Haste, Balance, and Beyond

Haste; it's a mixed bag of a stat for a variety of classes. Some love it, some hate it, others really don't care either way for it. Haste, however, is very important for all casters. Elemental and Shadow will probably disagree, but there is truth here. Haste cannot be avoided, and in many contexts is can be very, very awesome. But what about those times when Haste goes wrong, I mean, really, really wrong.

I'm not talking about the flirtation Haste currently has going on with spells that have cooldowns and how it works with rotations, no, I'm talking about the one thing that Haste is married to; that ball-and-chain Haste can never get rid of: the global cooldown.

For nearly every caster in the game, the GCD is an after thought. It's there, they know it exists, but they really don't care for it. It's like that internet relationship; sure they talk to it over Skype, but they never actually go outside to see it.

Balance Druids, unfortunately, aren't so lucky. We got trapped by our internet relationship. We didn't just go out and visit them in the 'real world' we moved it, got married, and popped out five screaming kids with it. And now, Balance Druids, Haste, and the GCD are in some strange threesome and all three are fighting with each other.

The issue Balance Druids have with Haste is two-fold. First, Balance Druids are the only casters in the game whom use a 1.5 second cast spell as a central part of their rotation. Second, Balance Druids are one of only two classes, Destruction Warlocks being the other, that can not only reach but completely blow through the 1 second cast time limit of the GCD. For Warlocks using Incinerate or Chaos Bolt, this isn't an issue because they would need thousands of Haste to cap out their spells, but, for Balance Druids, we only need the lowly little number of 400.

Q u o t e:

Exactly. That is how direct spells work. You have to cast more of them. That means more mana per second but also more damage. This is why we think haste is an interesting stat (for casters anyway) when compared to just straight damage. More haste makes you do different things than more crit or spellpower would.

A fine quote from GC, and one that I agree with. Haste is fun, it's interesting because it can really have some difference effects on rotations that no other stat in the game currently does. But, Balance Druids are in the same boat with Shadow Priests and Affliction Warlocks in a desperate struggle against Haste. The only problem is, Blizzard is stepping in to stop the fighting between Shadow and Affliction have with Haste, but what of Balance?

Balance Druids are still sitting there, casting Wrath over and over, and crying as their spells dip below the 1 second GCD, which ruins all that Haste on their gear. Not only that, but the true evil shows itself in the spell queing system. This system is awesome, but it fails for casts that fall below the GCD. Spelling queing is limited to the GCD, you cannot que a spell before the GCD is up, therefore, when casting well below the GCD, Balance Druids take a stab in the back from latency.

Which brings us onward to our next great quote:

Q u o t e:

You are assuming our goal is to make all stats equally attractive to all characters. It isn't. We have no problem with say mages valuing haste more than Shadow priests. The problem is just that the difference is too large right now. When an item drops you should have to consider whether it's a good item for you or not. We like that different specs might approach the same item differently. We like haste in part because it has a lot of depth - did you reduce your cast time by so much that you can squeeze in an additional spell? -- that sort of thing.

Again, this is a completely understandable stance. Every stat should not be valued by every class in exactly the same ratio. That not only makes all of the classes boring, but it makes gearing boring and aggravating since everyone will get the same variable DPS gain for each item and thus all only want the exact same thing. That is not fun.

But, where is it that we draw this line? What decided when too much is too much?

Balance Druids already have these issues when gearing. When some awesome new item drops, I have no clue if it's actually going to be a DPS upgrade or not. As a Balance Druid, I have to look at the item and see its Haste value, then, compare it to the Haste value of the item I'm replacing. You see, if I end up dipping below the 400 Haste mark, then Haste becomes a very, very valuable stat worth more than anything else, yes, even better than Spell Power.

It's a balancing act of extremes, and one that isn't fun. Now, going well over 400 Haste won't kill a Balance Druid, that's for sure, but, here's the real problem of the issue - the value of Crit does not increase.