Next delay and the assassin

[gw_epyon]

Long story short, I've been playing a claws of thunder/phoenix strike assassin for the past few days, and I can't help but notice that If I charge up claws of thunder and phoenix strike's last charges, phoenix strike's chaos ice bolt never hits. I assume this is because of next hit delay. Questions below.

1) These skills seem to be effected by next delay. As in...using fully charged claws of thunder and fully charged phoenix strike, the cold effect has zero effect on the creatures in the radius that have been hit with the nova from the claws of thunder. Are any of the charges not effected by next delay?
2) When I use dragon talon for the dual claw release, does it release my charges twice? It doesn't look like it does unless it's graphically overlapping, and if that's the case doesn't next delay make it next to worthless?
3) Claw speed for these attacks are determined by averaging the two claw speeds and adding ias, right?

[librarian]

Heiho,

I never could get the hang for Assassins, maybe someone else will step in to fill the gaps.

1) These skills seem to be effected by next delay. As in...using fully charged claws of thunder and fully charged phoenix strike, the cold effect has zero effect on the creatures in the radius that have been hit with the nova from the claws of thunder. Are any of the charges not effected by next delay?

both CoT and Phoenix ('RoyalStrike' in files) have a NHD of 4 frames duration. With Phoenix I'm sure the Lightning and the Ice effects are subject to 4 frames NHD. Not sure OTOMH about the fiery effect. would have to look at the files to be sure. OTOH fire effects are usually nerfed otherwise (tommi had a good compilation online, I'd have to research that one again, too).

regarding 2) I've no idea

3) Claw speed for these attacks are determined by averaging the two claw speeds and adding ias, right?

this is very tricky due to some glitches.

- The primary weapon is the one you've firstly equipped, regardless of the slot you've put it in.

-- you equip the primary weapon at your right hand (the left slot in inventory window) and the WSM of both weapons is averaged, like you said.

WSMtotal = ( WSMrightHand + WSMleftHand)/2


-- you equip the faster weapon (regarding base speed) at first (your primary weapon), but put in in the left hand (the right slot of inventory window)

then
WSMtotal = ( WSMrightHand + WSMleftHand)/2 + WSMleftHand - WSMrightHand

this second case is glitchy, it gives you a disturbingly high speed especially with a combination of a fast weapon as primary and a slow weapon as secondary weapon.

But, because our beloved game has the tendency to show us life is not that easy, this effect will vanish as soon as the game automatically re-equips your char. This happens when you change to Slot2 and back, when you retrieve your corpse after dying, and in addition randomly due to lag/vendor visits/wp usage.
You need to manually re-equip secondary weapon then to restore the effect.

All this is incorrectly shown at the avatar (your actual character), who will equip the primary weapon always in his right hand, regardless of the slot you've used.
I second Grimborn's and Kyrene's (from the Basin) suggestion to equip a dagger and a sword in various ways to get a feeling for primary/secondary weapon usage and left/right hand equipment showed.


Addendum: --- Generally IAS on primary weapon is considered the only source for item-IAS with dual-wielding attacks.