-attack duration for DPS classes

There's been two really interesting threads on the official forums regarding -attack duration% relics buffs and the effect that these have on DPS. First is one on champions here. The conclusion which is reached there is that attack duration is very, very important to champion DPS and that because sustainable (pip wise) champion rotations are rarely limited by either cooldowns or ICPR and do not have inductions complciating things, -attack duration almost always gives a proportional increase in DPS and is therefore pretty much the most important stat for champs. The recommendation therefore is to always slot double -attack duration runes to get the extra 5% incrase in DPS (even though the current options have awful secondary stats) and to make up ICPR or morale whatever on your other gear if you have to.

Then there's this post in the hunter forums on whether it's better boosting ranged offence or -attack duration with relics. The conclusion here is a little bit more complicated, because (from what is in the discussion) inductions, cooldowns and power management are more important considerations to hunters than champions. However, again, the general conclusion is that -attack duration runes are the way to go for hunters, especially given the steep diminishing returns on ranged offence.

I'm interested if anyone has information on attack duration influences RK tactical DPS, especially as in most situations RKs aren't getting significant benefit from autoattacks (which are one of the key things which benefit from -attack duration).

Both of these discussions also highlight the huge benefit of the captain 'war cry' buff and also the power of debuffs such as disable and wind lore which increase enemy attack duration.

It's not sexy, because it doesn't show up on your stat sheet in any way, but it seems that -attack duration is a very important 'stat' for DPS classes.

Yup, I've already had a good read of the Champ one and darn it, I don't have any of the old attack speed relics

However, this is why I have flurry traited and use it. Come RoI, Champ changes and lvl75 LI's I'll be having a much better look at my relics and sort out a balanced replacement. But for now, I think my LI's are just going to have to be what they are. I can still get the job done, when I'm not being held back.

Anthony wrote:Yup, I've already had a good read of the Champ one and darn it, I don't have any of the old attack speed relics

However, this is why I have flurry traited and use it. Come RoI, Champ changes and lvl75 LI's I'll be having a much better look at my relics and sort out a balanced replacement. But for now, I think my LI's are just going to have to be what they are. I can still get the job done, when I'm not being held back.

It really doesn't take much to get up a specific T6 relic which the current attack duration ones are. One run through NCF basically gets you enough relics, and you can use a small amount of shards to meld one T6 rune into another if you combine the wrong one. RoI is still 3 months away, and while flurry is good, +5% more damage is even better! And as you will have seen, the strong consensus is that even though the secondary stats suck the new -AD relics are still worth.

Yeah, I have two issues with it mainly. In one case my Rune LI still has all of the old top level relics before the Li system was changed. So for example on has a +1500 incoming healing (something that you just can't get any more). The other problem is that they changed which set has what stats. So, off the top of my head, say I replaced the Gem one with incoming healing for attack speed, I'd then have to replace the settings relic with the one that does now have incoming healing (tho at a lower rating), which would then mean I'd have to replace the remaining relic to make up for the lost of the stats on the settings one I just replaced.

Also, while I have my incoming healing more then capped with my current default gear, if I swap out something for say acid damage reduction or fire reduction damage, then I still need my Rune LI relics and default healing legacy to try and keep total incoming up high (tho not capped when I do that).

Basically, while I understand the advantage the attack speed relics would make, it's also a total house of cards and at this stage I feel it's not worth pulling my build apart and trying to rebuild. I just think it would hurt my survivability too much for the sake of a little more DPS.

Gotcha. I believe they're in the rune slot not gem, so might just be worth double checking if you have any room to move but if not, that's cool.

yeah, may well be rune, just trying to remember off the top of my head. But then that's something else important at the moment (still think it's the healing relic) and hence it all plays out like I said.
So sure, RoI is 3 months away, but I just don't feel like doing a rebuild now and then another come RoI.

As for RK's and attack speed, while I've not tested it, I can't see it making any real difference. With just about everything having either inductions or cool downs, I can't see how how attack duration would really have any impact.

i'm asking on the RK forums to try to confirm this, but I -attack duration buffs reduce the time between RK lightning attacks, which are 'fast' but not 'instant' skills.

I'm not sure how much RKs benefit from autoattacks between skills - I might get spogg to do a parse with combat analysis while standing next to a mob to see how significant those little melee autoattacks are. I know for LMs autoattacks are literally our second largest contribution to DPS (behind burning embers), but that might be because our autoattacks use both a two handed weapon and an offhand sword, not sure if the DPS from the runestone actually adds up to very much.

I'm not sure exactly how a reduce time between lightning attacks would matter. other then 1 main skill, all the rest have cooldowns, so if your hitting them as soon as they pop up I can't see much of a time reduction, but I could be wrong.

As for malee autoattacks, any experience I've had, which is usually when mobs are in close range and you get disarmed, the damage from those is really stuff all. Any single skill attack would make up for seconds of malee attacks.

So while it would be interesting to be proved wrong, I have a feeling reduced attack duration relics matter stuff all. If we could get a reduction in induction time, then that would matter.

Hi,

I am keen to testing. I also tested by myself with a capatain when traited with War-cry improvement and without.
The outcome is pretty different. I'm not going to give any more details since the calculation must not inaccurate.

Based on both my understanding of how these things work and the responses in this thread, -attack duration helps RKs by lowering the actual time it takes to cast non-induction skills. While CA/SS appear to be pretty instant, they are classed as 'fast' not 'instant' and do take up game time to cast and have their effect, and it is this time that is reduced by -attack duration (in addition to autoattacks).

The people in that thread make the point that RK DPS rotations are cooldown limited, though, unlike champion rotations. However if you can get enough -attack duration to make your rotation fit 3 CAs in between the scribes spark cooldown, that could be a big increase in DPS. Whether the -5% just from slotting two attack duration runes gets you there though is hard to say, but I imagine traited war cry might get you close (esp in combination with the relics). Even if you can't quite fit in 3 totally before the cooldown ends, doing a rotation of SS-CA-CA-CA-SS (instead of two CAs in between) with -attack duration could be a DPS increase overall.

I would really like to see some parses on RK autoattack damage too. Autoattacks dont' just happen if you're sitting there doing nothing, even when I'm firing off skills constantly on queue on my LM I'm still doing very significant autoattack damage just between animation time. I suspect the same might be true of RKs.

Psychobabble wrote:I would really like to see some parses on RK autoattack damage too. Autoattacks dont' just happen if you're sitting there doing nothing, even when I'm firing off skills constantly on queue on my LM I'm still doing very significant autoattack damage just between animation time. I suspect the same might be true of RKs.

If we are at range, then we don't autoattack, so it's nothing. If mobs is within malee range, then you get malee autoattacks, but thats really just hitting the mob with a rock, that from what I can tell, has no real malee damage, unlike say a sword even without the use of any skills.

So yeah, the attack duration may make some difference, but I'd need some serious numbers and comparison to what you give up if your using attack duration relics.

Either way, my gut makes me think that while it's great for a Champ, hardly worth it for a RK and god knows what all the class revisions will have on all this.

yep, I know RK autoattacks are melee. As I said, I would like to see parses but I doubt they're as insignificant as you'd assume. Eg. someone just replied:

To clarify what attack duration does:

There is a certain amount of time (call it x) that must pass between the start of one command and the start of the next. When using induction based skills (like fire), this time is covered by the span of the induction. When using skills without an induction, this time determines how long you must wait between two successive skills.

You guys keep mentioning inductions, but RK lightning DPS has like, no inductions at all. I use attack duration on both my LI and my satchel and I definitely feel it is a significant difference. I do not use attack duration on my fire stone or satchel, however, as it would be a waste.

And for the individual who asked about auto attacks, depending on the fight and buffs going around (ballad of war etc), my melee DPS can contribute as much as 10-14% of my total DPS over many different parses. If it's safe to stand in melee range, you definitely should.

- attack duration has nothing to do with Auto-attacking. Already tested

With War-cry buff at -15percent attack duration CA and SS hit in every 1.x sec (less than 1.5 sec)

So I assume that without the war cry buff they hit every 1.5s? If it's working properly, then -15% duration from war cry (is it 15%? I thought it was 12% traited, couldn't be bothered looking it up lol) should make them hit every 1.275s.

autoattacks happen between skills. Shorten the duration you have between skills, the more autoattacks you get in a given amount of time. i think . It's not that it makes your autoattacks happen quicker if you're just sitting there autoattacking though.

If you want, you can use this log stamper to timestamp your combat log and see the exact duration between skills. That's what the guys in the champion thread were using to test.

hmm, 10-14% malee damage, that sounds like a lot and higher then I would have expected. Still, a proper parses test would be interesting, to see if it is actually better or just 'feels' better.

Yes. It is -15% Attack Duration with trait.

Here's a turtle parse someone posted:



Melee attacks were more than 18% of total DPS there.

Bottom line - if you're DPSing on your RK, you should be in melee range unless there's a good reason not to be (also turbine's stupid for not giving RKs a ranged autoattack, like hunters). That's a lesson I only really appreciated after doing some parses on my LM too, this sort of wholly unexpected conclusion is one of the reasons why it's a good idea to do parses if you can. The LM ones really blew my mind, eg. check this one out from a giant I killed with Earval last night:



It's a small sample size, but very similar to what I generally find - two of the top 3 damaging attacks there are melee and there is another melee attack down the list too (a "flanked" attack). All up, melee attacks actually did 42% of my damage in that fight, and those numbers would actually be HIGHER in my non-DPS (ie raid) spec, because my DPS spec gives very significant % boosts to tactical and fire damage.

This is a different story in AOE situations of course, LMs can do very significant tactical AOE damage. But in single target fight, LMs (and RKs) should really try to be in melee range.

yeah, I saw that pie chart and the malee damage is a lot higher then I expected. So in theory, a -5% attack duration would push that even more. Going to have to check it out next time I'm in a GS or something, not much point with solo stuff. I bet one will get a couple of strange looks with a RK right next to a Champ and darn it, I'm now going to need fear pots for the first mini GS boss