Gimped without Haste?

[Pyatra]

If I don't take haste... am I super gimping myself? 

 

  It seems every single build I see contains Haste and people try to keep it up all the time.  For example, say I have a Water/Rad Sentinel.  Water is created to rely on builders and then your big bad attacks to consume Hydro Power, which would mean haste isn't really needed at all.  But use Haste and I am just spamming 2 attacks for the rest of the game doing far more damage, (Water Jet, Dehydrate, FTW!) but if that's what does better then that's what's got to happen.  Any feedback on how to work this out would be appreciated.

[Adeon Hawkwood]

I don't bother with Hasten on most of my characters and haven't really felt the loss. It's definitely worth building for some global recharge but in general you can get 50%-80% global recharge from sets pretty easily and for most characters I find that to be sufficient.

 

The thing to remember for recharge is that you do get pretty steep diminishing returns on its, especially with fast cycling powers like attacks. As an example, Water Jet has a 10s base recharge. Assuming that you slot an Apocalypse set in it you get 90% recharge from enhancements giving you a 5.26s recharge time. Now if you add say 70% global recharge from sets this drops to 3.84s. Now supposing you go all the way to perma hasten giving you 180% global recharge (110% from sets, 70% from hasten) the recharge drops to 2.7s. Now it's not useless but at the same time it's not critical, you get most of the benefits of recharge in the first 200% total recharge.

 

IMHO focusing on hasten is most useful on characters with powerful long recharge buffs/debuffs where getting them up more often makes a major difference to the team. For damage dealers like Sentinels and Blasters I prefer to focus on personal defense as opposed to recharge, especially since you can still pickup a decent amount of recharge on the side.

[Fedifensor]

No, you're not gimped.  Hasten's effectiveness depends on how much you focus on having a single power up as often as possible, versus having a consistent attack chain.  If you're not relying on spamming a specific power to be effective, and you have an attack chain without gaps, then Hasten isn't needed.  It's certainly helpful, but I've found that a moderate amount of global recharge from set bonuses works just as well for most things.  The characters most likely to want perma-Hasten are ones trying to make a particularly potent power in their powersets permanent.

[Heraclea]

I took Hasten, very late in the build, on my electric/electric blaster, but so far I'm not seeing an urgent need for it on my sentinel so far.  The blaster takes it because I want her big nuke up as much as possible, that, and Power Sink and Force of Thunder, basic survival tools.  The comparable tier attack on my sentinel (Geyser) looks much more situational; knockback may need a workaround.  Other primaries may have different needs. 

 

Recharge, damage, and endurance reduction are all plentiful in sets; where I typically find them wanting is in accuracy.  Accuracy is especially vital on a self heal or other survival buff like Dehydrate.  I do not hesitate to Frankenslot powers like that, seeking to maximize accuracy, recharge, and healing even at the expense of damage.  You want it up as often as needed, and you want to make sure it hits, and you want to max out its heal and regeneration.  These things will do you more good than any set bonus you might chase. 

[Sunsette]

Hasten is mostly important when you have non-attack abilities with an uptime about a third to a quarter of their base recharge.

[EggKookoo]

I had Hasten on my MA Scrapper but respecced out of it. I haven't missed it.

[Force Redux]

If you have room for Hasten, even with only it's base slot, take it. There are plenty of mobs that can debuff recharge. Hasten offers a counter. That said, I don't always take it myself.

[Zepp]

With certain secondaries, like Regen, you really need it to get Dull Pain perma and Instant Healing on a reasonable timer. On my DP/Nin I need to get Piercing Rounds to 4.224s to optimize my attack chain for -def and -res, Hasten is necessary for that. To get perma-lightform Peacebringers, you need Hasten. To get perma-PA for an illusion controller, you need hasten...

 

There are some builds where I don't use it, but recharge is king in CoH, so that is why you see it so often. On the other hand, there are plenty of builds out there that don't need that much recharge...

[Tankshock]

I think you want it for post 50.  Having your nuke up for more fights is always good, and 5-10 seconds makes a difference on teams.  Definitely not necessary, but nice.

[justicebeliever]

I had Hasten on my MA Scrapper but respecced out of it. I haven't missed it.

 

You are giving Hasten no respec.  You are Perma Haten it...

 

You may not be a fan of it, and that is fine, but Hasten is one of the most universally useful powers in the game, and will have a positive benefit on literally any character that takes it.

 

Ok, that's cool. Didn't mean to hurt Hasten's feelings...

[FUBARczar]

Wtf, what did I just read in this thread?  Unless you are a Mastermind, (Willpower maybe) why would you skip Hasten?  It's like yeah, I don't need to heal right now, I can wait another 10 seconds...no wonder I have so many teammates who attack once every 10 seconds, who use Brawl and Boxing at level 50 to fill their attack chain and are always taking dirt naps, they forgot Hasten.

[BrandX]

Wtf, what did I just read in this thread?  Unless you are a Mastermind, (Willpower maybe) why would you skip Hasten?  It's like yeah, I don't need to heal right now, I can wait another 10 seconds...no wonder I have so many teammates who attack once every 10 seconds, who use Brawl and Boxing at level 50 to fill their attack chain and are always taking dirt naps, they forgot Hasten.

 

Don't have Hasten on my StJ/Nin attack non stop never using brawl or boxing.  I do have about 90%+ global recharge from set bonuses though.

[EggKookoo]

Wtf, what did I just read in this thread?  Unless you are a Mastermind, (Willpower maybe) why would you skip Hasten?

 

My MA Scrapper doesn't have Hasten and he has no gaps in his attack chain. Hasten does nothing for him except eat some End once in a while.

 

Maybe things will be different at 50.

[Gone]

Hasten isn't just a good power, it is a power multiplier.  It makes every click-power in a build better.  Yes, you can have an attack chain without hasten, and it will work just fine, but hasten will allow you to tighten your attack chain to just the powers that are the most effective rather than just the powers that aren't on cooldown without hasten. As Stamina is inherent now, Hasten is the single power choice that will universally make every character regardless of AT and powersets better.

 

You can certainly go without it and you will not be "Gimped", you will just be less optimized.  There's nothing wrong with not being optimal in this game, everything works at least 'fine'.

[EggKookoo]

Yes, you can have an attack chain without hasten, and it will work just fine, but hasten will allow you to tighten your attack chain to just the powers that are the most effective rather than just the powers that aren't on cooldown without hasten.

 

Ha, joke's on you. He's MA. None of his powers is effective.  ;)

[Sunsette]

Wtf, what did I just read in this thread?  Unless you are a Mastermind, (Willpower maybe) why would you skip Hasten?  It's like yeah, I don't need to heal right now, I can wait another 10 seconds...no wonder I have so many teammates who attack once every 10 seconds, who use Brawl and Boxing at level 50 to fill their attack chain and are always taking dirt naps, they forgot Hasten.

 

As Stamina is inherent now, Hasten is the single power choice that will universally make every character regardless of AT and powersets better.

 

Hasten IS definitely the best power in the game, like, there is no power that is nearly as likely to be an improvement to the build. But it is not a universal power multiplier. I am looking at my build right now, and even if I wanted to take Hasten, there is literally no way for me to take it without losing a significant amount of optimization.

 

Why?

 

1) This.

 

Without Maneuvers, Weave, Hover, or Combat Jumping, I don't make a number of important softcaps. I do make S/L/E non-incarnate softcap without them, but the others matter to me too.

 

2) This.

I have enough sources of recharge to begin with, and my longest cooldown is... 90 seconds. That is already down to about 25 seconds. Hasten brings that down by about four seconds. My T9 is a three second cast. 3/25 = 12%, 3/21 = 14%, sure; but an AoE pack shouldn't be lasting more than about 60 seconds normally anyway, and some of that gets lost in moving between groups. I already delay using my T9 by up to five seconds at time for positioning or Aim CDs. It literally removes 0.3s off of my two highest DPA attacks which is still not enough to form an attack chain with only those two attacks; I have to have a third.

 

As far as Aim goes, Aim + Build Up is about +130% damage, which with enhancements and global buffs is actually about double the damage for ten seconds out of twenty-five, minus 1.3s where I'm casting. 35/26.3 = 133% damage. Hasten would bring that down to about ten seconds out of 22.3, or 139% damage. Thanks to the T9 and Aim sharing the same cooldown there are few situations where Nova can get 'clipped' out of this cycle.

 

3) This.

I use my Ancillary Power Pool heavily since it helps cover the Sentinel's damage shortcomings. I'm not going to do the calculations there because they're incalculable (cages) and really obvious (cremate) respectively. They're also really expensive on the Endurance along with my TEN TOGGLES, which means even with 121% endurance and a lot of endurance slotting, a careless combination of moves (like saving energize for one reason or another) can have me sucking the blue bar if I don't want to keep Ageless Destiny on CD (which I don't; it's a long animation which lowers effective DPS and maneuverability)

 

So Hasten costs me a global 3% defense, making me fail psionic softcap and incarnate energy softcap² as well as very important S/L buffer¹ in return for (139/133) 4.5% global damage, and 20% more burst AoE damage when AoE fights are not prolonged and it's hard to get lab conditions there, not calculating the benefits of my two other AoEs. I think that is absolutely a reasonable trade for those who seek to make it; I don't think it's it's an inarguably superior trade, though, especially once you begin calculating any other buff effects like Assault PPM, Red Insps, team buffs, etc.

 

Hasten is a huge deal when you're leveling up, but the main content you do while exemping is low level task forces and those aren't remotely hard to begin with, so... yeah Hasten is kind of overrated, especially for Sentinels. You shouldn't overgeneralize what is a very true and good piece of advice (Hasten is a very strong power) into a wrong piece of advice (EVERY BUILD WANTS HASTEN).

 

¹ Why does 50% S/L matter? Cascade defense failure. While most defense sets come with a good amount of defense debuff protection, I found I had noticeably better survivability at 50% on +4/x8 vs. 47%.

² A very good counterpoint is that defense buffs are so free and global that incarnate energy softcap isn't really relevant if you can make the regular softcap. However, I've been able to cheat death in hairy situations vs. Battle Maiden, Emperor Cole, and when racing solo for containers in the Lamba Facility multiple times such that I do very much appreciate it.

[Tankshock]

The main takeaway here is that we definitely should *not* start footnoting posts with the proper typeset.  No way, it's just too far.  I'm drawing the line.  ;)

 

[Sunsette]

The main takeaway here is that we definitely should *not* start footnoting posts with the proper typeset.  No way, it's just too far.  I'm drawing the line.  ;)

 

I'm a total nerd sorry.

[justicebeliever]

The main takeaway here is that we definitely should *not* start footnoting posts with the proper typeset.  No way, it's just too far.  I'm drawing the line.  ;)

 

I'm a total nerd sorry.

 

Maybe a mostly nerd.  A total nerd would have included citations...  :)

 

“Research Paper Writing Nuances by Best Research Nerds”,  Nerdify, 25 Feb 2019, https://medium.com/@nerdify/research-paper-writing-nuances-by-nerds-f591a938b280

[Gone]

Hasten is a huge deal when you're leveling up, but the main content you do while exemping is low level task forces and those aren't remotely hard to begin with, so... yeah Hasten is kind of overrated, especially for Sentinels. You shouldn't overgeneralize what is a very true and good piece of advice (Hasten is a very strong power) into a wrong piece of advice (EVERY BUILD WANTS HASTEN).

 

Sorry, you're right about overgeneralizing.  I don't know about the leveling up stuff since I don't take that into account, ever, as it takes less than two days to level up, and that's doing it without farming, so it is barely a blip to me, I guess that must have been aimed at someone else.

 

I'll rephrase.

 

In endgame, hasten is very good and will benefit most builds.  Try to take hasten when you can.

 

I hope that's a more acceptable phrasing to the didactic crowd.

 

Personally I'll always take hasten, as I cannot imagine a scenario or build that couldn't be optimized better by using it, but everyone builds their characters with different goals and playstyles so you can't account for that. Sentinels are also a special case, since they are more hungry for powers than any other AT (this is probably a balancing issue that wasn't addressed properly) so I can't blame anyone for struggling to find 'optimal' and skipping a power that is as powerful as Hasten.

 

Good luck, and remember, build your character in a way that allows you to have the most fun, otherwise what's the point!

[Sunsette]

Would agree with that 100%, Stara.

[Hopeling]

A few builds *need* Hasten. Usually, it's not crucial, but it's a big recharge buff with pretty high uptime for a low cost (1 power, 1-3 slots). Even if it's not the very best power for your build, it may be 23rd-best, and that's still enough to take it for your 23rd power.

 

If you hate the glowy hands or don't want to juggle two auto powers, you'll be fine without it.

[Obitus]

A few builds *need* Hasten. Usually, it's not crucial, but it's a big recharge buff with pretty high uptime for a low cost (1 power, 1-3 slots). Even if it's not the very best power for your build, it may be 23rd-best, and that's still enough to take it for your 23rd power.

 

If you hate the glowy hands or don't want to juggle two auto powers, you'll be fine without it.

 

You can hide the glowy hands now, or change the color.  I'm still a bit in shock, myself.

 

(There goes more or less my #1 reason to want to skip Hasten.)

[Jeneki]

I generally prefer building for perma-hasten over soft caps.  I'm a super fan of inspirations and combine them constantly to reach caps when needed, but there's no recharge inspiration.

[Frostweaver]

Anyone that tells you you are gimping your build without hasten hasn't been paying attention since like...I8.

 

No, you don't need to plan your build around 6 slotting recharge SO's, and you don't need to plan it around perma-hasten. Sentinels, especially, since they use both slot1 and slot2 attacks for versatility, almost never have a gap in their attack chain post 30.

 

Controller, defenders, and corrupter MIGHT decide to go perma-hasten in order to spam something like fulcrum shift, but with modern parties and IO slotting and diminishing returns, not even Perma-FS is the deific power it used to be.

 

This not WoW. you do not need an ultimate build to tackle even the hardest content.