Ask Mr. Robot is a gear optimizing site — you import your armory, push a button, and Mr. Robot recommends what gems, enchants, and reforging you should do. The site allows you to enter your own stat weights, in addition to using its own.
Recently, Revulva from the Mr. Robot team wrote a long dissertation on some research into haste plateaus for MM and SV hunters, and concluded that haste plateaus don’t matter. You can read the SV one here, and the MM one here.
In the research he attempted to make a more real world analysis, rather than a theoretical mathematical analysis. Thus for his modeling he used real gearsets (so adding haste means subtracting another stat, & vice versa) and used Female Dwarf and Simulationcraft to model the dps.
Now, we know that Female Dwarf isn’t always great at modeling and weighting haste, but I was very curious about his Simulationcraft results. One thing that quickly jumped out at me was this sentence:
Now, the theory goes on to suggest that adding more Haste after this point will not increase your damage until you reach a point where casting a 4th CS, delaying your ES, does as much damage as 3 CS and waiting to ES on the 6 second cooldown.
This alarmed me a bit because this is not the theory about haste plateaus at all. However, that doesn’t mean his research is wrong — it was an alarming statement, but he was still looking at stat weights with and without plateaus. So I figured I’d try to get to the bottom of it. I contacted Revulva and we chatted on Skype last night for over hour. I found him delightful and had a great time talking theorycraft. Before I get into the details there, let me briefly outline the theory of haste plateaus:
Haste Plateau Theory Recap
The theory says that haste plateaus are a practical thing that informs two hunter decisions: the big one is that haste plateaus suggest when it’s a good idea to adjust your rotation, pushing back your signature shot a bit to get in an extra stead/cobra/arcane shot.
The second part is that haste plateaus suggest when the dps value of one point of haste changes. After a soft plateau and up to a hard plateau, the value of each point of haste is — in theory — more than the value of one point of haste after the hard plateaus. That’s because after the soft plateau haste is increasing the rate of your signature shot fire — in addition to all the Other Stuff: increasing auto-shots, increasing focus, increasing pet’s melee attacks, increasing pet focus.
But after the hard plateaus, haste is still doing all the Other Stuff. It’s just no longer also boosting your signature shot. Thus haste always increasing your dps, but at certain points it increasing your dps more than other points.
The theory then suggests that the difference in haste weight was enough that it altered reforging priorities (by a small amount). And of course there is also the rotation break points.
Revulva on Haste Plateaus
One of the first things we talked about was that quote where I worried he was misunderstanding the point of the plateaus — but I think instead he just misspoke when he wrote that. He clearly understood haste plateaus.
While he said it’s been a long time since he played a hunter, Revulva does spend a lot of time using various tools, including his own, to model dps for various classes for Mr. Robot. Once of the first things that jumped out at him was how hunters were concerned about haste plateaus, and other classes weren’t, even though they had similar enough mechanics that if plateaus mattered for hunters, they should matter for the other guys too.
He also commented on how annoying it was, from the perspective of a Mr. Robot programmer, to have stat weights change at various plateaus. So he wanted to see what impact the plateaus really had on dps. Is this something that other classes should be paying attention to as well? Is there something unique about hunters? Or are hunters caught in a mathematical theorycrafting model that doesn’t translate to the real world (of warcraft)?
How Often Do You Use Your Rotation?
One of the points that Revulva brought up is that the theorycrafting for haste plateaus models the base rotation — for SV let’s say this is Cobra, Cobra, Cobra, Explosive — that in reality you use this base rotation far less that most people think. For example, if we’re talking about a SV rotation we obviously get to throw out the impact of those haste plateaus during Rapid Fire and Ancient Hysteria. But not only that, Revulva points out, every time you refresh Black Arrow you just saved time compared to a Cobra Shot, and killed your haste plateaus. Also every time you get to fire an Arcane Shot — and of course Lock & Load.
The point is that sure, you use your base rotation far more often than any other rotation, but you also use it far less often than you think — possibly even less than 50% of the time. That means the impact of the haste plateaus is far less than raw math suggests, because the math is based on that base rotation.
And of course the SV rotation is far more stable than the very fluid and yet constrained MM rotation.
Revulva’s Results
So here’s what Revulva found after doing his Simulationcraft models:
- The stat weight of haste did change before and after plateaus. Just like hunter theory, haste is worth more after the soft plateaus and before the hard plateau.
- The amount that it changed was small — though he did note that it was a larger change at certain points for SV than for MM.
- However, he found that even during the low value for haste, it was still basically equal to crit in terms of dps contribution. Therefore by extension haste would be better than crit between the soft & hard plateaus.
- In practice, with a simulated rotation and real-world gear changes, he found that being above or below the haste plateaus didn’t have a significant impact on dps (though I believe that does depend on modifying your rotation to the optimal one for your plateau).
- It is not worth chasing haste plateaus. If you happen to be at one, great, adjust your rotation. If not, that’s great too.
- Haste does not scale linearly.
- He also noted that the difference between haste and crit was very small. Mastery was universally the worst stat, but again the difference was small.
- I’m going to stress this again: the difference in dps contribution between the hunter secondary stats is very small. If you reforge all for haste or all for crit you probably won’t even be able to see the difference.
Revulva also made the comment, “and for all I know the simulators could be wrong…” which brings us to a good point. We know that it’s really hard to model the effect of haste. In fact, modeling all of this is just plain hard in general — and even when we do get it right, either through FemaleDwarf or Simulationcraft or Frostheim doing math the hard way on a series of equation-filled pages on the screen — even when we get it right, what we’re modeling is always assuming some kind of perfect scenario.
My notepad math on haste plateaus, for example, doesn’t take rotational changes into account (other than to mention that it’ll happen and guess at a percentage of how often). FD does a better job of that, but clearly gets confused at certain break points where you can add haste and yield lower dps. And I don’t know what Simulationcraft’s flaws are — other than it’s still a mathematical simulation.
Revulva pointed out that humans are far better at making these calculations that simulators are. As long as you know your priority system and are always shooting, humans tend to be much better than any simulator at maximizing their rotation. They don’t need to do a bunch of rotation math — they just know that if the signature shot is available they use it; if not they use another filler shot. And that basic behavior is really hard to program.
Frostheim’s Thoughts
I think what this really demonstrates how incredibly close the dps values of our secondary stats are — especially haste and crit. Once the values are that close the smallest differences in modeling or testing can cause different results.
I agree that it’s not worth chasing haste plateaus — I’ve always said haste plateaus aren’t something that you should pursue, but instead something to just pay attention to and adjust your rotation/reforging based on them. On the other hand, I disagree that they aren’t important: from a reforging viewpoint (a Mr. Robot viewpoint) perhaps not — but from a player viewpoint haste plateaus are very important since they tell us when to change our base rotation — when to push back our signature shot and when not to.
Personally, however, I’m still finding that crit is a bit better than haste, particularly for MM (fuzzier for SV and BM). But after talking to Revulva I’m certainly going to go over the math again this weekend.
Here’s the important summation:
- Haste plateaus are important because they tell us when our base rotation should change.
- Do not chase a haste plateau. It’s not important to be there.
- The difference between crit and haste (even when not at a good point in the plateaus) is incredibly minor. Honestly, go with whichever you prefer. Even if you make the “wrong” choice, you won’t notice.
- Revulva should totally be a guest on the Hunting Party Podcast. With Zeherah.
I’m happy about this. I find the whole haste discussion a bit confusing. I do know that it’s pretty hard ( for me at least ) to maintain an optimal shot rotation on many fights and that I tend to look at whats available at prioritize shots as best I can.
Agree that you should get him on the podcast. Extra bonus points if he refers to himself in the third person as “Mr Robot” throughout.
and uses a robot voice filter :)
This is very interesting to me as the relative value of haste & crit has been on my mind of late.
I use Simulationcraft a fair amount, at least partially because Femaledwarf was giving me some very odd values for haste. I consistently find that haste comes out with a higher stat value than crit (and both are obviously better than mastery). This is true regardless of spec (SV or MM), of gear (been checking since I was wearing 346 gear up to my current 365 iLevel.) I read Frost’s comments that assuming a stand still Patchwerk type fight over values crit, so I switched the fight style to “Helter Skelter” on Simulationcraft, and haste is still better for me than crit.
As noted above, the differences generally are not large, but they are consistent. Personally, I feel more comfortable raiding with shorter caste times, even if the dps impact is minimal. There are times when those cobras and steadies just seem to feel like an eternity.
I am interested to hear the results of further analysis, because the temptation for me to reforge into haste at every opportunity is strong.
amazing timing on this article. one of the other hunters in my guild whispered me last night and asked if it was true we should be reforging for haste. i asked where he got this information and he gave me the URL for ask Mr robot. first time i had ever heard of it. been checking it out and will give the recommendations a try. I’m a little skeptical but it never hurts to try out new ideas (at least not too much). thanks for this timely article
Hmm, if the effect of the haste plateau is that small for hunters, I believe it is more or less nonexistent for a lot of other classes, if they can’t keep up their rotation/priority list when moving.
Hey Frostheim. Do you have any idea what the AoE priority for SV is? Is it Explosive Trap, Multi-Shot, Cobra Shot? Or does it also include Kill Shot and Explosive Shot? Seeing as Explosive Trap replaces Black Arrow and Multi-Shot replaces Arcane Shot and Kill Command, do we still keep Kill Shot because it doesn’t cost focus and Explosive Shot because of its damage (if we use it every time it’s off cooldown) or because it doesn’t cost focus during Lock and Load (if we only use it during Lock and Load)? Also, what spec would you recommend for dungeons in SV (I don’t have enough time for raids in my schedule)? And what spec would you recommend for unrated battlegrounds in SV? The spec you recommend for SV in the guides here are for raids and the spec Tapington recommended for PvP was for arena.
Also, is there any merit to taking the talent Point of No Escape and trap launching a Frost Trap to boost your AoE or even your single-target if Frost Trap worked on bosses? Would using Snake Trap be helpful for AoE or single-target too (also unsure if Snake Trap works on bosses) because of Deadly Poison?
Oh one last thing. Because of the changes to our traps scaling with more of our stats in 4.2 and how Multi-Shot got nerfed in 4.1, how many mobs is it worth it to use Explosive Trap/Frost Trap/Snake Trap (if Frost Trap and/or Snake Trap are both useful for AoE) and how many mobs is it worth it to use Explosive Shot?
First of all almost all of your questions are answered somewhere on the WHU if not all of them.
Secondly this thread is about the theorycrafting of haste and none of your comments adress that.
However being a Friendly Hunter I will answer some of your questions…
Your basic AoE in SV should go HMark-Explosive trap(only one per hunter in the group will be effective) Multishot, cobra, Multi, cobra.
This is just the basic Idea you want to hit your explosive shots only when it procs L&L cause they are focus free and will help you gain focus for more Multi’s. The cobra’s you will weave in between Multi’s to gain focus as needed. The Snake traps are optional I really only use them when I have the time to set it before the pull. Kill Shot should be used when available if Multi is not, basically just a filler while you gain focus. I tend to go this route with 4 or more mobs, some people prefer 3 or more. Your spec will be relatively the same however if you are certain you wont be raiding , not even BH you can reforge your hit down to 6% as that is all that you need for heroic dungeon bosses. Just remember if you do a pug raid or something you will need to go back to 8% to be sure you wont miss.
I do not PvP very often so I can not answer those questions for you.
In the future though I would suggest putting your questions in a more appropriate place.
Well if all of my questions are linked on the WHU, don’t you think I would have found them by now? All of the info I asked for would most likely be found in the guides section and I’ve read all of those. The guides for specs are for raids and arenas. So if you somehow found a guide that answers my question, please link it. As for your second comment, where should I ask this question. Since those guides are already up, I seriously doubt any more spec and/or priority articles will be added until a new patch comes out. So guess I’ll wait 6 months… I could email Frost but I’ve already done that and I never got a response. I’ve asked about the battleground spec on Tapington’s SV PvP spec guide and I didn’t get an answer. I’m not trying to rebuke you or refuse your help. I’m just saying that this is why I asked my questions here.
Why would you think an “unrated battleground” SV spec would be drastically different from an “arena” SV spec? Given the relatively small number of talent points to work with and the relative importance of a lot of talents, I can’t imagine that a battleground spec would vary so much from an arena spec. If you do arena, you will be focused hard, and if you do unrated battlegrounds by yourself, you won’t be likely to have a healer around, so in either case you’ll need to be able to escape and survive.
Also, there isn’t any need to be concerned with an exactly optimal AoE rotation if you’re not raiding. It’s just trash in a 5-man, and it will die whether you AoE or not. Just by tossing your explosive trap and hitting multi-shot a couple times you’ll do more dmg than most other classes are even capable of. Don’t toss a frost trap to force trigger your L-N-L if you have entrapment, the mobs will start hitting anyone in range if the tank is trying to reposition them. In fact, the time you spend tossing that frost trap would be better spent hitting multi-shot and cobra shot. And in the end, it’s just trash in a 5-man and not terribly important anyway.
I was comtemplating a switch to marksman.
However the haste plateus confuse me, especially since we dont have a DK in the raid, and I dont have the haste buff in the raid.
Showing this seems that I might worry about this too much and doing too many calculations, I should probably just try it out.
Yeah, it kind of sucks without a Frost DK or SV Hunter, but see if your local Shammy (you have one, right?) can drop a Windfury Totem for you and the other physical DPS. If you have a Boomkin or Shadow Priest, then the other totem option, 5% spell haste, is already accounted for.
Pet choice becomes much more important when speccing MM, as it is more reliable on buffs/debuffs. Here’s my basic MM priority:
1. If DK or Pally main tank, and no Kitty or Boomkin, and Trees can’t be bothered to push the stupid button, and Rogues don’t ever use Expose Armor – Raptor
2. If no Arms Warrior or Combat Rogue (likely) – Ravager
3. If no Feral Druid or Arms Warrior – Hyena (even if there are, they probably won’t be striking your targets, so bring one anyway)
4. ???
5. Fuck it, bring your favorite ferocity pet.
Great article frost! Had to link it on guild forums.
I have always thought the term “haste plateau” was misleading.
Haste’s relationship with DPS doesn’t look so much like a set of stairs as it does a wavy slide.
I’ve heard it called break points as well.
I read the article, found it very interesting that it held crit and haste virtually identical stat weights and mastery far behind. I went to female dwarf and uploaded my gear and started to play around with reforging. My gear as is yeilded me 25413 dps in MM, which very closely matched my dps on Baleroc last night (used 2 agility pots). I have been gearing around keeping my haste around 10.5%, prioritizing for crit and letting mastery fall where it may. I tried reforging all my mastery to haste…and lost 100 dps. I went the other way and reforged for mastery and pretty much stayed even with where i was. I think that now I no longer have the T11 4 piece bonus the value of haste unless i can get to one of the “plateus” just doesnt matter too much. It is more what value of haste do you need so that your rotation feels smooth and chimera shot is not being pushed back too often.
Would you be willing to share your character info with me so that I can check out this example? It will help us at Mr. Robot further our theory and improve the stat weights to be more accurate in more cases.
If you do not want to share publicly, you can PM ‘revulva’ on our forums at forums.askmrrobot.com.
The point is -maybe- that a Hunters way to DPS isn’t simply a rotation or a priority list – it’s all about the signature shot and focus. I don’t know how other classes work, but afaik, no other class empties and refills it’s energy bar actively as we do (thats one of the things that make us unique and i love it). So yeah, it’s all about knowing how to change the “rotation” and when, and as you said, it’s the “human part” that is important there.
I’m just wonderin’as of now – isn’t crit the most important stat for BM because of all those talents that work with crit (invigoration, killing streak, go for the throat, sic’em)?
You bring up a great point. The closest corollary to our resource system is energy, and it’s high base regen with no steady ability to actively regenerate it makes it work a bit different. Also, Rogues aren’t casters.
The concept of lining up casted abilities between signature abilities kept on cooldown is present in all casters. It could be argued that even with Hunter’s high proportion of instant abilities and Fox, we are still fundamentally casters. So with our psuedo-caster playstyle and unique resource, it’s natural to approach our rotation, priority or whatever name is used a bit differently than other classes do.
The method of choosing what shot to make is very basic when in a vacuum, and that is where haste plateaus, breakpoints, whatever become most evident. The chaos of combat is when a dozen subtleties arise, and then it just takes experience to make the right choice.
And yes, crit is still great for BM, because it is affecting all damage by the Hunter and pet. Haste does to, so it’ll be interesting to see this haste discussion applied to it. Mastery is still not as good, as it only affects pet DPS. If it were buffed up a bit, it could become better than crit, but it would have to yield at least twice as much pet DPS per point than Hunter+pet DPS per point of crit or haste, if that makes any sense.
This was a very interesting read. I’ve recently been playing around a lot with Female Dwarf trying to get to the bottom of this issue, myself. Universally, FD reported that the best-performing reforge profiles emphasized a balanced weighting of crit and haste, with mastery sitting on the bottom. This was both for a standard 3/7/31 build and an 8/2/31 build that drops Arcane Shot for Kill Command. It also remained true whether I was using the 4pc T11 bonus vs using the 2pc bonuses from T11 and T12.
This last result in particular surprised me. I’ve had a sneaking suspicion that upon losing my 4pc T11 bonus, haste would devalue compared to mastery because it wouldn’t really be feasible to stack enough to significantly alter my rotation (the first soft plateau without the 4pc is at over 2200 haste). My thought process was, if reforging for a minimum amount of haste (sub 1000) resulted in the same rotation as reforging to maximize haste (about 1800), might it not be better to place a heavier emphasis on mastery?
Clearly FD does not agree with this line of reasoning, and it sounds as if Mr Robot doesn’t either. But as you mentioned in the article, simulators usually aren’t as good at maximizing rotations as a real person. In an actual raiding scenario, with my practiced fingers on the keyboard, what am I going to get more out of? The haste that will do little to alter my rotation? Or the mastery that buffs a significant amount of my damage?
For now, the jury (of my brain) is still out. I’m sticking with a haste emphasis for as long as I still have my 4pc, but I’ll do some extensive testing once I get my 2pc T12 sometime next week. Thanks for a great article, Frost.
I had a very similar thought process regarding my t11 4pc, when I dropped it for my T12 2pc and 2 non tier 378 items I went straight to FD to mess around with my haste levels and see how mastery fit in since I wouldn’t be close the next plateau. FD did show a loss at first when I reforged all haste above about 900 since I raid with a very low latency that was enough for me. However while going through some settings I figured I should change the wait time to .1seconds since I will not be waiting for any Explosives with my tight Cobra rotation. The results yielded a 300-400 DPS increase. Keep in mind this was all on female dwarf.
Now the next night I took this new reforging into practice during our Firelands Raid. Baleroc was the fight that stuck out the most to me since my job on him is to stand there and pewpew his face, or back of his head as it were. While I do believe it was better for me to have the mastery on a stand still fight like baleroc(more overall damage) I did notice that my burst damage was not as high, My theory for this is since I lost so much haste, when I was using my troll racial(haste bonus) or Rapid Fire my Cobra’s were not dropping to the 1sec cast time they were before which was allowing for an extremely optimal roation during those Haste CD’s and pumping out the maximum amount of shots. I think mastery is better above the plateau for fights like baleroc or staghelm where your movement is very limited but I do think haste is better on a fight with heavy movement like say Heroic Shannox or Rhyolith.
I just ran my gear through FD, and indeed, Mastery>Crit does come out ahead with 2pc T12 if you drop the wait time to .1 seconds. This makes a lot more sense to me. It’s not a huge DPS difference, to be sure, and I’ll definitely want to do some actual testing of my own soon enough. I think you’re probably right about Haste being the way to go for movement heavy fights. It definitely allows you to run a looser 3 Cobra rotation than simply taking the bare minimum amount of haste.
Good news. But not surprising really. I don’t know about you people but when i try to reforge haste on Femaledwarf no matter if i go into it or out of it, the dps drops. So i’m never touching haste when i reforge.
If i find myself on a plateau thumbs up but i’m never gonna aim for them and go all haste crazy.
My own rule of thumb is: haste, mastery into hit; hit into crit until appx 961 hit. From there, mastery into crit. I gem agility/crit in yellow slots, but I don’t think agility/haste gemmed Hunters are wrong.
I wouldn’t take spreadsheet data concerning haste to seriously. It’s just inherently “wonky”, I believe is the word of choice.
Mr Robot missed the most fundamental point. I don’t blame hin, as he admits he doesn’t played a MM hunter.
MM hunters have used priorities instead rotations during wrath and still prefer that. However they use rotations for two reasons.
1) One the MM rotation or priority is so sensitive to errors that it is almost impossible to do right. managing and focus, and ISS and the MM proc and also the CS cooldown is errorprone and for almost all humans impossible. Worse now we have the T12 4p proc. Using a rotation you can make sure you get it right most of the time.
Of course good hunters will not stick to the rotation in a dogmatic way, but it is a good backbone to have knowing you will and keep your ISS up, be focus neutral, etc.
2) And then we get to haste plateau’s. What Mr Robot did wrong is he only changed gear. In that case indeed haste has almost no plateau’s, just as his tests show. The idea is hwoever that once you reach certain haste, you can make changes to the rotation.
E.g. start using the CS glyph. At low haste levels this is impossible without being focus-negative. Or you can consider replacing AS by hardcasted AiS. Etc.
The theory on rotation is haste as a means to use a certain rotation.
I had a question that a really concerns this Haste discussion. From my theory crafting i’ve found that, while the plateaus aren’t essential to reach… that are extremely easy to attain (I am a diehard bm hunter fyi). at this point in time i’m just over 20% haste with my 2 set t11 and 2 set t12. I have always favored Crit/Hit/Haste gear… and almost never have mastery on my gear unless its my only option for that piece. How much haste is too much? as i add more and more t12 gear, my haste just increases more and more.
Now, on the point of mastery… I fidn that on fights where my pet is on the target most of the fight, mastery is gunna help a little while i run around doin 5000 other things. but the number of fights where its works far and few. so i find that Haste is a much better thing to add more of. the more times my pet hits = more chances to crit = good chance of doin more than mastery would.
I’m sorry if this sounds confusing lol, just got done with a 14 hour work day.
A lot of good observations in the article and comments. I have several (unconnected) reactions to the article. First is of course “yay, more hunter theorycrafting”, so thank you Frost! I’m currently wrestling with simulations of shot sequences during LnL, noticed a few issues with the hunter simc profiles, etc. I’ll have updates for them in the near future. Thus, simc is on my mind at the moment :).
FD is great. My impression is that it uses either spreadsheet-style computation (e.g., compute thje average contribution to dps assuming shot X fires this often) or a greedy event simulation (with some exceptions), combined with estimates for procs, etc. That can be very useful, but is necessarily inaccurate about things that involve timing, and is why minor changes can have a big impact on the the results. Hopefully Zeherah can point me at documentation if I’m confused about how FD works. For precision around haste caps, however, I would expect event simulation (e.g., simc) to provide a much higher degree of accuracy (assuming it correctly models events of course).
“Revulva pointed out that humans are far better at making these calculations than simulators are.” I think this is a mischaracterization. Humans suck at intuitive statistics, and generally suck at “making calculations”. What we are good at is matching rich patterns, and the complexity of patterns for combat in warcraft is in a range we excel at and enjoy. But we shoudl avoid confusing that with “making calculations” :). Revulva’s conclusion that we should just follow shot priority is also missing crucial considerations such as focus pooling. For example, BM dps is considerably better if you ensure you have 65+ focus before a BW, time KC so that you can squeeze two into BW, etc. These are straightforward patterns, but are not simply priority-based. Indeed, many are built into FD or simc’s default action list, and thus Mr. Robot is incorporating them.
So for me too, the jury is still out, but his analysis seems worth pursuing further to see how stark the thresholds really are.
Incidentally, in IRC, one of the simc developers noted that spell-queuing now works for instant shots as well as cast-time shots. If so, that would eliminate the addition of 0.1 seconds latency to shot computations.
You can turn on the debug option under settings on FD to see exactly what the simulated shot rotation looks like.
The way the site works right now is that basically it calculates enough about your stats (agil, crit, haste via averaging of any procs) to allow it to simulate your rotation. Then the rotation simulation follows the priority specified, using whatever exceptions have been requested based on settings. Procs which are supported in the simulation (such as Sic’Em) can’t be randomized since the dps result has to be the same everytime the calculation is run, so instead there is an estimate of proc timing based on expected proc frequency behavior. Once the shot counts have been established, then any additional calculations needed to calculate shot damage are evaluated (such as AP and damage multipliers) and then the average damage per shot is calculated and the damage is totaled.
Once the damage is calculated, stat values are calculated by recalculating the damage with the stats slightly changed (in the case of crit and haste, if the number is too far off expected values it gets recalculated at a few points then averaged).
Simcraft runs a ton of iterations (since it’s running on your local computer it can get a way with that) and does actual randomness, so that allows it to even out blips in the data more. It also processes each event in sequence and doesn’t have to use averaging to smooth things out (I could change things to just plot out every event, but it’d greatly increase the calculations involved and without doing a lot of iterations, could create more blips in data due to the pseudo randomness required). It also has a more advanced set of rules that allow it to more accurately simulate hunter shot patterns (I’m always looking for ways to improve the options on my site, but the more settings I put up, the more confusing it is for users to use). So when doing detailed analysis, simc is going to be better for it (although I don’t think they’ve updated to reflect the kill shot formula change I noticed a few weeks back).
@zeherah, regarding KS formular change – could you provide more information what you meant, so I can make a ticket @ simc and ask them?
Thank you
EDIT: sry for double posting; but forgot to reply to this post.
I made a post in my thread on EJ which describes my initial testing results on Kill Shot and what I think the formula roughly is. Note that I haven’t done enough detailed testing to get the formula narrowed down (I’m not sure of the best way to test kill shot) but the raid log data fits the aimed shot style formula I posted on EJ far better than it does the original formula we were working with. This is my original post on the topic:
http://elitistjerks.com/f74/t65904-hunter_dps_analyzer/p28/#post1969067
If we’re going to discuss “real-world” scenarios, we need to also understand that with higher haste, I can cast more comfortably without having to worry about breaking a 1.67 second cast because there’s fire under my feet. Thus you lose less DPS from Aspect dancing and have more available Focus for shots you can fire on the go while in Hawk.
Haste is a very confusing stat, but from personal experience, it provides so much cushion for heavy-movement fights, that I love having that T11 bonus, and will cry when i have to break it.
Also a cushion for lag.
@zeherah, regarding KS formular change – could you provide more information what you meant, so I can make a ticket @ simc and ask them?
Thank you
From my analysis of haste for the MM guide on EJ, I both agree and disagree with parts of this post.
My feeling and approach is that the major haste plateaus are important, but having the exact value is not critical. The minor haste plateaus are not really important.
Thus, I only focus on the major haste plateaus of which I consider that there are only two realistic ones for MM when not including the T11 4-set bonus. These are the haste amount that will allow you to cast 4 SSs and 3/4 instants in a 9/10s CS cycle (5.4% from gear and Pathing) or 5 SSs and 2/3 instants in a CS cycle (12.93% from gear and Pathing) for the Standard phase unhasted. The difference between these two haste points are significant from my analysis, especially when you also include the effect of RF and the RF glyph.
Note that these plateaus mainly apply to the Standard phase unhasted, with the following comments:
- The Standard phase unhasted is anywhere from about 40-70% of the fight length depending upon when you have dynamic haste effect. This is the main period over which the plateaus are meaningful. Although this is not the whole fight, it is the largest potion and why the plateaus are designed for it.
- The plateaus are also somewhat applicable during the Termination and Kill Shot phases when unhasted, so they can apply to another 20-25% of the fight possibly.
- They are also applicable to your RFs. The higher haste point has your SS cast to the GCD exactly. The lower haste point gets your SS casts to the GCD during RFs with the RF glyph.
- The haste poinits are not really applicable during BLs.
- The haste points are designed around ideally performing 4 or 5 SSs a cycle, but with either case you will have to perform both 4 SS and 5 SSs on some cycles to balance focus.
- The haste points need to be ideally modified to account for latency. If you do analysis of the haste point with some non-trivial latency and do not account for the latency, then the results will look lilke the haste point is not critical. A complicating factor is that latency is often variable.
- Even during times where the haste point applies, movement, interruptions, pushback, and other inefficiencies will effect your performance.
- MMM AI procs replacing cast time shots not at a GCD will add some deadtime into your cycle that pass, which lowers the value of the haste point some. But whenever, MMM AI procs replace an AS, the value of the haste point is maintained since the tight cycle is maintained.
Thus, I feel the two haste points I list in the MM guide are significant but it is not necessary to be at the exact value (after accounting for latency) due to performance variations and the impact of different fight phases. Being within a couple percent is not bad, although it is usually better to be a little low than high since being too high results in cycle deadtimes and loses the benefit of that haste in other stats.
Tbh, nothing is making this more confusing than people who bring up the t11 4set. It WAS great it, it’s a tier behind and needs to be forgotten imo. Also if Mr. Roboto was correct on its values of all secondary stats being minimal in difference then I’m glad to say I can stop stressing about it and reforge how I like. I run a 10m guild and top 90% of the charts as a hunter. I find myself only getting beaten on fights where I as a hunter take on the responsibility of kiting or focusing down adds for the sake of the encounter. Fights like Baleroc I get demolished because the tank will not move the boss but I desperately need to stand on the crystal in my dead zone or melee range.
Revulva, your name could make a dark man blush.
On a less sophomoric note…
Thanks for all of the discussion and theorycrafting. Haste plateaus are so nebulous it’s nice to get some sense of clarity regarding the matter. Your hard work isn’t going unnoticed by the hunter community.
Heh, having recently gone from being very highly hasted above the 4 piece t11 soft plateau for SV, to being just at the soft plateau for not having 4 piece t11, let me tell you… there is a WORLD of difference. It’s not the plat itself that was the big deal… it’s being far enough above it to really cement the benefit of the rotational change. Being right *at* a soft plateau is very awkward. You’re either at max pushback or max wait. Being well above a soft plat is awesome.
Knowing your plats and gearing around them can improve your rotational “quality of life,” and that, to me, makes them important. Can you compensate for being at an awkward haste point? To some extent, yes- but it’s a lot easier just to be in a good “notch” with your rotation.
really interesting article.. I’m not that familiar with mr robot – personally have been using a combination of femaledwarf and wowreforge, but i’ll check it out, and the article.
What interested me though is the statement “If you reforge all for haste or all for crit you probably won’t even be able to see the difference.”. This certainly backs up my in-game findings, and to a degree i’d say it can work with mastery to a point as well.
Revulva’s comment that “humans are far better at making these calculations that simulators are.” also backs up my own feelings that, no matter how good a stat it is mathematically, haste gives you more freedom as a hunter than other stats. Under a tight squeeze when you’re needing to burn adds, or get off that critical aimed shot on rageface, haste helps.. it helps regen focus, it helps you get your focus shot off quicker to allow you to move out of the (non-lethal) fire ;), to get ISS quicker, fire off more multishots… it’s situationally a far more useful stat, for me at least.
ultimately, it’s each hunter preference.. i prefer the ability to get a focus shot off in 1.2 seconds to 1.65 seconds. :)
Food for thought for my fellow hunters:
I always told my fellow guildies (hunters) since I’m pretty much the guild’s class lead when it comes to MM and BM to get to around 33% chance to proc WQ once they are actually near that mark. Then all else to crit while maintaining a base cast time of 1.8s for steady shots with 3/3 Pathing talent.
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I didn’t pay much attention to haste plateau until I had to break my 4set and start using FL gears. Once I got the 2pc T12 I broke my 4pc T11 and noticed that my DPS output dropped after reforging haste down to around 8%. I then had to figure out what ideal haste is required depending on my latency. So players with higher latency should try to reach a haste level in which they will be comfortable IMO. Players with much haste will notice that they can squeeze in an additional Steady Shot into the rotation with an unglyphed CS if they have around 10% haste and 4pc T11. I reread all the haste plateau articles posted around the net that I know of and took everything into consideration.
In the end, the haste plateaus served as a guide to getting that “ideal” haste for me based on my play style. I would suggest other hunters to do the same. Since our theoretical DPS output based on gear levels can only be performed with perfect execution, I would suggest that other players try to reach their own “haste plateau” wherein the would be comfortable in pulling off their rotations given all the RNG and movement of majority of the boss fights. Just my 2 cents =)
NP: http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/queldorei/Slipstrêam/simple
I am Slipstrêam on Quel’dorei (ê = alt0234)
The interesting thing is that haste on the stat weights was very high, even up to 3.0, but reforging for it didnt improve my dps any. Crit was the lowest of the 3 stats, just below Mastery. In the rotation setup I prioritized for AI during CA.
I set up FD with the setting recommended here:
http://elitistjerks.com/f74/t112408-cataclysm_4_2_marksmanship_guide/#7_3_1_Recommended_Female_Dwarf_Settings
Your current gear setup gave me 31158 DPS. Optimized with Mr. Robot, it gave me 31158 DPS… (an actual change of 0.11 DPS). So, following the strategy I developed doesn’t decrease your theoretical DPS at all.
I ran the test in SimC as well, and had the same results: 27344 DPS with both profiles.
Here is the link to the Mr. Robot optimized profile:
http://www.askmrrobot.com/wow/gear/usa/quel%27dorei/slipstr%C3%AAam#v1-z1-oB2348KA601
This is also a good indicator of the possible pitfalls of using these DPS analyzers and simulators – we have to keep in mind that they are not 100% accurate. I have long argued that 100 DPS in a simulator means nothing particularly meaningful.
I appreciate you sharing the character info with me. Many times we aren’t comparing apples to apples, since we may set up the tools slightly differently.
i have tried the build from ask mr.robot and found the rotation a bit more fluid and dps was pretty close to my reg build. the only problem i have is everytime i have used it, i end up at 7.91 – 7.96 hit, comments on this plz
sorry, forgot to add my name, Sudzy / lethon
Thank you very much for that superb article
Great info dude!!
I’m sorry guys… I’ve given Mr. Robot many, many chances and I CAN NOT sing Mr. R’s praises. Maybe it’s unique to my gear set, but what I’ve found is:
1. Mr. R goes against Frost’s general hunter rules
2. Z’s spreadsheet has always shown a dps loss when I gem/enchant/reforge based on Mr. R’s recommendations.