Ranged attack speed

[mikarddo]

I wonder about ranged attack speed so I went to read here: http://ddowiki.com/page/Attack_speed
However, that didnt quite bring me clarity so I will try asking here.

Does autoattack, holding down attack and manually clicking each attack allow for the same number of attacks per minute ranged (using a bow is my main concern)?

Does clicking a ranged attack in the AA tree (Smiting Arrow for example) happen as fast as clicking a normal ranged attack or does the AA tree ranged attack incur a delay? (if there is a delay that would be a major detrimental to using those effects).

Edit: Tests made, see results below in post #14. Something seems to be off.

[Drathsiddh]

Auto-attacking and holding down cause ranged/melee attacks to fire at the same speed. Manually clicking is generally slower, unless you can afford to replace your mouse after every two hours of play. Either way, it will go upto the speed of holding-down/auto-attack
Generally speaking, there is a slight delay in many abilities... not sure about AA particularly though.

[Coyopa]

Smiting Arrow is a toggle. It's either on or off. There is a slight delay while the character activates the ability. After that, it's on until you change which Imbue is active. All primary imbues (banishing, terror, paralyzing, smiting, elemental, force) are mutually exclusive, meaning you can only have one of them turned on at a time. Secondary imbues (from the core enhancements) are mutually exclusive with each other, but work alongside the primary imbues. As far as active abilities from AA (such as Slaying Arrow, Inferno Shot, etc), there is no delay.

[mikarddo]

Smiting Arrow is a toggle. It's either on or off. There is a slight delay while the character activates the ability. After that, it's on until you change which Imbue is active. All primary imbues (banishing, terror, paralyzing, smiting, elemental, force) are mutually exclusive, meaning you can only have one of them turned on at a time. Secondary imbues (from the core enhancements) are mutually exclusive with each other, but work alongside the primary imbues. As far as active abilities from AA (such as Slaying Arrow, Inferno Shot, etc), there is no delay.

Thank you, and silly of me to use Smiting as an example incorrectly. I suppose I will have to see if I can somehow make the "no delay" part work to my advantage trading some ap, some spell powers and the ease of auto attack for manually injecting some more active ranged attacks for greater dps. I somehow doubt it though as there will probably be a small loss in RoF which cancels the advantage from having +3w for example on a special attack every 3 sec.

[Coyopa]

Thank you, and silly of me to use Smiting as an example incorrectly. I suppose I will have to see if I can somehow make the "no delay" part work to my advantage trading some ap, some spell powers and the ease of auto attack for manually injecting some more active ranged attacks for greater dps. I somehow doubt it though as there will probably be a small loss in RoF which cancels the advantage from having +3w for example on a special attack every 3 sec.

I don't think you were silly to use Smiting as an example. You just either didn't know or had temporarily forgotten that Smiting was a sort of stance. Personally, I'm not impressed by the effects of any of the active AA attacks, with the obvious exception of Slaying Arrow. I've tried the other ones, but they don't really seem to make a difference in the content where it matters. Also, don't forget that Moonbow is still broken, but Soul Magic works nicely.

[cru121]

Auto-attacking and holding down cause ranged/melee attacks to fire at the same speed. Manually clicking is generally slower

I am sure you have spent significant time and effort to test with various weapon styles (bow/repeater/nonrepeater/thrower) and feat combinations before you make definitive statements like this.
For example, https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/403841
(However, the tested behavior from 2013 might have changed by the recent mechanic upgrades.)

[mikarddo]

I don't think you were silly to use Smiting as an example. You just either didn't know or had temporarily forgotten that Smiting was a sort of stance. Personally, I'm not impressed by the effects of any of the active AA attacks, with the obvious exception of Slaying Arrow. I've tried the other ones, but they don't really seem to make a difference in the content where it matters. Also, don't forget that Moonbow is still broken, but Soul Magic works nicely.

I agree. The ap cost is high compared to a questional gain.

How is Moonbow broken?

[mikarddo]

I am sure you have spent significant time and effort to test with various weapon styles (bow/repeater/nonrepeater/thrower) and feat combinations before you make definitive statements like this.
For example, https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/403841
(However, the tested behavior from 2013 might have changed by the recent mechanic upgrades.)

Good link, thanks. I wish I had more time to really test stuff myself as I had 10 years ago. Lets call it undecided for now.

[Coyopa]

I agree. The ap cost is high compared to a questional gain.

How is Moonbow broken?

The last that I recall is that it either only once gives you the spell points or not at all. It's been a while since I've seen anything about it and a long time since I've had a character that was able to take tier 5 AA enhancements. I tried a Google search, but came up empty using 'site:ddo.com moonbow bugged'.

[Xionanx]

That link is about XBOWS, and that was before the "reload" fix when reloading a XBOW was a seperate action.

"Bows" are a different beast entirely, and the guy further up the thread was right, there is no way to achieve faster attack speed with a bow then you get with simply holding the button down or auto-attacking.

Most "Shots" will fire as your "next" attack if are auto-attacking, so if it is slower, it is likely not significantly so.

It has been YEARS since I have seen any "Documented" testing for find actual bow attack speeds, so any information on the subject is likely out of date or inaccurate at this point.

I am hoping that the upcoming AA pass for rangers brings with it a pass on "Bows" in general.

[mikarddo]

That link is about XBOWS, and that was before the "reload" fix when reloading a XBOW was a seperate action.

"Bows" are a different beast entirely, and the guy further up the thread was right, there is no way to achieve faster attack speed with a bow then you get with simply holding the button down or auto-attacking.

Most "Shots" will fire as your "next" attack if are auto-attacking, so if it is slower, it is likely not significantly so.

It has been YEARS since I have seen any "Documented" testing for find actual bow attack speeds, so any information on the subject is likely out of date or inaccurate at this point.

I am hoping that the upcoming AA pass for rangers brings with it a pass on "Bows" in general.

Probably and hopefully you are right but as you point out the tests showing so may be outdated. I may look into testing myself if I find a bit of time.

[Hazelnut]

I wonder about ranged attack speed so I went to read here: http://ddowiki.com/page/Attack_speed
However, that didnt quite bring me clarity so I will try asking here.

Does autoattack, holding down attack and manually clicking each attack allow for the same number of attacks per minute ranged (using a bow is my main concern)?

They should all be the same subject to your ability to click the fire button as fast as holding it down would trigger attacks.

Does clicking a ranged attack in the AA tree (Smiting Arrow for example) happen as fast as clicking a normal ranged attack or does the AA tree ranged attack incur a delay? (if there is a delay that would be a major detrimental to using those effects).

The special attacks are not supposed to incure an attack delay. They have a 'cooldown' that will prevent you from using special attacks too often but you can use regular attacks while the special ones are on cooldown.

I have done extensive analysis of recent attack speeds and options. Right now you can't beat a rogue mechanic for attack speed with any bow or xbow. The heavy repeater is the best the great crossbow is really close to a heavy repeater once you take the rogue mechanic 5th level enhancements.

There might be some possibilities of firing even faster if you multi-class in 1 level of barbarian but I haven't tested it. You should be able to do even more damage if you mix in a few levels of artificer but I haven't tested that either.

[mikarddo]

ignore

[mikarddo]

I just ran a short series of tests - and something does seem to be off.

Level 28, 12 monk, 6 rng, 2 pally, halfling. 2% doubleshot (I didnt care to wait 4+ hours for ship buffs to fade which I ideally should have). 22% haste from Blinding Speed. Using a ML 22 TF Longbow (to avoid procs etc).

Each parse is roughly 3 min long. Target is the Magefire Cannon in Proving Grounds on the ship.
Parse counts number of "pierce/slash damage" + number of "miss" -1 as total number of hits as well as end_time - start_time. (minus 1 because I both have a hit at the start and the end of the parse).
Each situation has been parsed twice.

Auto attack: 1.18 attacks/sec and 1.18 attacks/sec
Mouse down: 1.18 attacks/sec and 1.20 attacks/sec
Spamming attack key: 1.29 attacks/sec and 1.27 attacks/sec

Obviously, the 2% doubleshot is a possible source of error but the results seen above certainly seem to indicate that spamming the attack key may result in more shots fired than autoattack/mouse down. The actual number of attacks isnt interesting - but the difference certainly is.

It would be very usefull if someone else would care to repeat these kinds of tests to see if they can verify the results I am getting.

Raw data here (not very userfriendly): https://www.dropbox.com/s/pl1f9f4mw3...data.xlsx?dl=0

[Augon]

The last that I recall is that it either only once gives you the spell points or not at all. It's been a while since I've seen anything about it and a long time since I've had a character that was able to take tier 5 AA enhancements. I tried a Google search, but came up empty using 'site:ddo.com moonbow bugged'.

I've used moonbow on my archer since it came out and I have never had it not give me the Spell points every thirty seconds. I use it to fuel my slayer arrow so I don't use Spell points for it. I can shoot slayer arrow each time I see "Moonbow" pop up on the screen and I don't use up any spell points.

[Drathsiddh]

I am sure you have spent significant time and effort to test with various weapon styles (bow/repeater/nonrepeater/thrower) and feat combinations before you make definitive statements like this.
For example, https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/403841
(However, the tested behavior from 2013 might have changed by the recent mechanic upgrades.)

Well sorry! Sorry for trying to help a comrade in need! Sorry for thinking that some people have a life beyond scourging the forums! Sorry for murdering Jon Sno!

[Krell]

I just ran a short series of tests - and something does seem to be off.

Level 28, 12 monk, 6 rng, 2 pally, halfling. 2% doubleshot (I didnt care to wait 4+ hours for ship buffs to fade which I ideally should have). 22% haste from Blinding Speed. Using a ML 22 TF Longbow (to avoid procs etc).

Each parse is roughly 3 min long. Target is the Magefire Cannon in Proving Grounds on the ship.
Parse counts number of "pierce/slash damage" + number of "miss" -1 as total number of hits as well as end_time - start_time. (minus 1 because I both have a hit at the start and the end of the parse).
Each situation has been parsed twice.

Auto attack: 1.18 attacks/sec and 1.18 attacks/sec
Mouse down: 1.18 attacks/sec and 1.20 attacks/sec
Spamming attack key: 1.29 attacks/sec and 1.27 attacks/sec

Obviously, the 2% doubleshot is a possible source of error but the results seen above certainly seem to indicate that spamming the attack key may result in more shots fired than autoattack/mouse down. The actual number of attacks isnt interesting - but the difference certainly is.

It would be very usefull if someone else would care to repeat these kinds of tests to see if they can verify the results I am getting.

Raw data here (not very userfriendly): https://www.dropbox.com/s/pl1f9f4mw3...data.xlsx?dl=0

It seems odd that Blinding Speed grants 22% ranged attack speed when the description just says 15% to attack speed. I'm assuming melee is 15%? Not that it would be the first time a description is off.

[mikarddo]

It seems odd that Blinding Speed grants 22% ranged attack speed when the description just says 15% to attack speed. I'm assuming melee is 15%? Not that it would be the first time a description is off.

Thats similar to the Haste spell. In effect its only really 15% effectively because only parts of the animation are sped up.

[Coyopa]

I've used moonbow on my archer since it came out and I have never had it not give me the Spell points every thirty seconds. I use it to fuel my slayer arrow so I don't use Spell points for it. I can shoot slayer arrow each time I see "Moonbow" pop up on the screen and I don't use up any spell points.

Then they must have fixed it because it used to be borked.

[mikarddo]

This is correct to how I think the game works. Attack and special attacks are similar to spells in implementation and may be animation cancelled up to the minimum delay per spell.

Its rather odd though and it would be nice to hear if its really intended that way.