Attack Speed

Okay so thoughts on this subject. I get that people 'need' fast weapons because, breakpoints. Alright, is the issue then that the breakpoints are ill designed thus forcing folks to always use the same quickest bases? Or is there another solution out of this conundrum? I always get the feeling that not reaching certain BPs might be mitigated by huge boosts in damage output versus say, modifying the way BPs are calculated. What does the community think about this? I want to wield gigantic, high damage weapons again like I did in Classic. I don't like being 'forced' into a small pool of bases for every build in the game.

for the ww barb, if u could get to 5 frames with a

War Pike or

Thunder Maul it would be worth it, but u can only go to 6 frames....

that's why i chose botd in a 2-handed CB-
4 frames and 600 ave damage
cf Grief same speed 400 ave damage

o/c for

Berserk /

Concentrate - good luck with a 2 hand weapon...

ghostpos wrote: 23 hours ago

Okay so thoughts on this subject. I get that people 'need' fast weapons because, breakpoints. Alright, is the issue then that the breakpoints are ill designed thus forcing folks to always use the same quickest bases? Or is there another solution out of this conundrum? I always get the feeling that not reaching certain BPs might be mitigated by huge boosts in damage output versus say, modifying the way BPs are calculated. What does the community think about this? I want to wield gigantic, high damage weapons again like I did in Classic. I don't like being 'forced' into a small pool of bases for every build in the game.

Attack speed is also a matter of survival for some builds. A Strafezon build requires placing virtually all your attribute points in dexterity. Attack speed then becomes important for mana and life leech for survival.

Thank goodness for Breath of the Dying. Yeah I guess I'm just annoyed at the lack of theory crafting options for two-handed melee builds. To be fair, I know nothing about the amazon world as I'm aware bases like

Matriarchal Spear can slap.

Well, in theory, faster weapons do come with lower base dmg which in turn should result in a choice between 'speed' and 'dmg per hit'. Not inherently ill designed but rather a solid range.

In reality, that doesn't hold up across the board.
Yes, there are still a few builds/options where you can indeed happily

Sacrifice max attack speed in favor of massive dmg per hit and end up with the same or more overall dmg as you would in the speed variant.

But there are also quite a few builds for which weapon dmg itself ends up being a comparatively minor factor, resulting in speed winning across the board there as the other 'dmg boosts' don't scale based on speed or lack thereof. That's things like crushing blow, other dmg procs, dmg granted by skills (e.g. java stuffs) and so on. That part is the somewhat ill designed piece as you gain close to nothing from slowing down your attacks due to lack of scaling.

And then there are some builds of course in which you'd ideally hit a very specific attack speed which may well be neither the fastest nor the slowest but somewhere in between at which point you dive into the true theorycrafting beauty that is D2 as you build your speed around hit delays and all that jazz.

All in all, the core approach isn't ill designed I dare say and different builds still do have different priorities but yeah, skill/proc dmg and such not scaling with speed does shift things in clear favor of that for a fair few builds.

All the [complicated nitpicky components of the damage equation etc etc] are multiplied by your attack rate, so attack rate has an overwhelming effect on your overall damage

For example, the difference between 5-frame

Whirlwind and 4-frame

Whirlwind might seem small, but it's an overall DPS difference of 30%. Factor in crushing blow and deadly strike (BOTD has neither), and 5- or 6-frame

Whirlwind is fun, but not efficient

Fury druid has a wide range of decent choices for 2-hand bases, but 2-handed

Whirlwind was just too severely nerfed by patch 2.4, at least for my way of playing the game

marl71 wrote: 9 hours ago

All the [complicated nitpicky components of the damage equation etc etc] are multiplied by your attack rate, so attack rate has an overwhelming effect on your overall damage

For example, the difference between 5-frame

Whirlwind and 4-frame

Whirlwind might seem small, but it's an overall DPS difference of 30%. Factor in crushing blow and deadly strike (BOTD has neither), and 5- or 6-frame

Whirlwind is fun, but not efficient

Fury druid has a wide range of decent choices for 2-hand bases, but 2-handed

Whirlwind was just too severely nerfed by patch 2.4, at least for my way of playing the game

Yeah that checks. I wonder if Blizz can strike some middle-Ground between pre and post patch 2.4 with respect to

Whirlwind specifically. Or even just go back to it's original math, perhaps OP.

All this wouldn't be some issue if physical wasn't in disadvantage compared to elemental/magic attacks. Melee damage is totally screwed in this version of the game. Mosaicsin/Java/Novasorc are dominating by far and this destroys all diversity and tactic this game would offer otherwise.

Since 2H is inferior to dual 1H there is no real choice.

Bottom line is: you need to squeeze every inch out of your damage potential that's available, so better go dual wield. Or go

Double Throw.

I wish Blizz would do some balancing patches at least, but I don't think this will happen, because this needs to massively nerf OP builds and would be a lot of work. This game and the passionate player base would deserve it...

And before someone asks: Buffing melee to a comparable level would NOT solve the problem. The endgame of D2R is way too easy. Powercreep is the cause, not the solution!