Raid-wide Haste and Spell Haste buff (Swiftness).

[metacell]

Now the new raid-wide fighter buffs are live. Do you notice any difference? Does it make monks more desirable in raids?

[Timaarit]

Well I doubt it. As it is, my monk has made it to our raids because we dont have a bruiser and the brawler avoidance buff is better than other fighters, especially when the fighter is also trying to DPS. The raidwide haste is really not that good as most melee DPS classes should already be very close to the cap anyway. The casting speed buff will be useful though as it will benefit healers and casters both. Melee classes will still have to time their CA's so the speed buff is not that useful for them.So if your monk didn't make it to the raid before this change, I doubt he/she will after it.

[DarkLord35]

<p>My guild runs with Guard, Pally and Monk.  Last night we ran CMF, FTH and 1ST Floor EH, I noticed a significant increase in Raid DPS, however our raid was very melee heavy so overall increase with a more caster/melee balance would be different.</p><p>Personally as a Pally, i saw benefit from both components of the monks buff and noticed ~100 dps increase, on single targets in FTH where in the past i parsed 1.3k - 1.4k, I now parse 1.4K - 1.5k with no other changes but the monk raidwide buff.</p><p>These are just observations, I normally raid with ACT up on a seperate monitor, and unfortunately im way to lazy to go back and pull hard numbers for comparison.  Glad we run with a monk in our raids, the free raid wide dps increase is most welcome, tks SOE.</p><p>Jedod - 70th Paladin </p>

[CHIMPNOODLE.]

We ran FTH last night with an SK, Guard, Zerk and Monk in raid. We had a fairly even split of melee/caster DPSers so its hard to tell which new buff contributed the most for that run (or how much), but Raid DPS was significantly higher than usual.

[BChizzle]

The people in my guild were creaming about the change.

[Zabjade]

<span style="color: #00cc00;">I have not been able to find that in my combat art book yet? what type of ICon does it have at level 70? Then again I did not have much time to really look.</span>

[metacell]

It's not a new buff, they changed one of the old ones (<a href="http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Swiftness" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Swiftness</a> and its upgrades).

[XaroXethanotos]

The group-only haste was a marginal buff anyway.  This is a positive change in that we now have a raid-wide buff but nothing to cheer about.  This is doubtful to be the cause for adding a lot of monks to the raid pool.  At best, at least 1 monk will be allowed in a raid which is better than none.  Of course, this raid-wide buff means that there is absolutely no reason to ever have more than 1 monk in a raid.  Congrats to us!! 

[knightofround]

You folks are insane. Do you know how many mages and priests would kill for that  -cast speed buff? Not to mention the regular haste! And its raidwide, so you don't have to be squeezed into a single group spot to be effective.My ideal raid force would roll with a monk now. It wouldn't've without this huge buff.How on earth is everyone on the raid supposed to be at capped haste? CoF+Illi+Monk+Zerker+Shaman+AGI ring is the only time I've been able to hit the full cap. Plus it works across the *entire raid*! Everyone is going to benefit from some portion of the buff; hell, crusaders will benefit from both.Granted, there's no reason to have more than one monk on raid. But now at least there's a reason to have one. None of the other classes moved up in desirability nearly as much as monks.

[Fleaba]

Aye, whoever is saying that it's not the best thing since sliced bread is full of BS. 13% casting speed boost is HUGE!! If you've ever played a hard Nuker, healer etc. you'll see what I mean. Our Ca's along with most melee classes' Cas are very fast casting. Casters lose insane amounts of dps due to there 1 to 3 second casting times on there nukes. I agree with the previous poster. No change in the game recently has bumped any other class up so significantly in raid desirability. Not sure if  most raid  guilds will make a special spot for one....but the caster heavy raid set ups will benefit hugely from a Monk.

[Weizen Heimer]

Hopefully T8 will see a decent upgrade to this, which will make it even better.