Electric Blue's 1.10 Wolf Guide

[TheDragoon]

On the issue of communication: I am a scientist & I interpret mathematical and scientific notation daily. In the real world it is the author's job to communicate clearly and accurately. It is the reader's job to sort through different expressions of similar ideas to find those that work. Consistency with prevous notation may be convenient but has no inherent virtue, especially if new notation leads to new ideas or expresses old ideas better.

While this is true, I (and basically every other Druid player that I've talked to) stand by my belief that the "new notation" of electricblue's adds nothing but confusion for the people he targets with the guide.

His definition of "WIAS" (Weapon Increased Attack Speed) is the same definition that the Druid community has used for "Weapon Speed Modifier (WSM)." The term Weapon Increased Attack Speed has been used to mean the Increased Attack Speed value listed on your weapon while the Other Increased Attack Speed (OIAS) means the value of Increased Attack Speed listed on all other items. Similarly, Skill Increased Attack Speed (SIAS) means the value of Skill Increased Attack Speed listed on the skill that applies to you.

Thus, according to the standard notation, the WIAS/OIAS/SIAS total values are just the sum of the values that you read off of the user-interface for the game. Thus, all three types of IAS are consistent in that respect. With electricblue's notation, they are not consistent as OIAS and SIAS are teh sum of the values from the game's display while WIAS is the sum of the listed value in the game and the base weapon speed which is NOT listed anywhere in the game. You have to get the base weapon speed values from the weapons.txt file or the Arreat Summit.

So, of course, my suggestion had been to change the listing from WIAS to WSM, at which point his chart is basically the EXACT same thing as the charts for the Werewolf that were originally compiled by Concillian.

So, in the end, the new notation just isn't consistent with all other information sources (including my calculator, the calculator from diablo2.de, Concillian's Tables, and, really, every other guide out there) and, in fact, the same composite value already has a name from the more standard notation. :) As I think I've said to some people before (and drawing upon a chemistry example), renaming the WSM to WIAS would be kind of like renaming Enthalpy to some other name that isn't used anywhere else. The value would be the same, but it would have a different name and probably lead to confusion in all of those Chemistry students out there. B)

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As for the whole synergy thing, I would agree with adeyke that it's a bug. If you'd like to see my justification, message me and I'll send it to you. I know electricblue disagrees so I'll refrain from posting it to avoid another argument between he and I about it. :P