A quick update on Borrowed Time
I’ve done some testing, and BobTurkey and Jedimax, who commented on Math is Hard asking about whether Borrowed Time reduces the global cooldown, will be pleased to know that, in fact, it does. Also, interestingly, Borrowed Time begins when you cast Power Word: Shield, and is not consumed until the spell it affects has finished casting, so it reduces the global cooldown both of PW:S and of the spell it affects. In other words:
- You cast PW:S, and Borrowed Time takes effect as soon as you cast. The global cooldown triggered by PW:S is reduced to 1.2s (assuming no other haste effects).
- You cast Penance, which is affected by Borrowed Time but does not consume it. The GCD triggered by Penance is 1.2s.
- You cast Flash Heal, which has a 1.2s cast time. Since Borrowed Time doesn’t wear off until the spell is successfully cast, the GCD triggered by Flash Heal is 1.2s.
- Borrowed Time wears off, and the GCD on the next spell you cast is back up to 1.5s – unless the next spell is PW:S, in which case GOTO 1.
This feature of Borrowed Time, in fact, makes its effect on the GCD particularly easy to test for yourself. Cast PW:S on yourself and then cast Flash Heal; since FH’s cast time is normally 1.5s, and the GCD is normally 1.5s, Flash Heal’s cast time should end just as the GCD does no matter how much haste you have.
As always, if I’ve done something wrong or you have a different experience, let me know.
Related posts:
- A slightly cooled Penance The following is the current (datamined) Healing Priest Tier 10...
- Quick thoughts on Power Word: Shield This is take 2 on this post, because Firefox crashed...
- Divine Aegis: an update After some testing, I can say that Divine Aegis works...
- Discipline priests: haste is better than crit Well, I finally did the number crunching for +haste vs....
- Why We Shield At this point, it’s generally accepted that Discipline is an...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Interesting. I still cant believe it …
… but the assumption of BT on GCD bring some worries on my table, because i have too much haste and with the ulduar gear it will be even more haste…
[Reply]
Too much haste, I think, doesn't start to become a problem until you hit diminishing returns – I'm not sure what that point is. Penance, for instance, will continue to benefit from haste long after the soft cap – I think you need to hit 3279 Haste Rating (less with Borrowed Time and Enlightenment) to reach 1.0s on Penance, and even more (6500+) to get Greater Heal down that far.
Still, most of our spells as Discipline priests will be short casts, like Flash Heal, or instants, and the limit of their benefit from haste is 433 Haste Rating. (More haste will lower the casting time of, say, Flash Heal, but that's of little benefit when you can only cast once per second.)
Fortunately, we can get a lot of benefit from the Ulduar gear that's nominally DPS gear. It tends to have crit rather than haste, and so if you reach the haste cap (as you apparently have), you can trade out some of that haste gear for crit gear, as long as you keep it above 433!
Incidentally, it may also be useful to know that when channeled spells are affected by haste, they have the same number of ticks divided evenly across the hasted cast time. So Divine Hymn, for example, normally ticks every 2 seconds for 8 seconds; at my 425 haste, it ticks every 1.67s for 6.68s; and with Borrowed Time up, it's every 1.34s for 5.34s.
[Reply]
So, in fact, it hastes 2 spells. Your PW:S and your next spell. Very nice :)
[Reply]