Haste vs. Double Attack

[Sappho]

Okay all you number crunchers...

When considering gear, what's the balance between haste & double attack for a slot?

The perfect setup would be to keep 25% gear haste before adding any double attack, right? But if the choice is a helmet with 2% DA or 6% haste, what's the break down on that?

Discuss.

[Economizer]

I believe the saying goes:

If you aren't capping haste then your double attack is going to waste.

But don't take this random made up quote's word for it, check out this thread.

In case you are skeptical of clicking random links to other parts of the forums here, I'll just quote the relevant part of that post, saving you valuable time to find more haste sources!

Q: Wait... What about Double attack? Is it better than Haste???

A: No.

Table 3:
Number of attack rounds added (Per 100 rounds):

%       DA     Haste 
00%  -   0  -  0
05%  -   5  -  5
10%  -  10  -  11
15%  -  15  -  18 
20%  -  20  -  25 
25%  -  25  -  33 
30%  -  30  -  43
35%  -  35  -  54
40%  -  40  -  67
45%  -  45  -  82 
50%  -  50  -  100
55%  -  55  -  122
60%  -  60  -  150
65%  -  65  -  186
70%  -  70  -  233
75%  -  75  -  300
80%  -  80  -  400

Luckily the cases where Haste and Double Attack are put in an "Either/Or" situation is exceptionally rare. But when the choice does come up, you can see in that table, haste is the obvious choice.

[Arcon]

There is no short formula with which you can compare it. It depends on your base Haste and DA/TA/QA. All of those will influence the decision.

Assuming no TA or higher multihits the formula for total damage would be:

R = B*(1+bD+dD)/(1-(bH+dH))

or

R/B = (1+bD+dD)/(1-(bH+dH))

R: Resulting damage
B: Base damage (before Haste and DA)
R/B: Damage increase (percentual)
bH: Base Haste
bD: Base Double Attack
dH, dD: New Haste/DA received from the item/set in question

This is simplified a lot if you just combine bH and dH (to total Haste, H) and bD and dD (to total Double Attack, D):
R/B = (1+D)/(1-H)

So assuming you have 15% base Haste and 12% base DA, and you're considering an item with 2% DA vs one with 6% Haste, you compare the equations:

(1+(0.12+0.02))/(1-0.15) = 1.34

(1+0.12)/(1-(0.15+0.06)) = 1.42

So you see the bottom option wins (which is the 6% Haste option).

There is no "one balance", there is no 5% DA = 2% Haste or anything like it, because they don't increase linearly. It will always depend on your other base stats.

It gets a bit more complicated when TA is involved (called T):
R/B = (1+2*T+D-D*T)/(1-H)

And even more complicated when Dual Wield comes into play (called DW):
R/B = (1+2*T+D-D*T)/((1-H)*(1-DW))

This formula looks complicated, but it's really just inserting values and comparing the result.

Note that this doesn't affect critical hit rate calculations at all, as these calculations just determine the number of hits, while critical hit rate/damage calculations will determine the effectiveness of each hit.

[Kristal]

Martial Arts replaces Dual Wield (1-DW) in that formula for H2H, although the delay reduction is more complex. (480+WD-MA)/480 or (480+WD-MA)/(480+WD), not sure which. There's probably a forum post somewhere if you dig deep enough.

[SpankWustler]

The perfect setup would be to keep 25% gear haste before adding any double attack, right? But if the choice is a helmet with 2% DA or 6% haste, what's the break down on that?

Double/Triple/Quadruple Attack options are usually the best options for a TP set after capping Haste. It would be better to compare Double/Triple/Quadruple Attack to stuff like Attack or Critical Something Something because those are also very good options after capping Haste.

Assuming 0% Double Attack and 0% Haste as the base level, you'd need at least 6% Double Attack to compare to 6% Haste.

Each percentage of Double Attack increases your current damage by slightly less as your current Double Attack value increases, because you can't Double Attack on a Double Attack round and a chunk your current attacks are Double Attack rounds.

Each percentage of Haste increases your current damage by slightly more at first, and drastically more at high percentages of Haste, because it's taking away from your base delay (after Dual Wield or Martial Arts) rather than your current (already reduced) delay.

Also, it doesn't help Double Attack attack that there is usually drastically more Haste available in any given slot when the opposite would need to be true in order for Double Attack options to ever win.

[saevel]

Haste > DA pretty much every time.