Totem Talk: Haste and restoration shaman
by Joe Perez 
Mar 30th 2010 at 6:00PM
Want to be a sultan of swing healing? A champion of Chain Heal? Totem Talk: Restoration will show you how. Brought to you by Joe Perez, otherwise known as Lodur from World of Matticus and the For The Lore podcast.
Last week we talked about choosing a role for restoration and in that piece we talked about how raid healing shaman prioritize haste as their top stat. Haste is one of those stats that gained massive popularity around the time of Ulduar. Shaman were having a hard time fitting into hard mode kills as healers, and Chain Heal was slipping behind Wild Growth and Circle of Healing due to limited range between jumps and the need of many people to spread out beyond the maximum range (at the time 8 yards). Haste allowed healing shaman to use other spells to greater effect in these times, helping to close the gap somewhat.
Through Trial of the Crusader and now well into Icecrown Citadel, haste has remained on top of most end game raiding shaman stat priority lists. Almost any blog you visit now will exalt the virtues of haste as the primary stat. Truth is it can be useful in many situations and there are many boss fights where haste really is king of the stats.
So what do you need to know about haste? Let's take a look!
The facts
- Spell Haste reduces the global cooldown to as little as 1 second. No amount of haste including Bloodlust/Heroism will lower the global cooldown below 1 second
- The soft haste cap for resto shamans is 1269 haste rating (38.7%).
- 1% haste means you will cast 1 additional spell in the time it would normally take to cast 100 spells. You do NOT cast 1% faster.
- 1% Spell Haste = 32.78 Haste Rating at Level 80
The soft cap refers to the amount of haste requires to lower the global cooldown to 1second. What this ultimately means is that in most raids you will begin to approach the soft cap for haste at around 30% on your character sheet. No amount of haste, even with Heroism / Bloodlust, will reduce the GCD below 1.0 seconds. It is also called a soft cap because additional haste rating will continue to reduce the cast time of longer spells, such as Chain Heal and Healing Wave. Here is a rough example of how stacking haste will affect your cast time on the longer spells.
Haste Need to Reduce Chain Heal Cast Time
2.4 seconds = 137 haste rating
2.3 seconds = 286 haste rating
2.2 seconds = 447 haste rating
2.1 seconds = 625 haste rating
2.0 seconds = 820 haste rating
1.9 seconds = 1036 haste rating
Haste is calculated after talents and does have an equation that you can use to estimate the effectiveness of your haste rating.
I'm going to borrow an image from over at elitist jerks here to show you since I think they best illustrate the math.
Practical Application
As restoration shaman, haste allows us to become more mobile healers. Many fights require us to move and heal, but unfortunately we only have one instant cast heal in the form of Riptide unless you are alliance and have Gift of the Naaru. Haste really comes into the lime light as you progress through the later part of raiding content (and a few of the heroics). Let us take a look at Icecrown Citadel. Fights such as Marrowgar, Festergut, Rotface, Putricide and Sindragosa you will truly notice a positive effect from haste. These fights either require lots of movement or a need for very quick healing on specific targets and reducing the cast time of chain heal will be incredibly beneficial. Also as you stack haste, Healing Wave can potentially replace Lesser Healing Wave as your fast heal single target heal.
I am sure you are asking if you are increasing the amount of spells you are casting, how is this going to play with my mana and mana consumption? Well the theory behind stacking haste is that the more spells you cast the move times Improved Water Shield and Insightful Earthsiege Diamond will return mana to you. This is very true and you can gain a lot of mana back from these abilities with higher haste ratings. Combine this with Replenishment and mana should not be much of an issue. If you find it is an issue you can always use Flask of Pure Mojo and either Pickled Fantooth or Spicy Fried Herring to help with regeneration.
It does however require you to very closely monitor your charges on Water Shield. Fights like Blood Queen Lana'thel and Festergut where you will be taking damage will see you refreshing the spell frequently as your charges will very quickly be consumed. It is highly suggested that you find a mod that will make it very clear and visible when your water shield has run out. Even so, late into end game raiding haste is an incredibly useful stat to look for and actively accumulate.
Gems for haste
As you gather gear you will as a matter of course gain gem sockets. If you want to stack haste for raiding you should look at the following gems.
Blue Socket: Quick King's Amber. To meet the meta requirement Energized Eye of Zul or Royal Dreadstone can be used.
Yellow Socket: Quick King's Amber
Red Socket: Reckless Ametrine
When haste is not best choice
While haste is a fantastic stat for a raid healing shaman, there are some circumstances that haste is not as useful.
In smaller environments such as Heroics, the usefulness of haste diminishes some. While it is still useful, you can not count on the presence of raid haste buffs (such as Improved Moonkin Form or Swift Retribution), which would mean that you would need to stack more haste, and it does have the potential to increase downtime.
In tank healing situations where you are relying on bigger heals haste can be useful, but spell power and crit can be as useful or more so than haste. This is especially true when dealing with tanks with higher effective health such as bear druids and death knights who tend to take large chunks of damage all at once. While it can be argued that haste will still improve the casting potential of chain heal and healing wave, spell power and crit directly affect spells like Earth shield and Healing Stream Totem, while haste does not.
Also anytime a spell dips lower than the global cooldown (less than 1.0 seconds) the effectiveness of that spell drops very sharply. It can clip your casting time and cause disruptions in the flow of healing. Be mindful of this as you stack haste.
In the end haste is a very good raiding shaman stat and in most cases will be the stat of choice. Next week we will talk about about useful restoration macros and some game addons you may find useful in your healing travels.
Show your totemic mastery by reading Totem Talk, whether reading Mike Sacco's Elemental edition, Joe Perez's coverage of Restoration or Rich Maloy's Enhancement edition, we have you covered.Filed under: Shaman, (Shaman) Totem Talk
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
fearthefireblade Mar 30th 2010 6:10PM
I've been wondering if haste is good for pvp, as I gem my resil-capped resto shaman. I'm thinking spell power gives more of a benefit. What do you think?
kuri Mar 30th 2010 6:24PM
In PVP you'll be using LHW which inherently has a short cast time, so haste isn't terribly useful compared to stacking SP and picking gear with MP5.
Roland Mar 31st 2010 2:34PM
Try this: http://www.arenajunkies.com/showthread.php?t=136077
Or this: http://elitistjerks.com/f38/t48057-shaman_resto_pvp/p4/ (#79 onwards)
SP/Crit/Resil/Stam (and for that matter, Spell Penetration/5% hit) all seem better to gem for than Haste, probably because you never Chain Heal in Arena.
ashchapman777 Mar 30th 2010 6:30PM
Very good read that, and can't wait for next weeks article on resto macros and addons :)
Al in SoCal Mar 30th 2010 6:40PM
2nd this comment - macros especially for those of us not so macro-inclined.
Asher Mar 30th 2010 7:38PM
Agreed.
I know some macros on my Paladin main (gogo dorf!), but knowing good ones to use on my Resto Shaman (gogo dorf... uh, soon!) would be great when I have to sub in my healer for my tank.
Derrek Mar 31st 2010 4:46PM
I didn't even read the article, I was too busy gawking at 1057 Haste. Let me say that again... One THOUSAND and fifty-seven Haste rating! That's 32.24 PERCENT! *giddy schoolgirl squeal*
I want your haste rating, Joe. Where on Azeroth does it all come from?
Hollow Leviathan Mar 30th 2010 7:06PM
I'd been using Mana Stream totem while leveling through dungeon finder, but I've found that Healing Stream is actually often more mana-economical because it can often keep everyone except the tank topped off, reducing the need to chain heal and letting me rely more on earth shield and LHW.
Sadly, it means that I'm going to have a rough time switching my playstyle/gearing preferences when I hit 80 to shift towards gearing for raids. Regrettable.
Yada Mar 30th 2010 7:14PM
"1% haste means you will cast 1 additional spell in the time it would normally take to cast 100 spells. You do NOT cast 1% faster."
Every time I see someone make that assertion, I want to break up laughing. OF COURSE YOU CAST FASTER. Whether it's 1% precisely or not is irrelevant -- that statement is misleading on its face. The bottom line is the more haste, the shorter the cast times. And regardless of the assertions of mathematicians with spreadsheets and formulae, practical experience says spellpower still trumps haste, especially for those who aren't fully T10 geared. And a certain amount of crit is also vital, since shaman healers have so many places for crits to be useful.
Also when stacking haste you have to remember the effect of haste on your rotation. Certain levels become counterproductive, for example in the standard Riptide > Chain Heal until RT cooldown is up type rotation, there is a point where 3CH can be fit into each rotation, and another point where it's 2CH. In between those points you have to choose whether to add another CH and miss the moment Riptide cools down, or wait for the cooldown to finish, in which case you've just wasted the effect of stacking haste in the first place. For the record, unless it's a split second away, I always recommend another cast and then hit Riptide. Even in fights too spread out for CH to be fully effective, or when MT healing, you still want to RT > LHW/HW until RT CD finishes. And with the haste buff for RT on HW, with enough crit in your stat sheet, you're always better off to make it HW, since the haste effect makes it about the same cast time as LHW anyway.
As for non-raids, with a decent tank you don't get a lot of secondary damage anyway unless people are stupid. And then you have a lock behind you and a mage over to the side -- you always end up RT + LHW/HW anyway.
-30-
Wugan Mar 30th 2010 7:22PM
Sorry Yada, but my "practical experience" says Haste trumps Spellpower, even in T9 gear. And I was a philosophy major, so I can assure there's no math behind my reasoning. We get lots of crit from talents and gear, without needing to actively seek it out.
You also shouldn't focus so much on a healing "rotation." Haste messing with a rotation is not something I would spend 2 seconds worrying about. We aren't a DPS class (besides on Dreamwalker), and need to be flexible in what heals you cast when. Shorter Chain Heal casts are almost always a good thing in a 25 man raid.
Hih Mar 31st 2010 1:30AM
@yada:
"OF COURSE YOU CAST FASTER. Whether it's 1% precisely or not is irrelevant "
Are you retarded or something? He's not saying that haste will cause you to cast slower. He's trying to dispel a common misconception about the mechanics of the haste rating for spells.
Wowcoholic Mar 31st 2010 10:50AM
a healing rotation?
can we say over healing.....how about /oom?
I heal as needed.
Greeni Apr 2nd 2010 10:03AM
let me cue you in on what i think when i read this post:
"wow, SOMEBODY'S trying to sound smart with all those abbreviations..."
SP is not > haste, unless you're at the haste cap. spell power makes your heals more effective, true, but what about those times where your tank is just a cast time away from dying and Nature's Swiftness is on CD? a huge 10k crit that's just a tenth of a second too late is not going to undo death.
Arinnaya Mar 30th 2010 7:28PM
""1% haste means you will cast 1 additional spell in the time it would normally take to cast 100 spells. You do NOT cast 1% faster."
Every time I see someone make that assertion, I want to break up laughing. OF COURSE YOU CAST FASTER. Whether it's 1% precisely or not is irrelevant -- that statement is misleading on its face."
He's not saying that you don't cast faster, what he's saying is that 1% haste is not 1% faster casting.
Ratskinmahoney Mar 31st 2010 9:01AM
1% haste IS 1% faster casting. what it's not is 1% reduced cast time.
fauxbo Apr 6th 2010 5:12PM
The point of that comment is to show that 1% haste is 1 more spell in the time it takes to cast 100 spells, not the cast time being reduced by 1%. The difference is subtle but important.
MATH TIME!!!
Take a spell with a normal (0 Haste) cast time of 5 seconds. 100 casts of this spell should take 500 seconds.
Now add 25% haste to it, you now cast 125 spells in 500 seconds.
But 500/125 = 4 (This is your new cast time for one spell)
and 4/5 = 0.80 or only a 20% reduction in cast time. (with 25% haste on a 5 second spell)
Which is why it's important to remember... say it with me...
"1% haste means you will cast 1 additional spell in the time it would normally take to cast 100 spells. You do NOT cast 1% faster."
Ripshawd Mar 30th 2010 9:18PM
Completely agree with the above, except for one note. When it comes to gemming, to fill the meta requirement for the Insightful Earthseige Diamond, you should gem a Nightmare Tear into a blue socket, rather than a purple or green gem. +10 to stats is never wasted.
Second thought, I'd been playing around with the Emblem of Frost Elemental totem rather than the Restoration totem (Bizuri's Totem of Shattered Ice: The periodic damage from your Flame Shock grants 44 haste rating for 30 secs. Stacks up to 5 times.) I've found the additional 220 haste to be more useful than the added SP from the restoration one, and firing off one Flame Shock every 30-40 seconds is not a problem on boss fights. Thoughts?
Heimdallw32 Mar 31st 2010 1:29AM
Well, in theory that sounds good, but you also have to factor in the miss chance you'll have with spells...healers are not going to be hit capped (unless they happen to be using elemental gear while gearing up their healing set) so those flame shocks won't always miss, and spending more global coooldowns to recast after a miss (or more than one miss in a row) is going to mean you're not using mana/GCDs on healing...if you can spare all those GCDs to heal, I'd think that the haste increase you get from the totem wouldn't really matter, as it would seem like your raid outgears the instance.
I could be wrong though, just my thoughts on that.
Heimdallw32 Mar 31st 2010 1:31AM
Err...
*those flame shocks won't always hit
can't type tonight. xD
Ghengie Mar 31st 2010 3:37AM
I do not agree on the Nightmare Tear, this will result in 10 sta and 10 int as your usefull stats. As you are not going oom as resto shaman, there is barely any need for the extra int (some mana regen and crit). If you are a pure haste stacker, the haste/mp5 gem will be more beneficial. If you feel the need for the 10 stamina, you are probably better off gemming 10sp/15 sta.
On yoru second thoughts, don't do it. If you are at the bleeding edge progress, you do not want to check an buff which forces you to be in 25 yard range from the boss and has a 13-17% chance to miss (depending on the buffs in your raid). At the moment you need the haste buff the most, you are most likely to let it run out as you are too focused on health bars and at those times you probably don't have the gcd to spare to refresh it.
Stick with the resto relic, that uptime is a lot higher as you want to riptide a lot for the t10 2 set.