Ridiculous Attack Speed numbers

[Doppel]

Let's say you use arcane orb and electrocute with no passives or items for the sake of simplicity. If you attack twice as fast, you will still cast the same amount of arcane orbs per minute, but they will do 1/2 the damage (since weapon DPS is assumed equal, so double attack speed means 1/2 damage per hit). Sure, for each arcane orb you'll also cast an additional electrocute. However, since arcane orb deals more damage than electrocute in just about any situation with just about any rune choices (as it should, being a spender), a single full damage arcane orb is better than a 1/2 damage arcane orb plus a 1/2 damage electrocute. Obviously, this comparison gives same results for any 2 weapons of equal DPS and different speed.

If you have two resource spending attacks which do the same amount of DPS only one is twice as fast (and thus half as damaging) as the other, then the only difference is that the fast attack spends resources twice as fast per damage/time.
I think that's the jist of what you said right?

I think the biggest factor in favor of slow/high damage weapons is cooldown skills, pretty much all other skills highly benefit from fast attacks (even the example you gave about Arcane Orb, sure you'd save on resources, but that's the only upside versus everything you'd be loosing out on).

@ HardRock: Did someone test Rend?

[HardRock]

Yeah, I did.

I tried all the skills I mentioned. There could be exceptions to this rule, but I doubt it. If you think about it, this system makes sense and it's in line with non-DoT abilities and the intention of the devs to make faster weapons less resource efficient.

I'll note here, that Grasp of the Dead did scale with DPS, so most likely all DoTs with a cooldown will as well.

[Doppel]

I'm glad that's how Rend works since i'm all in favor of making slow/high damage weapons more viable.

[galzohar]

You talk of "only save resource" as if that's something small. But it isn't. It's a pretty big damage boost, especially when you consider the big damage difference between signature spells and spenders.

Passives and rune effects that give more resources don't change the fact that slower weapons will end up with more damage if given the same DPS and no proc or other special effects that favor faster weapons (which we don't even know the extent/availability of such effects so can't really know how significant they are). The only thing those passives/runes do is make you value DPS more compared to wepaon damage - They do not all of a sudden make the faster weapons (again, with equal dps) better than slower weapons! Of course, when you add them to other effects (such as higher DPS on the faster weapon due to damage rings), they might bring the faster weapons on top. Then again, they might not cut it. Then again, they might not even be needed if the other effects (say, damage on rings) are strong enough.

We really don't know what will happen in the end because it depends on too many factors (mostly gear affixes that we aren't sure how much of each we'll have), but one thing we know for sure: Without other effects, slower weapons with equal DPS will deal quite a bit more overall damage if given an equal amount of time to attack, especially for wizards and probably witch doctors.

[HardRock]

You talk of "only save resource" as if that's something small. But it isn't. It's a pretty big damage boost, especially when you consider the big damage difference between signature spells and spenders.

It wasn't my intention to trivialize this drawback of faster weapons and I don't think I used the word "only" to describe it. However like you've said before, Barbs, Monks and DHs have natural ways to mitigate this difference (generators), while Wizards can choose to do so with skill and runes.

We really don't know what will happen in the end because it depends on too many factors (mostly gear affixes that we aren't sure how much of each we'll have)

I agree.

Without other effects, slower weapons with equal DPS will deal quite a bit more overall damage if given an equal amount of time to attack, especially for wizards and probably witch doctors.

True, but this is irrelevant, since we'll always some kind of other effect in practice that will favor one type of weapons.

[galzohar]

I think the biggest factor in favor of slow/high damage weapons is cooldown skills, pretty much all other skills highly benefit from fast attacks (even the example you gave about Arcane Orb, sure you'd save on resources, but that's the only upside versus everything you'd be loosing out on).

Maybe I really should get lazy quoting... But it is a lot of work! Anyway, this is what I was referring to. For classes with natural regeneration, cooldowns will only be a small factor compared to resource efficiency. Resource efficiency is going to be a very big factor here that will need a lot of extra DPS from other factors (probably mostly from flat damage affixes from jewelry) to make up for it. Remember, spender+generator are going to be a very very big portion of your total damage!

True, but this is irrelevant, since we'll always some kind of other effect in practice that will favor one type of weapons.

Well, at lot of people seem to be confused about that, and don't realize the major advantage slower weapons have in that basic situation. And besides, at low levels, we're almost guaranteed to be at that situation, at least until we start getting some more optimal items with damage on them, if those items will even be optimal (they were in beta, but we'll have to see if they remain in release). I've seen many people carry 2 weapons or weapon+offhand in beta even though they had nothing that justifies using them over a strong (or even not that strong) 2-handed weapon, meaning they obviously don't realize the difference. Often they'd even have lower total DPS (after factoring everything) on top of having a faster attack speed, and that is known to be a DPS loss for 99% of the cases!

[zakaluka]

I guess I've re-evaluated it a bit; AP regen per time is indeed way bigger a factor than I originally thought. There are ways for me to build in extra AP regen on signatures, but even those abilities don't scale particularly well with haste. Since again, cycle time gets shorter with haste - still, signature regen per cycle remains a constant and time AP regen shrinks. Requiring more signatures per nuke.

My hope is that we can get around those drawbacks, (AP on crit?) because building and gearing to maximize sheer # of crits looks extremely appealing in many ways (for the wizard anyway). The best way to get the most possible number of crits would be:
- Choose skills that already have many damage components
- Include runes that proc additional damage components
- Most damage spells hardcast rather than channeled (dots and pets shouldn't gain ticks/hits from haste, right?)
- Very few cooldown abilities, but ONE powerful one to benefit from the cooldown reduction off crit (time bomb, archon, something else, doesn't particularly matter)
- Then stack as much haste as possible, and as much crit rate as possible, with enough AP-on-crit to balance out how quickly you'll be eating through AP.

It's kind of expensive on the affix budget, I bet. So without the right gear, I'm starting to think galzohar has a strong point.

Sorry, I don't know a whole lot about other classes.

[HardRock]

I've seen many people carry 2 weapons or weapon+offhand in beta even though they had nothing that justifies using them over a strong (or even not that strong) 2-handed weapon, meaning they obviously don't realize the difference.

Well, many people don't care about small differences in DPS. For example I prefer faster weapons over a slow one even if I lose a small amount of DPS, because they make the game feel more fluid. So don't think that just because someone uses an obviously weaker weapon he does it out of ignorance.

Often they'd even have lower total DPS (after factoring everything) on top of having a faster attack speed, and that is known to be a DPS loss for 99% of the cases!

As for the beta, actually after level 5 faster weapons were almost always better DPS-wise, because of the wounding rings that you could buy at the fence in town. See what I mean by additional effects?

[galzohar]

Even with those rings, at least for wizard, maybe unless you had an uber rare wand, the crafted level 10 2h sword was clearly better, and even good staves were worth considering if you didn't have a really good wand. A bit more DPS still doesn't justify a significantly lower damage per hit when you play a wizard, at least not with the skill and passive selection available in the beta.

[HardRock]

I had a ~16 DPS wand with an off-hand that also had +7 INT. A ~19 DPS crafted flamberge was a very clear drop in DPS for me. Even with level appropriate content the wand+offhand combo was more than enough to kill anything in one hit, so the higher damage of the flamberge would have been overkill.

It's also worth noting, that the flamberge actually had a higher iLevel (and so a higher req. level as well) than my wand or source had.

Things may change when we'll meet stronger enemies of course, but looking at the affixes I think faster weapons will always be on par with slower ones in DPS and only the Wizard and WD should care about their lower resource efficiency.