Help please- Can anyone assist with weapon speed ratios?

[Seraphim19]

Hello all,
Forgive me if this question appears to be a bit mundane, but it highly affects my damage output strategy...

Does anyone know for certain the timing ratios for the differences in weapon speeds? In otherwords, how must faster does a FAST attack than a MEDIUM? Does this rate consist with the difference between MEDIUM and SLOW? For example, perhaps the FAST attacks 50% faster than a MEDIUM, and so the ratio would be 1:1.5... Does anyone know this number? If the speed ratios are 1:1.5 (from a speed to the next fastest speed) is really 50%, then damage per second, a medium bow could potentially be more powerful than a slow...

If anyone would be generous enough to share their knowledge on this, I would be much obliged

[Miraculix]

I would assume it is the same as the damage ratio, to even things out. Otherwise it would just render some weapon classes useless.

[ncvr]

Very Fast is 25% faster than fast, I think fast is 25% faster than medium, medium 25% faster than slow and slow 25% faster than very slow. That's just an estimate though.

[amade]

Using short spell cooldowns as a measuring stick I roughly worked out that fast is around 1.5-2 sec, med is 2.5, slow is 3.5. It seems like there's only one second difference between each level of speed.

[Miraculix]

Yes, slow must be 3.5 by my calculations too, I used the same method. Shield piercing has a 7 second cooldown, every second shot with a slow longbow can be piggybacked by shield piercing exactly when cooldown is over.

[superdaveninja]

Wow, Amade, this information is most prudent Shout out to necro and mirac for your input as well.

So, according to Amade's data, the ratio of speed between medium and slow is 2.5 seconds to 3.5 seconds, or just 2.5:3.5. So, 2.5: 3.5 = 5:7 = 1: 7/5 = 1:1 2/5, or 1:1.4, which can also be read at 40%. In plain terms, the medium speed is 40% faster than the slow weapon.

So when buying a weapon, one must examine the damage/ second capabilities of each weapon, as the slow weapon will be inflated due to its slower speed, but the medium speed, slightly lower damage per hit but at a faster rate, might in fact have a greater damage per second ratio. So heres where the speed ratio comes in to play. Because the ratio we've found is 1:1.4, we divide the medium weapon's damage by 1 to find the damage/ second, but for the slow weapon, we must divide by 1.4. Then with those figures can we determine if the slow weapon is worth its damage or if medium speed is actually a better deal.

Another, perhaps more simple way we can determine this is simply by taking the medium speed's damage, and applying a 40% bonus to it, and seeing how those figures compare to the slow weapon. For example, say you have a 26-32 med speed. We apply the 40% (speed ratio difference): 26 + 40% (26) = 26 + 10.4 = 36.4 and 32 + 40% (32) = 32 + 12.8 = 44.8.
Therefore, in order for a slow weapon to as good or better than a medium weapon, it would have to do approx 36.4 - 44.8, which usually does not occur, and so the medium weapon is the better deal.

In conclusion, the medium speed usually does more damage than the slow weapon.

[Miraculix]

dang :/

I sure hope that's not the case... I've been using slow weapons all the time

[superdaveninja]

well, there may be other reasons for using a slow weapon that isnt covered in this theorem. one may be, you are a hunter and every hit counts, so you wanna have a slow bow that packs a punch. you may need a fast weapon to whip out spell combos ASAP. the biggest reason i would advocate using a slow weapon would be with the use of particular skills, like southern cross and lethal strike, where you get 100% weapon attack etc, and as such, you get the greatest amount of damage out of those skills using the slowest weapon possible, for even though the slower weapons have less damage per second, they dish out the greatest amount of juice in one hit. the only reason why we started this thread was to address the damage per second efficiencies of the weapons vs speed. so no worries mirac you were probably doing one of these

[ncvr]

Originally Posted by superdaveninja

well, there may be other reasons for using a slow weapon that isnt covered in this theorem. one may be, you are a hunter and every hit counts, so you wanna have a slow bow that packs a punch. you may need a fast weapon to whip out spell combos ASAP. the biggest reason i would advocate using a slow weapon would be with the use of particular skills, like southern cross and lethal strike, where you get 100% weapon attack etc, and as such, you get the greatest amount of damage out of those skills using the slowest weapon possible, for even though the slower weapons have less damage per second, they dish out the greatest amount of juice in one hit. the only reason why we started this thread was to address the damage per second efficiencies of the weapons vs speed. so no worries mirac you were probably doing one of these

He is a marksman.

I use fast speed shortbows on my marks

Shortbows are fun.

[Valorius]

Any spell with +100% weapon damage favors a slower speed/heavier hitting weapon. +100% weapon dmg is a lot more with a slow bow than it is with a medium bow, and a medium bow delivers a lot more +100% dmg than a fast one does.

+100% bow dmg for my 30/slow xym bow is almost 400 dmg
+100% bow dmg for my 25/med bow is approx 330 dmg
+100% bow dmg for my 25/med SB is approx 280
+100% bow dmg for my 25/fast SB is approx 180

These are rough estimates based on gameplay, but all of them "are close enough for government work."

The biggest difference in weapon speed manifests itself in spellcast time. The actual natural non-spell casting attack time between a fast, med, or slow bow is pretty negligible...but when casting spells the faster weapons have a much greater ROF. My elven SB casts defensive buffs so fast it's almost "instantaneous."