Hey Everyone, so I’m a returning player from WotLK. Trying to get back into the swing of things and trying out DH.
My issue is that according to IcyVeins, our dps for Havoc relies heavily upon our primary stat which is agility. They go to show that the priority list goes
Versatility
Critical Strike = Haste
Agility
Mastery
They go on to say mastery is terrible etc. what I don’t understand is why Agility is listed at 3rd priority if it’s our primary dps boost. I’m sure I’m missing something, can anyone clarify for me?
Thank you for the link! I’ve seen people mentioning “siming” themselves around these forums. Seems like it’s an add on to calculate best stats for given situations I guess. I’ll have to check it out.
Without knowing too much it also seems like things are striving towards a close balance of stats. Guess I won’t have to worry about it while leveling, just won’t go all in for any particular one. Thanks again.
Our raw DPS, the base damage of all of our abilities, scales based on our agility, yes. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always our top stat. For most of the first tier, it was, but it’s started to fall behind several of our stats as we’ve geared up. Part of this is that, compared to prior expansions, our gear has more primary stat and less secondary stat due to our 3 Azerite pieces (which have 0 secondary and a truckload of primary). This alters the general ratio of primary-to-secondary and tends to shift our primary down the list a bit, and this effect is more pronounced as we get better gear.
Aside from that, Marakurta is correct, the stat weights listed in those guides are rules of thumb for people that don’t really care about optimizing. I often use them on alts that I never intend on doing more than WQs and occasional LFR/M+ on, so I don’t have to sim them regularly. The Icy-Veins guide even notes this, though they could probably call it out a bit more obviously and clearly:
Crit has also been going up in most of the latest sim’s I believe, right now my stat weights are as follows (will depend on your gear and change over time though)
one thing I have noticed is that if you remove a furious gaze piece your haste will become primary over agility till about 17% what this and the various sims ive ran with demon hunter tell me is our dmg ceiling is dependant upon azerite traits. I mean that’s obvious but its causing our secondaries to constantly need tweaking. for instance if you don’t have furious gaze your gonna need to get enough haste to be able to perform 2 BD during eye beam meta. which happens around 17% unbuffed. (so your sim will say you need haste till then to compensate for the lost trait) if you don’t have seething power agility versa will become top because you don’t have the added base dmg that brings to the spec.
So to summarize DH are constantly needing to re-sim every piece or 2 at a minimum. and you will more then likely need to change your enchants and gems almost every sim. luckily im a jewelcrafter and my most played alt is an enchanter.
That makes perfect sense, I am pretty sure it was about the time I started using a FG AZ Trait that haste dropped off. Will have to keep an eye on that as my traits change.
that’s when I first noticed it. before I had FG my haste was really low (9%) so haste was like a good .6 ahead of agility. I literally reran the sim thinking it was an error at first. but no it was saying haste was first. I got a 385 piece with furious and all of a sudden haste became last, even behind mastery. that told me right there that something specific needs to happen during eye beam meta in order to hit a dmg cap per say during that time frame. the 2 BD is the defining action during that period. without the extra BD my damage was suffering almost 1-2k dps. So essentially once you get to 16-17% base haste Furious is really no longer needed. Now my next test is to see if with x3 furious we can get in 3 BD during eye beam meta. if that’s the case then x1 or x2 furious is not needed if you have enough haste. but having x3 is going to be our most powerful setup. the evidence to support that is how much our secondaries change with that one trait.
I should clarify that all of this is when running trail of ruin. if you run fel barrage then haste becomes extremely powerful in almost every situation. so furious will always be needed and x3 furious is most definitely gonna be strongest setup
I changed an azerite pc and lost FG Jarl and I can still get in 2 bd during meta with about 14-15% haste. It’s close but just have to pop that sucker pronto.
could be buffed haste maybe…not sure but I was referring to unbuffed. and mine I couldn’t do it till 16%. but that’s awesome if you were able to do it sooner. so there may be something else affecting haste that im not seeing or thinking of and that’s why our numbers are different. but either way learning this interaction with our stats only helps us all going forward
edit- now that I think on it when I was testing I didn’t have quick navigation on weapon either. but I also popped on 2 haste enchants that took me from 14-16% so there is a chance I was right under the haste cap before the enchants and they took me well over. either way somewhere around 14% is where haste becomes much less needed
wat. BD has a 9s CD baseline. Meta gives you 25% haste. Even with no haste at all from other sources, that’s a 7.2s CD, and Demonic lasts for 8s after Eye Beam finishes. You don’t need any haste at all to get in two BDs per Demonic window.
The reason that Furious Gaze reduces the value of haste is because it substantially increases your average haste, and in particular weights that haste addition to the period we’re doing the most damage. That means the marginal value of more haste goes down compared to other stats. It’s identical to the effect the Uldir buff had on the value of haste.
It takes one gcd to cast it putting you at 7 secs when it’s cd starts. just shy. Believe me when I originally lost my FG trait and my haste was way low id popped outta DF right as my cast became ready. so once I got more haste it opened it up. but remember esp if you got even one SP trait you’re gonna want to get in 2 CS b4 that last dance so you want a lil more haste for breathing room too
edit - also this is all because I don’t got a darn FG trait. still think the optimum is to have one. But when you don’t this makes sure that 8sec window is still powerful
One thing to note, however, is that haste does have breakpoints for Demonic. They aren’t super important, but they exist where you can get another GCD in per Demonic window.
The first one of those is as 12.5%, which is covered by meta.
Second is at 31.25%, which requires 340 haste rating.
Third is as 50%, which requires 1360 haste rating.
Fourth is at 68.75%, which requires 2380 haste rating.
Fifth is at 87.5%, which requires 3400 haste rating.
If you note the pattern there, after the first, each following breakpoint requires 18.75% more additive haste, which ends up being 1020 more haste rating, than the prior one.
Note, however, that these are the mathematical breakpoints. Latency can increase them pretty noticeably. For example, if latency adds 20ms to each GCD, that bumps the 5th breakpoint from 87.5% to 92.3%, an increase of 262 haste rating.
yea I don’t know what I was thinking. i know that. I was a lil tipsy when I responded so im guessing I just was trying to understand why I was having trouble getting the 2 bd in. having said that the issue is still there. I was getting Quick navigation procs when I orig noticed the issue on a training dummy so my haste at the time was much lower then I thought as I stated before. I was thinking I was at around 14% where as I was around 8-9%. at that low of haste the window is extremely tight and once normal rotations start there just isn’t enough time in that window to hit 2 BD. you just need more haste.
remember on pull everything is hunky dory. im talking about the other 5 mins. you need to have high enough haste to bring that window to a meaningful level. you talk about the haste break points and you get analytical. im not testing and wasn’t testing this in that manner but we are essentially stating the same things. generally speaking the haste causes you to have more casts per min yes. but that isn’t what will cause a 1-2k drop in dps. so the first break point exists because of the meta window in demonic. it allows for you to get in the extra cast during that window. but with low haste its too tight a window and that’s why my sim went haywire and put haste way ahead of agility. remember that’s what we are talking about here. even at 12% haste unbuffed my stat priority still had haste above agility by a decent margin. to me that is saying that its not about casts per min but about cast per burst window. I could be wrong but that’s how im gonna interpret it
Not sure how you were having issue unless you managed to fury-starve yourself or have above-average latency/reaction time. Even with 0 haste, you have time to get in 6.67 GCDs in the demonic window. If the first GCD is Death Sweep, then as long as you don’t fury start yourself or pad the GCDs by more than ~130ms (each), you’ll be able to land the 7th GCD, the 2nd Death Sweep, while Demonic has roughly 0.8s remaining. And Demonic is specifically coded so that when that happens, when Death Sweep is cast with less than 1 GCD remaining on the Demonic buff, the buff is extended to the full duration of that GCD (which can often let you get in an Annihilation after that Death Sweep even though the buff technically expired).
At 8% haste from gear, that gives you a total of 35% haste in meta, which reduces your GCD to 1.11s. That lets you get in 7.2 GCDs, which should let you cast Death Sweep twice and something else following the Death Sweep (though the latency bound for that 8th ability is fairly tight, only 28ms per GCD).
Now, in active rotation, it’s rather easier to miss the 2nd Death Sweep simply by not having Death Sweep available to use on that very first GCD after Eye Beam. But that’s an issue unrelated to haste, haste just increases the tolerance for that mistake.