For those not in the know, Gift of the Earth Mother has been redesigned, and the upshot is that we need a whole lot more haste to get to the haste soft cap – which is very important if you spend your time tossing out HoTs on as many people as possible.

It means that you now need more than double the haste that we used to aim for (in order to get our GCD down to 1.0s). Because we now need so much more haste, some players are opting for 18 points in the Balance tree to be able to pick up Celestial Focus, which awards you 3% haste.

It’s a temporary shortcut to the soft cap, basically.



How do I know how much haste I need?

The basics:

25man raiders will often/usually have Boomkins/Ret pallies and Shamans to provide their respective buffs (Imp Moonkin, Swift Ret Aura, and Wrath of Air – remember though, boomkins and pallies don’t stack). If this is true, you will need 735 haste if you have 3/3 CF, or 856 haste if you don’t have points in CF.

10 man raiders may find themselves without one or both buffs, so you may need to have higher haste to compensate for these times.

Everyone’s situation and gear varies – so to see how much haste you’ll need for various combinations of talents and buffs, here’s the full breakdown.



Do I really need that much haste?


To put it very simply – being at the soft cap will allow you to HoT more people. HoTting more people = more healing = a pretty big deal.

We’re not talking about trying to top meters or snipe heals here – it’s about being able to cover as much of the raid as you are used to covering. If you’re used to being able to cover a dozen people with Rejuvs, plus toss the occasional WG and maybe a heal to the tanks, if your haste is low (post 3.3), you’re not going to be able to heal that many people anymore, because you have to wait longer for the GCD to finish before you can HoT the next person.

What effect will this have on your healing and the raid’s success?


Figure 1: Sometimes I exaggerate a bit


If you’re chasing some anecdotal evidence that you need to bump up your haste value – I took Kiiva (my other healy druid) into heroics last night to get her started on some new gear. Problem: I totally forgot to respec her for 3.3 with CF. Trying to get through the whole group with HoTs on Loken felt SO SLOW. I could still do it, definitely, but even on a 5 man group it felt slow and as though it was really hindering me. I definitely wouldn’t want to heal a 10 or 25man raid without more haste!



What do I need to give up to be able to take Celestial Focus?

This is mostly personal choice. I chose to drop 3 points in Revitalize and 1 further point in Living Seed (now 1/3).


There’s not really a right or wrong way to choose the talents to pluck your points from. Most people will drop Living Seed, Revitalize, or Empowered Touch to be able to get CF. There’s not really a “cookie cutter” CF spec – it’s up to your personal choice and style to dictate where to borrow those points from.

  • If you tank heal quite a lot, you’ll likely want to keep Living Seed and Emp Touch, but drop Revitalize.
  • If you raid heal more, and particularly if you mostly do 10s and can’t always guarantee a Replenish in the raid, then you’ll probably prefer to prioritise Revitalize.
  • Points in Empowered Touch is entirely personal choice; many people say that they “hardly ever use Nourish” and only ever use Healing Touch with Nature’s Swiftness, so losing Emp Touch is no big deal. You need to weigh it up against ther others and decide which is more valuable to you, your style, and your situation.


Personally – I love Revitalize, but I chose to give it up because it is less valuable in 25s than in 10s, and I value it less now. I still love it – but if it’s not going to get as much mileage, then I can consider dropping it (for now).


I originally decided to take 2 points out of Empowered Touch to give to Revitalize, but my basic (no-HoT) Nourishes were losing about 1000 healing, and I didn’t like the thought of 1000hp smaller Nourishes. I do use Nourish quite a bit, and in situations where you may need to “spam” to top people up in a hurry, I wouldn’t want to be losing 1000+ healing off each cast. So I weighed things up and decided that I could do without Revitalize for the time being, in favour of beefier Nourishes (should I need them). I love bringing interesting utility to the raid – boosting melee DPS with Revitalize – but for now, I’ll keep my slightly larger Nourishes.


I’ve also lost a point in Living Seed, but since I will likely be (mostly) raid healing, that’s also not the end of the world. If I pick up more haste gear, I’ll probably put points back into Living Seed first (but this will depend on how much direct healing I’m finding I need for IC).


All up, I don’t think I have sacrificed too much in order to temporarily squeeze Celestial Focus into my spec.


Need help choosing a CF spec? Try Lissanna’s 3.3 healing guide – here are her suggested specs.



When can I take points back out of CF and get my old talents back?

Taking points in CF can just be a temporary measure until you get more haste gear to reach the cap with haste alone. Then you will be able to remove points in CF and go back to your old spec, if you like.

Use this list to find out how much haste you will need in order to drop back to 2/3 CF, keeping in mind which raid buffs you are likely to have. Remember, for example, that if you don’t have any shamans dropping Wrath of Air, you’ll need higher haste than someone whose raid does have a shaman.

For raiders with both Moonkin/Ret and Shaman buffs, you’ll need the following haste to be able to drop points in CF:

 At 735 haste you’ll need 3/3 CF
 At 775 haste you’ll need 2/3 CF
 At 815 haste you’ll need 1/3 CF
 At 856 haste you’ll need 0/3 CF


Example: Keeva has picked up a couple of nice haste rings, plus upgraded her helm, and is now at 764 haste. That’s pretty darn close to 775, so if I wanted to, I could drop back to 2/3 CF to be able to put a point back into Living Seed.

I’m going to wait a little while though, just in case I take a big upgrade that has no haste on it, and my haste drops down. I like to have a little bit of wiggle room.


What about gemming for haste?

Some druids choose to gem for haste rather than taking points in Celestial Focus. You can either use Reckless Ametrine or Quick King’s Amber to boost up your haste a little.

If you’re gemming instead of taking CF, I believe you need about 100 haste to offset the 3% from CF (please someone correct me if this is wrong – you know how I am with numbers). If this is true, then you’d need to swap in 5 King’s Ambers into your gear. To me, this is a little much, but it will depend very much on how attached you are to those 4 or so extra points in the resto tree.

I’ve opted to use Reckless gems in some of my yellow slots, but I’m not aggressively gemming for haste at this point. My haste has already jumped from 617 to 764 in the last few days, and I’m sure it won’t take long for me to get enough to be able to drop CF and return to “normal” gemming.



Where can I get more haste gear?

Tree Haelz put together a list of the haste gear available in 3.3 – check it out if you’re not sure where to get your next piece of haste armor.



I hope this helps the trees out there who aren’t sure what to do with their haste and talents. :)



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