A Question Of Haste
Or maybe more accurately, A Few Question Of Haste.
You know, like, What is haste? Why do I need it? Where do I get it from? and Can I have too much of it?
The first time I ever heard of haste on WoW gear (then separated into [melee] haste and spell haste) was when Zul’Aman was launched back in November 2007.
I didn’t get that many items with haste on any of my chars, and it was never really a stat I aimed for.
Fast forward to 2009 and Northrend, where every single item that drops seems to have haste on it. My lvl 80 girls, ze warlock Paynne is packing 130 haste rating and ze shammy Larue a whooping 268 haste rating.
So, adding a few more questions, is that a lot? Is it enough or is it maybe too much? And is haste rating the same thing as haste?
I figured it was about time I caught up with everyone else in the haste department. (And since none of my melee girls are lvl 80 yet I will avoid fatal brain overload and focus on the spell variety of haste.)
Starting off with the easy question; Is haste rating the same thing as haste?
Short answer: No.
Slightly longer answer: Haste is measured in %, whereas haste rating is a number. At lvl 80, you need 33 haste rating to gain 1 % haste.
Onwards to the not-so-easy question then. According to wowwiki, haste affects the casting time of spells in 3 different ways:
- It reduces the general global cooldown (GCD) down to a mimimum of 1 second instead of the original 1,5 seconds.
- It reduces the time spent casting.
- It reduces the time before the cast spell takes effect.
Now, before you go wohoo! and start stacking haste rating to get that annoying GCD down to 1 second, let me inform you that it will require 50 % haste at lvl 80, or 1640 haste rating. Not likely to be achieved by ordinary players like me.
Faster casts are always welcome, right? The 2,5 seconds cast of a talented Shadow Bolt or Chain Heal feels like an eternity sometimes, and anything that could reduce those neverending casts are definitely worth looking at.
I am not quite sure what the third haste effect actually means, wowwiki only refers to it as being useful when duelling or when needing quick sporadic heals.
A quick browsing of dah intareweb and known resources such as Elitist Jerks doesn’t bring up anything useful to me since the mechanics for this haste stat has been changed since it was introduced and a lot of the information is outdated.
I am guessing it might mean that the initial tick of a dot or hot is applied faster with increased haste, but don’t take my word for it.
Where do I get haste rating then? Well, like I said, a lot of the gear (and I mean A LOT!) in Northrend comes with haste, it’s rather more difficult to find pieces without haste than with it, actually.
If you feel you don’t have enough as it is you can always gem for it or slap on some enchant or other.
I saved the most interesting question for last, how much haste is enough/too much?
Well, the usefulness of haste is obvious, but like every other stat, stacking it means you sacrifice something else.
In fights where you switch targets a lot or need many fast smaller heals or dispells haste is a good stat.
In fights that let you focus on the same target for longer periods of time or where you need to heal up large spiked damage fast, spell power or crit would be a better choice.
So, for the time being, I am not going to excert myself stacking a lot of haste.
As I gather more gear I might want to work on getting two sets, one haste set and one spell power/crit set, but for now I will try to keep a balance more suited to my all-round playstyle.
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Nice article! :)
As a mage, stacking haste will give a big DPS gain, on par with hit and spellpower in most cases. However, stacking haste does not give more DPM (damage per mana) as it only deals the same amount of damage out quicker. Spellpower and hitrating gives more damage for each cast, therefore increasing both DPS and DPM.
Raiding mages risk going OOM earlier when stacking haste, and might have to talent for more mana regen to compensate. Thus, stacking spellpower, hit (and crit for fire mages) will usually be a better choice until higher gear levels.
Haste is a great stat for arena though, as you have to react quickly and usually rely on instant casts (at least as OP arcane pvp! :-)
Thanks Fire! :-)
And thanks for the input on what is good for a mage.
Guess it is applicable for warlocks as well and that I was on the right track then, not gemming or enchanting my raid gears for haste yet, sticking to the good old spellpower and crit until I gear up a little more.
OP arcane pvp, eh? Time for a nerf cry maybe? ;P
As aretri palla I’m currently stacking 268 haste, it has lessened my Melee swing by 0.43 of a second ( a lot on a big 2 hander) this has meant that there is a change from Seal of Command being the top seal / judge to Seal of the Martyr. It is also useful to consider how what procs you have on your armour, trinkets etc as my procs are now approx 13% more often generating more dps
Ty Pol, I hadn’t thought of that at all, and I guess that would apply to any spellcaster procs as well :-)
Tessy, I’m not sure if OOM is such a big deal for locks? I mean, you can just life tap and go on, and let healers bring you back up to full health. We just have to stand idle and watch basically!
And yeah, I’ll be wailing like a baby when the inevitable arcane nerf comes around.. ;-)
Fire, I was thinking along the lines that since warlocks have many instant dots we are better off focusing on spellpower, hit and crit, like you say a fire mage does, to really dish out some damage so the mob dies faster (at least when we start out raiding).
If I pack a lot of haste on the expense of sp, hit/crit I get my spells off faster but they would hit for less and it would feel rather useless to have to refresh an 18 second dot if you see that the target is about to kick the bucket in much less time than that.
But you are right, us locks usually don’t worry that much about going OOM :-)
I’m a fair bit late here, but:
Haste for melee is fairly simple, lets say you have 10% haste: over any given time you will have 10% more autoattacks. That’s it. Haste generally is not a stat melee wants to stack. Exception to the rule ofc, but that is, well, an exception. With the unification of haste ratings you will gain spell haste as well, it’s not all that useful for melee, but it will lower the GCD for any spamable specials.
For casters it’s a little bit more complicated. It does the same as for melee, as well as reducing cast time. Wether or not it benefits a certain class depends what your primary source of damage is and how manabound you are. If you can live trough KT with mana in surplus you have too much mana and should consider haste. If you rely on casttime spells with no CD then haste is good. If you use DOTs and instants then haste is bad.
Excellent summary, thanks Gondir :-)
As a fire/frost PVE lvl 80 mage with half gear rated 213, and hit max’d at 14%, which direction should I go next? select haste over spellpower or spellpower over haste?
Thanks.
I don’t play a mage myself, well, not a lvl 80 raiding one :-), but I think spellpower would be the better stat to go for when you are hit cappep.
Check out Elitist Jerks raiding as frost mage-thread and the tool Rawr that lets you fiddle around with different gear/gems/enchants.