Haste effects actually reduce Shaman DPS?

Windfury - Image 1 Azaranth posts in the WoW Forums a decent calculation of the Hidden Windfury Cooldown mechanic. His conclusion? One point of haste can significantly lower your Shaman’s DPS instead of improving it.

Want to see his calculations? We’re going to hide it for now. You can get to it after the jump. A little precaution just in case you’re allergic to indented text.

Anyway, Forums user Ozric best sums up forum sentiment with his post. He says: “well the thing is, this 3 second cooldown is already in the game. It is nothing new. What’s new is the fact that having windfury on your offhand will reduce your mainhand’s chance to proc windfury, thus reducing your DPS. So Windfury should never be put onto an offhand ever again after this patch.”

Get to the supposed calculations that Azaranth made, and Blizzard‘s Tseric‘s reaction to the original post after the Jump.

Windfury - Image 1Azaranth posts in the WoW Forums a decent calculation of the Hidden Windfury Cooldown mechanic. His conclusion? One point of haste can significantly lower your Shaman’s DPS instead of improving it. Want to see his calculations? Well, if you’re allergic to indented text, turn away now.

Let’s assume that the Hidden Windfury Cooldown Mechanic is exactly a 3.00 second cooldown.
In this scenario, I’ll hypothetically use a 1.5 speed weapon.

1.5 speed weapon
Time – Effect
0.00 – Weapon Swing – Windfury Proc
1.50 – Weapon Swing – Windfury cannot proc.
3.00 – Weapon Swing – Chance for Windfury Proc

Now look at the same situation with a 3.0 speed weapon.

3.0 speed weapon
Time – Effect
0.00 – Weapon Swing – Windfury Proc
3.00 – Weapon Swing – Chance for Windfury Proc

Now, that’s add +1 haste rating to the equation.

2.99 speed weapon
Time – Effect
0.00 – Weapon Swing – Windfury Proc
2.99 – Weapon Swing – Windfury Cannot Proc
5.98 – Weapon Swing – Chance for Windfury Proc

See what happened? The 1 point of haste rating turned the 3.0 second windfury cooldown into a 5.98 second windfury cooldown!

Let me attach some numbers, to make this seem more quantitative. Lets use a 1.5 speed weapon that hits for 250, and has Windfury Attacks for 400. We’ll use a 3.0 speed weapon of the same dps, that hits for 500 and has Windfury Attacks for 800.

1.5 speed weapon
Time – Effect
0.00 – Weapon Swing – 250, 400, 400
1.50 – Weapon Swing – 250
3.00 – Weapon Swing – 250, 400, 400
4.50 – Weapon Swing – 250
6.00 – Weapon Swing – 250, 400, 400

Total – 3650

3.0 speed weapon
Time – Effect
0.00 – Weapon Swing – 500, 800, 800
3.00 – Weapon Swing – 500, 800, 800
6.00 – Weapon Swing – 500, 800, 800

Total – 6300

2.99 speed weapon
Time – Effect
0.00 – Weapon Swing – 500, 800, 800
2.99 – Weapon Swing – 500
5.98 – Weapon Swing – 500, 800, 800
6.00 – Technically, the time passed between 5.98 and 6.00 is a percentage of a swing cooldown, which is approx 3 damage. (0.006 * 500 = 3)

Total – 4703

Honestly the math of it all is pretty confusing. When you go visit the thread you’ll mostly see numbers flying all over the place. Perhaps Forums user Ozric best sums up forum sentiment with his post. He says: “well the thing is, this 3 second cooldown is already in the game. It is nothing new. What’s new is the fact that having windfury on your offhand will reduce your mainhand’s chance to proc windfury, thus reducing your DPS. So Windfury should never be put onto an offhand ever again after this patch.”

And what is the “Blue” (that means Blizzard) reaction to all of this so far? Blizzard Poster Tseric writes:

Let me just say outright, I would love for you to prove me wrong on this contention. I see an issue with a core statement made in the OP for a couple reasons. Quote: “If not for the 3.0 second cooldown, Windfury would be in identical dps increase across all weapon speeds.”

If you mean that windfury adds the same amount of damage for each extra attack, that is one thing. To say the potential damage output of a fast weapon from a slow weapon with windfury is another. The OP focuses on how the 3 second cooldown affects proc’ing on slow and fast weapons, but doesn’t really deal with what happens if the cooldown isn’t there. Especially in a dual wield situation.

Now granted, I haven’t crunched numbers on this either, but I’m interested to see simple math where the max damage from a repeated crit from both a slow 2 hander and dual wield, fast main and off hand compare within a 6 second timeframe.

Let’s take as a given that all weapons proc on strike. That’s what unmanagable burst damage is all about. The fast, dual wield weapons are procing every strike in 6 seconds, the slow 2 hander procs every strike in 6 seconds. How do these compare? Does that support everything that follows in the original argument?

As of this writing the thread has grown to 300 posts, and it is still growing. Visit it if you wish through our “VIA” link below.

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