uux wrote:
It's true that the more often you hit with a particular weapon the more DPS you will do. That is true regardless of the delay. Two weapons with the same damage rating but different delays should see close to the same benefit to autoattack when haste is applied. The one with the lower delay will not simply do more damage because it hits more.
The major point is that you are going to delay your autoattack using a CA less using a slow weapon that using a fast weapon.
The advantage from a tanking stand point to a slow weapon is that there are less opportunities for the mob to riposte your attacks as you have a lesser overall number of swings.
There are also advantages when it comes to DPS. Dimglow touched on one aspect of it with his recent post in the achievement sticky at the top of this forum. The damage range on a slow weapon is usually larger as well. A slow weapon can spike high or low, while a fast weapon is pretty consistent. With a decent crit boost (STR line, outside buffs, equipment, potions) the damage tends to spike higher more often than not. There used to be an advantage to proc rates as well, but I don't know if this is still true.
Basically the higher the value of (max damage / min damage) the higher your crit will be (subject to the RNG). i.e. a weapon with 200-250 will crit for a lower value on average than a weapon with 100-250.