Attack speed vs. attack animations?

[Devachan]

Does anyone know conclusively whether attack speed is tied to attack animations?

I just did a test with my Dwarven Rog 1/Barb 1. I had him auto-swinging in a safe area and I recorded the following for animations per minute:

Two-weapon --- Dwarven Waraxe / Shortsword = 82 swings
Single-handed --- Dwarven Waraxe / Off-hand empty = 81 swings
Unarmed --- Handwraps = 52 swings (the animation included kicks, which i have included as a swing)

(My guy's BAB is only +2/+2/+7 so his attack animation is a set of 3 attacks)

The last result (unarmed/handwraps) strikes me as odd except that I have read elsewhere on the forums that unarmed attacks are not tied to the animation.

Can anyone confirm my results in terms of actual attacks? Perhaps by testing on a combat dummy? I would have expected dual-wielding to have a significantly higher attack rate than single handed. So I can only explain my results by thing that the attack animations do not correlate with actual attacks.

Following on from this - does anyone know what the improvement to attack speed is by taking two-weapon fighting over single-handed?

[cforce]

While there sometimes a lag between an attack animation and when the combat response comes back from the server, and while an attack can sometimes get dropped due to a poor connection, in general animation speed is attack speed, yes.

There's never been a reproducible report (that I'm aware of, and I watch this topic a lot) of anyone getting *more* attacks than the animations indicated, and there's never been a report of any attacks consistently "disappearing" over a solid connection in a no-lag scenario.

Your unarmed result is odd. Generally, unarmed is slightly more than TWF. Are you sure there's not part of the animation which you're not counting because you didn't realize it was an attack?

[PestWulf]

His unarmed is about right for a non-monk I think.

[Jevar]

I find it odd that DDO has its animations tied exactly to the swing rate, Every other MMO i have played had far more actual hits per round then the animations for.

[cforce]

His unarmed is about right for a non-monk I think.

/facepalm @self

Yep, completely missed that on the first readthrough.

OP, unarmed combat is essentially ineffective if you don't have Monk levels.

[Therrias]

TWF doesn't go any faster, but adds a % (based on your TWF feats) of an offhand also connecting each swing.

(20% base + 20% per TWF feat + 10% from 1st two tempest enhancements.)

So add the appropriate percentage to determine your average attacks when TWF.

[Devachan]

Thanks all, that is very helpful.

As far as the unarmed attacks animations were concerned:

a) they were noticeably slower than the one-handed and TWF attack animations right from the start
b) one both occasions I ran the one-minute-test the attack sequence seemed to slow down or break. It had been a slow punch-punch-kick cycle but after 40 secs or so it started to do punch-kick-pause then punch-kick-pause. So the attack rate was a lot slower for those final 20 seconds. (EDIT: I tested this again and did 80 punch-punch-kicks in a row. I didn't have a timer on it however the broken cycle didn't occur the second time around.)

Good to know that unarmed is pretty useless for a non-monk. I had been thinking of crafting a set of acid handwraps of lesser ooze bane to use at level 3 against oozes. If the attack rate is that much slower I am now reconsidering. Trouble is that everbright has a min level of 3, so I could use TWF with everbright warhammer / everbright light mace but I couldn't craft anything else onto the weapons until level 5.

Anyone have an opinion or a better idea than the above with respect to oozes? Maybe I should just go with the handwraps (1d3+2d6) and accept the lower attack speed...

[Emili]

Thanks all, that is very helpful.

As far as the unarmed attacks animations were concerned:

a) they were noticeably slower than the one-handed and TWF attack animations right from the start
b) one both occasions I ran the one-minute-test the attack sequence seemed to slow down or break. It had been a slow punch-punch-kick cycle but after 40 secs or so it started to do punch-kick-pause then punch-kick-pause. So the attack rate was a lot slower for those final 20 seconds.

Good to know that unarmed is pretty useless for a non-monk. I had been thinking of crafting a set of acid handwraps of lesser ooze bane to use at level 3 against oozes. If the attack rate is that much slower I am now reconsidering. Trouble is that everbright has a min level of 3, so I could use TWF with everbright warhammer / everbright light mace but I couldn't craft anything else onto the weapons until level 5.

Anyone have an opinion or a better idea than the above with respect to oozes? Maybe I should just go with the handwraps (1d3+2d6) and accept the lower attack speed...

Muckbane's - dirk's got a secret

[Devachan]

Muckbane - yes, thanks for the reminder. My first character was a monk and I never understood the fuss about taking the time to get muckbane. It makes sense now.

[PestWulf]

Honestly, you don't need anything other than everbright. oozes can hit like a mac truck especially at level, but there isn't really anything you can add that will kill them that much faster. They die very quickly as is even if you don't have a + on the weapon.

For the amount of time you are going to spend fighting oozes in the lower levels, just craft a couple everbrights or get one on auction. Grinding Dirk's for a muck is a waste of time unless you have other business there, like grinding exp...but I'm thinking it's probably not a great exp dungeon to grind.

Oozes aren't worth much thought and certainly not worth much investment. I normally just take an el-cheapo pair of handwraps and wack the few I meet on the way out of the beginning levels.

[Devachan]

Thanks for that PestWolf. I hate grinding too however it sounds like it is worth looking out for Muck on the way through.