Weapon Inherants and Attack Speed Replacement Idea 💡

[Urza-1177]

Hi folks. More improvements while I am bored at yob!

Attack speed is extremely confusing with two caps and breakpoints and nobody knows how it works. Essentially this is just getting to the point you are attacking extra times and we can do this is a much easier way. Attack speed is now %chance to attack twice and caps at 100%. This is very easy to understand now and essentially very similiar. This is a radical idea but I think it might have merit. Weapon speed is now what dictates how fast you attack and nothing changes it. Super easy to understand now! No more breakpoints to figure out and excel spreadsheets to fill out. There would now be 6 categories. The slowest weapon is now 0.8 attacks per second.

Slowest [0.8 attacks per second]: Trident , Cannon
Very Slow [0.9 attacks per second]: Flail 2, Mace 2, Quarterstaff, Scythe 2, Staff
Slow [1 attacks per second]: Axe 2, Crossbow, Flail 1, Mace 1, Polearm, Sword 1, Scythe 1
Fast [1.1 attacks per second]: Axe 1, Bow, Glaive, Sword 1, Scepter
Very Fast [1.2 attacks per second]: Wand, Pistol , Shard , Club
Fastest [1.3 attacks per second]: Dagger, Throwing Star , Knuckles

Offhands have no effect on weapon speed.
Druid Offhands - Orb , Talisman , Totem
Necromancer Offhands - Focus, Figurine , Orb , Shield
Paladin Offhands - Orb , Shield, Symbol
Sorc Offhands - Focus, Orb , Tome
Warlock Offhands - Contract , Focus, Orb

Contract - X% Demon Duration [Warlock only]
Figurine - Recall X [Every X seconds summon your minions to you .] [Necromancer only]
Focus - X% Cooldown Reduction
Orb - X% Ultimate Effect [Any hero that use offhands can use this. Flexible.]
Symbol - X% Aura Effect [Paladin only].
Talisman - X% Spirit Choice Effect [Druid only].
Tome - X% Increase [ELEMENT] Skill Size [Sorc only]. Comes in 3 variants. Ice Tome, Fire Tome, Lightning Tome.
Totem - X% Shapeshift Damage [Druid only]

Weapons gain a fixed inherent back because they need something that makes them different within the same category. No values given for balance reasons. Weapons rebalanced to even them out which might require uniques to change type.
Axe - X% Cleave
Bow - X% Multishot chance
Cannon [two hand] - X% Increased Core Skill Size [Necromancer, Paladin, Rogue, Spiritborn]
Club - X% Overpower Chance [Druid only 2 hand]. Low Value.
Crossbow - X% Pierce Chance
Dagger - X% Basic Skill Damage [Any hero can use a dagger except spiritborn].
Flail - X% Knockdown Chance [paladin]
Glaive - Plus X Thorns [Spiritborn].
Knuckles - X% Berserking Damage [Barb only]
Mace - X% Crowd Control Duration [on enemies]
Pistol - Plus X to all Mobility Skills [Rogue, Warlock]
Polearm - X% Melee Counter Attack Chance [necro loses access]
Quarterstaff - X% Block Chance [Spiritborn]
Scythe - X% Summon Damage
Scepter - X% Enchantment Effect [sorc only 1 hand]
Shard - X% Lesser Fragment Effect [warlock only 1 hand]
Staff - X% Movement Speed
Sword - X All stats [Any hero can use swords now].
Throwing Star: - X% Ranged Counterattack Chance [Spiritborn, Rogue]
Trident - X% Chance to attack Thrice [All but rogue] Low value for balance.
Wand - X% Lucky hit bonus.

Weapons by Hero [10 each now]:
Barb: 10 Axe 1, Axe 2, Dagger, Knuckles, Mace 1, Mace 2, Polearm, Sword 1, Sword 2, Trident
Druid: 10 Axe 1, Axe 2, Club, Dagger, Mace 1, Mace 2, Staff, Sword 1, Sword 2, Trident
Necromancer: 10 Cannon, Dagger, Mace 1, Mace 2, Scythe, Staff, Sword 1, Sword 2, Trident, Wand
Paladin: 10 Axe 1, Axe 2, Cannon, Dagger, Flail, Mace 1, Mace 2, Sword 1, Sword 2, Trident
Rogue: 10 Axe 1, Bow, Cannon, Dagger, Mace 1, Pistol, Sword 1, Sword 2, Xbox**, Throwing Star
Sorc: 10 Axe 1, Dagger, Mace 1, Mace 2, Scepter, Staff, Sword 1, Sword 2, Trident, Wand
Spiritborn: 10 Axe 2, Cannon, Mace 2, Glaive, Quarterstaff, Polearm, Staff, Sword 2, Throwing Star, Trident
Warlock: 10 Axe 1, Axe 2, Dagger, Mace 1, Mace 2, Pistol, Shard , Sword 1, Sword 2, Staff, Trident

Class Only Weapons:
Barb - Knuckles
Druid - Club
Necromancer - Scythe
Paladin - Flail
Rogue - Bow, Xbow
Sorc - Scepter
Spiritborn - Glaive, Quarterstaff
Warlock - Shard

Better system? Or trash?
or ?

[carrotfeets-1833]

For what it’s worth, Maxroll’s Character Planner correctly identifies Bucket 1 as Attack Speed and Bucket 2 as Cast Speed. This is not something that shows on any tooltips in game.

Sescheron’s Fury reduces CAST SPEED by 50%. To negate this penalty, you need +50% CAST SPEED.

Inherents and Weapon Speed are antiquated but your system seems really covoluted. They just need to normalize things and correctly identify Attack Speed and Cast Speed as two separate buckets and those buckets need to do different things.

[Urza-1177]

I dint think it was that convoluted.

Attack speed is just % chance to attack twice now and caps at 100%.

Weapons have 6 categories of weapon speed from slowest to fastest.

Weapons have inherents now in the long list.

That was it!

[carrotfeets-1833]

You posted a novel of random stuff with Inherents, random new weapons, and attack speeds.

The only issue with Attack Speed right now is that there are 2 different Buckets that more or less do the same thing with the mechanic hidden in the Character Sheet, what counts in each bucket, and how Breakpoints work.

Weapons having different speeds does not work also in D4 because this game isn’t about DPS and there isn’t really mechanic that necessitates fast vs slow weapons.

The first issue with the buckets is solved with just creating Attack Speed and Cast Speed and having those be separate buckets that do separate things with mechanics clearly labeled which they affect.

The second comes with normalizing speeds so all weapons have the same Base Damage and Speed with the only difference between 1H and 2H Weapons.

One of the issues now with Barbarians is that it is clearly better to have your Arsenal Weapon assigned to either 2H Bludgeoning or Polearm (slowest and highest damage) due to Expertise and Glyphs with the rare exception of Bleeds wanting 2H Sword.

Double Attacks are not interesting in D4. In EQ, and MMORPGs where things are sponges and DPS > Burst, these variety of mechanics make sense. In D4, it needs to be streamlined because mechanics are shallow.