Effect of weapon speed?

[Tarmor]

Having been away for the better part of 2 1/2 years I'm reequipping and have come to the point where with all the changes that have gone on, I have no idea what the advantages/disadvantages of the various weapon delays are.What if any does weapon delay now have on the assassin class?I know that proc effects are all currently normalized, making them effectively independent on weapon speed, but is there anything else that isn't normalized which would lead to there being an advantage to  fast/slow weapon types for dual wielders?

[Brimestar]

For us, slower is better cos you'll hit harder...

[Tarmor]

<cite>Brimestar wrote:</cite><blockquote>For us, slower is better cos you'll hit harder...</blockquote>I'm not worried about single round maximums, I'm interested in sustained dps.  What I'm interested in knowing is if there are any CA's that are currently linked to an unnormalized base weapon damage range, or unnormalized fixed % effects which yield a constant return.An example would be the old primary-hand weapon bonus in EQ which added a fixed dmg value to all main hand attacks, hence grossly favoring fast weapons (ala moss covered twig), or poison procs on ranged CA's that based their proc chance on base weapon speed (there by favoring slow bows).My question is whether for our current melee weapons there are any reasons to prefer slow (i.e. 2.1> or fast 1.2&lt<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> main/off hand items.

[Brimestar]

hmmm....well for me personally in T8 I use Fang of Ichor (main hand) and Soulfire in my offhand.  I know you want the weapon that does the most dmg in your main hand...And to give you an idea of what is to come I can auto attk fairly well with consistent dmg....

[steelbadger]

As far as I'm aware there are no effects exactly like those you are describing, however you will find that longer delays are better due to the nature of auto-attack and CA queueing:Auto-attack will not occur if you are stunned, casting or recovering; what happens is it is delayed until the next opportunity, however only one swing with each weapon can be queued.  One swing can be queued for your main hand and off-hands respectively.  So a weapon with a very short delay (1.3 seconds when dual-wielded, say) will only give you a window of 2.5 seconds to use your CA's, or you lose a swing (2.5 seconds assuming you begin the cast the moment the previous auto-attack swing has hit, and assuming you have super-human reaction times) or, more likely a 2-1.3 seconds window.  Assassins by-and-large have very fast casting CA's, and assuming you specced into Repeated Stabbing for your Assassin AA's, you have a <i>very</i> small recovery time.  Our usual cast time is 0.5 seconds and our recovery time with RS is a mere 0.25 seconds.  That should mean that we shouldn't lose many, if any, swings.However, there are other factors; queueing combat arts and using Concealment.If you queue a combat art you do <i>not</i> give time for your auto-attack to swing between the first CA and the queued CA.  Therefore if you where to use a 1.3 second delay weapon you may lose a swing (as the combined time for 2 CA's is 1.5 seconds, if you began casting the first CA 0.2 seconds or less before your next auto-attack swing).  A weapon with a longer delay, however, has a far longer queue time.  A dual-wielded 5.3 second delay weapon gives you a window of up to more than 10 seconds (between 5.3 and 10.5 seconds window, depending on timing)That allows you to get a maximum of 14 CA's off in a queue before you lose a swing, and even if your timing is <i>bad</i> you should still be able to maintain your auto-attack swings with just one short break in your queue every 5 CA's (or every 5-6 seconds).A concealment chain is a queue of about 8 seconds, so assuming you time it reasonably well you can fully utilise Concealment's duration without losing CA swings.  With a short delay weapon this is not possible.As a result of this effect you also see another benefit:Crits and Procs are, while expressed as a number of procs per minute in item descriptions, chance based.  The number of procs per minute is a method of expressing the percentage chance for that event to occur in a way that is the same for all weapons regardless of delay.So if a 1.3 second delay weapon has a proc that hits 3 times per minute it actually means that each hit has 6.5% chance to occur on each swing.A 5.3 second delay weapon with the same proc has a 26% chance to detonate the effect.This means that a long delay weapon will usually achieve higher crit and proc rates, as it will almost never lose swings due to CA's and stuns, while a 1.3 second delay weapon will.In the previous example, assume the 1.3 second delay weapon loses 30% of its swings into the aether due to queued combat arts, while the 5.3 second delay loses no swings.1.3 second delay, should proc 3 times per minute, 6.5% chance to proc on each swing, by losing 30% of its swings it will now only proc 2.1 times per minute.whereas a 5.3 second delay weapon loses none of its swings and retains the 3 ppm.Of course there are other factors, like miss-rates (due to the mob parrying or avoiding), but while these do have an effect they have a roughly equal effect on all weapon delays (assuming infinite time).Theoretically there are certain combinations of hit rate and, delay and auto-attack duration that could yield marginal benefits for short delay weapons, as the extra time between the swings of long delay weapons makes their damage slightly more streaky [Example:  10 second fight, long delay weapon only gets in one hit, while short delay weapon gets in 7 hits, if the long delay does x4 the damage of the short delay per hit (as it would if theoretical DPS was equal) then the short delay weapon comes out on top by a considerable margin, however this is completely dependant on very small changes in the duration of an encounter, and can't really be planned for]It should also be noted that haste makes the difference quite important, at 200 haste buff (125% auto-attack speed increase).1.3 seconds becomes just 0.58 seconds.  And 5.3 becomes 2.4 seconds.Hope that's the kind of thing you're looking for.

[Woogie526]

IS there a UI mod that tells you when you will swing again?I've noticed if I time my CA's right after the animation shows for my autoattack animation.  Is there a more efficient way to know when to throw a few CA's between autoattacks?

[steelbadger]

No, you get get indications of when you swing, but there are no mods (of which I am aware) that count down between melee swings, remember that the time between swings is just a few seconds, I don't think a parser can work fast enough to achieve the level of accuracy needed.Best I can suggest is set up act to recognise your melee swings, then count to two after every bing.

[Jardon]

<p>If you have longer delay weapons (4+ seconds) and are speced for Repeated Stabbing and Poise, there is really no reason to worry about timing your auto attack.</p>

[Woogie526]

Well I'm only 28 with the 1.6 second weapons atm <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />I guess over time it will get easier <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Shadow_Viper]

Poise?

[Zin`Car]

Longer delay weapons not only hit harder but more accurately = fewer misses.  Think about it as if you were holding two knives and swinging around uncontrolled as fast as possible with no regard to what you hit... just so long as you were sorta aimed in the right direction.  Now think about taking your time and carefully exacting precision strikes.  SOE cannot determine whether you are a mindless maniac or a skilled weilding of the blade.  So they account for it with game mechanics.  Faster weapons may let you swing more times but it's not as accurate.  Slower weapons are.

[Jardon]

<cite>Shadow_Viper wrote:</cite><blockquote>Poise?</blockquote><p>Then end line ability in the Agility line of the preditor tree.</p><p>As to why slower weapons, because a slower weapon procs more when hasted, then a fast weapon, since all weapon procs are normalized at 3 seconds before taking into account the haste.</p>

[Tarmor]

Exactly what I was looking for.I didn't realize that proc rate was normalized pre-haste, but I should have figured it would be.  As for the CA queueing and auto-attack clipping, on a clipped auto-attack is the swing simply delayed or is it completely missed?i.e. the swing timer reaches zero during a CA preventing it from going off immediately, does it stay at zero and swing at the end of the CA or does the timer simply reset and the swing is completely lost?

[steelbadger]

<cite>Jardor@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Shadow_Viper wrote:</cite><blockquote>Poise?</blockquote><p>Then end line ability in the Agility line of the preditor tree.</p><p>As to why slower weapons, because a slower weapon procs more when hasted, then a fast weapon, since all weapon procs are normalized at 3 seconds before taking into account the haste.</p></blockquote>I was under the impression that this method of normalization was removed some time ago due to the confusion it caused, and they instead implemented the system of ppm (procs per minute).  In the PPM system you see the normalized rate (instead of the un-normalized rate of the percentage chance system) so there is now no 'standard' because a standard is only applied when conversion must be done and ppm requires no conversion to be given in a normalized form.  To normalize a ppm expressed proc makes no real sense.It will proc 3 times per minute on an un-hasted weapon (statistically, of course, not absolutely) no matter what the delay of that weapon is.I also don't understand why a slower weapon would, assuming identical hit-rates, proc more than a fast weapon.  I have always regarded it as a result of other systems at work in favour of slow weapons (missed swings, primarily).@Tarmor:The swing is delayed, but only until the <i>next</i> swing of <i>that weapon</i> is due.  When it is delayed it will go off at the first available opportunity (when you are neither casting nor recovering).That means that your main hand can have one swing delayed, and your offhand can likewise have one swing delayed, for a maximum duration equal to the delay of your weapon.

[Norrsken]

<cite>steelbadger wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jardor@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Shadow_Viper wrote:</cite><blockquote>Poise?</blockquote><p>Then end line ability in the Agility line of the preditor tree.</p><p>As to why slower weapons, because a slower weapon procs more when hasted, then a fast weapon, since all weapon procs are normalized at 3 seconds before taking into account the haste.</p></blockquote>I was under the impression that this method of normalization was removed some time ago due to the confusion it caused, and they instead implemented the system of ppm (procs per minute).  In the PPM system you see the normalized rate (instead of the un-normalized rate of the percentage chance system) so there is now no 'standard' because a standard is only applied when conversion must be done and ppm requires no conversion to be given in a normalized form.  To normalize a ppm expressed proc makes no real sense.It will proc 3 times per minute on an un-hasted weapon (statistically, of course, not absolutely) no matter what the delay of that weapon is.I also don't understand why a slower weapon would, assuming identical hit-rates, proc more than a fast weapon.  I have always regarded it as a result of other systems at work in favour of slow weapons (missed swings, primarily).@Tarmor:The swing is delayed, but only until the <i>next</i> swing of <i>that weapon</i> is due.  When it is delayed it will go off at the first available opportunity (when you are neither casting nor recovering).That means that your main hand can have one swing delayed, and your offhand can likewise have one swing delayed, for a maximum duration equal to the delay of your weapon.</blockquote>no, the underlying system wasnt changed. they jsut removed the misguiding % proc rates since they didnt quite reflect the proc rates since you had to calculate the real procrate yourself. the system is still in effect afaik

[steelbadger]

<cite>Ulvhamne@Nagafen wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite></cite>no, the underlying system wasnt changed. they jsut removed the misguiding % proc rates since they didnt quite reflect the proc rates since you had to calculate the real procrate yourself. the system is still in effect afaik</blockquote>Yes, the system wasn't changed, in terms of server side calcs, however when it comes to how we read into the procs we can now disregard normalization.The way normalization worked, so far as I'm aware, was a percentage chance to proc, assuming a 3 second delay.  The way one worked out how many times a 4 second or 2 second delay weapon procced was by working out a procs per minute for the 3 second delay weapon (which remained constant for all weapon delays) and then working out the percentage chance of any one swing being a proc.  With the removal of the percentage system of labelling we no longer need to consider the "standard" delay in our analysis of a weapon, therefor the suggestion that a weapon proc needs to be adjusted for normalization is wrong as there is nothing to normalize.  AFAIK.