Arcane Haste

I've finally broken 800 haste unbuffed on my mage. With talents, that puts me a little over 30% haste. I've followed the thought process that Euripedes at Critical QQ brought up and started gemming hard for haste.

I'm talking about using Quick King's Amber for yellow, Reckless Ametrine for red, and Intricate Eye of Zul for blue (when bonuses are appropriate).

Here is what I've seen so far with ridiculous haste.


It's much easier to use my AB stack appropriately. Movement doesn't mess up my stack, even if I get hit mid cast, I have time to blink, adjust, and recast my arcane blast without passing 6 seconds. That by itself makes haste well worth it.

The mana game is back. Excessive haste means I have to manage my Arcane Torrent, Mana Gem and Evocation cooldowns with an occasional mana potion. I'm back to finding good times to evocate, like after a bellowing roar on Ony.

Cooldown pops are more fun now. When I get a full Incanter's Absorption, trinket procs, praxis, and bloodlust, I can do some serious damage. When we're talking about popping XT's Heart or hitting Icehowl when he's stunned, my burst is amazing.

Disc Priests are my best friend. How I got my full Incanter's Absorption? Probably a shield (could be fire or frost ward, but to get a full one I usually need a lucky proc on something that would kill me.) Protip: When they cast power infusion on you, go full AB spam and evocate at the end, followed by MBAM. If your haste is high enough, you'll still have your AB stack when your evocate is done.

Oh yeah, damage is absurd. I was doing a 10 man VoA, raid was not stacked in my favor, and I pulled a consistant 5400 damage on bosses, and on some trash pulls I got up to 7100 dps. Sure I blew cooldowns for those trash pulls, but people turn heads.

All in all, I think Euripedes was right and stacking haste is the way to go. There are a lot of spellpower buffs, but other than the 5% haste buff, you have to rely on yourself. Go grab yourself some haste gems and see how it works for you.