small or high delay on weapons ?

[Griffildur]

<p>Hi all,</p><p>I've made a baby assassin ... ( i know .. welcome to the dark side ... wait I was on that side anyway rofl ).</p><p>I've never truly understand why people say that higher delay weapons are better.</p><p>I've seen the statement that higher delay weapons proc more often ... I think this is pure rubbish to be honest. If a weapon effect procs twice a minute then it does not matter if the delay is 1,2,3,4,5 seconds it will still proc twice a minute. You would think that low delay .. means more autoattacks ... which means more dps.</p><p>So what am I missing here ?</p>

[Brimestar]

<p>The longer the delay the harder you hit for.</p>

[ruperick]

<p>Yes, as a raider I can assure you 4.0 delay rules.</p>

[Noxtherion]

<p>Some one can correct me if I am wrong on this, but here is my understanding on higher delay weapons. </p><p>Higher delay weapons will have a higher top end dmg, so with a decent % of melee crit you get a much larger benifit out of these weapons, since a crit is max dmg + 1 for the min dmg it will do.  Also from what I have found with my assassin (only lvl 71 atm)  But the majority of my dmg is from CA's,  With my weapons and no haste I have around 5 sec between auto attack swings,  so I am able to use a good number fo CA's between auto attacks.  Fast weapons will still hit when you stop using CA's but they will hit for alot lower dmg.  I also find that haste gives me a larger boost to dmg with high delay weapons then with fast weapons.</p><p>But the number one reason I believe that higher delay weapons (4sec) are better.  The parse.  I seem to group with other assassins on a regular basis, and the ones I group with tend to use weapons with a delay around 1.6  I use delay of 4 sec.  The other assassins are generally 2 - 3 levels higher then me.  But I zone wide will tend to be doing double their dmg.  Castle Mistmoor, Unrest, Obelisk of Blight I average about 1100 dmg, they will be doing 500 - 600.  Solo in KP my average is around 1500.   </p><p>As a side note, our epic weapon is a 4 sec delay, so why not get use to that speed of weapon.</p>

[-Arctura-]

<p>(( when you swing and hit you want it to count for something</p><p>With lifespike and Throatripper, usually crit for 4.5k per swing, regular hits 1.5k per swing.</p><p>Double attacks are nice, can get quad crits (if you are really lucky) for 18k in 1 second lol ( and thats just autoattack!)</p>

[Griffildur]

<p>now see, these last 2 explanations actually make a lot of sense and thank you both for posting.</p><p>I only have a problem when I get rubbish explanations, which obviously make no sense whatsoever, even to someone who's never played a melee class in EQ2.</p><p>I suppose it will take a lot of practice to find an optimal way of casting CA's in between auto attack swings <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />.</p>

[Brimestar]

<p>I make things go boom</p>

[-Arctura-]

<p><cite>Mrrshan@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>now see, these last 2 explanations actually make a lot of sense and thank you both for posting.</p><p>I only have a problem when I get rubbish explanations, which obviously make no sense whatsoever, even to someone who's never played a melee class in EQ2.</p><p>I suppose it will take a lot of practice to find an optimal way of casting CA's in between auto attack swings <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" />.</p></blockquote><p>(( you should see assassins in pvp... long delays we rip things up, your weapons are just ACHEING to go off on someone. When they do.... its like cannons lol..</p><p>apptly if you have Mythical it gets much much sweeter <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Gisallo]

<p>well two things really.  First thing is the idea that the bigger the spread the bigger the potential crit.  Thing is though If you are just on AA attack usually this washes out in the rinse because IF you crit 50% of the time for 10 hits at damage X and then 50% of the time for 35 hits at damage Y, they can be equal in theory.  Also remember that DA, the REALLY big hitter does not count for Auto attacks.  This will be important below.</p><p>What adds the wrinkle is this mechanic WHILE timing your autoattacks.  With a fast delay weapon it is WAY harder to time your autoattack and if you mess the timing up you have crushed it.  Example, on my zerker if I miss time firing a CA that means I have lost 1 autoattack (base speed of my epic is 3 secs.  With haste added in you can see thats NOT a lot of time to correct a flub).  On my scouts though I am looking at anywhere from 4-9 seconds of base delay (depedning if I am on a melee scout or my Ranger with those nasty long bow delays).  This gives you enough time so that if you miss time a CA and catch it you can still pause and let the AA fire off and possibly get that double or (if lucky quad) attack when if you over wrote it with the CA you would only be hoping for a critted CA on that cycle.</p><p>Get that ACT running, get that head set on and learn the love/hate relationship that is "ding' CA CA 'ding' CA..."  </p>

[hieronym]

<p>it basically boils down to attack speed/haste and the speed of your weapons</p><p>If you have a 1.5 second delay on your weapon and have haste then your weapon will probably hit every second as its impossible for the game mechanics to go any quicker than that (correct me if they changed this) Now if you have a long delay say 4 seconds with haste you can still hit every second but as you are using a long delay weapon the base damage of it will be a lot higher over a short delay weapon.</p><p>So 2 weapons, both hit the same time but one does twice the damage</p><p>ps always use weapons with the same delay otherwise all your timing will get messed up</p>

[Kabahl]

<p><cite>Mrrshan@Runnyeye wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hi all,</p><p>I've made a baby assassin ... ( i know .. welcome to the dark side ... wait I was on that side anyway rofl ).</p><p>I've never truly understand why people say that higher delay weapons are better.</p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><strong>I've seen the statement that higher delay weapons proc more often</strong></span> ... I think this is pure rubbish to be honest. <strong><span style="font-size: small;">If a weapon effect procs twice a minute then it does not matter if the delay is 1,2,3,4,5 seconds it will still proc twice a minute</span>.</strong> You would think that low delay .. means more autoattacks ... which means more dps.</p><p>So what am I missing here ?</p></blockquote><p>See, with weapons proc'ing, you ARE absolutely correct.  If a weapon says "2.0 times a minute" then, on average, over time, once every 30 seconds the weapon will "proc" and the effect will trigger.  And you are also correct, the delay doesn't matter.  Each weapon is "normalized" so the effect will still go off about once every 30 seconds . . . so "<strong>more often</strong>" is a bit of a misnomer. </p><p>Now, the thing is, to actually BE normalized, if your weapon has a 2.0 second delay and my weapon has a 4.0 second delay, you'll get twice as many SWINGS in that minute.  BUT, to normalize MY weapon to have that same proc rate of 2.0 times a minute, I'd need DOUBLE the chance, per each individual swing, for my proc to go off.  You'd have more swings per minute, with less of a chance per swing to proc, I'd have less swings with a greater chance per swing to proc, giving us both the same chance to "proc 2.0 times per minute."</p><p>So, a slower weapon DOES have a greater CHANCE to proc with each swing over a faster weapon, but, in the end, on average, they will proc for the same amount each minute . . .what this means or how this helps, in the long run, is another discussion entirely.</p><p>OH, and also, because of the time we spend in stealth, it is one time when our auto-attack is automatically turned off (which, believe me, is a GOOD thing . . . back in the day (some time before GU 13 or so) you actually had to manually turn off auto-attack when you used ANY ability that put you into hiding, or the auto-attack would go off, take you out of hiding, and you couldn't use your stealth attack . . . VERY annoying, that) SO, because of lag, or the mobs running around to aggro loss, or mem-wipes, or whatever, it helps to have a longer delay so you DON'T miss an auto-attack swing while in stealth.</p><p>Now, as others have explained, the longer the delay on the weapon the higher the MAX hit is for that weapon, although they DO have a tendency to have lower LOW hits as well.  The plus side is critical hits, which is why getting your chance to crit as high as possible is important.  If, after all calculations are made, you DO hit a mob AND that hit was a crit, if that crit would be LESS than the max hit, it gets bumped up to . .  I BELIEVE max hit + 1 (if memory serves, feel free to correct me on this).  So, technically, if your crit is 100%, you can just ignore that low hit, 'cause you'll never see it.  Your LOW hit will be the max of the weapon.  And, of course, your high crit hits will be MUCH more.</p><p>Add all that above AND the fact that, unlike any other combat bonus, critical hit chance affects auto-attack AND your combat arts, crit hit chance is key.  You DO want other combat bonuses (a haste item being up there, since we can only haste ourselves, temporarily, with Honed Reflexes).  But, overall, I'd choose crit over most anything else . . . Untill your unbuffed crit is reaching high 80s low 90s, then you might wanna sacrifice some crit for some other bonus.</p><p>At least, that's my 2 cents . . .</p><p>- Charn, 80 Assassin, Guk</p>