Interesting Attack Speed Data (acrobat bonus only applies when standing still)

[maddong]

The cap on thrown attacks at 84 attacks/minute got me interested in looking at attack speeds and it looks like most of the data I could find was from older updates.

To test I would time how long it took to do 50 attacks and then convert that into attacks per minute. Eventually I got lazy and started extrapolating some data from 10 attacks which increases my error.

I updated this to have tentative conclusions first and I will put the data in a later post.

1. Thief acrobatics only gives an alacrity bonus while standing still.

2. The cap on thrown attacks at 84 attacks/minute appears to be 3 * the base attack rate of thrown weapons (bab 0 with no feats). This makes me wonder if all styles cap at 3 * the base attack rate of that style.

3. At least for ranged attacks, every point of BAB appears to increase your attack rate (not every 5 points).

4. Rapid shot with bows may add a fixed 6 attacks/minute bonus before alacrity is taken into account [(BAB rate + rapid shot) * alacrity bonus].

5. The combination of rapid shot and quickdraw with thrown may add a fixed 12 attacks/minute bonus before alacrity is taken into account (added to the BAB equation).

6. The effect of BAB on attack rate is much more with thrown (we are talking around 100% faster at BAB 28) > bow > melee (we are talking around 7-8% faster at BAB 28). So divine power/tenser's/divine crusader is much more important if you are ranging than if you are meleeing.

8. To get the speed increase you must multiply the alacrity bonus by a factor:
thrown (standing or running) about 0.55% per alacrity bonus
standing quarterstaff about 1.0% per alacrity bonus
standing swf about 1.3% per alacrity bonus
running quarterstaff and running SWF about 1.7% per alacrity bonus
light repeater 0.2% per alacrity bonus

One interesting side effect is that running with SWF you should be able to attack 2.275 * as fast if you are using GSWF, haste boost 30%, and haste 15% (.75 * 1.7 + 1). That still doesn't get you close to the attack rate cap if it is relatively the same across styles.