I've never tried Hasten... should I start?

[MonteCarla]

11 hours ago, Psyonico said:

But you have though, you’ve given up on other set bonuses.  I don’t know if there are any sets that give both global recharge and a defense bonus, consider Winter IOs vs Very Rare (though I do believe the ranged very rare set gives token Psi defense).

 

you have to pick one or the other.

 

I’d love to see a perma-hasten build that has capped defense to all positionals that isn’t something like SR (SR cheats in my example)

There are a few sets that enhance both Defence and Recharge:

 

Basilisks's Gaze (small Def bonus)
Stupefy (but 6 slots means adding Knockback)
Malaise's Illusions and Coercive Persuasion (6th slot can be a damage proc that aggros)
Cloud Senses ( no downsides 🙂 )

But yeah, you're usually choosing between one or the other per-power.

[Octogoat]

 

[tidge]

On 5/30/2025 at 11:45 AM, Forager said:

People can't seem to get off of it, so I'm afraid to try it.

 

Is it really that good? Am I really missing out on something? I don't feel like my powers recharge slowly, in fact I often feel like some of my stuff goes unused. Current build has 49% recharge bonuses which feels like plenty.

 

Will I get addicted if I try it?

 

I almost never take Hasten, the economy of Homecoming makes it relatively easy to achieve high levels of global Recharge (plus other good stuff) from IOs, on every AT. I also tend to find the Speed pool mediocre, so picking Hasten often restricts other alternate build choices(*1). Many people choose to try to make Hasten "perma", but in practice this isn't really necessary. I can imagine circumstance when perma-Hasten would be preferred, but those are all niche content or for builds that are exclusively running attack chains exclusively relying on  inherently long recharge attacks.

 

When I do take Hasten, it is:

• Dominators, who won't otherwise have perma-Dom, especially a leveling-up Dominator, or
• "Tankers" that rely on longer recharging powers to survive the hardest content.

(*1) There are a number of pools that have 4 (of 5) excellent powers; picking Hasten delays how soon I can get that 4th or 5th power *and* is getting in the way of a pick of a prerequisite power from those pools.

[MTeague]

I only use Hasten for Dominators and Controllers, because being able to rapidly stack excessive magnitudes can be crucial in some fights.

I never bother with it for any other archtype.

 

It's good, don't get me wrong. But I'm also a heretic who does not put Kick, Tough, and Weave into every build. I also sleep just fine, if my final build, maybe only has three LotG 7.5% recharges.  It just don't concern me if I can't get a full five.  I also flashback a LOT, so I don't respec down to only a handful of attack powers because I want one single build to be able to handle a Flashback to Positron or an ITF, without switching builds, and without respeccing.

[Derek Icelord]

My 2¢:

 

Hasten in quite useful, but far from the be-all end-all some people make it out to be. I have plenty of builds that use it, I have probably more that don't.

 

I typically always take it on Controllers and Dominators since their "signature" (for lack of a better term) powers nearly all have very long recharges.

 

I'm about 50/50 on Blasters. Some sets simply don't need it, others have plenty of space and I get to giggle at having a T9 up for either every group or every other group.

 

Sometimes I'll take it as a filler near the end of a build when all the powers I need/want are done and I have few slots to spare (I typically only 2-slot Hasten with 50+5 Recharge IOs).

 

My rule of thumb is:

1. Does a key power in this build need to be perma?
2. Does the build have space without sacrificing other things I want (RES/DEF cap, damage, etc...)

If both of those are yes, Hasten goes in somewhere, if not, I'm not going to put Hasten in 90% of the time.

[High_Beam]

It used to be a non-negotiable option for me on live, I took it regardless.  On Homecoming, It is on a lot of toons but its not mandatory any more.  Its definitely still a lock on trollers and Doms (as others have said).  Because its easier to achieve Endurance stability (or overage) on Homecoming I can sling more pain out so there are times when I and wanting the attacks up faster and Hasten helps.

Edited Sunday at 01:55 AM by High_Beam

[Zhym]

I just checked, and of about 20 characters I've leveled to 50, four of them have Hasten.  Three of them are defenders that are optimized for recharge to keep their buffs and debuffs ready and active.  The other is a scrapper theme build where being really fast was part of the theme.  I don't miss Hasten at all on the characters that don't have it.

 

IMO, Hasten is really useful when you have a few powers you want to have perma or recharge as quickly as possible.  It's not as important for fast attack chains, though, because there are so many attacks available that it's usually easier just to rotate between attacks (unless there's a really good combo that uses a small number of attacks). 

[High_Beam]

Okay so I took a look and of my 50 built characters (most of them level 50), 32 has Hasten and 18 did not so that's roughly 66% has Hasten.  Masterminds without exception did not have it and most of my melee toons didn't either except for my kick fighter who I love fast fighting with.  All Doms, Controllers and Defenders had it as did all but 1 Blaster.  I don't make "teh ubar" builds to take on AVs or EBs solo so I have more room for "fluff" powers, ones that are truly necessary but make things flow better.  Characters that are team oriented (heal, buff, debuff) definitely need it in my opinion because the more you are doing that thing, the more you are helping, even if the team may or may not need it. 

[UltraAlt]

On 5/30/2025 at 11:45 AM, Forager said:

Is it really that good?

 

If you want your powers to recharge faster when you really need them to recharge faster (there are those that will promote permahasten) the hasten is the way to go.

 

Some people just use to try to speed up the recharge time of the really long recharge powers that can be affected by it.

Some people use it to recharge higher damage/slower recharge powers so that they can remove lower damage quick recharge powers from their execution cycle.

 

For me, it is going to come down to character conception. If I feel that the character should have the ability to move/react really fast in some (I'm not into perma hasten) situations, then I get hasten.

I only tend to use hasten in emergency situations when I think I can finish something up with the amount of end my character has remaining, because obviously recharging powers faster can mean that you are using end faster. I treat Domination the same way; if I don't need to fill my end bar during a battle, I'm not going to activate domination.

 

On 5/30/2025 at 11:45 AM, Forager said:

Current build has 49% recharge bonuses which feels like plenty.

 

Then I wouldn't worry about it.

 

On 5/30/2025 at 11:45 AM, Forager said:

Will I get addicted if I try it?

 

A friend of mine uses it on every character.

They really don't seem to be overly strict about character conception other than the costume and bio. That is to say, that to me, most of their characters would have no thematic reason to be able to move at an accelerated speed (I can kind of see it with some of their characters that have powers very long recharge times - like say carrion creepers and vines).

The same player tends to use one if not more of the LOTG procs on every character. (I think they have a connection within the Ebil Marketeer/Illuminati to get them on the cheap)

 

[JasperStone]

Yes

[Herotu]

It's great, but the necessity to spam it all the time is annoying.

[BlackSpectre]

Hasten also increases DPS by 70% while it is active. Know that being able to activate attacks more often also means you’ll be spending endurance more often as well. 

[Forager]

21 minutes ago, BlackSpectre said:

Hasten also increases DPS by 70% while it is active.

 

I know I said I've never used it, but even I know this isn't correct.

 

Wow lol.

[BlackSpectre]

3 hours ago, Forager said:

 

I know I said I've never used it, but even I know this isn't correct.

 

Wow lol.

Really? Doesn’t Hasten speed up recharge by 70%? Which means you can activate that power more often in the same span of time?

 

You seem pretty sure, care to explain it a bit? 

[Forager]

3 hours ago, BlackSpectre said:

Really? Doesn’t Hasten speed up recharge by 70%? Which means you can activate that power more often in the same span of time?

 

You seem pretty sure, care to explain it a bit? 

 

Sure.

 

It speeds up recharge. That's it. It doesn't speed up activation time, animation time, damage dealt or anything else. If your highest dps attack chain already has no gaps in it, there would be no change to that attack chain's dps.

 

If using hasten allowed you to use a different attack chain that does more damage, it might be 70%. It could also be 15%. It might be 127% more damage per second.

 

A 70% increase in recharge does not translate directly into 70% more DPS, because recharge isn't the only variable. Activation time, animation time, damage, accuracy, target caps... heck if you wanted to be pedantic even movement speeds impact your DPS. Different powersets and different builds will take advantage of recharge at a different rate.

 

Faster recharge could mean more damage. Maybe it means a lot more. Maybe it means a little bit. Maybe it means no more damage. It varies widely based on so many other factors.

[Hedgefund2]

The recharge formula is 1/(1 + Σ(recharge enhancements + buffs))

 

Here's what it looks like for a power with a 30 second base cooldown with increments of 50% recharge:

 

recharge	cooldown
0	30
0.5	20
1	15
1.5	12

 

 

You can see that a 50% recharge does not increase dps here by 50%, in fact the DPS increase is decreasing (confusing phrase, I know) with additional recharge.

 

To answer the original question, I take it quite frequently.  I'll tend to look at a build with Hasten activated and not activated to see how quickly key powers are available.  Sometimes it's a no-brainer, Cold Dom, for example, certainly needs it to perma-ish Benumb or Heat Loss.  Out of over 170 fully fleshed out 50s by now I imagine no more than 5 don't have it.  The opportunity cost is minimal, one pick, one extra slot, dip into a pool I'm probably going to take the travel power from anyway (superspeed).

[mistagoat]

Hasten is easily my most selected power, followed by Combat Jumping. Recharge is a very powerful buff!

[BlackSpectre]

6 hours ago, Forager said:

 

Sure.

 

It speeds up recharge. That's it. It doesn't speed up activation time, animation time, damage dealt or anything else. If your highest dps attack chain already has no gaps in it, there would be no change to that attack chain's dps.

 

If using hasten allowed you to use a different attack chain that does more damage, it might be 70%. It could also be 15%. It might be 127% more damage per second.

 

A 70% increase in recharge does not translate directly into 70% more DPS, because recharge isn't the only variable. Activation time, animation time, damage, accuracy, target caps... heck if you wanted to be pedantic even movement speeds impact your DPS. Different powersets and different builds will take advantage of recharge at a different rate.

 

Faster recharge could mean more damage. Maybe it means a lot more. Maybe it means a little bit. Maybe it means no more damage. It varies widely based on so many other factors.

Oh yeah, good point. I was just being fast and loose with my figures.

 

Well, wouldn't it speed up the entire attack chain? I figure no matter what you'll be able to dish out more damage, as long as you can keep up with the faster recharge?

[Forager]

1 hour ago, BlackSpectre said:

Oh yeah, good point. I was just being fast and loose with my figures.

 

Well, wouldn't it speed up the entire attack chain? I figure no matter what you'll be able to dish out more damage, as long as you can keep up with the faster recharge?

 

If you were using a proper attack chain with no gaps, activated hasten, then continued using the same four powers in the same rotation, dps would be unchanged. So it can't speed up your attack chain, unless you had gaps... but hasten could allow you to change your chain, which would probably mean MOAR DAMAGE

 

For example maybe you could eliminate a T1 or T2 attack that previously filled in gaps. Also, your nukes and big stuff is up more. More damage per second is a likelihood.

Edited 1 hour ago by Forager

[BlackSpectre]

8 hours ago, Hedgefund2 said:

The recharge formula is 1/(1 + Σ(recharge enhancements + buffs))

 

Here's what it looks like for a power with a 30 second base cooldown with increments of 50% recharge:

 

 

recharge	cooldown
0	30
0.5	20
1	15
1.5	12

 

 

You can see that a 50% recharge does not increase dps here by 50%, in fact the DPS increase is decreasing (confusing phrase, I know) with additional recharge.

 

To answer the original question, I take it quite frequently.  I'll tend to look at a build with Hasten activated and not activated to see how quickly key powers are available.  Sometimes it's a no-brainer, Cold Dom, for example, certainly needs it to perma-ish Benumb or Heat Loss.  Out of over 170 fully fleshed out 50s by now I imagine no more than 5 don't have it.  The opportunity cost is minimal, one pick, one extra slot, dip into a pool I'm probably going to take the travel power from anyway (superspeed).

Cool. Thanks @Hedgefund2.  Tell me if you think this is right... Since DPS is damage per second, using your table damage numbers would look like this:

 

recharge	cooldown (secs)	Time span (secs)	damage per hit	Number of hits possible	Total damage	DPS (over 60 secs)	% increase in damage
0	30	60	10	2	20	0.33
0.7	17.65	60	10	3 (3.4)	30	0.5	66%

 

Does all this look more or less correct? It doesn't take into consideration activation time or animation time, so the increase in actual DPS might be a tiny bit smaller depending. In the case above, I'm dropping off 0.4 from the number of hits possible. That amounts to 7.06 secs, which is more than enough to account for activation time and animation time. So, considering only Hasten without any other enhancements or buffs, there would be a 66% increase in DPS.

 

Just using the raw numbers without considering the time span (or activation and animation times), the theoretical DPS would be 10/30=0.333 vs. 10/17.65 =0.567. Which is a 59% increase in damage per second.  The time span along with the cooldown time could make a big difference on the calculations. For example, if you were only able to get in 1 hit, even after Hasten was applied, your DPS would not change at all... but you'd never have less DPS.

 

Anyway, the DPS numbers aside, all I was trying to say is that using Hasten will probably cause you to use up more endurance since you'll typically be able to use the power more often with Hasten than without it.  So you should make sure your build can handle it. 

 

@Forager, using an attack chain would have exactly the same effect. Since Hasten affects every power in the chain, you'd typically be able to use the entire chain more often... depending on the time span. And yes, since the chain is taking less time, you might be able to add in other attacks if you chose. For me, I typically don't add in other powers to my attack chain on most toons. I just attack faster. 

Edited 1 hour ago by BlackSpectre