Is Hasten a "Must Have" Power?

Hasten:

If you don't know you need it, then you don't need it.

If you need it, you don't have it.

If you have it, you no longer need it.

That's about it.

Are you wanting super speed as a travel power? Then yes, get hasten instead of flurry.

Are you dependent on powers with long recharge times (most control sets would fit this)? Yes, get hasten.

Do you have an attack chain with some unwanted downtime in it? Hasten can help that.

Do you have the radiation emission set? Hasten synergizes too well with accelerate metabolism to pass up.

If none of the above is true, then hasten is probably not a must have. It is still a power that you might want to get when you hit one of those levels that nothing more valuable is available to you. And some builds will see so little benefit from it that even just grabbing a different power for flavor would be better.

Not a must have.

that said I usually take super speed on MOST of my characters, (for the clerity stealth+superspeed as has been mentioned), so for those I end up taking hasten.

I will say this, with stamina and the other parts of it's pool being inherent it's MUCH easier for characters to take HASTEN now.

Ugh, hasten. It's my guilty pleasure power, leaning toward guilt, less pleasure.

The power's effects are skippable in most instances, but it does have times where it becomes highly valuable. It is one of the most visually invasive powers in the game. I have exactly four characters with the powers, and in two cases it absolutely ruins their visual cohesion and concept. Yet it allows them to achieve gameplay performance that caters to their stories, so I took it on them any way.

The other two characters that have it are fire based, one of the only times the golden embers of speed pool seems visually appropriate.

For concept, it works. The character wants to do things faster, and tires after doing so for a bit. For look, well, I covered that. If you are going with superspeed hasten is usually more useful steppingstone pick, even just as a situational power, than flurry. If you live and die (or others do) by powers that are not readily available through recharge, hasten is a boon. The more dependent you are on slow powers, the better it is.

0010 Does my build have important, long-recharge powers?
0020 If YES, go to 0040.
0030 If NO, don't take Hasten.
0040 Does my build have significant endurance problems after slotting Stamina and frankenslotting all attacks for endredux?
0050 If NO, go to 0070.
0060 If YES, don't take Hasten until endurance is under control. This may be never.
0070 Take Hasten.

Yes

You can get hasten lvls of recharge by purples but then you lose out on a lot of nice set bonuses like +def. Your dom might be perma w/o hasten but mine is perma and has near soft cap defenses.

You can make a nice toon w/o hasten but USUALLY it will be better with it.

I don't min/max as much as I might, but I usually end up taking it for the lower levels. If I ever get around to respec'ing them, I might drop it, depending on build.

So I dunno.

I tend to take Hasten on controllers and dominators simply because as someone else mentioned, not having your control powers available quickly can end badly if things go sour. Hasten is also nice for controllers who have few attacks so it helps keep their attack chain continuous.

That said... I rarely take hasten on other characters unless there is some key power that would benefit from it. Phantom Army is a key power that I'd say hasten is very valuable for. For a fortunata you might want perma mind link and hasten can assist with that though unless the power is truly a game changer (like Phantom Army) I'd probably want something else to benefit from that recharge as well.

I see little need for hasten on many of my characters though. One pet peeve I have with hasten is that if you're going to get it and perma it then you're likely doing so to perma other clickies as well... and in doing so you can't set them all to autofire which bugs me.

I agree with the majority above that it's not must have, but is very nice on most builds. I will say that between Inherent Fitness and City Traveler, I have less endurance issues or more power choices and can take whatever travel power I want so the majority of my builds end up with Hasten. Often, it may only have the original slot or 2, but it's still very attractive for a first tier pool power.

I can make almost the same statement that I made in the similar thread about Fighting being the new Fitness - out of the nearly 60 characters I have respec'd since Fitness became inherent, only 3 or 4 have Hasten, and one of them had it before the change to Fitness.

When I'm soloing, I plan my attacks to go at the pace of my recharge. When I am teaming, I just let go with everything I have as soon as it's recharged - there's usually some sort of buff tht takes the place of Hasten.

I don't think it's must have, but my build goals almost always lead me to take it. I don't think my build or play goals are universally applicable to other players, and I think that leaves a lot of of builds that really just don't need it.

Do a lot of players want it? Sure. I don't think being very popular is the same as "must have".

I think I might have two or three characters with Hasten, but I usually forget it's there and never use it.

I have experimented with various "perma" builds in Mids, but never implemented one in game.

Every character I have across four accounts has hasten. It might not be for everyone, but for me it definitely is a must have. 70% recharge boost for 2 mins? Yes please! Several of my high end toons have it perma, but a bunch of the cheaper builds don't, but they usually have decent enough recharge that it is up more that it is off. Even if it was 50/50, I can't see why having a super recharge bonus for any length of time would seem unwanted for any archetype.

I build charatcters not toons, and as such I nearly always have a strong concept. For example, I would never put Fly on my Super Speeder. Maybe you should try to break out of your routine and do something different with future characters. You might even find it's fun and adds variety to your game sessions.

Why would one not take Hasten? Ugly graphics, Endurance crash, you have power sets that don't particularly benefit from Hasten (Claws, Willpower, Super Reflexes, etc), you already have the average 40% recharge bonus Hasten would provide through set bonuses, you want to save the power pick for something else, etc.

P.S. Incarnate options make Hasten even less important in the modern CoH.

WARNING: I bold names.

I'll echo what many others have said: Hasten's a nice power for some characters, but not necessary for any.