Can I have too much Attack Speed with EQ?

Not sure if this is ridiculous, but I seem to have gained a lot of attack speed recently with a EQ build and now am attacking in such quick successions that it appears as if my aftershocks are being somehow ... overlapped. Is that even possible? By this I mean: Is EQ such that if I attack too fast, my last attack "overwrites" the aftershock of a previous attack? I'm hoping this is not the case and that the aftershocks of my previous attacks will do their damage when they come about, but I am not sure.
My APS is 2.34 in HO, I am sure my aftershock is slower. I am using Less Duration (currently level 17, gem reads "49% less skill effect duration") but I do not use Rapid Decay. I have no other (global) increases or decreases to skill duration that I know of.
So I suppose my questions are:
- Is it possible to have too much attack speed?
- Is there a specific threshhold that I need to make sure I uphold?
- If so, what is the workaround -- just get rid of attack speed jewels / nodes / items?

Thank you in advance

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onomastikon a écrit :

- Is it possible to have too much attack speed?

yes

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- Is there a specific threshhold that I need to make sure I uphold?

Ideally you want Attack Time (shown on tooltip hover-over, or if you somehow have issues with that 1/attacks per second) to be about 0.02 or more higher than the Earthquake Skill Duration (in theory, you would want them to be exactly the same, but the game isn't quite precise with its timing, so 0.02 of lag time helps make sure you hit the sweet spot).

The goal is to start a new aftershock as soon as the last aftershock you placed finishes.

You can go faster than this threshold, which somewhat lowers your DPS due to "idle time" where no Aftershocks are being charged and thus lowers DPS, if you value the kiting ability of faster attacks more; the DPS loss isn't too terrible

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- If so, what is the workaround -- just get rid of attack speed jewels / nodes / items?

Getting further reductions on Earthquake's Duration somehow (quality on Less Duration, or a reduced duration Helm enchant are probably your best bets, although if you rely heavily on Poison and/or Bleed Rapid Decay can probably work too) would probably unlock much more build power than simply reducing attack speed, but you can reduce attack speed too.

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adghar a écrit :

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onomastikon a écrit :

- Is it possible to have too much attack speed?

yes

"

- Is there a specific threshhold that I need to make sure I uphold?

Ideally you want Attack Time (shown on tooltip hover-over, or if you somehow have issues with that 1/attacks per second) to be about 0.02 or more higher than the Earthquake Skill Duration (in theory, you would want them to be exactly the same, but the game isn't quite precise with its timing, so 0.02 of lag time helps make sure you hit the sweet spot).

The goal is to start a new aftershock as soon as the last aftershock you placed finishes.

You can go faster than this threshold, which somewhat lowers your DPS due to "idle time" where no Aftershocks are being charged and thus lowers DPS, if you value the kiting ability of faster attacks more; the DPS loss isn't too terrible

"

- If so, what is the workaround -- just get rid of attack speed jewels / nodes / items?

Getting further reductions on Earthquake's Duration somehow (quality on Less Duration, or a reduced duration Helm enchant are probably your best bets, although if you rely heavily on Poison and/or Bleed Rapid Decay can probably work too) would probably unlock much more build power than simply reducing attack speed, but you can reduce attack speed too.

Thank you very much for this speedy reply.
This is bad news for me. My tooltip says my attack time is .46 seconds (with no frenzy charges from Blood Rage), and the tooltip says "Skill lasts .076 seconds" (with Less Duration slotted). Is this second figure (0.76) the figure you mentioned which I need to consider?
If so and if the tooltip is to be trusted, I need a lot of work. And I have very little invested in attack speed (relatively speaking -- I have not bought into the Axe wheels yet). Sadly, not doing any Poison, but some bleed -- and I can't afford Voidheart poison to make Rapid Decay that much more worthwhile. I'm running Hatred and Herald and doing more the elemental thing...
Thank you

Well, theoretically, you could work around it by manually tapping every single time you want to strike, and getting the aftershock timing perfect like that :P but that's a huge pain in the butt.

I'm fairly certain the Earthquake lowered duration Helmet enchantment goes a loooong way in increasing the amount of attack speed you can gain without losing Aftershock DPS, or what I like to call the soft attack speed cap for Earthquake.

With your Attack Speed, it might not actually be worth it to try lowering your attack speed down to match 1:1 Aftershock ratio.

.78/.46 = 70% more DPS gained from Attack Speed in excess of 1:1 (+0.02 second) ratio

(1.09 + 1.09*1.5) / (1.09 + 1.09*1.5/2) = 42.9% more dps gained from going from 2:1 ratio to 1:1 ratio


So, you probably shouldn't be too worried about it, and stick with whatever stats you currently have. You'd only really need to lower your Attack Speed if you got more reduced/less duration on Earthquake, which would raise the soft cap and thus mean you don't have to drop as much Attack Speed to reach it, so that you could squeeze out some DPS that way.

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adghar a écrit :

Well, theoretically, you could work around it by manually tapping every single time you want to strike, and getting the aftershock timing perfect like that :P but that's a huge pain in the butt.

I'm fairly certain the Earthquake lowered duration Helmet enchantment goes a loooong way in increasing the amount of attack speed you can gain without losing Aftershock DPS, or what I like to call the soft attack speed cap for Earthquake.

With your Attack Speed, it might not actually be worth it to try lowering your attack speed down to match 1:1 Aftershock ratio.

.78/.46 = 70% more DPS gained from Attack Speed in excess of 1:1 (+0.02 second) ratio

(1.09 + 1.09*5) / (1.09 + 1.09*5/2) = 71.4% more DPS gained from going from 2:1 ratio to 1:1 ratio

So, you probably shouldn't be too worried about it, and stick with whatever stats you currently have. You'd only really need to lower your Attack Speed if you got more reduced/less duration on Earthquake, which would raise the soft cap and thus mean you don't have to drop as much Attack Speed to reach it, so that you could squeeze out some DPS that way.

I see, thank you.
I recolored to put in a G for Rapid Decay, but it's not enough, and I can't afford an Enchant quite yet -- just wonder then if perhaps Cyclone would be the skill for me? If I can sustain the mana, wouldn't that be perhaps better suited?

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onomastikon a écrit :

just wonder then if perhaps Cyclone would be the skill for me? If I can sustain the mana, wouldn't that be perhaps better suited?

Interesting thought, but probably not, unless you want some of the other side benefits of Cyclone (more Hits per Second, attack while moving, pass through enemies)

Cyclone lv 20 Weapon DPS multiplier: 56.4 * 1.5 * 2 = 169.2%
Earthquake lv 20 2:1 ratio Weapon DPS multiplier: (1.09 + 1.09*1.5/2) = 190.75%

So even without getting 1:1 ratio you get 190.75/169.2 = 1.127 = 12.7% more DPS with EQ than Cyclone.

By the way, I did the calculations wrong before, and going from 2:1 to 1:1 ratio actually only grants you (1.09 + 1.09*1.5) / (1.09 + 1.09*1.5/2) = ~43% more damage, not 71.4% as I posted before.

So IMO you're totally fine just playing EQ the way you were before :P

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adghar a écrit :

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onomastikon a écrit :

just wonder then if perhaps Cyclone would be the skill for me? If I can sustain the mana, wouldn't that be perhaps better suited?

Interesting thought, but probably not, unless you want some of the other side benefits of Cyclone (more Hits per Second, attack while moving, pass through enemies)

Cyclone lv 20 Weapon DPS multiplier: 56.4 * 1.5 * 2 = 169.2%
Earthquake lv 20 2:1 ratio Weapon DPS multiplier: (1.09 + 1.09*1.5/2) = 190.75%

So even without getting 1:1 ratio you get 190.75/169.2 = 1.127 = 12.7% more DPS with EQ than Cyclone.

By the way, I did the calculations wrong before, and going from 2:1 to 1:1 ratio actually only grants you (1.09 + 1.09*1.5) / (1.09 + 1.09*1.5/2) = ~43% more damage, not 71.4% as I posted before.

So IMO you're totally fine just playing EQ the way you were before :P

Thank you very much for your help.
Two last questions:
1. How are you calculating this? Where are you getting this information from?
2. I'm sure you are correct, but if you are, doesn't that mean that EQ is simply *better* than Cyclone? Is this consensus? And if so, wouldn't that mean that something would have to be fixed to make this a non-no-brainer?
Thanks tons

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onomastikon a écrit :

1. How are you calculating this? Where are you getting this information from?

Mostly from the wiki and having personally used Cyclone. Base damage on Cyclone description plus the "spins at players attack speed and deals damage twice per spin" is why you multiply by 1.5 (for 50% more attack speed) and 2 (twice per spin).

Base damage on Earthquake description plus the Aftershock hits for "50% more damage" hence it has the same multiplier, so hence multiply by 1.5, and we divide that term by 2 if your ratio is 2:1 because you only benefit from the aftershock half the time.

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2. I'm sure you are correct, but if you are, doesn't that mean that EQ is simply *better* than Cyclone? Is this consensus? And if so, wouldn't that mean that something would have to be fixed to make this a non-no-brainer?

Yeah, skill balance is a tricky one, since much more goes into actual in-game power than just Damage per Hit and Attack Speed. There are plenty of reasons why one would want Cyclone instead of Earthquake, some of which I listed before (attack while moving, pass through enemies, more Hits per Second) and there are also differences in restrictions; Cyclone is Green while Earthquake is Red, and Cyclone can be used with any melee weapon (or unarmed!) while Earthquake demands Mace or Axe. Also, Earthquake's Aftershock can potentially deal no damage if the enemy moves out of the way of the Aftershock within the duration (0.76 second, right?)

Whether those benefits are "worth" a ~12% DPS difference depends on the situation. For example, Cyclone's attack while moving + pass through enemies feature might help you during boss fights with telegraphed attacks, so that you damage while kiting, while with Earthquake you would have to move out of the way and thus not be dealing damage.