BM haste soft cap

[Luthixx 138]

Good afternoon fellow hunters,

 

Just putting a little message out there for all of you who haven't actually found out yet; if you're running Dire Frenzy, there's actually a soft haste cap of around 18-20% that allows you to comfortably keep up three stacks of Dire Frenzy during Lust/Hero. 

I'm going to be the first to admit that I was wrong in denying BM having a haste cap at all, but realistically I'd always had my haste over 18% since 7.2 hit. From the moment I started using Dire Frenzy I noticed I was able to keep up three stacks of it during lust and thought that was purely because of the added 30% haste; however I noticed when I changed my neck piece and lost a chunk of haste and dropped back down to about 15% I was no longer able to keep that three stack without neglecting Kill Command, and even then I would sometimes miss a cooldown if my latency was anything above 50 or if I was not completely diligent and expecting the cooldown to come off.

Through my discussion in my local hunter chat on my server, it's become apparent that we've all encountered the same issue without noticing it, and have neglected mastery (despite sims) to a point where we're able to comfortably keep up those three stacks during lust. Now, while this may seem counterintuitive to a point, neglecting mastery for haste despite sims, there are two main benefits to keeping up three stacks of Dire Frenzy during lust. 
First - if you're encountering any amount of adds during lust, having those three stacks up vastly increases your cleave damage - at X% extra pet attack speed (increased depending on haste), stacking up to three times, this increases your pets Beast Cleave ability. This is further amplified if you have Aspect of the Wild coming off cooldown towards the end of lust, or midway through (if you're on a fight such as Tichondrius where you don't lust off the bat) where Thunderslash works in tandem with beast cleave. Yes, Thunderslash has been nerfed, but if utilised correctly at three stacks of Dire Frenzy you still end up with a significant amount of single target or AoE damage for the duration.

Second - From a pure single target perspective, we can see that our pet's bite and normal attack damage attribute anywhere from 15-25% of our total damage, and surely you would want to get as much out of that damage as possible, therefore having those three stacks is imperative during your lust period.

It is worth noting that this is not taken into consideration when using Simulationcraft; I myself have a stat value of mastery = 23 and agi = 22 and haste = 18; yet if I swap out my neck that has over 2000 haste and 900 crit for a neck that has almost 2000 mastery and 900 versatility, I end up with about 200-300k less burst dps and about 5 million less damage over the course of bloodlust, this is taking into account an average of about 50 test dummy attempts. Granted this is a significant mastery loss, however if you can find a way to increase your haste to a reasonable level while sacrificing as little mastery as possible, I highly recommend this.

I have seen this topic discussed numerous times on the hunter forums and wanted to provide the information that is not on the guide. Numerous threads have suggested a 15% soft haste cap, but this is not enough unless you've got practically 0 latency, have nothing else in game to react to and can be ready to hit Dire Frenzy literally the instant it comes off cooldown. I suggest at least 18%, if not 20% for a slight buffer. Your sims and stat weights may seem a little off while trying to meet this soft cap but 

@Blainie would you please be able to pass this message onto Azortharian to investigate and possibly update the guide - I don't have entirely solid numbers on the amount of haste required, as a comfortable range can be anywhere from 16-20% haste depending on your latency and ability to react and prepare for the ability coming off cooldown; I personally find it much easier when I have about 18%+ haste and almost impossible to do if I have 16% or under. I personally feel that this is not crucial to playing BM at any level but something definitely worth discussing if people want to get the most out of their BM hunter. 

 

Regards,

Luthixx

 

[KratosSM 2]

Excellent post and ty in anticipation .

 

I noticed the same issue when i swapped out legs , giving up a load of haste for mastery too , i had to swap back to have better dps still , i thought that was cause by different playstyle cause of focus starving and etc  but probably u r right . Really interested in this discussion , please update us if  u have something confirmed 

[Banard 61]

On 16/04/2017 at 3:23 AM, Luthixx said:

Good afternoon fellow hunters,

 

Just putting a little message out there for all of you who haven't actually found out yet; if you're running Dire Frenzy, there's actually a soft haste cap of around 18-20% that allows you to comfortably keep up three stacks of Dire Frenzy during Lust/Hero. 

 

 

I am not seeing this...when i get some time i'll do some more work...but preliminary ...wearing shoulders/belt leggos...CoF/bloodthirsty

I have 93% Mastery, 14% Haste, 21% Critical Strike, 3% Versatility....i sim around 850k-860k <---all numbers with CoF have quite a bit of variance. 

if i switch bracers/ring to same ilevel but with haste/mastery instead of the crit/mastery they currently have.....

I have 92% Mastery, 18% Haste, 16% Critical Strike, 3% Versatility...i sim around 853k

switch my crappy boots out i get ....90% Mastery, 20% Haste, 16% Critical Strike, 2% Versatility and sim around 857k... **biggest gain but more towards the fact my boots got crap stats just a high ilevel

so COF is adding a nice bit of variation to the sims..so i change to 875 acranocrystal/bloodthirsty

I have 98% Mastery, 16% Haste, 23% Critical Strike, 5% Versatility.....850k....

just switch one ring....i have 94% Mastery, 20% Haste, 20% Critical Strike, 5% Versatility and sim 843k.....

change the wrist too...i have 95% Mastery, 21% Haste, 19% Critical Strike, 5% Versatility and sim 841k.....

Not saying your wrong...but preliminary i see no major impacts to DPS cause of this "soft cap".  At this moment i would not tell people to try to get to this cap asap. 

There might be a issue in the sims too but that is beyond me. I dont have the time for that...got to assume the tools are correct. 

 

 

[Luthixx 138]

6 minutes ago, Banard said:

I am not seeing this...when i get some time i'll do some more work...but preliminary ...wearing shoulders/belt leggos...CoF/bloodthirsty

I have 93% Mastery, 14% Haste, 21% Critical Strike, 3% Versatility....i sim around 850k-860k <---all numbers with CoF have quite a bit of variance. 

if i switch bracers/ring to same ilevel but with haste/mastery instead of the crit/mastery they currently have.....

I have 92% Mastery, 18% Haste, 16% Critical Strike, 3% Versatility...i sim around 853k

switch my crappy boots out i get ....90% Mastery, 20% Haste, 16% Critical Strike, 2% Versatility and sim around 857k... **biggest gain but more towards the fact my boots got crap stats just a high ilevel

so COF is adding a nice bit of variation to the sims..so i change to 875 acranocrystal/bloodthirsty

I have 98% Mastery, 16% Haste, 23% Critical Strike, 5% Versatility.....850k....

just switch one ring....i have 94% Mastery, 20% Haste, 20% Critical Strike, 5% Versatility and sim 843k.....

change the wrist too...i have 95% Mastery, 21% Haste, 19% Critical Strike, 5% Versatility and sim 841k.....

Not saying your wrong...but preliminary i see no major impacts to DPS cause of this "soft cap".  At this moment i would not tell people to try to get to this cap asap. 

There might be a issue in the sims too but that is beyond me. I dont have the time for that...got to assume the tools are correct. 

 

 

It's not something the sims take into account, that's the issue and why I raised it. 

I lose 20k simdps by having 18% haste and 80% mastery as opposed to 15% and 88%, but my burst is usually about 200-300k higher and my dps is always consistently higher having that cap to make sure I have 3 stacks of DF during lust. With the shoulders it's more manageable since you can pool your DF casts and have them ready to try and get as much out of your stacks as possible, but without them you miss out on a lot without having 3 stacks.

[Infamoose 0]

6 hours ago, Luthixx said:

It's not something the sims take into account, that's the issue and why I raised it.

Strangely enough, my sims seems to have been tracking this. For quite some time, my sims has been giving me pawn strings that weighed Haste above every other stat. While i was still in the mindset that Mastery was king, I still tried to put together some haste pieces to play around with. Consistently, whenever I wore the haste pieces for sims, my dps would go up. 

There is definitely a hard cap at 20% though. The moment I reach up to 21%, my sims will show a decrease in overall dps. 

Doing some quick sims right now with a ring that I have (but replaced with another ring to match 20% haste) vs my current gear:

90.22% Mastery, 17.41% Haste, 19.31% Crit, 1.73% Vers = 886k dps

79.13% Mastery, 20.40% Haste, 19.31% Crit, 4.10% Vers = 892k dps

*wearing legendary shoulders and belt for both sims

While this dps increase isnt huge by any means, notice how i literally lose 10% Mastery while only gaining ~3% Haste and ~2%ish Vers to increase that dps. Keep in mind, the haste ring I am wearing is 905 vs the more mastery heavy ring which is a 890.  That is a huge ilvl increase but, honestly, if these were sims that still weighed mastery the most then that 890 ring would beat out the 905 one.

I will still be simming more as I get different gear pieces, but as of right now I am sticking to the 20% haste cap since there is more evidence for me to assume that this is making a notable difference in my dps. 

While I have not looked at my guild's logs while writing this, I will say that there is definitely a noticeable ease in maintaining 3 DF stacks  during Bloodlust and even some ease at times when out of Lust. 

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/character/silvermoon/Infamoose/simple

 

Edited April 20, 2017 by Infamoose

[Khallid 110]

Thanks for the post; very interesting indeed. I always assumed that a Haste softcap would be related to how many Kill Commands you can fit into a Bestial Wrath window, but the simulations have never backed that up for me.

Important to note though, you say that your pet bite and melee attack count for 15-25% of your dps. Are you using Blink Strikes? Because that damage seems too high. My logs show 12% for Bite+Melee, and it doesn't go any higher. Hati's melee attacks are not affected by Dire Frenzy, so I assume you are not adding those, right?

With regards to Mantle of Command, I think that anyone wearing it can cheese it out without a specific Haste rating (although I personally have around 20% anyway). The idea is to use the second charge to delay the use of Dire Frenzy. So if you use Dire Frenzy every 6 or 7 seconds, the extra charge you get from the beginning of the fight can last for 2 additional Dire Frenzy applications, and just one proc of WIld Call will raise it to almost full Bloodlust uptime, which is actually very likely to happen.

The second charge of Mantle of Command can also be used to pool Dire Frenzies in the middle of the fight without Bloodlust. It works great with the second use of Aspect of the Wild + second pot, or some specific burst phases depending on the boss.

[Luthixx 138]

On 4/28/2017 at 4:32 AM, Khallid said:

Important to note though, you say that your pet bite and melee attack count for 15-25% of your dps. Are you using Blink Strikes? Because that damage seems too high. My logs show 12% for Bite+Melee, and it doesn't go any higher. Hati's melee attacks are not affected by Dire Frenzy, so I assume you are not adding those, right?

I'm running with the bracers so my pet & Hati account for ~13% & 5% on any given ST fight so I was kind of referring to both of them combined. But you're correct, I was actually looking at both skada and warcraftlogs when I wrote that since I find it a lot quicker to go through things like interrupts, deaths, etc through skada and analyse the dps / healing properly on warcraftlogs. Must've accidentally been looking at my skada data instead, oops!