Is Spectral Blade based off of AS or FCR?

[DonkeyHunter]

Is Spectral Blade based off of weapon attack speed or faster cast rate?

[konfeta]

Attack speed.

[barbarossa]

Fun fact: It also applies any bonus damage on your weapon. A weapon with +Cold damage will cause Spectral Blade to slow targets.

[demasked]

Blizzcon 2011 confirms that all the spells fcr is based on your weapon as.

So with 2h weapons you spells will do more damage, but will not be able to used quickly.

Or knives = less damage with spells, but faster cast rate with spells.

[Scorch Hellfire]

Yep... finally a reason for casters to give a crap about their weapons... although does life leech and things that usually only apply to melee hits also go to your spells? Because if not then that devalues that stat to worthless...

[konfeta]

Spectral Blade will really need a way to make itself the "melee Wizard skill" with these changes IMO. Otherwise, people will just be using Obsidian Arcane Orb or Explosive Blast or any of the point blank AoE nukes.

[jamesisbest]

People have always cared about their weapons as casters, but they only cared about the modifiers and any item requirements (also if it was 1 handed or 2 handed). I guess casters now finally care about weapon DPS.

[TheMythe]

Heh, i can see it now, a wizard running around with a Messerschmidt's Reaver screaming MUWUHAHAHAHAH!

[galzohar]

Yeah, there's still no info as to how they're going to make wizards not wanting something like that huge axe. Casting speed being based on weapon speed still encourages weapons with as much DPS as possible, not to mention arcane power being more efficient with high damage slow attacks makes big weapons even better. Maybe the caster weapons will have much better stats to compensate, but even that little was not talked about, or was it?

[cacophony]

Yeah, there's still no info as to how they're going to make wizards not wanting something like that huge axe. Casting speed being based on weapon speed still encourages weapons with as much DPS as possible, not to mention arcane power being more efficient with high damage slow attacks makes big weapons even better. Maybe the caster weapons will have much better stats to compensate, but even that little was not talked about, or was it?

Hopefully. The "inelegant" solution is to have mana/AP costs scale w/ your weapon, i.e., a spell costs more if you have a two handed weapon. It'd work, but it's kind of clunky. Of course, if you're using mana leech or Signature spells, then I guess it kind of balances out.