Ghostcrawler: Haste-y DoTs and HoTs for Priests
by Mike Schramm 
Oct 7th 2009 at 4:40PM
There is a tradeoff here -- if your ticks come faster, then the HoT or DoT component will end earlier, which means you'll be casting the spell more often. GC isn't sure (and neither are we) about how that will balance out yet -- on the one hand, it means that within a certain period of time, you will be able to do more damage or healing... but then again, you'll be spending more mana to do it. So instead of throwing this into talents, they're starting it up with glyphs. In the next patch, priests would get three glyphs that make their instant cast spells have their DoT components affected by Haste (Mind Flay's glyph is likely being moved into the base spell, and they'll use that one as an extra glyph choice). GC says if it works there, it may be spread out into talents or even base spells.
Will it work? It's an interesting idea, but mana cost seems to be the toughest problem to deal with -- any time you're casting spells more often, you'll be going through more mana. But it does seem like a good way to make Haste a little more worthwhile, and especially with the stats refinement coming up in Cataclysm, Blizzard will have to even out all of the stats they can. What do you think?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)
rychan Oct 7th 2009 4:46PM
Of course it would be extremely powerful to have HoTs and DoTs affected by haste. Of course you want to do damage or healing faster. Haste already lowers your global cooldown, so it's not a big deal if the spells finish faster because you'll also be able to cast more. And frankly mana is not a huge issue in raiding right now.
I can't envision a situation where a healer says "Oh, my HoTs are healing too quickly I want to get rid of this haste". The faster the HoTs heal, the less they need to supplement healing with other spells.
bushkanaka86 Oct 7th 2009 7:07PM
I detect a problem here...
Some times I don't want my HoTs to heal fast. I want them to be spaced out and slowly heal people up. For one, when I am healing the raid, I like to through out a Renew on the tank just to help a little with the damage. Well, he isn't always hurt, and so if my entire renew ticks off before he even gets hurt, then it was a complete waste of my spell. I want it to sit there as sort of a buffer and just hang out until he does get some damage.
The other case, and this is more important, is the Anub'arak fight. I have to keep the entire raid at 50% or lower. I through out a Renew on everyone to help keep them up without going over and a Renew does a good job of balancing their health.
Now what happens when I have a lot of haste? My renew ticks too fast and all of a sudden, the players health is above 50% because my renew ticked faster than the damage came, unlike now.
So in some ways, it could be good. But this is a case in which yes, I as a priest would not like my HoT to tick faster. (Not that anyone will be doing ToC in 3.3 since we will be able to farm Triumph...)
Continuum6 Oct 7th 2009 7:57PM
Not to troll or anything... but....
Through : preposition : (example) We gazed through the windows.
Throw : verb : (example) I throw HoTs on people.
I'm sorry, but you are a good example of why America's public schools aren't worth the tax dollars.
Might want to buy a dictionary to keep around the house. Go ask people in third world countries -- literacy matters. You have a responsibility to be literate if literacy is available to you.
ramdon Cow Oct 7th 2009 8:06PM
"Will it work? It's an interesting idea, but mana cost seems to be the toughest problem to deal with -- any time you're casting spells more often, you'll be going through more mana"
If our esteemed author actually *played* the game he writes about every day, he would know that if you have the gear for the haste to have a noticeable affect, you also are very likely to not be experiencing any sort of mana issues.
ZMES_Matt Oct 8th 2009 9:42AM
@bushkanaka86
Yeah, I do the exact same thing using Renew as a buffer, and I do like for it to linger on a tank whether I'm assigned to them or not. However, I believe most priests' Haste rating are around 15%, so while it normally lasts 15 seconds, it will then last for around 12.75 seconds, it's not losing really all that much time.Alternatively, if you're using Glyph of Renew so it normally only ticks for 12 seconds, then it'll tick for around 10.2 seconds, which is still a pretty decent buffer.
I think this is mostly intended as a buff for Shadow Priests, as they'll always have 3 different DoTs rolling at a time, so they're gaining around 6 seconds of time on their DoTs to do full damage over 15-18 seconds, then multiply that by the length of the fight, and it's a fairly significant damage increase.
Eisengel Oct 9th 2009 6:57PM
I agree with this as a loss of control of healing output. I can see both Holy and Disc wanting predictable/unchanging HoT speeds. Holy can use HoTs to top people off, or throw HoTs to control damage while a bigger heal is spooling up. Disc can toss them as a nice fire & forget on group members during AoE damage while they concentrate on the tank. Haste being an unavoidable element of caster gear that speeds up HoTs will mean you'll have to do more and more direct healing as you gear up... essentially pushing Holy toward Disc gameplay and making Disc more frantic.
I can also see Shadow having trouble with this too. Sure it will might increase dps and dpm, however Shadow's rotation is already an act in balancing on a razor's edge. This will change your spell expire time as you gear up, and may at some point create dead zones in your rotation/priority list easily. If you are waiting for a spell to come off of CD and it had less than a GCD to go, but one of your DoTs expires before then, you're in a bad spot. You need to keep your DoTs rolling, however if you push that DoT you're adding a GCD to your long spell's CD, decreasing DPS. It may be that given your current haste rating and DoT speedup due to haste, there is no better cast sequence. One of the biggest problems with this is not only that this balance could change heavily as you gear up, but that buffs, elixirs, procs, and fight mechanics can rebalance all of this in an instant... and it is possible that your CD sequence before a given haste proc or buff may tank your DPS once you have the buff since your entirely priority system has changed, and it may make reshuffling your CDs once the haste buff/proc has very difficult.
I'm not sure this is a good idea for any spec of Priest.
Luke Nov 17th 2009 5:02AM
It DOES NOT increase the actual mana, just the mana used during the fight.
notBowen Oct 7th 2009 4:47PM
Well there's a real boost for Spriest dps. Could lead to people trying to maximize their haste though consumables and trinkets on their first SW:P cast though if it snapshots it.
Eisengel Oct 9th 2009 7:00PM
If dps due to haste speedup for SW:p is greater than a full stack of Shadow Weaving, it's broken.
Oreo Oct 7th 2009 4:48PM
The 3 you mention are not just for priest but druids and warlocks as well the spells they mentioned are. Shadow Word: Pain, Corruption and Rejuvenation
rychan Oct 7th 2009 4:51PM
Indeed. I question this glyph experiment a little bit because resto Druids already have four or maybe even five quite good glyphs (wild growth, nourish, lifebloom, swiftmend, and maybe innervate). If people don't start using the hasted-rejuvenation glyph I think it will be because they don't want to lose another glyph, not because they don't want haste on their rejuvenation.
kworry Oct 7th 2009 5:37PM
They're testing with glyphs first because they don't want to appear too hasty.
regisfrost Oct 7th 2009 4:50PM
Yes, HoTs'n'DoTs need to be cast more often because they run out faster. But that is the same thing with normal spells and haste. That's the entire *purpose* of haste. You are able to cast more spells in less time, and obviously the mana cost will increase by doing so.
I play a resto druid and I fail to see the negative side of my HoTs ticking faster. She is already stacking haste to lower the GCD on said HoTs (and because crit sucks for druids), so this change would buff druids to oblivion.
I don't see this happening.
Ben F Oct 7th 2009 5:22PM
The downside is this:
If you cast a HoT with this style of haste, it may run out too early. The first tick or so may get them to full health, making the next tick wasted. A longer wait between ticks could lead to a person getting injured and needing more healing.
Given, you would need to be healing in a way where you end up overhealing, but I have used this tactic in the past.
Hendrata Oct 7th 2009 5:36PM
One example is when I'm healing Hodir, during Frozen Blows (or whatever it's called, where everyone takes a ticking damage).
I'm at the gear level where I just need to Rejuv everyone once and they'll be back to full health or near full at the end of Frozen Blows. But say my haste causes my hot to tick faster, then at the end of Rejuv, the Frozen Blow has not yet ended, but my Rejuv has expired on most of them, and the next tick of Frozen Blow will damage everyone.
Also, because it ticks unnecessarily faster, I'm sure a large amount of them are wasted (over healed).
But I agree, when I'm healing MT (5 man or 10 man), faster tick is always nice and I'd never complain. This is why I vote for glyph to allow haste to affect only selected spells. For example, I'd glyph for Rejuvenation to NOT be affected by haste, but for Regrowth (including the hot part) or even Lifebloom to be affected.
regisfrost Oct 7th 2009 5:39PM
Hendrata: well you can also look at it like this. On Loatheb (outdated boss, but anyway) you got a small window for healing. I tended to apply Rejuvenation on as many people as possible, and get a few ticks on everyone when the window appear. With haste I can squeeze in more ticks, and thus more healing, for the same amount of mana.
vexis58 Oct 7th 2009 6:39PM
That was going to be my comment too.
"you will be able to do more damage or healing... but then again, you'll be spending more mana to do it."
Isn't that what haste already does for all other spells? Haste makes fireballs or whatever cast faster, so you can cast more of them, and do more damage, but the amount of mana you spend doing so increases. I don't see why extending this concept to Over Time spells is so hard to understand.
Byron Oct 7th 2009 6:52PM
As a tank, I can say the more potential overhealing the better. Bosses hit hard, and healers already have to be chain casting their heals b/f the hits even occur. Being able to squeeze more hot ticks in b/t successive 20k boss hits could mean the difference b/t the mt dying or not. Mana isn't an issue for Druids atm, so this is a straight up buff for them at least.
jennnolan Oct 7th 2009 4:50PM
There is an easy fix to that...just because you lower the time between ticks doesn't mean you have to lower the effective up time of the DOT. If it lasts for 8 seconds it last for 8 seconds but with more haste you get say 5 ticks instead of 4. then u are getting more bang for your buck without having to cast more often.
BitterCupOJoe Oct 7th 2009 5:15PM
It's an interesting idea, but it's one of those that is going to mean a lot of screwing around with gear and tweaking, and that's something they're trying to get away from.
To illustrate, let's say you have a hypothetical hot that lasts 8 seconds and ticks 4 times, before your proposed haste fix. Then you add in some haste. There's going to be a dead zone where you've got enough haste to make it tick faster, but no enough to get a fifth tick. And it's a pretty sizeable dead zone; you'd have to speed up the ticks by 25ish% before you'd see a fifth tick. Then add in another hot that you've got that lasts 15 seconds and ticks 5 times. That one has an entirely different haste dead zone.
A possible fix would be to make it so that there's always one final tick that ticks for whatever percent of a full tick the haste would give you, i.e., if you had enough haste to give you 50% of an additional tick, you'd get one more half strength tick at the end of the DOT's duration, but you would still probably see people overwriting their own buffs instead if they were in difficult content.
The easiest fix might be to simply have the HoTs scale by a percentage of spell haste. That is, if you've got enough haste for 20% haste, for example, your HoTs simply do 20% more healing per tick, or possibly a smaller amount; this would make haste be a throughput and also sort of a mana-saving buff, so something like half haste (in the example 10%) might be more appropriate. It might scale too well, thought.