Hasten on all my characters

It's difficult to look at any of my characters and not see very compelling reasons to take Hasten. For one character, it tightens up the attack chain for a gap-free DPS frenzy; for the others, it cuts several minutes out of their ridiculous 5-10 minute recharge powers.

Are there good builds for which Hasten is an unnecessary, take-it-or-leave-it sort of thing? My plant/kin controller seems like he might be nearly there. Even without Hasten, he has more powers than he can possibly spam in the course of combat, and frequently has to make snap decisions about which of several powers to use. Nevertheless, Plant has gorgeous long-recharge powers that I like to use, say, in every other fight, as opposed to once or twice at best in any given mish.

So while I'm not looking for bad builds, in pursuit of a change of pace, I am looking for powersets that get little meaningful benefit from Hasten. Or is this a pipe dream?

sonic/sonic (corruptor or defender) benefits very little from hasten

on defensive sets for melee toons if it involves a click mez protection (such as active defense, or practiced brawler), i dont take hasten on those toons because you can only set 1 power on auto and if i cant set hasten on auto i tend to ignore it because it absolutely hate to click on it when its up

the only toons i think hasten is almost a necessity is doms because its extremely helpful if your looking for a cheap perma dom build

other than that i usually fit it in where possible, but if i dont want it on a toon then i just dont take it on that toon

While I think it's obvious that some powerset combinations benefit greatly from Hasten I think it's almost equally obvious that some combos don't. Also some builds might need Hasten in the low/mid levels but by the time they reach level 50 they have enough other powers/slots that make Hasten unnecessary at that point.

I think with most things you just have to assess whether you need it or not. Basically the idea that "All build must have Hasten" is not really true.

I didn't take it on a few of my solo mm's or stalkers but that was before fitness became inherent and the builds were very tight.

You might try not using it on a build that already has it and see if it makes a real difference or not.

I tend to take it on just about every toon though, for the reasons you mentioned, especially in this new wondrous age of inherent fitness.

I don't have a single toon without it. I'm an unapologetic hasten/SS junkie ever since I discovered what it did 6 months into playing the game (around i7)

Reason to not take hasten:

"Because I don't want to."

I don't care overmuch about powersets, but I'll agree that a lot of the buff sets don't seem to need it. Shields are either toggles or running constantly (or can be slotted just fine.) Defensive sets with click protection, as well - I can typically slot that so it's up, and I'll leave that on auto.

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I have Hasten on almost all of my characters . . . I don't think I have it on my MA/SR scrapper, as Practiced Brawler is a click mez protection and I have a good attack chain without it. I can see that a Willpower character could skip Hasten depending upon the other power set, but sets with a long-recharge heal or other click power will benefit from Hasten, too.

I have Hasten on my Shield characters because it helps Shield Charge come back faster. I have it on Invuln and Ice and Dark and Stone. It is nearly essential on Controllers and Defenders.

I have taken it purposefully on one character, and begrudgingly on three others. (Who pretend they don't have it) This mostly from a purely aesthetic approach, but that's neither here nor there.

I find it's functionally helpful especially on characters that rely on powerful long-recharge click powers. The more reliant they are on those powers, the better it is. Case in point, phantom army on an illusionist.

When this isn't the case, it's merely a convenience.

On characters with stringent slotting potential and/or high endurance usage, I find it less useful.

Of course, this from the perspective of a player that has taken superspeed exactly twice, and respeced out of one of those, on 60+ characters over 7 years.

I would say that Hasten is easily the best T1/T2 pool power in the game, and one of the best powers in the game period (because of the impact it has on so many other good powers).


Which I think ends up saying a lot about this game, and the attitude of the player base. In a good way. This game encourages individuality over all else, and even skipping a power like Hasten won't gimp you, and it definitely won't get you blackballed from teams (any team that kicks you for not having Hasten is likely being lead by a person that recent arrived from one of those other MMOs).

For what gets the least benefits, I'd imagine the (de)buff sets would be a good starting point. Sets like Force Field don't really benefit all that much from +Recharge, since they've got lots of toggles you just leave on, or clicks that recharge, out of the box, far faster than you need them. Sonic Res would be similar, depending on how important you think Liquefy is. The Defender secondaries are all fairly similar from how much they benefit from +Recharge (although, I'd rank Ice higher, since it has the Blaster version of the nuke).

We've been saving Paragon City for eight and a half years. It's time to do it one more time.

I take Hasten on my characters that benefit greatly from a lot of recharge. The three that come to mind are my SM/SA Brute, Ill/Rad Controller and my Elec/FA Brute. Of all my characters those are the only three that have it.

I didn't take hasten on my DP/Dev blaster, and I don't miss it at all.