Thread: Attack speed buffs and debuffs?

What's the effect of changes in attack speed, e.g. Anthem of Prowess, Cry of the Wizards, Filth Crawlers, etc.?

Does it affect skills? Just auto-attacks? How does that play out for mobs?

And by the way, which mobs are affected by Cry of the Wizards debuffs? E.g., I rarely feel as if I'm slowing anybody with it in a skirmish.

Attack speed affects how often in a set period of time you can use a skill. You know the little ants that crawl around a skill icon indicating that it is the next one about to go off? The lower attack duration you have, the less time you'll see those little ants before the skill fires.

All mobs that are immune to slows are also immune to the -attack speed debuff of Cry of the Wizards, unfortunately, because Turbine has never gotten around to separating out the two components of this skill like they have with other skills from other classes (notably, Stagger/Guardians and Sticky Tar/Lore-masters). When a mob takes longer to get off attacks, the less damage you will take from being attacked from that mob. That's why many Tanks use Clubs to tank with, due to the passive debuff for attack duration that clubs give when used on mobs.

Please note that I have tested attack speed buffs on our healing skills (I could dig up the post, but I'm too lazy to do so... if you really want to, it's somewhere here on the Minstrel forums). Attack speed buffs like a Captain's War-cry and our own Anthem of Prowess in no way affect our healing skills (like Bolster Courage), but they will speed up our actual attacking skills. Also note that attack duration has no effect on inductions and no effect on skill animations. I have not been able to determine if attack duration has an effect on after-cast delays (for example, the after-cast delay on Coda of Fury), but I assume that it does.

Hope that helps!

I'm still confused. (Albeit not about as many aspects as before -- thanks!!)

First, I suspect you misspoke when you seemingly implied that attack speed (de)buffs have no effect on auto-attacks. Or do you really mean that?

Second, I'm clueless as to the difference between the length of time it takes to execute a skill and its animation. What is the significance of an animation that takes a long time if it isn't skill execution time as well?

I.e., skills take time to execute (I thought that was the animation time) and there's an aftercast -- and what else is there?


Meanwhile, I have simple confirmation of what you said about attack speed and induction length not being the same thing -- one of the fire buffs at Amon Sul separately affects (by the same amount) both those figures.

From my understanding (and I could very well be wrong, someone please correct me if I am!), attack speed affects auto attacks in that because you're skills are firing off faster you'll have more auto attacks in between skills. We might have to go ask the people on the Hunter/Champion forums for this, because they tend to get all number-y and write epic posts about how Needful Haste and Flurry and their own buffs change their outgoing damage.

For the second bit... well, have you ever had all three of the Filth Crawlers put the -attack speed debuff on you? I have, and it stinks, because it messes up my whole rotation. I know the rhythm of a fight, how it should feel, and how fast I can hit my skills without overwriting them. With that debuff on me, I tend to accidentally overwrite my skills. For example, I'll use Call of Orome, Herald's Strike, then Call to Fate, hitting the next skill while the first is still executing to queue it up. With the debuff, because it takes longer for each skill to actually fire, I might accidentally overwrite Herald's Strike because I hit Call to Fate too early, based off my normal rhythm. This has nothing to do with the animation of the skill, but rather how long it takes to fire (those little ants that march around the skill icon before it goes off).

There is the skill execution (the ants), the animation (your character waving her arms around), and the after-skill delay before the next skill is activated. The animation and the after-skill delay are variable based on skill, but always the same every time you use the same skill. The skill execution is what is affected by attack speed buffs/debuffs.

I THINK. Again, please someone chime in and correct me if I'm wrong here, but this is what I know about how the game works.

I'm glad someone asked this question because I'm a HUGE proponent for - attack duration runes on weapons for most classes and I wanted to see if it also applied to minnies as well. Can anyone verify this for me please?

Getting stacked by +attack duration debuffs by creeps (wargs) really suck.

Attack duration is a strange beast. When I have -40% attack duration buff on my Warden (through Recklessness and Androit Manuever) it feels and looks like the actual animations are faster. And yet when I have the +50% attack duration on him (from thos filth crawlers for example) it seems like it just takes longer to start the skill, but
once it does start the animation is normal speed.

I have tested -attack duration on auto attacks and it does speed them up on my Warden.

Mobs definitely take longer in between attacks when hit with CotW, and it should be all mobs hit with the blast.

Either way you should know that attack speed buffs are multiplicative and not additive so you will never get to -100% attack duration - not that I think that is possible anyways. But if you are considering alot of -attack duration buffs/runes, just know that each one you add is less effective than the last.

So after some carefull observation it would seem that -/+attack duration affect the global cooldown only after you use a skill. In some mmos like rift and SWTOR this global cooldown is visible, in that all of your skills share a quick (usually 1 second) cooldown after any skill is used and you will see a 1 second greyed out period where you can not use any of your skills (although you can queu them up).

In lotro it would seem we do not get to visually see this global coodown but it is there nonetheless and is most apparent when we have +attack duration debuffs on us where the skill is obviously queued (it has the little ant animation going around the icon) but nothing is happening. What is happening is the skill is waiting for the global cooldown to be finished and then it executes.

Hope this helps make things clearer.

Thanks, all!

I gather that nobody posting in this thread really knows, but that most of you have more informed guesses than mine.

It certainly doesn't feel to me as if 20% change to attack speed really changes the the number of skills one can get off by a full 20%. That observation is consistent with everybody's taken on things.

It doesn't look to me as if animation speeds are affected any, and I also can't think of why the developers would put themselves through the pain of having such an effect. That too is consistent with what everybody seems to think they're experiencing.

Beyond that, we don't seem to have a lot of certainty yet.

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

It doesn't look to me as if animation speeds are affected any, and I also can't think of why the developers would put themselves through the pain of having such an effect. That too is consistent with what everybody seems to think they're experiencing.

It definitely affects skill animations. The easiest way to see this is to use an attack with multiple blows, like the Champ skill Brutal Strikes, and timestamp the combat log (Dwalor did this a while back and posted the result on the forum, but I couldn't find them again so it might've been pruned). It doesn't seem to affect animation time by as much as it affects post-animation delay and auto-attack frequency etc, but it's there.

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

It definitely affects skill animations. The easiest way to see this is to use an attack with multiple blows, like the Champ skill Brutal Strikes, and timestamp the combat log (Dwalor did this a while back and posted the result on the forum, but I couldn't find them again so it might've been pruned). It doesn't seem to affect animation time by as much as it affects post-animation delay and auto-attack frequency etc, but it's there.

I think "post animation delay" = "global cooldown", in that it is the wait time between attacks. One thing I would like to test if I get the time is placing some -attack duration buffs on my minnie and seeing if I can get more heals in a set amount of time out of him. If my theory about attack speed affecting the global cooldown is correct then it should also affect time between heals.

Unless heals have a different global cd than attack skills...sigh, so much theorycraft so little time

Originally Posted by danno8

I think "post animation delay" = "global cooldown", in that it is the wait time between attacks. One thing I would like to test if I get the time is placing some -attack duration buffs on my minnie and seeing if I can get more heals in a set amount of time out of him. If my theory about attack speed affecting the global cooldown is correct then it should also affect time between heals.

Unless heals have a different global cd than attack skills...sigh, so much theorycraft so little time

It doesn't. I've done that particular test. My best theory as to why it doesn't work that way is that heals are not attacks so they are unaffected by attack duration. *shrug*

Originally Posted by danno8

I think "post animation delay" = "global cooldown", in that it is the wait time between attacks. One thing I would like to test if I get the time is placing some -attack duration buffs on my minnie and seeing if I can get more heals in a set amount of time out of him. If my theory about attack speed affecting the global cooldown is correct then it should also affect time between heals.

Unless heals have a different global cd than attack skills...sigh, so much theorycraft so little time

Well, -Attack Duration does effect global cooldown, but some skills have an even longer post-animation delay. If you don't believe me, try Wild Attack -> Swift Strike and compare it to Champion's Challenge -> Swift Strike (again with a timestamped combat log).

Originally Posted by Cloudie-wan

It doesn't. I've done that particular test. My best theory as to why it doesn't work that way is that heals are not attacks so they are unaffected by attack duration. *shrug*

This is true for the induction heals, but I don't see why it shouldn't speed up the rate at which you can use inductionless heals (like, say, spamming traited RtS). I haven't tested this with a timestamped log yet, but I'd be surprised if it had no effect on the animations.

In regards to -2.5% attack duration runes on a 2hander....

If I understand the theory of attack durations correctly, and pausing to not jip auto attacks then the dps boon from faster skill rotations is minor.

The major part of -attack duration dps comes by adding in 1 auto attack swing within the cd...so at some point their is a pause in gain until you reach enough -attack duration to add another auto attack.

So basically I won't see much of a dps boon from -attack duration until I break through to another auto attack swing. Correct?

Also, If I blow through my skill rotation at the max rate will 1 or 2 runes on a 2H reduce my cd long enough to slip an additional auto attack in between skill firing or is the gap to the next autoattack so large that -5% can't reach it?. I know it's based on weapon, class but your best anecdotal is what I'm looking for.


adding link for thread reference.
http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Mecha...ol-Down_Timers

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

Well, -Attack Duration does effect global cooldown, but some skills have an even longer post-animation delay. If you don't believe me, try Wild Attack -> Swift Strike and compare it to Champion's Challenge -> Swift Strike (again with a timestamped combat log).

Oh I believe you. The coda on minnies right now takes about 2 seconds of delay after the animation is complete. This is suppose to be fixed in update 5 I believe.

It's as if the animations on skills like these are allotted a certain amount of time to complete before the global cooldown kicks in, and if the animation is shorter than the time alotted to it you have the wierd pause where your character looks like they are doing nothing.

In the case of the coda this was unintended according to Orion, but you wonder if in some cases they purposely make the animation delay longer than the animation for gameplay reasons. Who knows. It might be easier for them to make a skill take longer through animation delay rather than redoing an animation.

Or they could be coding errors that are not high on the priority list to fix.

BTW how do you guys timestamp your combat logs?

Originally Posted by Armitas

In regards to -2.5% attack duration runes on a 2hander....

If I understand the theory of attack durations correctly, and pausing to not jip auto attacks then the dps boon from faster skill rotations is minor.

The major part of -attack duration dps comes by adding in 1 auto attack swing within the cd...so at some point their is a pause in gain until you reach enough -attack duration to add another auto attack.

So basically I won't see much of a dps boon from -attack duration until I break through to another auto attack swing. Correct?

Also, If I blow through my skill rotation at the max rate will 1 or 2 runes on a 2H reduce my cd long enough to slip an additional auto attack in between skill firing. I know it's based on weapon, class but your best anecdotal is what I'm looking for.

Well we have a bunch of theories going here right now. If we can timestamp skill beginings and endings then we should be able to see if -attack duration affects skill animation or not. At the beginning of this thread I thought it did but after watching my warden with (-20% androit)*(-20% recklessness) the animation seemed the same.

Gondolindhrim seems to think it does not sure if he's timestamped it or not. If it turns out it does not then the longer the animations are in your rotation the less -attack duration will help you out. But on my warden where my builders are very short and fast and even the gambits themselves are fairly short on most dps skills -attack duration will make a bigger difference.

As to auto attack, -attack duration does have a large affect on them. There was a thread proving this in the warden forums a while back.

It's wierd, auto attacks happen regardless of whether I always have a skill queued or not, I'm not sure how they are timed. They DO NOT happen during long animations like Dance of War or Sheild Mastery (they have about a 2 second animation time). I think they have their own timer and when it is up they execute the moment you are in between skills. Their animation seems to get cut off by other skills animations.

http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Mecha...ol-Down_Timers

Using this site. theory crafting.

If attack duration affects combat singularly. Either animation segment, or GCD segment but not both.

Animation segment: would increase your dps by allowing you to blow through skill rotations faster. would not effect GCD and therefore would not add dps through AA (auto attacks). AA ticks only occur during GCD.

GCD segment: Lowering GCD window would increase your DPS by allowing you to blow through your rotations faster. By lowering you GCD window you lower your time to accrue AA because it *possibly only ticks during GCD>

If attack duration affects as a ratio: ...and this is the only way I can see attack duration adding autoattacks...
Lets say GCD is a given window of time where a portion of that window is the animation segment. So regardless of the animation time, the time between beginning to end is the same before you can hit the next skill. So Sure strike will always take x amount of time, during that x amount of time there is a proportion where it's at the animation phase and the GCD phase. So lets say Sure strike takes 2 seconds to complete. 1 second is animation, 1 second is GCD. If I reduce the attack duration then the animation will last .5 seconds and the GCD will last 1.5 seconds. Thus giving me more time for auto attack ticks.

*The dev's mention that GCD does not interfere with AA, but do not mention the effects of AA tick from the animation segment, so I assume.

In conclusion the only way I see -attack duration effecting the number of AA's in a positive way is by a ratio where the time between skills remains the same, but the proportion of phases is changed.

We know that the animation appearance is changing. What we need to know is if the time between Skill A and Skill B is changing.

Originally Posted by danno8

Oh I believe you. The coda on minnies right now takes about 2 seconds of delay after the animation is complete. This is suppose to be fixed in update 5 I believe.

It's as if the animations on skills like these are allotted a certain amount of time to complete before the global cooldown kicks in, and if the animation is shorter than the time alotted to it you have the wierd pause where your character looks like they are doing nothing.

Nailed it, right there. This is exactly the same way I've perceived it. I don't know if you've noticed the same, but Fast skills don't seem to trigger the GCD at all, in addition to their ability to fire even if it's currently active.

Originally Posted by danno8

In the case of the coda this was unintended according to Orion, but you wonder if in some cases they purposely make the animation delay longer than the animation for gameplay reasons. Who knows. It might be easier for them to make a skill take longer through animation delay rather than redoing an animation.

Yeah, some skills with quick animations could possibly become too strong if skill rotations weren't restricted by the GCD. I personally always imagined that to be the reason, anyway.

Originally Posted by danno8

BTW how do you guys timestamp your combat logs?

http://www.bistromath.org/lotro/util/

Originally Posted by danno8

Well we have a bunch of theories going here right now. If we can timestamp skill beginings and endings then we should be able to see if -attack duration affects skill animation or not. At the beginning of this thread I thought it did but after watching my warden with (-20% androit)*(-20% recklessness) the animation seemed the same.

Gondolindhrim seems to think it does not sure if he's timestamped it or not.<snip>

Without Flurry:

Code:

[0001150.24] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 636 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale. 
[0001150.68] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 478 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale. 
[0001151.22] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 725 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.

Time between first and last strike: 0.98

With Flurry:

Code:

[0001268.68] Fingolwe scored a critical hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 1,859 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale. 
[0001269.00] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 826 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale. 
[0001269.55] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 742 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.

Time between first and last strike: 0.87

Flurry basically makes the animation 10% quicker, which is half the tooltip value. Still a significant improvement though!

Originally Posted by danno8

It's wierd, auto attacks happen regardless of whether I always have a skill queued or not, I'm not sure how they are timed. They DO NOT happen during long animations like Dance of War or Sheild Mastery (they have about a 2 second animation time). I think they have their own timer and when it is up they execute the moment you are in between skills. Their animation seems to get cut off by other skills animations.

Yup, AAs have been happening "behind the scenes" since Mirkwood. The frequency at which they can fire depends on weapon type and Attack Duration modifiers. And you're also correct about skill animations; they only fire in between, not during.


@ Armitas: Attack Duration runes will make your rotations faster, every individual animation quicker, and more auto-attacks will fire. Not only will they increase your DPS by more than any other runes, but your general response time and skill fluidity will be improved a little, too. Well worth it IMO.

Originally Posted by Armitas

http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Mecha...ol-Down_Timers

Thanks for the link. Good to see I was pretty close on what was going on behind the scenes. The writer of this entry quantifies the whole system nicely.

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

http://www.bistromath.org/lotro/util/

And thank you Gondolindhrim for this link too. When I have the time (lol) I'm gonna see how the -attack duration affects the time between individual skills since you have shown it does indeed affect skill animation, which was my initial thoughts. I always thought it did as I could "hear" the difference on my Warden if Recklessness was off before I would notice any visual difference.

Good to know I'm not crazy. After staring at skill animations for an hour trying to find a .1 second difference you start to wonder if it's all in your head.

(I realize that staring at skill animations for an hour may be considered crazy in itself)

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

@ Armitas: Attack Duration runes will make your rotations faster, every individual animation quicker, and more auto-attacks will fire. Not only will they increase your DPS by more than any other runes, but your general response time and skill fluidity will be improved a little, too. Well worth it IMO.

That's the part that confuses me, If it allows you to hit Skill A and Skill B in less time, then It should also lower the combat timer on AA.

Lets say Skill A and B consist of 1s animation .5 seconds of GCD each for a total of 3 seconds from the beginning of Skill A to the end of skill B. Then if you shrink the animation time between Skill A and B you have the same amount of ticks of AA (AA unchanged), If you shrink by the GCD then you have even less AA ticking.

What you said above seems to be the consensus, that you get more AA and skill DPS, I just don't understand how. It would seem that - attack duration would have to be acting in 2 separate ways as to not contradict it self.

Sorry, didn't realize I was on the mini forums. I was researching this already and got linked here from google. I put it in the general forums. http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...89#post5865989

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.p...g-Champion-DPS

The above link is good for explaining more about attack speed. It mostly pertains to Champions, but the concepts can be generalized to other classes, too.

It's quite simple really. The GCD and the frequency at which AA can fire are one and the same. Say your GCD is 2s. Let's say you use three skills with animation times of 1s, 2s and 3s. You would then get:
Skill A (1s)
pause (1s)
[GCD resets]
Auto-attack (0s, animation gets overriden by next skill)
Skill B (2s)
[GCD resets]
Auto-attack (0s, animation gets overriden by next skill)
Skill C (3s)
[GCD resets]
Auto-attack (0s, animation gets overriden by next skill)
etc

An auto-attack will always fire when the GCD resets, so shortening the GCD means you can AA more frequently.

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

It's quite simple really. The GCD and the frequency at which AA can fire are one and the same. Say your GCD is 2s. Let's say you use three skills with animation times of 1s, 2s and 3s. You

Well we know it does effect the animation segment for sure because we can see it change. The GCD if based on the skill, separate from the attack duration on the weapon.

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

An auto-attack will always fire when the GCD resets, so shortening the GCD means you can AA more frequently.

Thats only if you pause between skills to allow an AA. If you don't pause you will wind up losing AA's worse with a -rune. If you do pause with a -rune, you lose your animation decrease.

From http://lorebook.lotro.com/wiki/Mecha...ol-Down_Timers

Auto-attack ticks are "pushed" to the next gap in the skill queue (Partially False) It is not exactly known whether the skill queue simply over-writes the auto-attack tick cycle, or whether it suspends the auto-attack tick cycle while a skill is in its induction and animation segments. What is conclusively known through testing, however, is that auto-attack ticks will not usually appear during the shorter cool-down segments of certain skills, as demonstrated in preceding sections. Regardless of what is really happening under the covers (which will be impossible to know for sure without a conclusive statement from a Turbine developer), the net result is that you need a long enough "gap" in your skill queue to enable an auto-attack tick to occur before the next skill in the queue. One way to ensure this is to simply wait for a subsequent auto-attack tick to occur before executing each skill in your chain.

Basically you have your base attack duration, for me it's like 2.5 seconds. I can only auto attack every 2.5 seconds. If I try to spam my skills the auto attack timer may suspend, or overwrite the timer. Pushing my AA several skills down, or lost for good. You will always get an auto attack if you wait between skills though.

That Lorebook entry was created over four years ago, and the latest edit was made in May 2009, almost a year before Mirkwood was released. It's hopelessly outdated now and you'd be better off forgetting everything you read in it.

Using skills does not suspend or suppress auto-attacks anymore the way it used to. Skills will override the animation of auto-attacks, but the damage will still be applied.

I hope that's clear enough. And if you don't believe me, go hit the testing dummy and see for yourself.


Edit: I just saw that you cloned an earlier post and started a thread in General Discussion. I won't reply to it since I already posted here, but don't listen to a word that Tantalus guy says, he's way off base. No offense to him, but that post is pretty much all misinformation.

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

That Lorebook entry was created over four years ago, and the latest edit was made in May 2009, almost a year before Mirkwood was released. It's hopelessly outdated now and you'd be better off forgetting everything you read in it.

Using skills does not suspend or suppress auto-attacks anymore the way it used to. Skills will override the animation of auto-attacks, but the damage will still be applied.

I hope that's clear enough. And if you don't believe me, go hit the testing dummy and see for yourself.

.

Nope your right, even with a fast attack I can't subvert it. My battle shout, opener, is bugged and doesn't initiate AA. Only thing that does now is immediate skills.

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

T
I won't reply to it since I already posted here, but don't listen to a word that Tantalus guy says, he's way off base. No offense to him, but that post is pretty much all misinformation.

No, post it there. If were both wrong it's better that the people in general are not mislead. Yula's a nice poster, he/she can take polite criticism. I posted it there so that it would be peer reviewed by as many as possible. Please review it, and post if it's in error, just try to use references.

Right, I replied to the other thread here. Hopefully, everyone should be able to understand how it works now.

Bumping because I think there's still a lot of confusion.

Just how much do people think Anthem of Prowess adds to various classes' DPS? How much does Cry of the Wizards detract from enemies' DPS?

Attack Duration is one of the best buffs you can get for your DPS.

I've verified through testing that it does not reduce the animation time on Bolster Courage, so you can't heal faster :-(

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

Bumping because I think there's still a lot of confusion.

Just how much do people think Anthem of Prowess adds to various classes' DPS?

For a Champion, more than 10%. It's already better than War, and will be significantly so after the U6 change.

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

For a Champion, more than 10%. It's already better than War, and will be significantly so after the U6 change.

Would you mind re-summarizing why? It's counter-intuitive, obviously.

In particular, what are you assuming about champion skill rotations, and how sure are you that this is applicable to most champions in raid situations?

Thanks!!

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

Would you mind re-summarizing why? It's counter-intuitive, obviously.

Sure. This is something I feel a lot (probably most) Minstrels haven't quite realized yet, so I don't mind showing why at all. All in the name of helping others improve their play, right? :)

No -Attack Duration modifiers:

Code:

[0000024.08] Fingolwe scored a devastating hit with Wild Attack on  the Training-dummy for 1,525 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000025.13] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 468 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000025.56] Fingolwe scored a hit with Swift Strike on the Training-dummy for 600 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000027.09] Fingolwe scored a critical hit with Blade-wall on the Training-dummy for 1,300 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000028.73] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 430 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000029.39] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 653 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000029.83] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 637 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000030.37] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 608 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000031.90] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 582 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000033.98] Fingolwe scored a hit with Wild Attack on the Training-dummy for 446 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000034.85] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 475 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000035.39] Fingolwe scored a critical hit with Swift Strike on the  Training-dummy for 1,307 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000036.92] Fingolwe scored a hit with Blade-wall on the Training-dummy for 597 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000038.67] Fingolwe scored a devastating hit with a melee attack on  the Training-dummy for 862 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000039.21] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 732 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000039.65] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 701 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000040.20] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 516 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.

Time between first and last strike: 16.12s

With Flurry (-20% Attack Duration):

Code:

[0000363.73] Fingolwe scored a hit with Wild Attack on the Training-dummy for 509 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000364.60] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 674 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000364.71] Fingolwe scored a critical hit with Swift Strike on the  Training-dummy for 1,437 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000366.02] Fingolwe scored a devastating hit with Blade-wall on the  Training-dummy for 1,537 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000367.00] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 565 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000367.76] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 558 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000368.19] Fingolwe scored a devastating hit with Brutal Strikes on  the Training-dummy for 1,983 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000368.74] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 718 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000370.26] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 465 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000371.46] Fingolwe scored a hit with Wild Attack on the Training-dummy for 485 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000372.44] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 479 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000372.56] Fingolwe scored a hit with Swift Strike on the Training-dummy for 700 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000373.87] Fingolwe scored a hit with Blade-wall on the Training-dummy for 650 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000374.74] Fingolwe scored a critical hit with a  melee attack on the Training-dummy for 846 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to  Morale.
[0000375.61] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 773 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000376.05] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 802 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000376.59] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 660 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.

Time between first and last strike: 12.86s

With the same amount of attacks made in 12.86s instead of 16.12s, the lower parse is 25% higher DPS. Now, this doesn't quite mean that -10% attack duration is 12.5% more DPS, because it's a subtractive stat of which the benefit increases exponentially (-50% attack duration would be 100% more DPS). -5% attack duration increases DPS by 5.2%, so Prowess should be in the ballpark of a 11% DPS increase for a Champion.

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

In particular, what are you assuming about champion skill rotations, and how sure are you that this is applicable to most champions in raid situations?

Thanks!!

In the parses above, I'm using a rotation that includes the skill with the longest cooldown of staple Champion DPS skills (Clobber - 5s), and I still see the full benefit of Flurry. So it doesn't really matter what kind of a rotation your Champs are using, they should always see a DPS increase of just over 10% when Prowess is up.

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

So it doesn't really matter what kind of a rotation your Champs are using, they should always see a DPS increase of just over 10% when Prowess is up.

I have had Champions in particular tell me that they prefer Anthem of War over Prowess because they burn more power with Prowess up in combination with Flurry and War-cry. I've also been told that due to Flurry and War-cry, Anthem of Prowess is not as nice as Anthem of War. (Hunters and Rune-keepers, on the other hand, cry manly tears of joy when I prioritize Prowess over War, so I dunno.)

Intuitively, I think those Champions that prefer War are wrong about which buff adds more DPS, but maybe you can address that? I think it also might have something to do with the fact that with War a Champion can see bigger damage numbers in each hit -- Prowess gives more hits and more damage, but they are not as big. Of course the two in conjunction are the best, but lately I've been prioritizing Prowess over the objections of some Champions and I need some arguments to present why that choice is better. Heh.

Looking through those parses, it seems as if exactly the same skill rotation is used either way. Am I missing something?

If it indeed is the case that all the same skills fire off, just faster, then if we ignore any constraints on power or from skill cooldowns, it would also be the case that 10% reduction in attack speed adds 11% to DPS (assuming no other attack speed modifiers), 20% reduction in attack speed adds 25%, and so on, and that the benefit just goes up if there indeed are other attack speed modifiers such as relics or Flurry.

My followup question to that is -- how do power/cooldown constraints actually affect this for the various classes? If I were DPSing on a minstrel, the answer would in the range of "a lot". I gather that for champs those constraints are pretty irrelevant. What about for hunters, RKs, burgs, and so on?

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

Sure. This is something I feel a lot (probably most) Minstrels haven't quite realized yet, so I don't mind showing why at all. All in the name of helping others improve their play, right?

No -Attack Duration modifiers:

Code:

[0000024.08] Fingolwe scored a devastating hit with Wild Attack on  the Training-dummy for 1,525 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000025.13] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 468 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000025.56] Fingolwe scored a hit with Swift Strike on the Training-dummy for 600 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000027.09] Fingolwe scored a critical hit with Blade-wall on the Training-dummy for 1,300 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000028.73] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 430 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000029.39] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 653 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000029.83] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 637 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000030.37] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 608 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000031.90] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 582 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000033.98] Fingolwe scored a hit with Wild Attack on the Training-dummy for 446 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000034.85] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 475 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000035.39] Fingolwe scored a critical hit with Swift Strike on the  Training-dummy for 1,307 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000036.92] Fingolwe scored a hit with Blade-wall on the Training-dummy for 597 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000038.67] Fingolwe scored a devastating hit with a melee attack on  the Training-dummy for 862 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000039.21] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 732 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000039.65] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 701 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000040.20] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 516 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.

Time between first and last strike: 16.12s

With Flurry (-20% Attack Duration):

Code:

[0000363.73] Fingolwe scored a hit with Wild Attack on the Training-dummy for 509 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000364.60] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 674 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000364.71] Fingolwe scored a critical hit with Swift Strike on the  Training-dummy for 1,437 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000366.02] Fingolwe scored a devastating hit with Blade-wall on the  Training-dummy for 1,537 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000367.00] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 565 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000367.76] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 558 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000368.19] Fingolwe scored a devastating hit with Brutal Strikes on  the Training-dummy for 1,983 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000368.74] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 718 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000370.26] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 465 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000371.46] Fingolwe scored a hit with Wild Attack on the Training-dummy for 485 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000372.44] Fingolwe scored a hit with a melee attack on the Training-dummy for 479 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000372.56] Fingolwe scored a hit with Swift Strike on the Training-dummy for 700 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000373.87] Fingolwe scored a hit with Blade-wall on the Training-dummy for 650 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000374.74] Fingolwe scored a critical hit with a  melee attack on the Training-dummy for 846 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to  Morale.
[0000375.61] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 773 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000376.05] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 802 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.
[0000376.59] Fingolwe scored a hit with Brutal Strikes on the Training-dummy for 660 Ancient Dwarf-make damage to Morale.

Time between first and last strike: 12.86s

With the same amount of attacks made in 12.86s instead of 16.12s, the lower parse is 25% higher DPS. Now, this doesn't quite mean that -10% attack duration is 12.5% more DPS, because it's a subtractive stat of which the benefit increases exponentially (-50% attack duration would be 100% more DPS). -5% attack duration increases DPS by 5.2%, so Prowess should be in the ballpark of a 11% DPS increase for a Champion.


In the parses above, I'm using a rotation that includes the skill with the longest cooldown of staple Champion DPS skills (Clobber - 5s), and I still see the full benefit of Flurry. So it doesn't really matter what kind of a rotation your Champs are using, they should always see a DPS increase of just over 10% when Prowess is up.

Originally Posted by Cloudie-wan

I have had Champions in particular tell me that they prefer Anthem of War over Prowess because they burn more power with Prowess up in combination with Flurry and War-cry.

Sure, you use a bit more power if you can attack faster, that goes for anyone and everyone. I've never felt that was a problem though; between Fervour, Second Wind (and no, I do not slot Vigour of Champions for DPS), Regen food, Controlled Burn, pots, Rallying Cry, Inspire (Blade-brother) and Share the Power, I'm much better off power-wise than I was before RoI. Healers, with their monstrously inflated power pools and new power recoup tools, require even less power from our Lore-masters than they used to, which means the power shots pretty much only go to DPS classes these days.

Originally Posted by Cloudie-wan

I've also been told that due to Flurry and War-cry, Anthem of Prowess is not as nice as Anthem of War. (Hunters and Rune-keepers, on the other hand, cry manly tears of joy when I prioritize Prowess over War, so I dunno.)

-Attack Duration buffs stacks without any diminishing returns, and since Champion skill cooldowns are so short, all of these buffs should retain their full benefit even when used all together. There is no sustainable rotation that should run into skill cooldowns due to faster attack speed (it'll only happen when skills like Battle-frenzy are used).

Originally Posted by Cloudie-wan

Intuitively, I think those Champions that prefer War are wrong about which buff adds more DPS, but maybe you can address that? I think it also might have something to do with the fact that with War a Champion can see bigger damage numbers in each hit -- Prowess gives more hits and more damage, but they are not as big. Of course the two in conjunction are the best, but lately I've been prioritizing Prowess over the objections of some Champions and I need some arguments to present why that choice is better. Heh.

My pleasure, anything for a lady.

I obviously have no idea what kind of builds these Champions you speak of are running, but my own sits at just over +106% melee damage in Fervour in my full DPS build and about 95% in my Tactical Mitigation build (none of these builds over-prioritize Physical Mastery either, full DPS comes with 24,5% critical chance with buffs, the Tactical Mitigation one has 23%). Weapon legacies add 15% to single-target skills and 10% to AoE skills on top of that.
Since outgoing damage buffs are all additive, a maxed out Anthem of War increases my DPS by just over 9%, while Prowess increases it by around 11%. It's a close race, but better is better (and after U6, War will be less than half as good).

Edit: Oh, and if you've got a Captain running Blade-brother, War decreases even more in effectiveness.

Apologies for the double post, but you snuck this one in while I was replying to Narlinde. :p

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

Looking through those parses, it seems as if exactly the same skill rotation is used either way. Am I missing something?

If it indeed is the case that all the same skills fire off, just faster, then if we ignore any constraints on power or from skill cooldowns, it would also be the case that 10% reduction in attack speed adds 11% to DPS (assuming no other attack speed modifiers), 20% reduction in attack speed adds 25%, and so on, and that the benefit just goes up if there indeed are other attack speed modifiers such as relics or Flurry.

Yes, the exact same rotation is used in both parses. -Attack Duration buffs are multiplicative, so the DPS increase from Flurry will always be 25% (and the benefit of Prowess will always be 11%) regardless of any other -Attack Duration buffs present.

Originally Posted by CurtMonash

My followup question to that is -- how do power/cooldown constraints actually affect this for the various classes? If I were DPSing on a minstrel, the answer would in the range of "a lot". I gather that for champs those constraints are pretty irrelevant. What about for hunters, RKs, burgs, and so on?

For a Champion, cooldowns and power constraints have pretty much no effect in my experience.
Burglars might see slightly less benefit due to cooldowns, but not by a great deal (I'm taking my Burglar through Dunland right now, so can't comment on power yet).
Hunters will see a small reduction in DPS benefit due to inductions and the cooldown of Swift Bow.
Lightning Rune-keepers will see a bit less of an increase due to the cooldowns of Essence of Storm, Shocking Words and Epic Conclusion.
Fire Rune-keepers probably get the least benefit, due to the inductions and the cooldown of Essay of Fire.
Rune-keepers regardless of traitline will often see less of an increase due to the lack of auto-attacks as well.

War is probably still better for Burglars in its current form, because outgoing damage is multiplicative with positional damage. Even so, Prowess feels slightly better overall for a typical group right now, and will be clearly better after U6. Of course, Prowess has the added benefit of buffing Armour and Evade, too. :)

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

Of course, Prowess has the added benefit of buffing Armour and Evade, too.

Indeed.

Originally Posted by Gondolindhrim

Healers, with their monstrously inflated power pools and new power recoup tools, require even less power from our Lore-masters than they used to, which means the power shots pretty much only go to DPS classes these days.

Well, that depends in part on just who does or doesn't get their anthems stripped when a coda is used. We'll have a better sense on the 17th.

That point even aside, if healing is intense enough to give a minstrel problems, it's not ideal to interrupt that healing for the whole coda process. If there's a comfortable cycle of burst healing followed by less intense healing and time to regen, that's great. But that's not the pattern in all fights.

Of course, when healing is that intense, it also may not be the case that offensive anthems are up anyway ...

All I'm saying is, the tools are there now, unlike before. When the coda bug is fixed, I'm definitely expecting to see Minstrels run out of power slower, since Anthem of Composure is one of the top priority anthems in all the ToO bossfights (besides, all but one of the Minstrels I regularly run with slot 4-5 yellows, so the most useful anthems tend to be up all the time).

Well, for a full anthem build this is probably a bit of a moot discussion anyway.

All the more so because I question the wisdom of buffing DPS the first 10 or seconds of a fight anyway.