I've been asked this question a few times, by raiders and non raiders alike. Some people will consider this common knowledge, others might learn a few things. So it's time for another Baello guide!
Haste. That elusive thing that makes you swing faster. You know you like it. You always want more. But just how does it work?
Firstly. There are 3 types of haste: Worn, spell, overhaste. Worn comes from items, only one counts, best one wins. So if your wearing a 45% haste and a 40% haste item, you have 45% in worn haste. Spell comes from those lovely enchanter and shaman spells we all love so much, but the rule of 1 applies here too. You may have seen shaman's talisman of celerity stacking with ellowind. Well, the haste isn't stacking. They stack because you still get the buffs of ellowind. Talisman of celerity is 60% haste. Ellowind (all forms and ranks) is 68% haste. So with both on your haste from spells is 68%. If you have ellowind, go ahead and click off talisman in other words. The last form of haste is the most rare, it's called overhaste. Only a bard can give you this, but it stacks with both worn and spell haste. The best bard overhaste is Aura of the Muse (their aura) which grants 30% overhaste.
Now, with a 45% haste item, that puts your maximum haste at 143%. But what does that mean having 143% haste? Well, first you have to understand that haste is not a direct reduction of delay. It is an increase in swings. So 143% isn't a 143% reduction in delay, it's swinging 143% more times. So let's break it down to the math.
Effective delay = delay/(1+haste)
So let's assume your using the same offhand weapon I am, Thunderclap. It is a 33/24 weapon. Let's figure out it's delay with our theoretical max haste.
24 (delay) / (1 + 1.43) = 9.9 (delay is always rounded UP) = 10
That puts our delay at 10. Now this is a magic number, 10 is the absolute lowest your delay can ever go. No matter how the math turns out, you will never swing faster than a 10 delay. This brings up another issue, what if you have a faster weapon.
Well let's use real world numbers here. Some questioned why I didn't roll on the dagger that dropped from king in RSS, well these numbers will answer that question. I have 36% worn haste. I always have ellowind for 68% spell haste. I never have bard overhaste. So my total haste is 104%. I am currently using Discordant Dagger of Night. A 25/21 weapon in primary. Let's figure what it's real world delay is.
21 / (1 + 1.04) = 10.3 = 11
So my real delay is 11. Making my primary a 25/11 weapon. 1 over the minimum delay. Now let's look at the dagger that dropped. It was a 24/16 weapon. Sounds far superior to the one I was using, but let's figure it's real world stats.
16 / (1 + 1.04) = 7.8 = 8 (rounded) = 10 (minimum delay).
As you can see, it went well below the minimum delay. So that weapon effectively is a 24/10 weapon. As a rogue, giving up 1 damage for a reduction of 1 delay is most certainly not worth it thanks to backstab being reliant on weapon damage.
So now let's work a little math magic. How do you figure out exactly how much haste you need to make your weapon swing as fast as it possibly can? Let's use the same formula we have, just changing things around a little bit. We know we want the effective haste to be 10. We have the original delay. So let's use my weapon and figure exactly how much haste I need to get to a 10 delay.
10 = 21 / (1 + x) x here being how much haste we need.
10(1 + x) = 21 simplified the math here
10 + 10x = 21 simplified further
10x = 11 simplified yet further
x = 1.1
We now see that I would need 110% total haste to reach a delay of 10. So I would need 6% more haste to get down to 10 delay on my primary weapon. You can use the same formula to calculate how much haste you need to get your weapon down to 10 delay.
I realize this is a LOT of information to absorb, but it can help you to better plan your character and make smart gear choices. It also unfortunately complicates your weapon choices, due largely to the minimum delay issue. But work the math, and you can best optimize your characters weapons.
