Thursday, January 31, 2008

Rolling The Dice...

So last night I picked up Waistwrap of Infinity. "Why? It isn't very good." you ask? Well it isn't very good right now but A) It was going to rot anyway and B) I hear from Leiah(who at this very moment is facing down an Elemental Shaman firing squad...) that there will be some sort of change to Haste regarding instant cast spells.

Ultimately I'm taking a chance here, rolling the dice on a piece of loot that hinges on information I don't really even have knowledge of. I do, however, have a few ideas how such a change might go down:

1) Haste will lower the duration of the global cooldown for instants and perhaps allow cast time spells drop below the GCD. If Blizzard thinks they'd be giving us anything with this then they're sorely mistaken. Maybe Mages might appreciate it for Scorch, it might help Resto Druids a little, but if this is their idea of making Haste more appealing I'd change my opinion of Blizzard from "slow to react" to "out of touch with their game." I'm banking on this not being the answer, however as I do have more confidence in Blizzard than that.

2) Haste will increase the damage/healing of instant cast spells. IE 1% Haste would increase the damage or healing of Curse of Agony, Rejuvenation, Ice Lance, etc by 1%. This seems much more reasonable and is what I'm thinking Blizzard will do, however will simply result in my making a big fuss on the PTR forums to try to get #3...

3) Haste will increase the damage/healing of instant cast spells as well as the damage-over-time portions of cast-time spells. Haste as it would be in #2 would not effectively increase the DPS of Unstable Affliction, Immolate, and maybe Corruption(depending on how they code it...) Spells that are not chained back to back simply don't reap any real benefit from Haste. If you're going to re-apply a cast-time DoT you will simply cast it so it is applied right after it expires (regardless of cast time) for no Haste driven DPS gain. The goal, IMO is to have 1% haste increase the damage of all spells by 1%(minus an obvious increase in mana consumption) This includes increasing the cast speed of Nukes, the damage of all instant spells, *and* the damage of cast-time DoTs.

If #3 does indeed happen it will totally change how Shadowpriests, Affliction Locks, and Resto Druids gear for raids. It will make currently trashy epics like the aforementioned Waistwrap of Infinity, Nimble Thought craftable bracers/shoulders as well a some of the Resto Druid gear with all but wasted haste already on it. According to Leulier's Spreadsheet (with some tweaks) 1 Haste Rating would = 1 spell damage at ~1200 spell damage, though with haste costing more itemization points it would result in a much better itemization environment for raid DoTers and HoTers. We'd have options!

Here's hoping!

EDIT: 2 Threads discussing the incoming changes on Haste. AKA me bitching that it's not effecting DoTs in any significant manner and does nothing to aid Shadowpriest and Affliction Lock endgame raid itemization dilemma.

#1

#2

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

I highly doubt that haste will affect the actual dmg / healing output of a spell. To me, that just doesn't make sense.

Instead, if any change is going to be made I think something like #4 will take place.

#4: Haste rating will affect the duration of DoT and HoT spells, as well as reduce the GCD at the same rate as a 1.5 second cast. For an 18 second Dot, 1% haste will bring the DoT to 17.1 seconds with each tick shortened accordingly. This will work similar to the way channeled spells are affected by haste.

This sounds like a reasonable mechanic change that still follows the purpose of haste. Of course it might cause many issues in PvP, which of course has to be balanced, even at the cost of PvE.

Anonymous said...

oops 10% i mean

Anonymous said...

With #4, Skull of guldan would make for an interesting fight on an affliction lock.

And Heroism'd Curse of Doom...

I'll stop with the multiple posts.

Draele said...

In all honesty #4 is what I'd prefer as well. Though I discounted it because it *seems* like it would be tough to code. It would cause many issues in PvP, as you said, because it would result in a net loss because there are far more Curse of Tongues/etc effects than there are effects that increase casting speed. It's not an easy situation at all...

/emofire said...

Seems unlikely. I suppose it'd also probably depend on just how much damage the haste would add.

Draele said...

I'd imagine regardless 1% haste would be 1% damage, or 1% faster ticking, etc. I mean, it does the same for nukes. 1% more = 1% more.

Anonymous said...

Thats true. And curse of tongues / poisons don't affect instants or GCD which could cause balance issues.

Another CRAZY idea would be to leave haste alone and actually add / change the current stats on items in the game to make the useful.

Draele said...

Yeah, the other option is having 1% crit increase all DoT damage by .5%, lowering DoT coefficients slightly if necessary.

Anonymous said...

and #1 it is

Draele said...

Indeed, I'm making a ruckus on the Warlock and Priest forums about it.