I think I should frame this a different way. The stuff you are theorizing are things theorycrafters have already taken looks at all the way back during PTR once the final version of our tier set was implemented. We have looked at SEF being used. We have looked at different stat allocations. We have taken looks at a wide variety of talent builds that focus on different parts of the tree. And we have even adjusted the sim Priority to adjust based on these talent setups and tier set bonuses.
We have covered these different factors that could affect how the spec actually should play. We don’t blindly stick to one set build. But its a set build because its worked and will continue to work because its like the only viable option numerically after comparing it against dozens and dozens of other trees. And yes I think its bad and boring, thats why I made this post in the first place lol.
This spec only likes haste in extremely large amounts and only during our burst cooldowns. Lo and behold, Invokers does exactly that. It lines up well with cooldowns and gives big haste. We don’t really care about haste nearly as much outside of cds. Looking at serenity specifically, we shift our priority from doing the most Damager Per Chi spent to focusing on doing the most Damage Per Execute Time (Global). Ofc this is because we don’t use chi there. But now we see why the big haste here is so good. Because cutting 30% off our big spenders just increases how often we get to cast the higher DPET abilities. But once we are outside of cooldowns, haste loses a lot of value because we need to care about Damage Per Chi again.
And again, CDR really isn’t that good and realistically will never be insane because of Static Global Cooldowns. We theoretically can press 60 buttons per minute for our damage rotation. Eventually you hit a wall where you can’t press any more buttons because of this static global.
Shy of an entire spec rework, I can’t see where would ever have a setup where haste is a number one priority. The current version of WW just cannot have a setup of haste being its top stat. Mechanically, it just can’t work like that. And unless I see theoretical rotations and impacts on the rotation I will stick to that belief because I’ve seen the different priority lists for the simulations we use and efforts made to have other stats be made good.