Brawler Archive

It's very common to wonder how various combat mechanics supposedly work. This FAQ will serve as part of a list of FAQ's discussing various game mechanics and how they are thought to work and (for some) how they are intended to work. These two things are not always the same mind you. These mechanics can change and they are not always understood perfectly. If you have reason to doubt any of these FAQ's please let me know asap.

In this thread we'll be talking about speed bonuses. Every melee profession receives certain bonuses to their speed. Thecurrent formula for the final delay of your weapon is:

final_delay = special_delay_multiplier * weapon_delay * (100 - speed_bonus)/100

• final_delay -- the delay you actually swing/fire at
  
• weapon_delay -- the delay listed on your weapon
  
• special_delay_multiplier -- a multiplier that depends on the special you are using, 1.0 when you are not using a special
  
• speed_bonus -- the speed bonus you have for the weapon you are using, as listed in your skills menu. This might also be modified by skill attachments.

This final_delay, is capped at 1 second. As you tend towards a 100 speed bonus you will move towards the 1 second speed cap.

The result of this formula is that weapon speed does not matter as much as it might. Most professions can reach their speed cap for all specials with all weapons (although some will need to use skill attachments to do this). If all weapons attack at the 1 second delays then speed is irrelevant and only damage and Armor Piercing values matter.

Another thing to to notice is that higher speeds dramatically increase damage output. Damage Per Second can be calculated as:

weapon_DPS = weapon_damage * chance_to_hit * resistances/ final_delay

For capped weapons however the final_delay term can be ignored. This seems to penalize faster weapons. To view the effects of this you can look at the following DPS graph that I charged with 3 hypothetical weapons. All of these weapons seem to have the same DPS just looking at their damage statistics, but due to the speed formula they end up dealing dramatically different amounts of damage at high speed bonuses.

DPS Graphs

Several correspondents have already commented on the perceived unfairness of this formula and we are hoping that the speed formula will be tweaked soon as part of the coming combat rebalancing.

--- this is a rough draft and I may add some further commentary here at a later date ---

StGabe.

Ive seen this formula regurgitated several times but Im curious on the speed_bonus issue.

Isn't it possible to increase speed beyond 100? Unarmed speed for a TKA Master is 115, right? Wouldnt this blow the formula?

if speed modifiers actually cap at 100 then why give a profession 115?

Thank you for the post,

Sharc

if speed modifiers actually cap at 100 then why give a profession 115?

There isn't really a reason that makes sense here. The fact that TKAs, for example, go above 100 speed bonus, seems to be an indication that the speed bonus system may not have been that well understood when it was implemented. Or maybe they were aware of it and just thought it'd change later or something else.

StGabe.

Thank you very much for the formula.

antares
master pikeman