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Haste in 3.3 – should I take Celestial Focus?

Posted by Keeva | Druid healing, My characters | Saturday 12 December 2009 11:25 AM

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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Comments (15)

15 Comments »

Comment by Lath — December 12, 2009 @ 11:57 AM
I went into ICC 25 with only 527 haste and CF talent build. I couldn’t believe how much of a difference it made and I found myself impatiently spamming the rejuv button on each target to try and hurry it up.

After raid that night I went out and regemmed all my gear to reach 730 haste, and I just made it! I can’t wait to replace some items so I can slowly get rid of the CF talents and start regemming for Spell Power again.
Lath´s last blog ..15 Things You Should Know About the Dungeon Finder

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Comment by Keeva — December 12, 2009 @ 12:05 PM

Healing on Kiiva was horrible.

I’m really enjoying having so much haste.. zippy little direct heals are nice in 5s and 10s

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Comment by lissanna — December 12, 2009 @ 3:48 PM
I hit 800 haste in my healing gear, so I didn’t respec for it. I expect to hit the haste cap within a week or two at most. I’m 1 triumph badge away from switching helms, and just need 1 or 2 more upgrades to be haste-capped.

People with less access to gear should definitely be picking it up!
lissanna´s last blog ..Icecrown Citadel: First impressions

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Comment by Keeva — December 12, 2009 @ 7:46 PM

Yeah, it’s really not going to take most people very long, but it’s good to have that option.

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Comment by Alyz — December 13, 2009 @ 2:40 AM
I’ve really done something wrong last patch :(. I got too much crit and too little haste. It’s going to take forever (and a heck of lot of dkp) to make it up again. But I agree. I hate my current gcd :(.

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Comment by Rezznul — December 13, 2009 @ 5:15 AM
Well, I have been considering getting more haste, but I’ve been waffling about it. *drools….waffles….moon waffles*

Ahem. Anyway, I’m convinced I need to really pump up my haste and let ‘er rip. I always like your theorycraft/spec posts, they are the best!

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Comment by Sound — December 13, 2009 @ 6:04 AM
Keeva!

What’s your UI look like these days? Haven’t seen you write about it in awhile! I’m in the process of making over mine and I’m trying to get a feel for what other Trees have in their layouts and such. Show us some screen shots! <3<3

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Comment by Keeva — December 13, 2009 @ 5:01 PM

uuuuuuuuuuuuugh I did TOC10 on Kiiva today, this time WITH 3/3 CF, but she only has 460 or something haste. Awwwwwwful. Twins felt just terrible! Must get more haste gear for that one.

Sound: It looks about the same, really.. I’m still using the same layout, with no buttons/bars showing, and grid bottom right (as is my preference). I might get some screenies later and post

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Comment by ArchDruid Angela — December 14, 2009 @ 4:37 AM
Yep, i’ve given in and taken this talent. I did two days of raiding before I gave in, re-speced, switched gear, even switched some gems. I guess the fast GCD spoiled me so much I now find it impossible to live without!
ArchDruid Angela´s last blog ..You, Haste, and 3.3

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Comment by Delleyntar — December 15, 2009 @ 2:59 AM
HELP!

I am torned on what to do…..right now i have my haste at 583 and 3.3 came out and i was like crap lmao. So im debating on weather to A) wait for gear b) change my spec.

I was in Halls Of Reflections and i picked up a nifty little trinket

Ephemeral Snowflake
Equip: You gain 11 mana each time you heal a target with one of your spells.
Use: Grants 464 haste rating for 20 sec.

So it has a 2 Min Cooldown, so essentialy every 2 minutes i have 1047 Haste. Which is nice

But I think im still waiting for either a few more badges (Currently i have 33) or just break down and either regem or respec…..Just the thought of respeccing/Gemmming is blowing my mind….
Delleyntar´s last blog ..25 Man Lord Marrowgar V Requiem

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Comment by Keeva — December 15, 2009 @ 7:33 AM

Hi Dell

This is why most people grab 3/3 CF to begin with – it’s the easiest way to boost your haste while you wait to get more gear. It shouldn’t take long to pick up some pieces, I went up 100 haste in a couple of days. So CF is just a temporary fix – pretty soon I’ll be able to drop points back out of it.
Keeva´s last blog ..Haste in 3.3 – should I take Celestial Focus?

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Pingback by That Defining Moment Thingy « Wild Growth — December 16, 2009 @ 2:44 AM
[...] resto druid haste nerf in the latest patch. I had to respec Taz and pay more attention to how I healed with her. [...]

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Comment by Abna — January 20, 2010 @ 7:19 PM
Yes, reaching Haste-cap is a big deal. I see peeps saying that they feel like they can read a novel while waiting on the GCD (see, I exaggerate 2). Well the difference is there, but its not HUGE. With T9 I balance haste and crit around, but never lost track of my haste. So with T10 content I didn’t need to switch my entire gear around. Peeps say they can feel the diff, I want to argue that tbf. Yes, I know the theory behind it, and its valid. No its not that huge. I do agree its there! Its something like mass-crowd, you see some1 telling you there is a gap, you see more reports on the size of the gap, you start focusing on the gap, and claim it as a bigger size gap. Just because the theory behind is valid. Thats okay, it all checks out, except that the gap is x-amount and not XXXXXXX-amount. Don’t panic!

Going flat out for haste just to get the cap is for me a no-go. You lose to much healing power to have a haste-cap. Okay you can argue it has a benefit (haven’t seen numbers on that, if their are, then yeah would love to see them). At the end of the day, its your call. You play your char, if you look at the change they do to a talent or ability or whatever, you need to think what impact it has on your gamestyle/play, your gear/char. Don’t let any1 tell you have to do it. Its WotLK, there are resources enough to read-up, and you don’t need to be a forum-troll to have it all figured out. If you really want to know it all, read a blog or 2 like this 1.

When I’m typing this, europe-armory seems to be down, so I’m gonna try to get some results from WoWhead profiler (all the other tools I know start off from Armory unless you saved something).

Currently I’m in exams, so my raiding activity dropped a bit so I’m not at the place I could be (gear wise). But in my current state I have SP=2948 with 690 (31.04%) haste. If I would gem everything towards haste (the other dude didn’t do it full I know) then I would be sitting on SP=2584 and 1012 (40.86%) haste. And that is current gear, there are still items I could get if it dropped with haste on them. Top of my head boots, wrists.

My advice is, don’t panic and relax. Keep your head on straight, think for yourself. I can’t make a choice for any1 but me. And I can’t pick between almost 400 spellpower for haste. I’ll have to do with what I have and get more items/upgrades.

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Comment by Abna — January 20, 2010 @ 7:58 PM
Oh I forgot something. That EJ post stated you need 36, something % to cap. Where does he get that btw?
http://www.wowwiki.com/Spell_haste tells me that I need 50% haste to cap. It goes like this.

Haste =((BaseCastTime/DesiredCastTime)-1
Haste =(( 1.5s / 1s ) – 1) = 0.50 => 50,00%

And lets put that into rating.
HasteRating=(RatingConversion*100)*((BaseCastTime/NewCastTime)-1)
Hasterating = (32.79*100)*((1.5s/1s)-1) = 1639.5

AFAIK, that “RatingConversion” is a given. Dunno how peeps get to that. But for the sake of it, I take it as a given.

The “NewCastTime” is the GCD, which is currently on 1sec minimal. I can get to 36% if my casttime is a bit bigger. 1.1seconds puts me spot on the calculation linked/posted on EJ.
Haste =((BaseCastTime/UsedCastTime)-1
Haste =(( 1.5s / 1.1s ) – 1) = 0.3636 => 36.36%

My question is, is that 0.1second counted for lag or something like that?

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