Characters who flourish without Hasten

I was talking about this with friends just recently and thought "I'll bet the forum folks can expand this list a lot." There are times when one - depending on who the one is - just doesn't want to look at glowing hands, or have to allocate powers in that pool. So...what works great without Hasten?

Some masterminds do, I know. My robots/traps mastermind's current build doesn't have it, and is doing fine; my robots/force field one doesn't have it, either. It depends on secondaries, and whether there are recharge-intensive pets available, pretty much. (It's a shame to take Gang War and not also take Burnout.

Beyond that? Not really sure. So please, chip any experience you have with characters who didn't need Hasten.

My DB/Inv scrapper can run his attack chain (BF-Attack Vitals) without Hasten, and I rarely need to use Dull Pain as soon as it recharges. Thus, he overall has little need for more recharge, so he skipped Hasten.

That... might be my only active 50 without it, actually.

I would say most scrappers and blasters dont need it, and I only have one character with it, an illusion/sonic controller.

Anyone with Kinetics.

Most anyone willing to enjoy using a versatile variety of powers and doesn't suffer an unhealthy fascination with a "three power, max DPS, thinking about combat actions is HARD" attack chain.

OK, it may be easier to consider what builds Hasten actually adds enough value to balance the hassle of glowing amber hands and not being able to control-click any other power in your build. Dominators, obviously. Tri-form Kheldians, trying to overcome the limited attack powers in their alternate forms. Anyone with Regeneration, as you don't really have any damage mitigation beyond your ability to click something and make the damage go away. Illusion Controllers trying to achieve perma-Phantom Army (ie: any of Local Man's disciples). And last, but certainly not least, any character concept (as opposed to build) that involves the overall idea of heightened or super-speed.

I have very few characters with it. I avoid it at all costs and only include it if I absolutly have to. None of the characters I mainly use (scrappers and blasters) have it.

It is silly easy now to build up enough global recharge on characters that adding hasten has little additional affect.

I try to build without hasten because gives me burning hands. Take that away and I'd probably include it in every build. There's very few builds and sets out there that don't benifit somehow from more recharge... and rarely are my builds tight on fitting in all the powers I want. Usually I'm tight on slots, not powers.

I tend to avoid the power, as most people here have mentioned. Unless I'm trying to perma something, hasten rarely has a large benefit.

I've gotten to the point where I rarely use Hasten on any build where I can't make it permanent. It's got benefits, no doubt about that, but I generally prefer characters whose performance doesn't really waver. If, like Dechs, I have some other power with a massive recharge that I want permanent, though, I'll often take it to help with that goal, and generally get Hasten permanent in the process as well, where it makes a bigger difference.

However, ultimately, the answer to "who can do well without Hasten?" is "pretty much anybody".

Why won't they just let is customize Pool Powers already!?! The biggest objection to a power that most people find extremely useful (if not crucial for some builds, like Regen), is that they don't like the animation. That should be an easily-fixed problem.

All my characters that are high enough level to have IOs walk around with greater +Recharge than the 6-slotted perma-Hasten of the old days. Only a rare few actually have Hasten. It just isn't needed and there are better things I could be doing with that power pool slot.

My Illusion/Empathy Controller is a rare character of mine that does have Hasten because A) Ill/Emp doesn't have enough attacks to make a chain, and B) to keep Phantom Army almost-permanent.

Any build can go without hasten no doubt. However,none would be operating in a period of highest productivity or excellence without it.

I might add that you cannot perform at the top levels with certain sets without hasten. You certainly can build a toon that is good enough for the vast majority of the game, but just not at the top levels of performance possible.

I could not have perma inner light, lightform or reform essence without it. The difference between walking around with 1335 hp vs 2012 hps perma is significant.

I try to avoid it on any character that is toggle heavy (tanks). Running those toggles with hasten on will make you burn through end like it's the last cabbage patch doll.

That said, I find it useful on certain characters that have an abundance of slow recharging click powers.

A lot depends on power choices. Mids' builder is your friend.

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I build everything with hasten

Battle Axe and Willpower. Take everything, slot everything, hit buttons until everything is dead.

I don't have one character that lacks Hasten.

I'm not going to tell anyone they better take Hasten or they'll be gimp. I'm certainly mystified by the number of claims of builds that don't benefit meaningfully from it. I can only think of certain situations where this would be true.

• The characters have no important click powers on 12 second timers or more (certainly possible with some builds)
• The characters do have important clicks on long timers, but have so much global recharge already that adding even 70% more recharge to the base wouldn't shave enough time off the total recharge time to notice the difference.
• They don't regularly play their characters in such stressful environments that they pine for their long-recharge powers to come back faster that often, and so don't value Hasten's boost based on its downsides (subjective and/or objective).

There are not many good reasons to skip Hasten. It has no per-requisite, everyone can take it and even at one slot, it can be useful. And it's not like it's costing a lot of endurance.

If I want to pick a character that is forced to skip Hasten, then it's probably going to be Stalker.

I can't think of a single powerset combination that wouldn't benefit from hasten.

My namesake needs it, but shes a Dominator. If I squeezed out another 20% or so global recharge I could drop it and still have perms-dom, but I've built for defence too.

I dont miss it on Tantalya, my Electric/Martial Arts Tanker. Build Up, Spring Attack and Energise would be up more often with it, and those Mu Mastery epics would fire more quickly, but that isn't enough to make me feel like I need it.

Doubt I'll take it on my Superstrength/Willpower Brute. No Build Up, unenhanceable Strength of Will, it would just mean a slightly quicker Footstomp and KO Blow, which is nice but not necessary for what I do.

My Beam/Pain Corrupter doesn't have it yet at 38, and I know thats a very suboptimal choice. I'll probably grab it in the 40s.

As a general rule, it seems like melee characters do better without it.