Haste in 3.1 if OOM is an issue?

[skitszo]

I've stacked Intell/MP5/Crit/spell power in my gear and have avoided haste items and have no problems with it. Sure recount is ugly and I'm always out pwned on the healer meters, but I'm discipline and i will never pwn the healing meter if i'm with any other spec, class in comparable gear(ever).

The way i've thought about it is that haste Brings OOM faster and is a terrible way to manage your mana, and it always seems to sacrifice some other nice healer stat to get, like crit, which i like with all the procs. Haste to me is a means of trying to pwn the healer charts, and i guess if there's no mana conservation needed then i guess its not bad thing. But with the mana regen changes in 3.1 making mana conservation more of an issue possibly, where is haste going for importance to a healer?

I healed EoE10 on the PTR in 2 month old gear and despite having mana efficient flash heals i went OOM by vortex 2 and we wiped and couldn't complete the encounter. I hope that the mana (balancing) didn't go to far and we start wiping more often to OOM healers. But that was actually part of TBC challenge of healing that i remember. Not a bad thing i guess TBH....but i see no relivance for haste gear now for healers other then pwning healing meters and going OOM faster, which really doesn't help the raid if you wipe at 5% cause you went OOM trying to pwn recount.

I've always veiwed haste as a dps stat and not a good trade for healer stats. But i suppose thats an opinion we'll see how plays out in Ulduar. ;D

[Gande]

faster healers=more of a chance to save a tank...many close calls in the past.

I must ask are you using pots? Double potting? shadowfiending at the right time?(not having it spawned to die immediately to something) using prayer for the full duration in safe zones? Getting replenishment?(that last one helps a ton)

I must also then ask how geared are you? mostly 10 man mostly 25 or some mix?

[rcastudios]

I do agree with this to a point. It's always nice to have haste but it's generaly not needed. Haste is only needed as a healer when you see people dieing a fraction of a second before your heal hits. If this is happening a lot you either need to find an add-on that helps your reaction time, L2react faster, or finally get some haste. It takes so much haste to make a decent difference it is hard to justify. I like to have some haste, but do prefer crit due to the procs. Crit will be especially important for me as a holy priest after the patch as it will help mana regen.

Some people argue that crit heals are mostly overheals, but I disagree with this. I have seen crit heals basically save players before and in turn help out a lot on healing. Also again, the procs from various crits are real nice. So in essence I say crit over haste for sure when it comes to a Priest and Pally. I know Shammy's often want a lot of haste for their chain heal and druids don't get much benefit from crit so.

[Bigslick]

Having haste should not make you OOM any faster unless you use it unwisely. Because you're able to cast faster, and your GCD is shorter, does not mean you have to chain another cast the instant the last one is off. What haste does enable you to do is fire off heals faster when there is a tremendous amount of incoming damage.

Speaking as a discipline priest, I've always rated haste a good amount lower than most other talents (11% unbuffed after gear & talents) due to the nature of DA and how it has never benefited from it. With 3.1, haste will enable you to increase DA uptime and strength, so will be considerably more valuable.

[Jossol]

A good healer knows recount doesn't mean shit.
A good healer pays attention to detail and adapt to different situations depending on other healers in the raid so he's not constantly droping a heal on someone who just go topped off by someone else.
A good healer knows what went wrong when someone dies.
A good healer can time his heals before having to rely on haste-n-spam.
A good healer knows it's wise to not throw a quick heal on random dps with HoTs already applied on em, the HoTs will top em off anyways in the long run that quick heal is a waste of mana in the raid.
A good healer knows this "mana regen nerf" is only gonna make things more interresting.
A good healer knows that if haste is required it's only for spam fights where being good or not doesn't depend on you but on your gear.

[bedheadboi]

Regardless of how much haste you do or do not have, people are still taking the same amount of damage. What matters is whether or not you can actually get a heal on them in time. I certainly hope you haven't just been spamming heals on people with no need for them.

As a healer, crit heals can be nice, but I would rather choose a stat that I have control over. Haste is a constant effect, whereas crit is based on chance. I would rather be able to assume that my heals are lower and still be effective that way than to start hoping that they crit.

[tommy0guns]

the idea of Haste = OOM is pretty weak. if i told you all your spells were twice as fast, would you really use them twice as often? no. you would use them as needed, same as you normally do.

if you wish to argue Haste: vs Crit vs Spi vs Mp5 vs Int, that is a different story. if you wish to dismiss Haste as a mana dump then you are misguided.

if any spec should include Haste it is Disc. the smaller heals make for more of a rapid fire healer. Disc has shields and PoM to act as preemptive mitigation. but otherwise it comes down to spittin out Flash Heals and Penance.

one of the weaknesses of Disc is the ability to effectively raid heal. the way i handle it, is to use my shields, Renews, and Flash Heals for the raid and save Penance for the big guy. Haste helps me blast out the raid heals so i can get back to the MT/OT for a quick "back to full". then i'll got back to the raid while Penance is on cd.

man, do i love getting raid procs + trink + PI on my Penance. its like a full Greater Heal and a PW:S almost instantly.

[Zeuq]

I'm a big proponent of well-timed heals versus spam healing, but I still love Haste. Sure, Haste helps with spamming heals faster, and it is very useful for that. You have all sorts of nifty "sweet" spots like the 1.2s GCD for Holy (to get an extra FH or PoM between CoH CDs) or the extra GCD in a Penance CD for Disc (don't know that number off the top of my head). So, sure, stack Haste for that, but if that's all you're stacking it for, then it is very much like Hit where it's great to a certain point then becomes useless until you can get enough to get the next "sweet" spot, and even then, it only accounts for anything IF you need to spam like that and IF your mana can hold up.

Personally, I take a different approach to Haste. Sure, I use it some for the spamming, but I prefer to look at it as providing me more margin for error. Since I'm generally a raid healer, reaction is very important when I'm using FH to spot heal the raid up. If I have a faster cast, then my reactions are more timely and I can prevent more deaths. Similarly, if I have some brain lag or latency, and it happens to the best of us, I get a little bit of margin for error; anything I can do to increase my margin for error means fewer wipes, as a DPS error often means little more than some lost damage, but a healer error often means someone dies (directly through missing the heal, or indirectly from wasting a heal and then being too slow on the next or overhealing and going OOM), or even worse, the tank dies.

Obviously, this isn't quite the same for Discipline, as you're usually single target healing, which means no brain lag or latency in selecting targets, and you generally will figure out the spell priority that is approrpriate for a situation with little deviation except for burst healing, not to mention that you get Haste from talents that Holy does not. Even more, Crit is always a throughput stat for Discipline, while it's situational and bursty for Holy at best for throughput and primarily being a regen stat, so stacking Crit is always good for Discipline, while it has diminishing returns for Holy, at which point we're left with stacking Haste.

[[-Spiritus-]]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/index.ph...9968#msg829968

For what is worth, 25% total haste is the "magic number" for squeezing 4FH within the Penance CD in 3.1. Assuming perfect latency, reaction time, and standing still.

That means w/ 6% haste from talents, and 5% from totem, a Disco Priest would need 14% haste from gear, or 459.06 HstR. This does not factor in Barrowed Time.

I did a nerdy math breakdown, but I lost it. If its a big deal to someone, I'll retype it up and post it. Otherwise, take my word for it.

EDIT: I think 14% haste from gear is a good baseline to work with for maximizing HPS when you need it. Anything beyond this is a waste and should be itemized into crit.

[Zeuq]

Thanks Spiritus for pointing out the sweet spot for Discipline and, since that works out to a 1.2s GCD as well, I guess the sweet spot is the same for both specs.

[Thayera]

A good healer knows recount doesn't mean shit.

Thats bullshit, recount is very helpful in seeing who is worth gearing. I can compete with the people in dead last getting outhealed by a spriest or ret pally by simply not healing at all. That is a shit healer. Factor in overhealing, and effective healing gives you a good indication who is getting carried, and who is doing the work. Just because your assigned to a main tank doesnt mean you cant help out raid healing when possible.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Thanks Spiritus for pointing out the sweet spot for Discipline and, since that works out to a 1.2s GCD as well, I guess the sweet spot is the same for both specs.

I actually have a different opinion for holy... I itemize crit over haste at every turn. Since I play Holy like a swiss army knife, I'd rather have the crit to proc HC and SoL. I rarely am "spam casting" in Holy, therefore, haste only works as a buffer for reaction time.

There was an argument for haste for holy if you *had* to throw down maximum HPS on a tank (aka MT healing). However, with dual spec, you can spec Disco/Holy and have the best of both worlds. Of course, make sure you point your Guild Leader to my posts so he realizes there are different gear itemizations for Holy & Disco.

[[-Spiritus-]]

Thats bullshit, recount is very helpful in seeing who is worth gearing. I can compete with the people in dead last getting outhealed by a spriest or ret pally by simply not healing at all. That is a shit healer. Factor in overhealing, and effective healing gives you a good indication who is getting carried, and who is doing the work. Just because your assigned to a main tank doesnt mean you cant help out raid healing when possible.

Hey bud... recount doesn't count DA & PW:S mitigation, a huge percentage of Disco healing. If an equal skill & geared Disco Priest went heads up against any other healer on the meters, the Disco priest would always be at least 20% behind.

Did anyone die in the fight? No? Healers pwned. Did the boss die? Yes? Healers did their job.

Don't sully the healing community with your DPS minded debauchery.

[Zeuq]

Thats bullshit, recount is very helpful in seeing who is worth gearing. I can compete with the people in dead last getting outhealed by a spriest or ret pally by simply not healing at all. That is a shit healer. Factor in overhealing, and effective healing gives you a good indication who is getting carried, and who is doing the work. Just because your assigned to a main tank doesnt mean you cant help out raid healing when possible.

Recount isn't worthless, but it isn't gospel either. Yes, if someone is consistently competing with a Shadow Priest for 6th in healing, they probably aren't very good, but then why do you have them in your raid in the first place? Personally, I can usually tell who is doing well and who isn't because I know what jobs are suppose to be getting done by who, and if they're not getting done, or if someone else has to do them, I know who is screwing up. I use recount as a way of making sure people are casting the spells they should be and doing the job they should be, but it doesn't mean much more than that. Personally, I usually assign myself the hardest task that a Holy Priest is appropriate to handle. Often that means I top the charts, sometimes it means I'm down with the Shadow Priests. And you know what? I don't care.

OTOH, if you're just looking at the raw healing numbers, it's utterly worthless. A Druid who spams HOTs constantly that really don't do much but get a couple of ticks in before Chain Heals hit can get really high on the meters. Does that mean he's a better healer? Even effective healing numbers are highly dependent upon what job you do, what your class is, and what other classes are your healing partners. Without looking at the numbers in that context, it really doesn't mean anything.

And overhealing, if I have someone responsible for healing a tank, even if they have 50-60% overheal, if the tank doesn't die and they don't go OOM, I don't care.

Personally, I almost wish meters didn't exist because it encourages bad healers to deviate from their jobs to snipe other people's heals.

I actually have a different opinion for holy... I itemize crit over haste at every turn. Since I play Holy like a swiss army knife, I'd rather have the crit to proc HC and SoL. I rarely am "spam casting" in Holy, therefore, haste only works as a buffer for reaction time.

There was an argument for haste for holy if you *had* to throw down maximum HPS on a tank (aka MT healing). However, with dual spec, you can spec Disco/Holy and have the best of both worlds. Of course, make sure you point your Guild Leader to my posts so he realizes there are different gear itemizations for Holy & Disco.

I think it's mostly just a difference of style. I play much the same way and being that a good chunk of my healing is reactive, I find Haste to be useful for that for the reaction time buffer. I do, however, agree that Crit is better than Haste in most cases for both specs, but Crit scales linearly with Discipline, but it has diminishing returns for Holy (yes, it scales linearly with SoL, but it definitely has diminishing returns with HC uptime). And, really, for Holy, since it doesn't mean much in the way of throughput in the way it does for Discipline, once I'm happy with my mana pool, I'll take Haste.

So, really, I guess my gearing philosophy is stack Crit over Haste for both. With Discipline, get Haste to 25% raid buffed, plus maybe a small buffer, and go nuts with Crit. With Holy, once you stop having mana problems (I'd guess around 30% Crit raid buffed), go nuts with Haste. However, as you point out, there's certainly nothing wrong with not going nuts with Holy either since there's a lot more variation in how it can be played.

[[-Spiritus-]]

At the current gear levels, getting to 30% raid buffed crit means you are pretty much itemizing crit where you can. So I agree with you.

Overall I would itemize Disco:
--------------------------------------
INT
SPI/Mp5
SP
HASTE (To 14%, 25% raid buffed)
CRIT

Holy:
---------------------------------------
INT
SPI
SP
CRIT (To 30% raid buffed)
HASTE
Mp5


Course I'm a slave to the regen, so others may feel differently.

[draticus]

if you wish to argue Haste: vs Crit vs Spi vs Mp5 vs Int, that is a different story. if you wish to dismiss Haste as a mana dump then you are misguided.

Everyone here is acting like the OP is asking if haste helps or hurts. Hes asking why anyone would want it vs another stat. Haste gear DOES make you go OOM faster COMPARED to gear with any other caster stat. Disc priests have plenty of quick casts: Shield, Flash heal, Penance. If you need haste to keep the tank up there's something wrong with one of you.

Whether OOM is really an issue is another question. I haven't healed in 3.1 yet. Regardless, haste < any other stat except spirit if you are not having mana issues.