Holy Paladin Haste Cap
The other day I made a post about haste rating and how it compares to crit. Today I thought I’d go into some more detail about haste with some math to help you understand what the cap is and how much haste you actually need.
How much affect does haste actually have?
Haste only has any affect on two of our spells - Flash of Light and Holy Light. You can see what affect haste has on these spells in the tables below. You’ll almost never want to go below 1 second casts for these because of the global cooldown, so we’ll just go down to there. Cast times are in seconds. CPM is the number of casts per minute that you can do.
Flash of Light
| Haste | Cast Time | CPM |
|---|---|---|
| 0% | 1.5 | 40 |
| 10% | 1.36 | 44 |
| 20% | 1.25 | 48 |
| 30% | 1.15 | 52 |
| 40% | 1.07 | 56 |
| 50% | 1 | 60 |
Holy Light (after Light’s Grace)
| Haste | Cast Time | CPM |
|---|---|---|
| 0% | 2 | 30 |
| 10% | 1.81 | 33 |
| 20% | 1.66 | 36 |
| 30% | 1.53 | 39 |
| 40% | 1.42 | 42 |
| 50% | 1.33 | 45 |
| 60% | 1.25 | 48 |
| 70% | 1.17 | 51 |
| 80% | 1.11 | 54 |
| 90% | 1.05 | 57 |
| 100% | 1 | 60 |
You can see here exactly how the diminishing returns on haste works. Notice that going from 0% to 10% haste reduces your Holy Light cast time by 0.19 seconds, while going from 90% to 100% haste (if that was possible) only reduces your cast time by 0.05 seconds. However, your casts per minute always increases the same amount, since your total Holy Light cast is shorter and needs less of a cast time reduction to give the same throughput increase. This means that your total healing output is always increased by the same amount regardless of how much haste you already have.
The only drawback is the effectiveness of haste is reduced the more you get when it comes to reacting to burst damage since you get a smaller reduction to cast time the more haste you get. Note that its theoretically possible to go above 100% haste, bringing your Holy Light casts under 1 second, however because of the global cooldown, this will no longer improve your heal throughput. You would also need an enormous amount of haste to reduce the cast time by a few tenths of a percentage at that point.
How much Haste should we get?
Let’s take a look at all of the different buffs we have and then figure out how much haste we actually need from gear. Haste is multiplicative, so we can’t just add these together, which is why you’ll find some funny numbers below.
1. Judgements of the Pure - every paladin should have this up all the time.
Haste Total: 15%
2. Swift Retribution - if you have a Ret Paladin in your group (most of us do), you get an extra 3%
Haste Total: 18.45%
3. Wrath of Air Totem - shamans give an extra 5%
Haste Total: 24.37%
So, right off the bat we’re at 24.37% haste, reducing our Flash of Light to a 1.26 second cast and our Holy Light to a 1.6 second cast with absolutely no haste on our gear.
4a. Heroism - this ability gives you 30% haste for 40 seconds of every fight, giving you a total of 61.68% haste from buffs alone. Your Flash of Lights will be under 1 second (0.92 seconds) and your Holy Lights will have a 1.23 second cast time.
4b. Trinket Procs - alternatively, if you have a haste trinket that procs the extra 505 Haste Rating (15.4% haste), they will bump you to 43.52% haste for about 10 seconds of every minute, which is pretty close to the cap for Flash of Light without any haste from gear at all (except the trinkets). If you have both trinkets, it will be 20 seconds of every minute. If this procs at the same time as Heroism is up, you’ll have 86.57% haste for 10 seconds without any haste on your character sheet at all.
So… How much do we need from gear?
As you can see from the above, we can get a large amount of haste just from buffs and procs. How much more haste you want is up to you, depending on who you run with and how much uptime you want. Keep in mind that extra haste gives you the same throughput improvement but less cast time reduction the more you get.
Achieving an extra 1% haste on gear requires 32.79 Haste Rating. Here’s some guidelines to go by:
- You need 1,147 Haste Rating to get to 50% haste, if you don’t have a Ret Pally, Shaman or any trinket procs. This is not possible to get on gear.
- You need 675 Haste Rating if you want 50% haste with 100% uptime and you have a Ret Pally and a Shaman in your group.
- You need 170 Haste Rating to get 50% haste if you rely on your trinket procs for most of your Haste and also have pally/shaman buffs.
- You need 0 Haste Rating to get 50% haste if you rely on Heroism for most of your Haste and have all of the above buffs.
Should I go for 675 Haste Rating on Gear?
No, in my opinion, you should not try to get 675 Haste Rating to get to 100% uptime with 50% haste. Going from 40% to 50% haste will reduce your Flash of Light cast time by .07 seconds and your Holy Light cast time by .11 seconds and will require an extra 328 Haste Rating to do so. It will improve your heal throughput (which crit will also do), but only marginally improve your ability to react to burst damage.
Stacking Crit is a good strategy because of the huge mana efficiency benefits that crit gives through improved heals per mana (via stronger heals) and extra mana return through Illumination. On the other hand, Haste only improves heal throughput and haste’s effectiveness gets worse when it comes to reacting to burst damage. You may want more haste if you don’t run with a Ret pally or shaman, but in general, 400 - 500 Haste Rating should be plenty for any Holy Paladin, giving you a solid 40% or so haste raid buffed before Heroism and trinket procs, and you’ll be very close to the global cooldown for Holy Light during Heroism. Even 400 haste could be considered high for some people if you’re lacking other stats.
Haste is a great stat for Holy Paladins. It creates more consistent heal throughput and less overheals than Crit. However, the best strategy is to have a good balance of each stat. Check out my earlier post for more discussion about the debate between Haste and Crit.
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This is just perfect^^
Thank you very much!
Sry gor my english first.There is a misunderstanding there i thik make another colum on how many holy lights u cast per minute u ll see that 10%haste makes u cast 3 more per minite no mater what there is no
diminishing efect.It seems so couse as casting time goes to 0 number of spels go to infiniti (no global cooldown considering)so if if casting time wasnt diminished like that at high haste u culd dramaticaly increase your heals with just a litle more haste.
Thanks Balis! That is a really great point. I went back in and added the casts per minute to the table and updated my article to point that out better. However, I think the end result is still the same. Haste is a great stat for Holy Paladins, but I’m still not sure it’s so good to stack it higher than 400-500 haste rating at this point in the game. You still need crit for the mana efficiency. Still, if you have plenty of mana and tons of gear, I would not be opposed to someone stacking up to 675 haste if they don’t have a haste trinket. Much more than that though and you’ll be under the global cooldown for Holy Light during Heroism.
Haste is definitely a good stat for Holy Paladins, I won’t deny that. =-)
Ideally holy paladins should have around 30k+ raid buffed mana as close to 0 mp5 as they can manage with blizzard failing and putting it on all our gear in 25m ulduar and somewhere in the vicinity of 50% Crit raid buffed. We don’t need to be mana efficient if we have tons of mana. Go for all the gear you can that has both haste and crit on it. With 37 unbuffed mp5 n 670 unbuffed haste i never have mana problems and my crit counting talents is somewhere in the vicinity of 45-50% raid buffed. So why stop stacking haste at 400-500 what else is there to stack other then crit which i feel faster heals even if they r only marginally faster is more important then stacking crit when its already so close to 50% raid buffed. Plus I like bein #1 on the heal charts as much as possible it makes me feel special and without all my haste it just wouldnt happen. go jc gem for int rock int trinkets n make ur holy lights as fast as u can with haste n watch ur numbers soar. U will never see me go oom in a raid n u will never see me cast a flash of light either gogo win
Yeah, if you don’t have any mana problems, then haste is great.
The only thing I question is why everyone thinks 50% crit is the max you should get. Going from 50 - 60% crit actually helps you more than going from 40 - 50% crit. Granted, if you don’t have mana problems you don’t need the crit. But there’s no specific reason why you shouldn’t go above 50% crit, there isn’t any “crit cap”.
I think there might be a flaw in your guidelines section. It is true that an extra 1% haste on gear requires 32.79 Haste Rating, as found by my character panel. However, according to the 24.37% from raid buffs mentioned earlier you’ll end up with 25.63% left to cover to reach 50%. 675/32.79 = 20.59%. This is roughly 5% short of this 50% “cap”. To reach the cap you need 25.63% * 32.79 haste which is 840 haste.
Unless there’s something I’m missing.
Yep, the haste bonuses are multiplicative, so you don’t add them together to get to 50%, you multiply them together. 20.59% times 24.37% gives you 50%, so the 675 is correct.
Really interesting stuff, thanks for the guide. Raiding Ulduar, I’ve gotten to where I can spam Holy Light as needed and not have any mana problems as long as I manage properly (Divine Plea, Arcane Torrent, good mana trinkets and meta gem). So I feel my need for Int is dwindling as I continue to gear up to tier 8 level. Spellpower seems to come to an appropriate level without focusing too much, same for int and even crit at this point. So I am definitely looking HARD at gemming/gearing/etcetera for haste so I can get my Holy Lights off as fast as possible. Especially with the spikey damage in Ulduar.
when you r raiding in 25man Ulduar you can easily have 675 haste while not letting any other stat suffer from it
currently i have 28k mana, 2034sp, 645 haste, 35,79% crit and 95 mp5.
this gives me absolutely no problems with mana.. some fights i finish with ~95% of total mana while being on 2nd or 3rd in healing meters.
a fight like Ignis on 25 can even be done without using Divine plea and you still got enough mana.
i often see my heals prevent someone from dying just because it was just in time.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Auchindoun&n=Kurotshuchi
i use a program called ”Rawr” to see what items i need to get best possible stats(int focused)
it came down to about (unbuffed) 30603 mana, 43,96% holycrit, 678 haste, 2113sp and 79 mp5
(gemming with the new 20int epic gems and minus 5% int, i know the dragon’s eye also gets more int but i dont know how much)
some ppl can only dream of stats like this, but if someone has it.. god knows what happens..
i also tried itemizing only for crit and i think it is worth trying cause i found we can get 60% holy crit.. ofc you will need to sacrifice alot to reach that. it would look something like:
21k mana, 432 haste, 60,42% crit, 2029 sp and 89 mp5
maybe there will be a time i get to use an itemization like that but for now im sticking to my int ^^
With coliseum holy gear the 675 soft cap is actually challenging to avoid once you get really high levels of gear since you can easily have 3-4 slots that don’t need haste anymore.
The ilvl 245 and especially the 258 provide insane amounts of haste.
currently my paladin is at 672 haste , 39.40% holy crit+6% from holy talents for holy light/shock crit , 2512 SP and 32k mana pool … mostly int gems completely unbuffed and ive actually tried to steer away from haste on the gear but its hard to stay under 650
Tables are misleading. Once you get over a certain amount of haste, especially under the effect of heroism or egg of immortal essence, your gcd caps at 1 sec but your cast time does not.
That means while u might not be able to cast for a fraction of a second, your heal still hits faster. That is there are 2 different timers on a cast…
There is the gcd. Most people who are haste capped will notice instant-cast spells have a longer gcd. IE buffs and holy shock. The haste reduction in gcd only applies to cast spells (ie FoL or HoL).
The second timer is the actual cast time. You could still have gcd after your cast is complete (think holy shock). If you have a 0.8 second cast FoL, that means the heal lands in 0.8 seconds even though you have to wait 0.2 sec to cast again. Who can argue against that?
I’ve been researching the importance of all the stats for holy pallies for days now.And everyone of the articles I’ve read says to either gem for int or sp,but to never,ever gem for haste.So,how in the world are we supposed to come close to getting the desired amount of haste if it is not provided directly from the gear itself? My haste rating right now is only 392.I firmly believe that this is the reason I am at the bottom of the meters.Any help on this dilemma would be greatly appreciated…
Well, the only way to gear for haste without gemming is to get gear with haste on it. That means that every piece of gear you have should have haste on it. In order to do that, you have to have access to a lot of gear, which isn’t really realistic for even many hardcore players. Many people will pass on an upgrade if it doesn’t have haste on it and save their DKP for the haste gear or even keep their old gear that does have haste and D/E the non-haste gear. Once you have higher levels of gear and you’ve passed the haste cap, you can start giving up some of your haste.
If I were you with limited gear choices, I’d take the upgrades and use a healing style that complements your gear. Use Flash of Light more if you have lower haste, for example. I’d bet the reason you’re at the bottom of the healing meters though has more to do with your add-ons, your UI, and the gear level of your other healers than with your haste. Maybe you’re doing content that is too high for you.
Also, being at the bottom of the meters isn’t that bad for a tank healer in a 25-man raid if there’s a lot of AoE damage. 23 people are probably going to be taking a lot more damage than the two you’re healing. As long as you’re doing the job you’re supposed, then you’re good. The meters don’t matter that much.
Haste Haste Haste. i love it and hate it. love quick heals, hate that fast casts = faster ooming and means i cant gem for it without sacrificing precious intellect. i have only recently levelled a paladin to lvl 80 but i hav raid exp as resto shaman and priest so know a bit about healing. when im writing this post ICC has been released about a week ago and my experience of a paladin so far is as follows:
it is now possible to gain T9 items VERY quickly. these have a lot of haste and within a week or so im pretty sure im over 600. (logged out in my ret gear so cant armory… doh!)
there is also a nice trinket that u can get from the halls of reflection heroic from (i think) the 2nd boss in the first room. however. going here without semi-decent gear and brained grp is not advised.
all of my holy gear is socketed with 20 int gems apart from a MP5/int and a SP/int so i still get meta bonus. and im currently at about 28k mana unbuffed. i can maintain healing without going oom but if im wanting to raid tank heal in new content im worried that my HL spam may use up all my mana and mana back resources b4 the boss is down.
i do have a couple of questions that i cant find answered.
is it possible to stack enough haste to tank heal reactively with super fast holy light rather than spamming? i rly like the idea of being able to do this as it would save a lot of mana and allow me more time to cast valuable utility.
also. at what amount of mana should in stop being an int whore and start gemming haste? i ask this because im often seing pallies with over 40k mana unbufefd surely u dont need this much for any current encounter and the sockets could be put to better use
as a side note: im aware that paladins recieved a nerf before i dinged 80 reducing the mana back from healing crits to 30% not 60% and mp5 recieved buffs. no matter which way you look at it (and i have researched this on some very geeky mathmatical threads) MP5 is more beneficial than crit. contarary to some of the earlier posts on this thread
One option to save mana, Chris, is to use stop-casting, meaning you cancel a heal before it lands if the tank hasn’t taken damage. Ideally though you will have that 40k mana and be able to spam Holy Light. I don’t think you should ever gem for haste. Instead, go for the haste/mp5 gear only. That’s the generic advice you’ll get from most Holy Paladins.
I don’t usually follow that advice myself, which I’m sure you know if you’ve read other posts on this site. I think you’re right that the mana and sockets could be put to better use. But if Holy Light spam is your thing, then that is the advice to follow.
I went holy for my guild a few months back. Geared up pretty fast, was in all 245’s and a couple 232’s within a few weeks, which isn’t too hard now that Bliz practically hands you gear. I’d been gemming 20 int in all my sockets like most are doing now. Was to the point where I was sitting close to 34k mana raid buffed, and would end most raid fights with 80-90%+ mana without ever even using Divine Plea. I’m not sure how other pallies are rotating their spells, but I’m a FoL spammer all the way. So I thought, what’s the use in having all that left over mana? Decided I’d try out some new gems/build and see how it would affect my healing. Before, my spec had been 51/3/18 for the extra 3% crit. After changing my gems out with some haste and SP, and going back to using a haste proccing trinket, and switching my build to 51/5/15 , I noticed a big change in my healing.
First of all, I lost about 4k mana - went down to having around 30k raid buffed. Note this is still a pretty high ammount =/ . Next was that my crit dropped about 6% - went down to being 53% raid buffed, down from being close to around 60%. (This is including the 5% from the glyph, focus magic, and moonkin aura). This isnt too much of a problem though, 53% is still high, and goes up to 103% every 6 seconds.
The next few things I noticed were for how much more and how much more often my heals were landing. I’m now sitting at 604 haste which puts the cast time at 1.1 secs with JotP up. Also, I’m working the old 200 trinket so that about once every minute for 10 seconds I get an extra 505 haste which puts my flashes under a second. Next was that my flashes were landing for a lot more, about 200-300 more than before. The best part about this new experiment though was still ending raid fights with 60%+ mana! Lets face it pallies, having a ridiculous ammount of mana is nice, and I will say that int gives you the most bang for your buck, but when it comes down to it, isn’t having your spells land for more, more often even nicer?
Note that this build is recommended more for end game content, when you have the gear to support this. Any questions, comments or concerns relating to my new experiment would be great! Thanks
Woops! forgot this - here’s a link to my armory - http://www.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Bronzebeard&n=Slaytton
My 5 cents into haste debate… Don’t forget to opt for Engineer and craft yourself Hyperspeed accelerators for gloves. Gives you increase in haste rating by 340 for 12 sec, every minute! Macro it also.
That, in my opinion, beats stacking haste on gear.
http://eu.wowarmory.com/character-sheet.xml?r=Thunderhorn&cn=Galaedriel
Uhm, last time I checked, haste did actually affect GCD aswell, wich means over 50% haste is not useless
Stacking crit is TOTALLY WRONG for a HL paladin and I can’t see why anyone would claim mp5 is bad. MP5 and haste should be on ALL HL pallie’s agenda, stacking gems with intellect.
Mana regeneration is the key and you won’t get as much through crit as you do through mp5.