So you're talking about a difference of upto 80 haste or crit here. 2.6% haste or 1.9% crit. In the grand scheme of things, a trivial amount.

When gearing, you should never be considering "do I want that piece cos it has more haste or do I want that piece cos it has more crit?" Instead, all you should be thinking is "where can I put my hit so that I can maximise the amount of crit AND haste on my gear. Spirit is never really an option unless there is no drop with haste+crit, both are worth about 1.3 times the value of spirit. (you can argue wrist slot all you like, hit wrists are still currently the best except when only capping hit to heroic presence, and come 3.3.5 there will be a haste/crit alternative that drops from the Ruby Sanctum.)
So how many alternatives with haste+crit are there in each slot and at each ilvl? Most of the time only one, occasionally 2 - one leather one cloth with identical stats - and very rarely 2, one 10 man heroic mode item and one normal 25 man item, one with more crit, and one with more haste, so at heroic level, generally there is only ever one choice in every slot anyway. When you are faced with a choice? Never go for 'the one that has more crit' or 'the one that has more haste', but always the one that has the greatest accumulation of the two and the most spellpower. (although they should have the same sp at the same ilvl)
The only real dilemma should be (as I said above) where to put your hit in order to maximise both crit and haste.

If you read Graylos post properly, you should have noticed that he specifically states that haste scales better with spellpower, not 'haste is better than crit'. If you took the graph he presented and changed it to Wrath casts instead of Starfire, you would see the lines reversed (with haste levelling off much earlier) but with the top value of crit being lower than that of haste on the SF graph due to Wraths lower coefficient. This would show overall that haste scales marginally better with SF than crit does with Wrath and as such is the reason why you're better off gemming reckless ametrines than potent ones.
Overall tho its such a minor gain that you would probably see it swallowed up by RNG most of the time.

TL;DR
There is barely ever a choice to make when gearing. Haste+crit in every slot, except where you want to put hit. Spirit is acceptable whilst waiting for a haste+crit upgrade, but won't be BiS. Gem reckless over potent, although the difference could be considered preferential.

Dignam said...

@Lespaul,

Yes, this 'debate' all ends entirely with whatever you find preferential. The more interesting debate is how to actually interpret data you read from theorycrafters and applying it to actual fights where you don't just stand there and nuke away the entire time with a fully debuffed target.

To me, that is more important than the solid math since Boomkins and 98% of fights are not as two dimensional as the math makes them out to be.

- Dignam, Crushridge US

Anonymous said...

I respect Graylo and his math and I'd just like to say thank you for taking the time to do all that and for making it available to us.

We have been blessed with options here and everyone fails to see this. You can be a haste Moonkin, a Crit Moonkin or a Balanced Moonkin past the soft caps and do good DPS either way you go. This is what cataclysm will be about. Choosing your path. So you have the option to do that now with little difference in your DPS.

Moonlyt

Anonymous said...

Did Rawr, Wrathcalc and all the theory-crafter think of starfall-buff in patch 3.3.3.? I hope you consider, that starfall scales with crit-rating but not with haste-rating. And for me, starfall does 15%+ of my overall dmg.

Graylo, your graph would be right for pre 3.3.3. situation, but now crit- and haste-rating should be almost equal.

mfg Olli, EU/Zuluhed

Dentex - Dragonblight said...

@Maragon:

"Prove it - or it's heresay, which is as worthless as your other opinions on haste and critical strike values."

Your damage:
Deathbringer Saurfang 2664188 93.6 %
Blood Beast 1
82524 6.4 %

My damage:
Deathbringer Saurfang 2148626 77.2 %
Blood Beast 634216 22.8 %

You have been full time on boss, With the obvious benefits.

And my opinion is not so worthless if this thread is becoming someway interesting.

Graylo said...

Wow, I go away for one day and the comments on my blog explode.

Lets all take a step back and realize what I say in my blog and not what you guys think I was saying.

There seems to be a common belief around the interwebz that "haste sucks for moonkin." That is not completely true. Prior to 400 points Haste rating is god. After 400 is clearly inferior to Crit until about 950-1050 crit rating, but it still isn't horrible. After the Lunar Crit Cap haste is better then Crit again on a point for point bases but the reasoning is complicated.

Part of the reason is that the Lunar Crit cap pulls the Value of Crit down, but that is only part of the reason. The other par is that haste scales with Spell Power much better then Crit does, and that is what my graph shows. This is how Haste as caught up to Crit in ICC. The LCC deminishes the value of Crit, but the extra 500 SP we pick up by going from ToC to ICC boosts Haste a lot More then it does Crit.

You can argue against that all you want with your feelings, but the math proves it. Until you can provide math to say otherwise, your arguement doesn't have much of a leg to stand on.

All that said, I have NEVER said "Crit sucks." In truth we are arguing about less then 1% DPS here. I wouldn't be surprised if it was less then 0.5% DPS. The marginal values of Haste and Crit are very similar, but haste is better. Are you going to do horrible DPS if you go with crit instead? No! Are you going to top the DPS charts if you use Haste? Not necessarily! Crit's not optimal but it is effective.

That said, it's absolutly laughable that you guys are throwing around WoL parces to prove your points.

Crit vs Haste is the only thing that matters am I right?

The fact of the matter is that there are hundreds of variables that go into determining how well any individual player does on one specific fight. So to pull out a parse and say I think X and I did better then you there for X is correct is ludacrous. Those results could be different because of Gear, RNG, fight strat, technical issues, or just overall skill of the player to name a few reasons.

The simulators and spreadsheets are the only things we have to come close to accurately testing these theorys. A one off parse says almost nothing.

Graylo said...

@Duskstorm

SimulationCraft and WrathCalcs takes Eclipse into account, and you can set up Simulation Craft to consider movement like activity as well. When I was using the movement function I wasn't seeing a huge shift in results.

@Maragon

I wouldn't say SF is our primary nuke. I think Wrath and SF are fairly equal now. That said, Wrath does scale with Spell Power better then Wrath does. You can thank Starlight Wrath for that.

@Dignam

Since Eclipse procs off of Crits, people tend to over estimate the value of that relationship. Gaining or loosing a few percent of Crit doesn't dramatically shift your chance to proc Eclipse on average. At the same time people forget that haste has an impact on how fast you proc eclipse as well. So, doing theory on "how crit can affect fluidity of Eclipse transitions" isn't as important as you may think.

Dentex - Dragonblight said...

I have linked the parse with detailed dmg done(not dps or whatever), and i asked you to compare wrath vs starfire.

Since i dont do calculations, the only thing i can link is my spell dmg list on an average fight like DBS.

Then someone else started the showoff, being also aggressive in some way.

Btw /agree with Silveria

Anonymous said...

k, i see, i will be ignored without a prove, so here are my spreadsheets based on WrathCalcs 100402.xls. I put in my stats (http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Zuluhed&cn=Ollidrood):

http://www.silver-planet.de/files/templates/wc_Olli_10stars.xls

After that i increased the amount of stars from starfall (formula in cooldowns->D10 ...*10). In a single-target situation that number would be correct.

http://www.silver-planet.de/files/templates/wc_olli_20stars.xls

Now i increased number of stars to 20 and as you can see in character sheet tab in cell D5 and D7, that critrating overhauls hasterating in scaling.

http://www.silver-planet.de/files/templates/wc_Olli_17stars.xls

I test a little bit and with 17 stars i see crit-rating = haste-rating.

Now the question is, how often u can use all 20 stars of starfall in a boss-fight. And if u think a little bit of that situation, u will only find 3 bosses (rotface, festergut, blood-prince council), where u couldn't benefit from all stars (although u can push your dps at rotface and council, when your stars falls at 'ineffective' targets).

regards Olli, EU/Zuluhed

Anonymous said...

Ah, i forgot to mention, that wrathcalc doesn't calculate with starfall splash dmg (that also scales with crit-rating). So in some special 'bombing' situations crit-rating should be even better.

regards Olli, EU/Zuluhed

Graylo said...

@Dentex

"I have linked the parse with detailed dmg done(not dps or whatever), and i asked you to compare wrath vs starfire."

So what was the point and what do you think you proved. Yes, for you you did more damage with Wrath then Starfire. Does that mean Crit > Haste? Does that prove you right?What you linked told us almost nothing.

Dignam said...

@Graylo

I am still wondering if your graph incorporates Starfall in any manner. Looking back over it, Starfall is never mentioned.

Once again, I am not trying to be disrespectful in any manner and I truly appreciate the work you put in to explaining these numbers.

- Dignam, Crushridge US

Graylo said...

@Digram

I don't think you understand what the graph is saying. The graph shows how Haste and Crit scale with spell power. I used Starfire as the bases for the comparison because it gives the clearest picture since it is not limited by the GCD and is not an instant cast.

This post is purely an explination on how haste has improved so much since patch 3.3.

Yes, Starfall does improve the marginal value of Crit more then it does Haste because haste has little impact on the DPS of Starfall. Same can be said for Wrath, or Moonfire. However, if you run a reasonable rotation through a spreadsheet or a Sim you are likely to find that Haste > Crit for your gear level. This is because the Lunar Crit cap limits the value of Crit, and Haste scales with Spell Power for one of our primary spells so much better then it does with Crit rating.

Lespaul said...

@ Olli
Are you including glyph of focus in your WrathCalcs sheet? If so, this is probably not as valid a comparison as the general consensus on Glyphs doesn't include it.

I feel I need to reiterate some of what I said above as the discussion still seems to be heading in the direction of haste v crit.
There should never be a point, (nor should there really ever have been), where you start deciding to 'stack' either crit OR haste. You should be trying to increase both simultaneously. The only time where you should even be contemplating whether one is greater than the other is when gemming, and that difference is going to be minute! Haste AND crit in every slot, except where you have to have hit. And you do have to have hit.
Linking parses proves nothing except how big your ego is.

Dentex - Dragonblight said...

"So what was the point and what do you think you proved. Yes, for you you did more damage with Wrath then Starfire. Does that mean Crit > Haste? Does that prove you right?What you linked told us almost nothing."

I have proven nothing, you are right. But i have seen that i can do much more damage with wrath with a high critical strike rating.

"Having some of your Crit Rating rendered useless for 30% of the fight does diminish the marginal value of Crit Rating."

That is true, but you did not add that the extra crit applies during solar, when you have a +40% bonus damage (which doubles each time you crit). And the extra haste that benefits starfire is useless on wrath in the same %

"What I did here was find the marginal gain in DPS by adding 1 point of Haste Rating and Crit Rating to various levels of Spell Power for the spell Starfire"

This is the main reason why i am posting here. You made a statement "Haste>Crit", you made a graph that applies only to starfire spell. That is obvious

Can you pls explain how critical strike rating scales with wrath and starfall?

Anonymous said...

@Lespaul:

Thats why i posted a direct link to my spreadsheets (download them and try yourself) - no, i didn't use focus glyph.

I only wanted to mention, that Graylo's haste>crit thesis is based on single-target view done with his own analyis or simcraft/wrathcalc-tools etc. But ICC isn't only to be single-targeting, quite the opposite, it's more multi-targeting, sometimes nearly bombing situations (lichking). And the missing splash-dmg in the spreadsheet-tools will do an additional pro-scaling for haste.

Yes, haste scales better with sp, than crit does, but you have to be realistically. An ICC-25hm euipped moonkin couldn't reach that high sp levels, if you take 20 falling stars in account.

regards Olli, EU/Zuluhed

Graylo said...

@Dentex

"I have proven nothing, you are right. But i have seen that i can do much more damage with wrath with a high critical strike rating."

That's like saying I can go faster if I put a V6 in my Jetta. True, but you can go even faster if you just get a Ferrari.

"That is true, but you did not add that the extra crit applies during solar, when you have a +40% bonus damage (which doubles each time you crit). And the extra haste that benefits starfire is useless on wrath in the same %"

True, but that was not the point f the post. I wrote this post to show why Haste is still good, and why it has caught up with Crit rating when you've past both caps. I only made this comment because in every one of your comments you seem to ignore the negative aspects of crit, while focusing on them for Haste. Both stats scale in the 55%-65% range, and that is bad for druids in general, but one still better then the other.

"This is the main reason why i am posting here. You made a statement "Haste>Crit", you made a graph that applies only to starfire spell. That is obvious"

I ran a SimulationCraft on you. It had Haste valued at 63% and crit valued at 55% per point for you. Haste is greater then Crit, especially for you given your encredibly large Crit Rating levels and very low Haste Rating levels. That is a fact.

"Can you pls explain how critical strike rating scales with wrath and starfall?"

Crit scales with Wrath and Starfall in very similar ways. Wrath gets a slight edge because it's higher spell coeffiecent and lower average crit rating because of ImpIS, but that difference is very small. So the like in the Starfire graph is applicable to Wrath as well and likely very similar to a line that you would finde for Starfall. However, that is the wrong way to look at it.

It's not that Crit scales better for Wrath and Starfall but Haste scales worse for those individual spells. Everyone knows it, but some people take that info and use it in an incorrect manner. they assuming that since Haste is not good for 50-60% of my rotation then Haste is not good. Wrong!

If you're over the Crit cap, then Crit rating is going to be useless for about 40-50% of your rotation. Some would take this as a sign that crit is still better since Haste does not impact more of your rotation, but that ignores how the two stats scale with spell power.

My post above shows that Haste Rating Scales with spell Power much more then Crit rating does. This is how Haste has closed the gap between the two stats. Haste scales so much better for STarfire then Crit does for Wrath and Starfall.

Anonymous said...

Post is not including 4 piece tier 10. IMO with 4pt10 Crit > Haste

Anonymous said...

"However, if you run a reasonable rotation through a spreadsheet or a Sim you are likely to find that Haste > Crit for your gear level."

Did that with wrathcalc and with 20 falling stars from starfall (and missing splash-dmg, which can hit critically too) it shows crit>haste with an ICC-hm euipped moonkin.

regards, Olli EU/Zuluhed

Graylo said...

@Anon8

While I did not include 4T10 in the graph I did run the numbers with it. It does improve the marginal value of Crit a little, but not as much as you obviously think. Not to mention that all the sims and spreadsheets would include the set bonus. Sorry, Haste > Crit even with 4T10.

@Olli

Tried looking you up on the armory but couldn't find you so I can't verify what you said. However, I do know that not every fight has adds, and even on the fights that do not all of them are significant. Don't overestimate the value of what you are seeing.

Anonymous said...

@Graylo:

Here's my initial post with armory- and spreadsheet-links: http://graymatterwow.blogspot.com/2010/06/celestial-focus-haste-and-icc-gearing.html?showComment=1276186134046#c6850394069605064783

However, I do know that not every fight has adds, and even on the fights that do not all of them are significant.

Can't agree at all, see post above.

Don't overestimate the value of what you are seeing.

With my initial post i only wanted to note, that it doesn't matter, if you prefer crit or haste as an ICC25hm raiding moonkin, because

1. the difference is quite small
2. it depends on encounter, whether haste or crit would be a little bit more usefull.
3. you can't reach that high sp-levels with ICC25hm gear, where you can definitely say: haste>crit.

regards Olli, EU/Zuluhed
YouTube-Chan:
http://www.youtube.com/user/ollidrood
WoL: http://www.worldoflogs.com/guilds/25472/

Dentex - Dragonblight said...

@Graylo:

I like your ferrari/jetta comparison. Made me sincerely smile :)

Lets say ferrari has low torque, but great top speed. Jetta has lower top speed but higher acceleration (torque). What would you pick up for a uphill road and what would you pick up for a straight highway?

Besides those jokes, i respect your calculations and probably some more haste will benefit me when my +crit choices are over..

But i wanted to ask you something else:

Do you know how the +40% solar bonus damage scales with the various spell power procs we have?

So far, every respectful moonkin in the world has the Ashen Verdict ring. Almost everyone has at least one BiS trinket (Phylacery or Dislodged or maybe both)

On an average fight (lets' say 4 minutes) we have at least 3(or 6 for the lucky guys having both BiS) trinket procs, and let's say 3 Ring procs.

Those procs are all pure Spellpower, and there is no haste or crit proc as far as i know.

How do they interact during solar and lunar eclipse?

Could this be a variable to be taken into consideration in the various spreadsheets?

Thanks in advance

Steko said...

Three things.

The marginal value of crit increases slower then haste as spellpower only increases (graylos chart)

The marginal value of crit decreases as Int increases since int gives crit also.

The marginal value of haste increases as int increases.

Thus as higher levels of gear with all their int and spellpower are gotten... at some point haste overtakes crit, end of story. You can argue we're not at that point yet but simulations and logs can settle that.

Anonymous said...

I know this post is old, but I feel the need to speak up in Graylo's defense.

He is correct, at the soft crit cap, haste beats out crit by about .2-.3 dps per point in full raid buffs and 30% ICC buff.

This is not enough of an increase to regem all your 264 gear with haste, but as I start replacing my gear with 277 gear, I gem spell/haste in yellow sockets while maintaining around 960 crit. I keep it over the crit cap, because you can't always be sure to get every buff.

Again, like all SOFT caps, they are break points to keep in mind, not to stress over. If you go over it, don't change your gear and gems to get back down to it.

The reality is, in heroic 25 man gear, you are going to be way over both soft caps, and keeping them balanced is a better solution.

http://www.worldoflogs.com/reports/72i58np7rpte996y/details/7/?s=2434&e=2650 is the link to my moonkin, if you want a comparison