We see a few things that add up wwith what we've thought. The 0 point is 14242 haste, and haste is stronger than mastery up until that point. There's a jump at -2000 haste, because of the +4 LB BP at 12043 haste with meta. There's another jump around 19K because of +3 at 18960, and +5 at 19347 with meta, but it comes after a dip.
But what's that flat line after 14242? It looks like there might even be a point that's higher than 14242 haste. Let's zoom in and add some notes to explain what I'm talking about:
So it would seem that haste is equal to mastery for a good duration beyond 14242. Why is that?
The only reason I can think of is our meta gem. Frost mages enjoy a meta gem uptime of ~35%, and if you add in Bloodlust we spend >40% of of any fight under haste effects. Past 14242, the only spell that benefits from haste is Frostbolt (and evocation, I guess). When does Frostbolt stop having gains from haste?
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((2.0 base cast / 1.3 meta or lust / 1.05 raid haste buff / 1.07 frost armor) - 1) * 42500 rating per 100% haste = 15697.254458936701927356132963611. Frost spends 50-55% of any single target fight spamming frostbolt. Despite haste not affecting other spells, the largest proportion of our cast time still gains from it.
2. Frostbolt is the primary means of generating FoF procs. Frostbolt, Frostbolt icicles and FoF IL accounts for ~45% of our total damage. Maximizing frostbolt haste means maximizing FoF generation.
3. Water elemental still gains from haste. Due to the high mastery rating of 588 BiS gear, haste gives higher returns per point than mastery for the water elemental.
What happens in multiple target fights? As previous sims have shown, mastery is exceptionally strong on 2 target fights due to icicle cleave with the splitting ice glyph. However, at 3 targets or above, the power of haste scaling on multidotting starts to show, especially when using NT. By going a little over 14242 haste, you enjoy at least equal single target DPS, while also increasing DPS on fights with 3 or more targets.
So why is this interesting? As many 580+ frost mages have noticed, keeping frost under 14242 haste, crit below shatter cap, while trying to maximize mastery and avoid using intellect gems over expertise gems is really difficult. This suggests that we really don't need to worry too much about haste above 14242, because it is just as powerful as mastery until 15697.
Taking advantage of this, I have already switched the SimC default frost BiS sample profile to a 2T16H+3HWF, "secondary stat maximizing" setup. By using certain mastery/crit pieces and having more room to fill in with haste, I've been able to avoid using int/mastery gems, and the profile DPS has increased by a bit:
Here's a haste/mastery reforge graph with the new profile, which is at 16065 haste. I couldn't get it any lower with gems or reforging, unfortunately. You can see the noticeable dropoff when more mastery is further traded for haste!
So what's the conclusion? Here's what I'd say in a summarized format:
TL;DR: Going past 14242 GCD soft haste cap does not make mastery better than haste. Mastery is better than haste after 15697 haste.
