With Patch 5.2 and Throne of Thunder somewhere between 9 and 23 days away from release, now is as good of a time as any to take a closer look at what Haste Breakpoints Shadow Priests should be aiming for with their shiny new Tier 15 levels of gear. Some of you may remember seeing this post from last August where I discussed Haste Breakpoints specifically for Tier 14 raids. This image has had a lot of legs all over WoW releated websites on the Internet in the past 6 months:

This has been, without a doubt, the most informative and useful piece of information I’ve posted on this blog. Since higher levels of Haste will be available soon, this tired old table is in need of an upgrade. What complicates this process of determining Haste Breakpoints is twofold:

1. [b]Power Infusion[/b] now stacks with [b]Bloodlust[/b].
2. The new [b]Legendary Meta Gem[/b] ([b]LMG[/b]), [b]Sinister Primal Diamond[/b], gives the equivalent of a mini [b]Bloodlust[/b] for 10seconds, with an uptime on the order of 19-23% of a fight.

Between these two changes/additions and Trolls having access to [b]Berserking[/b], that makes four different possible percentage haste procs or cooldowns that could be used in conjunction with one another. Before I go any further, allow me to present the new and expanded 5.2 Haste Breakpoints chart:

This chart breaks down the Haste required to get extra ticks out of [b]Shadow Word: Pain[/b], [b]Vampiric Touch[/b], and [b]Devouring Plague[/b] based on what Haste effects your Priest is currently under. This is important to consider since the [b]Sinister Primal Diamond[/b] has a relatively high uptime, meaning that it will most likely be up at the same time as at least one of the other three effects: [b]Power Infusion[/b] (16.6%+ uptime), [b]Bloodlust[/b] (6.66%+ uptime, much more on shorter fights), and [b]Berserking[/b] for Trolls (5.55%+ uptime). If you are a troll and stagger the use of [b]Power Infusion[/b] and [b]Berserking[/b], you could have *20% Haste active for 80 seconds out of 6 minutes, or 22.2% uptime. Alternatively, if you save these effects for when you have an active [b]Legendary Meta Gem[/b] proc (or [b]Bloodlust[/b]), you could activate either [b]Power Infusion[/b] or [b]Berserking[/b] then and have *63.80% Haste for close to 10 seconds, depending on your reaction time to seeing the [b]LMG[/b] proc happen, meaning at current gear levels you would have [b]Vampiric Touch[/b]+5, [b]Devouring Plague[/b]+6, and [b]Shadow Word: Pain[/b]+6.

Knowing about these new Haste Breakpoints now makes it more difficult to have a fixed number to shoot for when gearing. Early simulations are showing that Haste is our best stat, especially if you choose [b]Power Infusion[/b] out of the Tier5/Level75 Talents, so Haste stacking once you’ve reached one breakpoint won’t be as poor a choice as it currently is after 8085 Haste in 5.1 . In building profiles for 5.2 out of gear that has been datamined, I’ve been able to, through extreme Haste stacking, to get past the [b]Vampiric Touch[/b]+12 Haste Breakpoint with [b]Power Infusion[/b] + [b]Berserking[/b] + [b]Bloodlust[/b] + [b]Sinister Primal Diamond[/b] procs happening, or 12362 Haste rating (higher may be possible if you gem straight Haste or Haste/Int). For my profile, though, I’ve settled on 10466 Haste rating, putting it squarely in getting [b]Vampiric Touch[/b]+4 with the [b]Legendary Meta Gem[/b] proc or [b]Bloodlust[/b] active; this also grants [b]Vampiric Touch[/b]+2 without any extra Haste procs/buffs, and [b]Devouring Plague[/b]+10 and [b]Shadow Word: Pain[/b]+10 when you get lucky (or are a slightly less lucky, but are a Troll) and have the [b]Legendary Meta Gem[/b] proc while [b]Bloodlust[/b] is active and have either [b]Power Infusion[/b] or [b]Berserking[/b] off cooldown and available for use — 16 ticks of [b]Devouring Plague[/b] in ~6seconds is too valuable to pass up, especially if you require massive healing for some reason.

Here are my recommendations for Haste Breakpoints to shoot for, depending on race, talents, and if you have the [b]Legendary Meta Gem[/b]:

• 10124 Haste – If you don’t want to take [b]Power Infusion[/b], are not a Troll, and don’t have the [b]Legendary Meta Gem[/b]. This will get you +2 ticks out all of our DoTs as a minimum. If you choose [b]Power Infusion[/b] occasionally, this will grant you +3 ticks, while during [b]Bloodlust[/b] you’ll have +4 ticks to [b]Devouring Plague[/b] and [b]Shadow Word: Pain[/b] (which share breakpoints from +4 onward).
• 10437 Haste – This will grant you the same ticks as a baseline listed above (+2), but will also grant you [b]Vampiric Touch[/b]+4 when [b]Bloodlust[/b] or your [b]Legendary Meta Gem[/b] is active. This is what I’m going to be recommending as the default target to shoot for for 5.2.
• 11990 Haste – If you’re able to get ~1550 more Haste thanks to Heroic Thunderforged gear, this breakpoint will grant you [b]Vampiric Touch[/b]+6 and [b]Devouring Plague[/b]/[b]Shadow Word: Pain[/b]+7 while either [b]Bloodlust[/b] or the [b]Legendary Meta Gem[/b] is active AND either [b]Power Infusion[/b] or [b]Berserking[/b] is active.

For reference, here are the breakpoints for T14 4P gear (no LMG):

[b]EDIT 2013/02/24[/b] – Left out PI+Berserking+Bloodlust/LMG. Added to the chart.
[b]EDIT 2013/02/26[/b] – Per request, I’ve added another chart that includes breakpoints for T14 4P. From this chart I have omitted the LMG, though, since really if you have the LMG you probably won’t be dorking around raids with the T14 4P equipped.