Probably an easy question about haste...

[Onoes]

I know the giant haste vs crit vs mastery debate, but one thing I'm a little confused on. I apologize if this is easily obtainable information, my filter blocks elitistjerks, arenajunkies, and 90% of the outside forums I try to navagate to for info. Luckily, MMO Champ get a big thumbs up!

So, the critical number everyone wants to hit for an extra tick of dots is 916 haste. I keep reading, get 916 and then focus other stats. My question is, is that number not counting Wrath of Air totem? If it isn't, I should really only need like 280 (estimating) for those extra HOT ticks, right? My totems are always down, so I can count on that additional 5% at all times.

So thats it. Do I want 916 haste BEFORE buffs, or after?

I've spend the day creating an excel doc that tallies every slot with gems and enchants etc, and with the current Non-heroic raid gear (My guild is only 7 raid bosses in), I'm set up for -

5038 Int
2049 Spi
1703 Crit
925 Haste
358 Mastery

Thats not including my base stats or the crit some of that int will turn into, thats just +stats from gear. If I don't need that much Haste though I could either continue pumping spirit and crit up a couple hundred points... or maybe get a little more terrible mastery... heck maybe just keeping the haste is the way to go.

Any thoughts?

[Pope]

it's including WoA.

You need the ~1000 rating with the 5% buff.

[Radux]

The 916 haste rating assumes you have the 5% buff present. That magic number gives you an extra tick on Riptide, ELW and Healing Rain. That is a HUGE step towards efficient throughput, thus its desirability.

You're also getting to a point (using your own stats) where you should be pretty comfortable (or at least I hope) with your mana regeneration. I'm talking about the contribution from both Spirit and Crit. Now some guilds may want their Shaman to stack more spirit come the patch for MTT, but I probably won't. Vixsin from LifeinGroup5 did the math about it and it only ends up giving each healer ~3k mana per MTT use.

So my recommendation:
- More spirit isn't a bad thing. You probably won't really require it, though.
- Keep your Haste right where it is.
- Once your Crit is around 20-25% raid buffed you could lean towards more Mastery (at least I would)

As you said earlier, Haste vs. Crit vs. Mastery is a tricky one. You need to weigh your role (raid vs. tank healing) in the raid as well as raid size to really determine the best setup for your stats.

[Onoes]

Ok, awesome, thank you guys very much. I honestly thought it was 916 after the WoA so my current haste is way low apparently!

This is me currently. us.battle.net/wow/en/character/dragonmaw/onoes/simple
Rocking my 2.9% haste.

And yeah, mana used to be a massive issue a couple weeks ago, but the minute I got my darkmoon card that changed. During an actual raid encounter I'm probably around 3k spirit, which is just too much. So, great to know!

If you guys are feeling chatty... what are your thoughts on Totemic Reach? Last night I noticed I was at 32% crit during encounter, and was thinking maybe trading 2% crit for that 30% increased range might be worth it. Glyphed healing Totem is just so nice, and a lot of the fights seem to have people moving in and out of totem range pretty regularly. What do you guys think?

[Radux]

I personally do not use Totemic Reach outside of PvP. Rather than taking points out of static Crit % from talents, your best bet would probably to just reforge away from some Crit to gain higher levels of Haste (if you need it) or Mastery.

[Pope]

I would recommend telluric currents (at least give it a try). At my gear level (rocking 333 itemlevel in my resto gear) it's already a mana gain, so with your intellect, you could snatch some easy mana with this.