Swordsman Archive

I've got a total of +11 to 2-handed melee speed skill enhancements. Now I know a lot of people have said that they were broken, but some people seemed to think they worked. I decided to check this out on a new 5.9 speed powerhammer that I got. I'm a master brawler with master techniques, so my base skill is 70. When I equip all my clothing I get a skill of 70/81 on the skills bar.

OK, so anyways, I don't have a detailed parse, but it was very clear that I was not attacking any faster with my skill enhancing clothing on -- my attack rate was one attack per 1.90 seconds with or without the skill enhancing gear. I guess there are two possibilities -- i'm at the cap for a non-master, or those skill enhancement items are broken.

Anybody have any thoughts?

I don't think Skill enhancement items are working. If you get one dropped from a mob it will work (will show the bonuses on your skills screen). If you put a skill enhancer into a socketed item it does nothing (no display on the skills screen).

There is a trick to showing numerical improvements to skills with the skill enhancement items -- you take off the clothing when you log out. If you are logged out for 10 or more minutes, you will get the bonuses when you put the clothing back on. That being said, even if the numerical benefits are shown inmy skills window, I still don't get any measurable improvement.

Only way to know for sure is to do some detailed testing. (ie STOPWATCH)

Find a lair with a lot of HP and time your attacks with a stopwatch. The reason for attacking a strong lair is because a) it won't run away and b) obviously your data will be more accurate with more swings over a longer period of time.

Doing this with my 2h curved sword @ 2.0 speed, I swing every second. (I attacked a fairly strong lair of 5000 life or so 19 times in 19 seconds.) This is with 0-2-0-1 Swordsman. (Don't know the exact speed skill mods I have.)

I am interested in knowing if +speed skill attachments are broken and I ask you to do the testing because I simply don't have the skill attachmentsto test it (actually I don't have ANY speed ones). Please do some more testing and find out once and for all if they are broken! For all of us!

I don't think there's a soft cap. I see no tangible benefit for a +4 carbine speed enhancer I have either. Although that's a very small bonus so it may be hard to detect.

Based on my attack logs with timestamp on, it is VERY clear I do not attack faster with my skill enhancement items on. I have no doubt of this based on my examination of the log. What I'm more concerned about is if I have reached the speed cap for a non-maxed swordsman, or if these simply do not work. If I didn't have master techniques and did these tests it would have been more useful, since it is less likely in my opinion that I'd reach some soft cap.

However, I've got a number of other stat bonuses on top of the speed improvements, and I don't see much benefit from those either. I'd do testing for those, but it is simply not as easy to test counterattack as it is to test speed.

That doesn't make sense... Yes there is a cap, but it is for 1 swing per second. So to be attacking at a maximum rate of 1.90 just doesn't make sense.

Try slicing the weapon for speed and see what happens. If you are still attacking at 1.90 delay, then we will know that for some reason the cap on your power hammer is 1.9 instead of 1... (bug?)

In other words, what I'm trying to say is that your skill enhancements are not coming into play because you are swinging at the maximum speed for that weapon. (Which is why I said to slice it for speed and see if it's still the same delay.)

(Alternatively, you could wait until Master Swordsman and compare the +10 speed skill mod to your skill enhancements.)

I wouldn't be so hasty to say they are broken just yet...

I know I can swing at 1 second with a different weapon, and yes, if the hammer had been sliced for speed then I would be attacking faster. I'm not saying I can'tany hammerfaster than 1.9 seconds -- what I am saying is that I'm not at the 1 second cap, yet my skill enhancement items are not affecting anything. Slicing the hammer wouldn't prove anything, I'd just find that I'd be swining closer to 1.3 seconds, and skill enhancement items wouldn't do any good there. What I'm saying is they either don't work, or there is a cap on 2-handed melee speed for non-masters. I know when I hit master I'll be able to swing it faster.

We're talking about a soft cap for attack speed increase (per level), not the 1 second across the board attack speed cap.

I was saying just to try it, maybe speed is bugged at 1.9 max. Gotta try everything, man. Just tryingto seek out every possiblity