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Mephisto

That old chestnut haste vs mastery

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Hey guys, I've done a bit of research on the haste vs mastery debate and to be honest I'am still none the wiser.

I'am ilevel 506 so still low as I'am just starting out into SoO, from what I can gather haste is the better deal at this point then at around 540 mastery takes over.

From 520 onwards to 540 its a balance of both, again this is just from reading various posts and not from experience.

I used simcraft and haste seemed the better deal but when I used AskMr.Robot it told me to reforge and gem to mastery.

So I'am lost to be honest.

Edited by Mephisto
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I assume you mean for Elemental, but it's super important to be specific in your opening post.

 

I was actually talking to Damien about this a few weeks ago, with some interesting results. In terms of single-target sims (and I do mean pure single target fights), the main factor to consider is in fact whether you have the LMG.

 

Without the LMG, Haste comes out on top of Mastery by a fair way. However, there is an exact optimal ratio which we found (and I don't have access to the files atm) and either side of it you lose a lot of DPS - if you were to go 50:50 Haste:Mastery then you would be within about 15% of the real maximum. However, this says nothing about how easy it is to play.

 

With the LMG, our finding was really interesting; Haste and Mastery sim to be pretty much equal. If you were to go 50:50 again, you'd be within ~1% of the simmed optimum.

 

Now, I realize that many fights are not single-target only, so I'd love to hear people's opinions on whether Mastery is better for fights where you have to target switch a lot.

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I've been going through and through on this for a while myself, and while Stoove is correct, I wanted to point out a few things.

 

The Legendary Meta Gem provides an occasional haste boost of 30%, and is one of the single largest DPS increases an Ele Shaman can get.

 

Gemming pure Haste until you get it is typically a good way to go.  Just make sure you don't GCD cap (on LB/LvB) with Bloodlust.  That also isn't to say that Mastery isn't worth anything, and it remains your second priority.

 

After you get the LMG and are at mid gear levels, I'd continue going full haste until around 30-35%  (Inc raid buff, which you provide to yourself).  A lot of people make the mistake of going full mastery the moment they hit some magical ilvl number, and end up with a real DPS loss and playstyle change that frankly isn't conducive to raiding.  (Slow casts, standing in things to finish, etc.)

 

Once your have your LMG and can maintain your haste around 30-35%, that's when you can start dumping into mastery until 87.4%.  After 87.4%, mastery devalues again as long as you're using Elemental Blast as your 90 talent.  This is because, at 87.4%, you'll hit exactly 100% with the EB mastery buff.

 

Be aware that the EB mastery buff (and haste buff too, for that matter) is affected by the Amp trinket, so that cap is a little flexible depending on if you have one, and which quality.  For my H 2/2 Amp trinket, the mastery cap is ~87.34%.

 

Simcraft is and isn't a great tool for Ele Shamans, because it will show some obvious peaks and valleys in it's stat valuation, depending on how much more haste is required to get to extra cast breakpoints, which aren't important in real fights.  To combat this, you should run a reforge plot (2500, Mastery vs Haste, 100 point steps) along with your stat weights, and see if there are any real peaks or valleys that might skew your weights.  You can also use this plot to your advantage, and min-max based on that, if you're so inclined.

 

AMR is just a tool with preset weights.  It does not analyze your character for which path is more viable.  You have to take your stat weights from Simcraft and enter them into AMR for it to be valid.

Edited by Hybrys
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the better and more reliable your group gets, the better mastery is. i ran max haste and elemental blast until h malk, so that would be about ilvl 570. haste is reliable dps, and if you have to handle mechanics you arent familiar with it softens mistakes. I never went past 17k haste and with my luck on the totem from shaman I've had black blood now for a long time.

 

better groups make shorter fights and the shorter the fight, the better mastery is. it's just how rediculous back to back trink procs on your opener can be. they have a huge factor in your total damage done because you typically do almost 20% of the damage of the entire fight in the first minute.

 

Once we started working on h malk, clipped casts were really getting to me. being tossed in the air every time i was casting EB caused me to lose focus and get upset. i swapped to UF right away and started replacing full haste gems for full mastery at a rate of 2 per week. UF loves mastery. the buff you get is a window and more LB in the window = more damage. once you get tons of secondaries having higher mastery leaves less to chance that youll proc nonstop during that window.

 

my group still needs a few odds and ends from the first 8 bosses so we do those every tuesday. I use those fights to try slight regem variations and may go back up in haste a little from my current point of about 13.5k haste and 18k mastery. i still have wf black blood so i have about 2.2k more secondaries than people who have the totem at my gear level.

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better groups make shorter fights and the shorter the fight, the better mastery is. it's just how rediculous back to back trink procs on your opener can be. they have a huge factor in your total damage done because you typically do almost 20% of the damage of the entire fight in the first minute.

 

Once we started working on h malk, clipped casts were really getting to me

Shorter doesn't make Mastery better.  You're just seeing that because typically you'd use Ascend at the start of a fight with procs and a pot, which inflates your opening DPS.  As long as you aren't GCD capped on LvB, you'd probably see an even better gain vs Mastery in the opening of the fight.

 

Also, the amount of haste you're describing sounds like you'd be GCD capped with just the LMG proc, which would be wasted stats.  Nevermind when you doubled with Bloodlust/Heroism.

 

Clipped casts shouldn't be that big of an issue.  I get knocked up maybe 3 times per kill.

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After you get the LMG and are at mid gear levels, I'd continue going full haste until around 30-35%  (Inc raid buff, which you provide to yourself).  A lot of people make the mistake of going full mastery the moment they hit some magical ilvl number, and end up with a real DPS loss and playstyle change that frankly isn't conducive to raiding.  (Slow casts, standing in things to finish, etc.)

 

To follow this up, the single target sims (reforge plot) that I was discussing with Damien actually shows Haste = Mastery at 12500 each, or about 30% Haste with the 5% buff.

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Thanks for the feedback guys, for now I'll go with haste and as my ilevel gets higher I'll look at subbing in some mastery.

Another thing I saw interesting in the guide here, or maybe somewhere else, was at a certain point take mastery over intellect.

Is that correct, without simming it properly it doesnt sound right.

Thank you again for the help.

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nah, we still benefit from int enough to not have to worry about gemming expertise. that and all the hit on smaller pieces make it tough for any non-clothie to gem expertise.

 

they may have been trying to say that spirit/crit 566 < mastery/haste 553 for ele. which is true.

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Thanks for the feedback guys, for now I'll go with haste and as my ilevel gets higher I'll look at subbing in some mastery.

Another thing I saw interesting in the guide here, or maybe somewhere else, was at a certain point take mastery over intellect.

Is that correct, without simming it properly it doesnt sound right.

Thank you again for the help.

It will always depends on your current ilvl and thing like that, but from even when I was gearing around ilvl 520, 1 int was worth less than 2 haste/mastery.  Int unfortunately has lesser value the higher your item level is, just due to how well haste/mastery scales, the more Spell Power you have.  (It's convoluted, but makes sense.  I promise.) 

 

Now, expertise gems almost never make sense for Shaman/Druid/Priest, because we get hit from spirit and there's an amazing amount of it in this tier.

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even without the ring from thok, cloth wearers have a lot of low hit rating options that allow them to gem expertise.

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