This may take some time to explain, so bear with with please.
I've been working out how assassin attack speeds are affected by a dual claw setup over the last few months. For background, here's what i've found so far. (When i refer to left and right here, i mean as you look at the character screen not the hand the claw is in when looking at the assassin in action.) All attacks i will talk about are the skill attacks. (TS, CS, PS, FoF, CoT, BoI, DC, Dtalon, and DTail.) Dflight wasn't tested as it also requires FCR.
The dominant claw will initially be the on which you equip first. However, if you weapon switch away from the claws and then back again, the dominant claw will be the one on the left regardless of which side you equipped first.
WSMs are averaged with all skill attacks, even kicks.
IAS on the non-dominant claw does not affect the attack speed. IAS on the dominant claw does.
That's pretty straightforward and applies to you equipping the left claw first or after you have weapon switched. The reason this is in the maggot lair comes when you equip the right claw first and don't weapon switch. Things change. Considering the game defaults to the normal rules above, this only applies to a specific order of equipping weapons, and it's unstable as it won't survive a weapon switch, i'd say this ones a bug.
I equipped a greater talon (-30 WSM) first and put it on the right. The attack speed with just that claw equipped was as expected, 10 fpa. I then equipped a war fist (10 WSM) on the left side. All the rules i had worked out went out the window. With just the two claws equipped and no bos, the 'sin had a 9 frame attack. I added some IAS gear and with the above setup. At 25 IAS, she had an attack at 7 fpa with TS, CS, PS and her kicks. Her speed with DC, FoF, CoT, and BoI was 11 frames (that's 11 frames for both claws to hit, not 11 for each claw.) I came up with this: The EIAS on the setup coming just from the claws is 55! Effectively, this gives this setup a WSM of -55 as there was no EIAS enhancing skill being used. Once i used weapon switch, the attack speed went back to following the normal rules.
Next, i tried the opposite thinking this should provide a nice speed boost if a war fist was the main weapon. Suprising results. I equipped the war fist first and put it on the right, then equipped the greater talon on the left. The result was the single slowest attack i have ever seen from a claw using assassin. The effective WSM of this setup was 27! She had a base attack of 19 frames with PS.
I haven't gotten into testing IAS on the claws themselves as of yet. I thought that finding out what's going on without it before adding it into the mix would be a good idea.
All subsequent testing backed this up. When equipping the right claw first:
1. Equipping a faster claw followed by a slower claw resulted in a faster attack speed than the first claw had on its own
2. Equipping a slower claw followed by a faster claw resulted in a slower attack than the first claw had on its own.
3. The greater the difference between the speed of the claws, the greater the increase/decrease in the attack speed.
I can swap IAS gear in and out to find my effective WSM like i did with the above and other tests, but what i can't seem to find is the equation the game is using to come up with it. I'm hoping that i'm just to focused on my own perspective and one of you will see what i'm not. Any ideas on how this is getting figured?
thanks
jrichard
Edit: after looking at this post, maybe i should have put this in the workshop.
I've been working out how assassin attack speeds are affected by a dual claw setup over the last few months. For background, here's what i've found so far. (When i refer to left and right here, i mean as you look at the character screen not the hand the claw is in when looking at the assassin in action.) All attacks i will talk about are the skill attacks. (TS, CS, PS, FoF, CoT, BoI, DC, Dtalon, and DTail.) Dflight wasn't tested as it also requires FCR.
The dominant claw will initially be the on which you equip first. However, if you weapon switch away from the claws and then back again, the dominant claw will be the one on the left regardless of which side you equipped first.
WSMs are averaged with all skill attacks, even kicks.
IAS on the non-dominant claw does not affect the attack speed. IAS on the dominant claw does.
That's pretty straightforward and applies to you equipping the left claw first or after you have weapon switched. The reason this is in the maggot lair comes when you equip the right claw first and don't weapon switch. Things change. Considering the game defaults to the normal rules above, this only applies to a specific order of equipping weapons, and it's unstable as it won't survive a weapon switch, i'd say this ones a bug.
I equipped a greater talon (-30 WSM) first and put it on the right. The attack speed with just that claw equipped was as expected, 10 fpa. I then equipped a war fist (10 WSM) on the left side. All the rules i had worked out went out the window. With just the two claws equipped and no bos, the 'sin had a 9 frame attack. I added some IAS gear and with the above setup. At 25 IAS, she had an attack at 7 fpa with TS, CS, PS and her kicks. Her speed with DC, FoF, CoT, and BoI was 11 frames (that's 11 frames for both claws to hit, not 11 for each claw.) I came up with this: The EIAS on the setup coming just from the claws is 55! Effectively, this gives this setup a WSM of -55 as there was no EIAS enhancing skill being used. Once i used weapon switch, the attack speed went back to following the normal rules.
Next, i tried the opposite thinking this should provide a nice speed boost if a war fist was the main weapon. Suprising results. I equipped the war fist first and put it on the right, then equipped the greater talon on the left. The result was the single slowest attack i have ever seen from a claw using assassin. The effective WSM of this setup was 27! She had a base attack of 19 frames with PS.
I haven't gotten into testing IAS on the claws themselves as of yet. I thought that finding out what's going on without it before adding it into the mix would be a good idea.
All subsequent testing backed this up. When equipping the right claw first:
1. Equipping a faster claw followed by a slower claw resulted in a faster attack speed than the first claw had on its own
2. Equipping a slower claw followed by a faster claw resulted in a slower attack than the first claw had on its own.
3. The greater the difference between the speed of the claws, the greater the increase/decrease in the attack speed.
I can swap IAS gear in and out to find my effective WSM like i did with the above and other tests, but what i can't seem to find is the equation the game is using to come up with it. I'm hoping that i'm just to focused on my own perspective and one of you will see what i'm not. Any ideas on how this is getting figured?
thanks
jrichard
Edit: after looking at this post, maybe i should have put this in the workshop.