Is Mythic Haste really one of the best mythic spells ever?

Question

In some different places, I have read that mythic haste is one of the best mythic spells ever, but I just cannot see why.

Mythic haste says:

Affected creatures gain an additional move action each round. The movement speed increase changes to 50 feet, to a maximum of three times the creature's normal speed for that movement type.

What can I do with this that makes it so good? I can go (move action) to an enemy, slash (standard action) and move away, with the chance to get an Attack of Opportunity. I do not see why this is so super strong. I cannot make a Full Attack since Full Attack eats up the entire turn.

Is this really one of the best mythic spells, like people say? If so, why is it?

Answer 1

Basically, it's Pounce for free.

One of the biggest problems that melee classes face is the fact that, in order to maximize their DPS, they need to spend a full-round action attacking. If you spend a full-round action attacking, that means that you're moving, at most, 5 feet. In addition, it means that if you start your round far away from an enemy, you're only going to get a single standard action attack off.

There are a number of ways around this issue. There are class features that allow you to make a full attack after a charge, or teleport as a swift action, or just make your standard action attack better than it would normally be. Mythic haste gets around all that. With Mythic haste, you can move and make a full attack in the same round trivially, without expending additional character build resources.

The example that you give (move, standard action attack, move again) isn't the case that people are talking about when they say that Mythic haste is awesome. More often, they're talking about using a move action to get close and then full attacking. Alternately, using a full attack, killing an enemy, and then moving to close with a second enemy in the same round.

Abilities like this usually take up significant character resources to acquire. With Mythic haste, all you need is a spellcaster with access to haste who is willing to use one of their Mythic feat slots on Mythic spells.

This interpretation assumes that the move action granted by Mythic haste is in addition to your normal full-round action. Any source that describes Mythic haste as amazing, or a must-have spell, is relying on this interpretation. There are some tables that rule that Mythic haste doesn't let you make a move action in addition to a full round action. In that case, Mythic haste stops being an amazing spell, and becomes a merely good one. Being able to move over a hundred feet in a single round is a nice ability, and being able to easily draw a potion or do any other move-action-activated ability is useful from time to time. Mythic spells are typically lackluster, and this one is reasonably useful at the very least.

Answer 2

A very common rule (the rules don't clearly give an official answer for that, so it could be considered as an houserule) is to consider that "full-round actions" only make you unable to perform the "normal" standard and move actions (those you get on every normal turn) and not the bonus actions you could get, for example with mythic haste. Considering this interpretation, you would agree mythic haste becomes pretty powerful.

Actually, even with your interpretation, it is still a "not so bad" mythic spell compared to most of them. (most of them goes from "complete crap" to "just worth the mythic point invested") It may not be completely broken, but it is still for sure one of the best mythic spells.

Moreover one of the most broken builds with mythic is the vital strike one, and this build doesn't care about full-round attacks.

Answer 3

Specific rules beat general rules. Full round actions are very general rules. And they don’t even prevent other actions that round as you can take a ‘full round attack action’ a five foot step, plus a swift action, and a free action.

Thus by RAW when you gain an extra move action you can now full attack, take a swift action, a free action, and also take your extra move action.

Also, by RAW staggered costs either a move or standard action so mythic haste allows you to do full round actions while staggered.