Theorycrafting? Yes Please!

[vileguy]

But also think about it. If a slow and fast weapon had the same damage modifier on skills based on weapon damage per second, then yeah resource management is even, but what about skill crits? Would they be based from weapon damage or dps also? Because if it's dps then fast weapons would be op, because they'd do the same crit dmg as slower weapons (if had the same dps and crits were based from this), yet be able to get them so much quicker.

If skills are based on dps not damage, then crits would be too. Either fast weapons do less damage and swing faster, or it's even. If faster weapons do more attacks for lower damage, it's the same dps but a lower damage per power. This is an imbalance. Chance to cast stuff would work the opposite way unless they did a Proc Per Minute system like wow, so yea it's hard to say if it would be balanced, but it's a much simpler system to make *weapon* speed only matter for auto attacks. Gear that increases attack speed should make you attack faster regardless.

To me
Slow weapons: higher hits, higher crits, less resources
Fast: Lower hits, lower crits, more crits, more resources, more resource regen (but you burn through it so much quicker too so maybe it will balance).

This is also true, but only for classes who regen based on their attacks. Demon hunter for instance does not, while barbarian and monk do (unless you count fundamentals, which obviously favors a fast weapon).

[galzohar]

Even proc per minute system in WoW prefered slow weapons, because slow weapons had increased chance per hit and thus instant attacks (that were limited by your resource rather than your weapon speed) had more chance to proc with those slower weapons, thus increasing total proc rate compared to a faster weapon used in the same way.

Hopefully they fix it in D3, for now in the beta it seems like an issue.

[vileguy]

Even proc per minute system in WoW prefered slow weapons, because slow weapons had increased chance per hit and thus instant attacks (that were limited by your resource rather than your weapon speed) had more chance to proc with those slower weapons, thus increasing total proc rate compared to a faster weapon used in the same way.

Hopefully they fix it in D3, for now in the beta it seems like an issue.

Yes, I cited this example as something that would make chance to cast better on slow, otherwise it's better with fast. Not sure it's an issue, if anything it just makes slow weapons better, doesn't mean fast weapons are bad.

[Strill]

So from what I see:

Skills that deal flat damage, such as Grenades and Chakram, favor fast weapons, as you can use the skills more often with no penalty due to low weapon damage. Unless you get hatred reduction on these abilities, however, they're not going to deal any more overall DPS with a fast weapon than with a slow weapon

Fundamentals gives you more hatred regen with fast weapons, and since we've confirmed that you automatically normal attack when out of Hatred, is overall a very convenient way to get hatred.

Any ability which deals %weapon damage is better with a slow weapon than with a fast weapon.

[galzohar]

Are the non-weapon-based abilities actually using the weapon attack speed? Or are they more like a "cast" speed? And what about stuff like the sentry or that rain of arrows thing that shoot repeatedly based on weapon damage (for that you'll prefer a slower weapon even if you ignore the discipline cost) - Those abilities will be messed up even if they normalize their resource cost.

[vileguy]

So from what I see:

Skills that deal flat damage, such as Grenades and Chakram, favor fast weapons, as you can use the skills more often with no penalty due to low weapon damage. Unless you get hatred reduction on these abilities, however, they're not going to deal any more overall DPS with a fast weapon than with a slow weapon

This wouldn't make sense. If skills use weapon dps not damage, contrary to the tooltips, then weapon speed shouldn't increase their activation rate either. This isn't to say that attack speed bonuses on items won't help, just that from a balance point of view, these 2 idea make sense together. It doesn't look like there's going to be variable costs for the spells based on speed though. I don't think weapon speed will affect chakra and grenade cast if the weapon damage based skills aren't based on dps of weapon.

Fundamentals gives you more hatred regen with fast weapons, and since we've confirmed that you automatically normal attack when out of Hatred, is overall a very convenient way to get hatred.

Fundamentals will certainly favor a fast weapon, but hopefully the skills don't favor slow ones.

Any ability which deals %weapon damage is better with a slow weapon than with a fast weapon.

I hope this is not the case, or that they change it. It would be sad to make the mistake of WoW all over again where fast weapons are junk.

Are the non-weapon-based abilities actually using the weapon attack speed? Or are they more like a "cast" speed? And what about stuff like the sentry or that rain of arrows thing that shoot repeatedly based on weapon damage (for that you'll prefer a slower weapon even if you ignore the discipline cost) - Those abilities will be messed up even if they normalize their resource cost.

Exactly. If it's based on weapon damage instead of dps, I have concerns. I don't want to have to pick weapons based on their slowness, that's lame. I want upgrades to be simple.

[galzohar]

I agree. Differences between advantages/disadvantage of slow/fast weapons should be minor at most for the game to have proper balance. I still wonder how they'll pull it off, though, if at all.

[Strill]

This wouldn't make sense. If skills use weapon dps not damage, contrary to the tooltips, then weapon speed shouldn't increase their activation rate either. This isn't to say that attack speed bonuses on items won't help, just that from a balance point of view, these 2 idea make sense together. It doesn't look like there's going to be variable costs for the spells based on speed though. I don't think weapon speed will affect chakra and grenade cast if the weapon damage based skills aren't based on dps of weapon.

The only way for it to possibly be balanced with the current setup is if flat damage skills are designed to favor 1-handed weapons and weapon damage skills favor 2-handed weapons. That would require that 1-handed weapons be able to use skills faster than 2-handed ones. Otherwise, for the most part, 2-handed weapons are best.

[Cevilo]

I like the idea, I started posting builds and explaining the use/thought process behind them on Xanga, until I realized I could post blogs here, so I'm posting blogs doing full explanations on my builds, I'm not posting the builds here because I feel it's a lot of clutter for a post, and I have a lot of ideas. I'm tagging all my blogs as Theorycraft I've all ready posted 1 of my 3 unique builds I'm looking into other builds as well and I'll post the other 2 builds on other blogs soon, (they are a lot easier to explain than my first build) I'm looking forward to reading every one's builds and how they think and what skills they find sync will together!

[Kalara]

I really hope one of the "powers that be" are either aware of the potential issues being raised here or come by to read this post.

The simplest solution I see is to decouple the weapon speed from skill casting. Have Increased Attack Speed bonuses, wherever the come from,but not the base speed of the weapon impact skill speed. You can then have the % weapon damage calculated upon the dps of the weapons.

This would not fix the issue of Fundamentals benefiting a fast speed weapon more, or that procs could be more effective with a slow weapon but the developers have stressed a number of times that they are not out to perfectly balance every potential combination of equipment, skills, and class. I can easily live with small disparities if the overall effect is having many different viable paths to becoming a hero of Sanctuary. I think the goal should be increasing this diversity with interesting choices. And the problem they should avoid is creating one path that makes all other choices pale in comparison. Having skill damage based upon damage instead of factoring in the time taken to generate that damage is an example of the later.