Well Limper, as someone who does not like Haste, here are my thoughts on the subject. Perhaps this will give you some insight as to why people do not like the spell as it is currently written.
As far as I can tell, the primary complaint against Haste is that any spell caster that chooses not to take it or use it becomes dramatically less effective when compared to those who do use it. As a result, everyone who can use it will most likely go out of their way to do so.
As a result, not many people like the spell. Its akin to adding a martial weapon to the PHB that has the following statistics:
SuperSword - 4d10 damage, 1 handed, crit 18 for x4 damage, 10 foot reach.
Now, how many fighters can you think of that would NOT take such a weapon? Everyone who can use a martial weapon would take it. Since every fighter has one, it nearly becomes a class feature.
Though Haste does not have as much of an effect on the game as that Super Sword would, the end result is the same. The spell is so good that people argue that spell casters need it to be useful.
Also you say that a Wizard just does not have the same impact in a fight as a well designed fighter does. Someone also said that fighters get more actions per round then the wizard, and can inflict more damage on a given creature. Based on those observations, some reach the conclusion that Wizards need Haste just to keep up.
I disagree with that.
Characters with multiple attacks only get to do that sort of thing when they do not move into melee, or are using a missile weapons. Missile weapons just dont quite have that kind of damage output (unless you decide a +5 bow using +5 arrows means a +10 bonus). And each attack only hits one target, and not all of those attacks are likely to hit, absent a great deal of other magical bonuses. Most damage spells can affect multiple opponents. Given enough targets, a Fireball can inflict well over a hundred damage, though it is spread among many different targets.
Trying to compare those two modes of attack to one another is meaningless. Each class excells at a different task, and the nature of the Adventures and Fights your DM uses are going to have a much greater impact on the game then any one class feature, feat, or spell.
If your DM likes to use single, powerful monsters with lots of HP's, then of course the Fighters (and Rogues) are going to inflict massive amounts of damge.
If your DM likes to throw 300 or 400 Zombies at you once in a while, the Mages, Druids, and Clerics are going to clean house.
If your DM likes to throw mated pairs of Ancient Wyrm Green Dragons with 3 young dragons (their children) following them, then the Dragons are going to clean house.
When most people complain about a rule in the game, its more often because there is something about the rule that they find aesthetically displeasing. If you think that a Wizard should be better then a fighter at inflicting damage on a Giant, then anything that reverses that situation is going to come accross as being just wrong to you. For me, I do not like that Small characters have a reduced movement rate AND inflict less unarmed damage then medium sized characters. I do not like that the Ranger is heavily front loaded and that the favored enemy progression means people end up with either a +1 to hit Dragons at 1st level or a +5 to hit Orcs at 20th. I also don't like Haste because it is just too useful a spell. Those things just seem wrong to me.
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