Restos: Tell me about Haste

[Weissrolf]

Hello Resto druids,

please tell me why Haste is so much prefered around here (and Icy Veins) for raids? I know the mechanics around Haste and ticks and I do like the lower GCD playstyle, but I (and AMR) fail to see why it should be a priority stat?

Currently I prefer Crit, because it works very well with all the HoT ticks, while still having chance to affect cast-time spells (defensive + offensive). With the latter Haste helps with cast-time and thus movement and throughput, but it does not affect the result of the cast itself.

With Mastery I am not sure if it gets enough credit in raids?! I know that in raids you are less likely to run several HoTs on single targets (other than the tank maybe), but even a single HoT already get the Mastery bonus. So 20% Mastery is a 20% bonus on a single target, is it not? Compare that to 20% Crit, which statistically is the same, but without a chance to maybe get another stack (by applying another HoT like Wild Growth, which the artifact traits support anyway).

So looking at this it seems like Haste mostly has the CD thing going for it. What am I missing here?

[Cheze]

you understand all the inputs, seemingly. Your question is essentially 'why aren't the numbers different,' and the answer is 'because that's where blizzard set the numbers.'

If we needed less mastery rating per 1% increase we might prefer mastery in large raid situations, but we get more per point of rating from crit/haste so we prefer those when we can't specifically leverage mastery.

worth mentioning too that most guides/sims place crit and haste close enough to be functionally interchangeable; when you do get to choose one or the other you should generally add more of the one you have less of.

[Tomali]

First: Ilv is much more important for resto druids, so you will almost never sacrifice a 10ilv upgrade for a piece of gear with haste on it.

Simulations of healing put haste as the secondary stat that will boost your throughput the most. However, there are diminishing returns to stacking any secondary stat, so it is wise to have a little bit of everything. Math can solve the question concerning the best secondary stats, and it is less about how any person feels. Additionally, the 'weight' of secondary stats change based on what your current stats are so this question is fluid. There isn't just one answer and you're good to go. Haste is good as a throughput stat, but practically can also help people run oom faster due to the extra globals they are casting. Crit is also a strong stat for druids.

[EliWallach]

Haste makes your HoTs tick faster. But the total time for Rejuv and, I believe, LB stay constant. Since the time between ticks generally does not evenly divide the total time interval, you get a partial tick at the end to compensate. That partial tick grows with your total haste. At some point this final tick will grow into a full extra tick and after that you will get another partial tick that again grows with haste. So basically haste makes your HoTs tick faster AND adds additional healing through the partial tick mechanism. That's what makes haste so good - basically double dips to improve your HoT throughput. Wild Growth does not get the partial tick but it does tick faster.

[Weissrolf]

Well, my latest simulation (yesterday) on AMR comes up with these stats:

Intellect 14.39
Mastery 9.35
Critical 9.19
Versat 8.33
Haste 7.49
Leech 2.64

I did set the maximum lag too high for that run, but that shouldn't matter so much.

- - - Updated - - -

One reason why for the time being I prefer Crit is that both Efflorescence and Tranquility are only considered HoTs for Ironbark, but not for Mastery or G'Hanir and I don't think the ticks of Efflorescence benefit from Haste. Tranq is situational and tends to overheal, but the mushroom remains to be high on the list on any fight where at least three people fit into its circle. All that being said, we did not start raiding yet, so I am lacking practical insight into Legion raids at the moment.

[Alltat]

Well, my latest simulation (yesterday) on AMR comes up with these stats:

Intellect 14.39
Mastery 9.35
Critical 9.19
Versat 8.33
Haste 7.49
Leech 2.64

I did set the maximum lag too high for that run, but that shouldn't matter so much.

With how many people in the group? The thing about our new mastery is that it gets worse the bigger the raid is. If you're running mostly mythic dungeons with Cenarion Ward, Germination, and (for the sake of the example) Cultivation, mastery is going to be quite nice since everyone has 3-5 HoTs on them at all times and the tank has 5-7. If you're raiding with 20-25 people using Prosperity, Soul of the Forest, and Inner Peace (let's pretend this fight calls for it over Spring Blossoms), players you heal are going to have 1-2 HoTs on them at best, and even tanks won't go above 3-4 during heavy damage (Rjv/Eff/LB/Rg). Tank healing will also be a much smaller part of your total healing while in a raid. It gets a little bit better on fights where you can use Spring Blossoms, but not a lot as it's rare that the whole raid actually stands in your Efflorescence all that much.

So whatever value mastery has under ideal circumstances in a challenging five man group, divide that by three to get its value in a large raid.

[Weissrolf]

Well, I am not convinced about this argument concerning Mastery. Yes, in a bigger raid the chances are that people will mostly have 1-2 HoTs on them. But even a single HoT invokes your Mastery bonus and then even cast-time heals get that bonus (inkluding Efflorescence and Tranquility btw).

So 20% Mastery is 20% bonus with a single Rejuv already, the second and third HoT just make it even better. Compare that to Haste or Crit where you don't get any such stacking mechanics. Of course Crit always had a chance to do its part, even when no HoT is already running on the target (like a Healing Touch, Efflorescence or Tranq on someone without HoTs).

But Haste seems the most restricted of the three, except for the cast-time bonus.

[Thalur]

But Haste seems the most restricted of the three, except for the cast-time bonus.

You realize that even disregarding the "cast-time bonus" (reduced GCD), haste increases the healing done by any of our hots the most of all secondary stats? (Unless you already have a crapton of haste of course.)
Mastery is great in 5 mans (much better than haste) but sucks in raids ( = lowest secondary stat).

[stormgust]

So 20% Mastery is 20% bonus with a single Rejuv already ...

And those 20% mastery are equivalent to 33.3% crit (resp. ~36% haste). You won't break even with that on mastery prior to an average of 1.66 HoTs (resp. 1.8). That's not anywhere a typical amount of HoTs in a raid enviroment for anything but the tank.

[Deleted]

Haste + crit for raid healing or Haste + Mastery for tank healing.

[Nythiz]

Haste makes your HoTs tick faster. But the total time for Rejuv and, I believe, LB stay constant. Since the time between ticks generally does not evenly divide the total time interval, you get a partial tick at the end to compensate. That partial tick grows with your total haste. At some point this final tick will grow into a full extra tick and after that you will get another partial tick that again grows with haste. So basically haste makes your HoTs tick faster AND adds additional healing through the partial tick mechanism. That's what makes haste so good - basically double dips to improve your HoT throughput. Wild Growth does not get the partial tick but it does tick faster.

What you describe here is just a single part of the double dip mechanic. The whole thing you describe here is just the extra healing haste provides.
The partial tick mechanic is just to prevent haste breakpoints.

Haste double dips for HoTs because it does two things:

1) It increases healing done per HoT. This is due to the interval between ticks being shortened; but the full duration of the HoT remains the same.
This is a unique mechanic for HoTs and DoTs, after all if you get haste for normal direct casts they have no influence over the total healing done per cast.
This is what makes it really strong for HoT healing.

2) Besides increasing the healing done per HoT. Haste of course also shortens the cast time.
A lot of our HoTs are instant cast, but haste also lowers the GCD which means we can get more casts per minute.

Let's say you're casting rejuvenates for 6 seconds with 0% haste.
Your hots will tick every 3 seconds for X healing per tick over a duration of 15 seconds, and in those 6 seconds you can cast 6 / 1.5 (GCD) = 4 HoTs
That means you get 4 * (15 / 3) * X = 20X healing done

Now you have 50% haste and are casting in those same 6 seconds.
Your hots will now tick every 2 seconds for X healing per tick over a duration of still 15 seconds. In those 6 seconds you can now cast 6 / 1 (GCD)= 6 HoTs
That means that now you will get 6 * (15 / 2) * X = 45X healing done

That is a difference of 45X / 20X = 2.25 times more healing.
So you get +50% haste, but you do 125% more healing. (1.50 * 1.50 = 2.25 ... this is the double dip, you benefit from haste TWICE)

That is why haste has quite a lot of power.

------

Whether or not haste is our best stat completely depends on how much rating you need for haste. And not all our spells benefit (fully) from the double dip of haste; which complicates things.

[RestoSpirit]

Hey,

what makes haste so good in raids (compared to crit, since mastery has been discussed enough here)? For me it's a couple of things I consider when choosing items with haste over any other stat. First of all, the already mentioned bonus to your healing (it increases your HoT-ticks and gives you bonus ticks when your HoT runs out).

Second it reduces your GCD and thats the most amazing part! Why is that? Reducing your GCD (actually being GCD-capped) means you can have MORE HoTs out at the same time and thats important, since the more people you can heal it becomes less likely someone dies. Usually it's better to heal 5 people for 10% HP over healing one person for 50% HP.

The GCD-Cap is 1second, and as far as I know you need 50% haste to be gcd-capped. With a 1second GCD you can get 18 rejus out before the first one runs out (that is with the Artifact-Trait: Persistence and no Relics with Persistence.) More rejus synergize well with your artifact-weapon (more dreamwalker-heal, better Flourish-G'hanir, general bonuses to healing over time effects) and with talents like Cultivation (imagine your raid is blanketed with rejus and they all drop below 60%).

Why don't we rate haste over Int then? Well 3 reasons:

1. Not every fight drops the whole raid low, so you need to use different heals and blanketing becomes less viable.

2. Int benefits ALL your spells and increases your overall healing by a large margin.

3. Having that much Haste drains your mana REALLY quick, unless you get 6-12 innervates per fight like me you can't sustain that kind of output for long. When Mana is your problem, Haste becomes less viable and that's why you rate Int > Haste = Crit.

Cheers
Restospirit

[Weissrolf]

I agree about the Haste mechanics and generally like a playstyle where the GCD is low. For me this is more about options, though, because I really don't like blanketing at all! In WoD Wild Growth usually came out higher than Rejuvenation for me and even now Wild Growth comes with several benefits that hopefully spare me the blanketing mechanics. Dreamwalker kind of suggests more blanketing, though, which I don't like too much.

Of course Wild Growth benefits a lot from haste, being both a HoT and a cast-time spell. On the other hand Mastery is pushed forward by everything that also pushes Haste (except GCD). Any Wild Growth makes your Rejuv targets stack a second Hot, every Cultivation adds a HoT, every direct heal of Dreamwalk is pushed by Mastery (but not by Haste).

To me it looks like Haste is the "obvious" choice, Crit is the "save" choice and Mastery is the "wild card". And after reading several arguments here and in other threads I still don't see why Mastery should be much worse than the rest in raids.

Are 2x HoTs with high Mastery not better than 1x HoT with high Haste? Don't we have 2 HoTs up regularly on people who really need it (especially with Rejuv + WG Dreamwalker mechanic)? Don't we even stack non HoT heals on top of that which also benefit from Mastery (Tranq, Efflorescence, Swiftmend)?

Every argument about Haste vs. Mastery seems to come down to Rejuv blanketing while sweeping the rest more or less under the proverbial carpet. I cannot follow this argument and wonder about the rest of the picture?!

[Deleted]

I agree about the Haste mechanics and generally like a playstyle where the GCD is low. For me this is more about options, though, because I really don't like blanketing at all! In WoD Wild Growth usually came out higher than Rejuvenation for me and even now Wild Growth comes with several benefits that hopefully spare me the blanketing mechanics. Dreamwalker kind of suggests more blanketing, though, which I don't like too much.

Of course Wild Growth benefits a lot from haste, being both a HoT and a cast-time spell. On the other hand Mastery is pushed forward by everything that also pushes Haste (except GCD). Any Wild Growth makes your Rejuv targets stack a second Hot, every Cultivation adds a HoT, every direct heal of Dreamwalk is pushed by Mastery (but not by Haste).

To me it looks like Haste is the "obvious" choice, Crit is the "save" choice and Mastery is the "wild card". And after reading several arguments here and in other threads I still don't see why Mastery should be much worse than the rest in raids.

Are 2x HoTs with high Mastery not better than 1x HoT with high Haste? Don't we have 2 HoTs up regularly on people who really need it (especially with Rejuv + WG Dreamwalker mechanic)? Don't we even stack non HoT heals on top of that which also benefit from Mastery (Tranq, Efflorescence, Swiftmend)?

Every argument about Haste vs. Mastery seems to come down to Rejuv blanketing while sweeping the rest more or less under the proverbial carpet. I cannot follow this argument and wonder about the rest of the picture?!

I'm sure there's a spreadsheet somewhere that will show you that Haste is the better stat for raiding.

[RestoSpirit]

I agree about the Haste mechanics and generally like a playstyle where the GCD is low. For me this is more about options, though, because I really don't like blanketing at all! In WoD Wild Growth usually came out higher than Rejuvenation for me and even now Wild Growth comes with several benefits that hopefully spare me the blanketing mechanics. Dreamwalker kind of suggests more blanketing, though, which I don't like too much.

Of course Wild Growth benefits a lot from haste, being both a HoT and a cast-time spell. On the other hand Mastery is pushed forward by everything that also pushes Haste (except GCD). Any Wild Growth makes your Rejuv targets stack a second Hot, every Cultivation adds a HoT, every direct heal of Dreamwalk is pushed by Mastery (but not by Haste).

To me it looks like Haste is the "obvious" choice, Crit is the "save" choice and Mastery is the "wild card". And after reading several arguments here and in other threads I still don't see why Mastery should be much worse than the rest in raids.

Are 2x HoTs with high Mastery not better than 1x HoT with high Haste? Don't we have 2 HoTs up regularly on people who really need it (especially with Rejuv + WG Dreamwalker mechanic)? Don't we even stack non HoT heals on top of that which also benefit from Mastery (Tranq, Efflorescence, Swiftmend)?

Every argument about Haste vs. Mastery seems to come down to Rejuv blanketing while sweeping the rest more or less under the proverbial carpet. I cannot follow this argument and wonder about the rest of the picture?!

You need to consider two things here:

1. The masteryrating needed to get 1% mastery is higher then the hasterating needed to get 1% haste, which makes haste the better choice in that regard.

2. Overhealing, as I said before it's usually better to heal a lot of people for a small amount then to heal one or two people to full life. It's about the druids design, we are made for raidhealing, healing everybody. Not spot-healing, what stacking mastery would mean for us.

For some reason I can't post links here, but if you check Warcraftlogs "Spirit - Eredar(EU)" you can find the fight I'm talking about.

Cenarius is a perfect fight for druids so take the log with a grain of salt. But you can see I have little overhealing with rejus and WG and A LOT more with the "bigger" heals, especially Dreamwalker and Tranq, more HoTs on the same target or more mastery would mean MORE OVERHEALING. And to be efficient you don't want overhealing. That's why you want haste over mastery, it just fits the druid-playstyle better and it's better because you get more percentage for your rating. Again this is a perfect fight for us, so mastery might get a little better for other fights, but in general you want your Restodruid heal the whole raid while spot-healing is taken care of by someone else.

Cheers
Restospirit

[Alltat]

Haste + crit for raid healing or Haste + Mastery for tank healing.

If you ever find yourself gearing for tank healing, look for a better healing team instead. The only time you should ever need more tank healing than a raid healing build can do is if all your other healers are slacking and just spamming AoE mindlessly without paying attention. Tank healing hasn't been an actual job since WotLK. It's everyone's responsibility, and if you absolutely need someone to do it anyway (because your raid leader is retarded or whatever), druids are pretty much the worst class you can pick for it since we have no emergency single target heal.

Why don't we rate haste over Int then?

Because point for point, intellect is simply better by design. There's no real reason why it has to be that way. It just is, because Blizzard wants it to be. The spell power coefficients were intentionally set so that primary stats are (generally) better than secondary stats.

A lot about stat weights just comes down to that. It is that way because that's what you get it you put the relevant numbers into the relevant equations.

I'm sure there's a spreadsheet somewhere that will show you that Haste is the better stat for raiding.

You can find spreadsheets saying more or less anything, especially this early in an expansion.

[Weissrolf]

Points per 1% needed:

Critical 350
Haste 325
Mastery 583 (585?)
Versatil 400

This is what I calculated from my character sheet.

Are we sure that Haste does a full double-dip? So 20% Haste means that HoTs do 1.2 x 1.2 = 1.44 times healing? If so then the corresponding 11.11% Mastery would need 4 HoTs to beat that multiplier. This still doesn't account for the fact, though, that Mastery also affects non HoTs.

Someone posted an addon (Weakaura?) here a few weeks ago that collected heal data and displayed how much your actual healing (style) makes use of your stats in practice. Unfortunately I cannot find the thread anymore and removed it by accident from my installation.

[Cheze]

the reduced GCD is somewhat irrelevant at this point imo because we're not remotely close to being GCD capped in raid encounters. 20% haste means you can cast five rejuvs in the space of time you'd normally cast four, but that doesn't matter too much in practice because you can't sustainably spam out rejuvs for very long (I guess high haste lets you get an extra cast or two out during innervate.)

also, is dreamwalk buffed by mastery? It doesn't intuitively seem like it would be but I haven't actually checked to see

[Weissrolf]

Yes, Mastery does buff Dreamwalk, which means at least 2 HoTs running (Rejuv + WG) when Dreamwalk kicks in. Since Mastery clearly states "all" healing I also find it intuitive (but also checked).

[RestoSpirit]

the reduced GCD is somewhat irrelevant at this point imo because we're not remotely close to being GCD capped in raid encounters. 20% haste means you can cast five rejuvs in the space of time you'd normally cast four, but that doesn't matter too much in practice because you can't sustainably spam out rejuvs for very long (I guess high haste lets you get an extra cast or two out during innervate.)

also, is dreamwalk buffed by mastery? It doesn't intuitively seem like it would be but I haven't actually checked to see

Well thats not true, at least it isn't for me. The GCD is my hps-cap (~30% haste raidgear/bufffood), rapid innervation gives me an extra 20% which is 50% total (GCD = 1sec), so I'm able to get the full 10 Rejus out. It really depends on your raidsetup, we have 3-4 boomkins which gives me a max of 5 Innervates every 3 min, that's 100 sec of free casting in a 3:50 encounter (like ursoc on heroic for example).
As long as you can sustain the reju-spam, be it by having insane manaregen-trinkets or having 10 Innervates, it is ALWAYS better to stack haste over mastery. Yeah Dreamwalker benefits from Mastery, but it will produce overheal more likely then reju.


Cheers
Restospirit