Flurry - no damage value alone

Quote from Rex:

"Flurry lessens your damage per hit by roughly 25%, it also increases your attack rate by roughly 25%, and it lasts for about 5 seconds. The net effect over that time is an increase to your overall damage.

Say you use a swod. Normally you'll swing once every 1.33 seconds. With Flurry you'll swing roughly every 1 second. Rather than being able to land about 3 blows in 5 seconds, you'll land 5. Rather than doing your full damage three times, you'll do 75% of your damage 5 times. 300% vs. 375%. So, it's actually about a 20% increase to your damage for the duration over the skill.
"

Let us break down Rex's assumptions here.
(In first paragraph he assumes 25% attack increase. in second paragraph he suddenly say it is a 66% speed increase, but never mind that


ASSUMPTION 1:
125% hit speed x 75% damage = 5/4 x 3/4 = 15/16 = less damage done

ASSUMPTION 2:
133% hit speed x 75% damage = 4/3 x 3/4 = 1. same damage.

Still not satisfying in itself!

ASSUMPTION 3:
150% hit speed x 75% damage = 6/4 x 3/4 = 18/16 = 9/8 = 110%ish

Now we are getting somewhere. The Adrenaline skills add maybe 2-3 DPS? While we at "ASSUMPTION 3" add 10% of a 20-25 DPS?? = 2 DPS.
However, still not very much. However it stacks with Conjure*

Okay, how can we pick the right ASSUMPTION from above? Well, while we wait for the BWE where we can time it, we can look at it the other way around:

Flurry, adding 1 hit extra in 5 seconds, will enable
- 11 damage from 1 conjure hit, at 10 skill
- 20 melee damage, average, with a great sword? (you tell me)
= 31 net extra damage for 5 mana

Flurry, adding 2 hits extra in 5 seconds, will enable
- 22 damage from 1 conjure hit, at 10 skill
- 40 melee damage, average, with a great sword? (you tell me)
= 62 net extra damage for 5 mana

Which is way too good.

Above would indicate that Flurry only adds 1 hit extra per 5 seconds.

So, what does that mean: It means from above (ASSUMPTION 1, less damage; ASSUMPTION 2, same damage) that Flurry HAS NO DAMAGE VALUE IF USED ALONE, IF YOU DO NOT USE CONJURE OR SIMILAR SKILLS.

It will however add to adrenaline regeneration.

Let us compare it with Hundred blades:
1 extra hit, 50% more damage, to each and every foe around you. It is much better. However, it has a 8 second recycle, which should not be forgotten. But it is far less mana intensive.

So the bottom line is

- FLURRY HAS NO VALUE FOR EXTRA DAMAGE, IF NOT USED WITH CONJURE * OR SIMILAR SKILLS. (This based on an assumed 75% damage dealt per hit, mind you!!)

- FLURRY WILL ONLY ADD 1 CONJURE BONUS IN 5 SECONDS = approx 2 DPS. IT IS NOT A VERY POWERFUL SKILL, EVEN WITH CONJURE, FOR DAMAGE CONSIDERATIONS ALONE.

- FLURRY WILL INCREASE YOUR ADRENALINE REGENERATION BY 25%; WHICH IS VERY GOOD, BUT AT A COST OF 1 MANA/SECOND.

I'm not sure which is true, assumption 1 or 2, but either way I do believe it is correct that Flurry by itself does not increase the amount of damage you do, it only increases the number of attacks you make. Increasing how many attacks you make is the point of using it. How you turn that into more damage (or other benefit) is outside of the scope of Flurry itself -- something else has to be done to make that advantageous. But there are plenty of options...

The attack speed buffs actually lie - they aren't 25% faster attack speed, but 25% shorter swing times. (at least, as far as I know). So a buff that says 25% faster attack speed really means 33% faster attack speed, a 33% buff means 50% faster attack speed, etc. They just define things in an interesting manner.

At least, that's how I understand these things to work. I'll mess with Frenzy next BWE and see how it really times out.

Peace,
-CxE

Oh but as Ensign is saying in some other thread - atm the game is all about stacking buffs on attacks and having a high hit rate. (some thread about hammers?)
Conjure is only the most obvious one.

Conjure, Mark of Pain, Order of Pain, Order of Vampire, Illusionary Weapons (uhm - special case ), Judges Insight, Strength of Honor, Barbs, Dark fury... for example all benefit from more hits/time.

Okay, could you run that by me again, in slow motion this time? What's the difference between the two, and how does a 25% shorter swing time translate into a 33% faster attack rate?

The ability to stack is indeed a very valuable commodity. However, there are hardly any stackable attack skills. They are all stances, except for "100 blades" and a few more (cant recite em). Stances do not stack, and this is ANets way of making sure that damage is not stacked two dimensionally I guess; Stacking attack speed with damage buffs per hit is an ugly combination.

I guess one can say that 100 blades is a fantastic skill as it stacks with attack stances?

Charles, I cant agree with your interpretation of the way attack speed is defined, without "proof". It makes sense to write and interpret "35% faster attack speed", as giving exactly 35% more damage. As would "26.789% faster attack speed" give exactly 26.789% more damage.

All the attack stances say "..% faster", which makes it so much easier for the designer to balance things out, compared to going the opposite "25% shorter swing time", which as you give as example, do 33% more damage. Half the crowd dont even understand how you came up with that 33%. I wouldn't bet on Anet going that route.

As my old dad says, he is a teacher since 1970, hehe, the ability to do % calculations is what separates the A from the B crowd in calculus. Messy subject.

Actually, I think I get it. Suppose your normal swing time is 4 (4 what? who cares -- 4 time units of your choice). 25% faster swing time would be a swing time of 3. Now imagine a 12 unit time interval. In the first case, you get 3 attacks every 12 units. In the second case, you get 4 attacks during those 12 units, a 33% increase. So yes, a 25% increased swing speed is a 33% increased attack rate. I'm kicking myself now for not seeing that right off the bat.

I have to disagree about the wording, though. To me, "attack speed" and "swing speed" mean the same thing, so if the skill description says it's increasing your attack speed 25%, and it's increasing your swing speed by that amount, that's worded perfectly as far as I'm concerned, even if that is giving me a 33% faster attack rate.

A 25% reduced swing interval (3 seconds instead of 4) amounts to a 33% increased attack speed. I think the problem is that you don't increase the attack spead, you decrease the interval between subsequent attacks. Its bad terminology, as you say.

This should be intuitive. If you aren't combining Flurry with another skill on your bar that takes advantage of a faster swing speed, then it's taking up valuable real estate on your skillbar.

Having said that, how many warriors don't have access to those buffs? W/Mo and W/E both have +damage per hit enchantments, W/N have hexes that are +damage per hit on the target.

Warrior/Ranger should never be played IMO, and W/Me is a tricky combination to run, and would be geared more towards disruption that pure damage anyways.

My bottom line: Every warrior should have access to some form of + damage per hit that allows them to take advantage of Flurry's increased attack speed. If they don't then a Necromancer on their team should. That doesn't mean Flurry is always going to be on every warrior's bar, but you can make the argument for it.

[QUOTE=torry]Quote from Rex:

"Flurry lessens your damage per hit by roughly 25%, it also increases your attack rate by roughly 25%, and it lasts for about 5 seconds. The net effect over that time is an increase to your overall damage.

Say you use a swod. Normally you'll swing once every 1.33 seconds. With Flurry you'll swing roughly every 1 second. Rather than being able to land about 3 blows in 5 seconds, you'll land 5. Rather than doing your full damage three times, you'll do 75% of your damage 5 times. 300% vs. 375%. So, it's actually about a 20% increase to your damage for the duration over the skill.
"

I havent made it through the rest yet, but taking a look at this....
If you swing once every 1.33 seconds, you attack 3 times in 4 seconds, not 3 in 5. So 3 in 4 should be compared to 4 in 4, meaning that you have 3 attacks at 100% and 4 attacks at 75% making them both total 300%.

So, by that math, they work out the same.

Matt

Ugh, no, not the way I use the terms. A 25% reduced swing interval is a 25% increased attack speed (the time it takes to make an attack). It's a 33% increased attack rate (the amount of attacks you get over time). I was only confused because Ensign said the descriptions lie, whereas they appear to say exactly what is true, at least with respect to how I read the terms. If they said "rate" instead of "speed", they'd be inaccurate, but they seem to be perfectly fine as they are. Although, obviously this conversation proves that's not the case -- it's obviously confusing, it just happens to fit what I generally expect the terms to mean.

EDIT: Okay, actually what the skills usually say something like "you attack 33% faster than normal". To me, this means a 33% faster attack time, which translates into a 50% higher attack rate. Again, to me, the skill descriptions seem to be perfectly accurate, but obviously it ought to be reworded if it's causing this much confusion.

Correct, that would make *sense*, and what would actually happen if skills work as written. What I'm saying is that the the skill descriptions are quite possibly using bad terminology and thus interpreting their results as written is a mistake. This is not based upon reading the skill descriptions, but using them in game.

35% faster attack speed should result in 35% more damage. That's intuitive and the way that speed is defined. But that assumes that skill descriptions are accurate, and you just can't make that assumption at this point. I'm assuming that the skill descriptions will read the way that we want them to in release.

(Did you know that Oath Shot is linked to Marksmanship? It says right there in the skill description "50% miss chance with Expertise less than 8", but it doesn't care what your Expertise is at all - it fails with Marksmanship of less than 8.)


We're talking about words that have been butchered by overuse. Everything is already well defined, you're just getting caught up in the terminology.

"Speed" or "Rate" mean effectively the same thing, then amount of stuff that you can do in a period of time. It appropriately has units of /second. "Interval" or "Time" are clearly measured in seconds, making them the inverse of speed.

If it takes half as long to do something, you have accomplished that task twice as fast. If it takes you twice as long, you've done it at half speed.

Fairly straightforward if Guild Wars isn't abusing terminology.

Peace,
-CxE

I have been trying to stay out of this because I don't know for sure how this is calculated in the game but the above quote got to me. If "Speed" and "Rate" mean the same thing then I could say

I am currently traveling at this "Speed" of "Speed"
or
I am currently traveling at this "Rate" of "Rate"
instead of
I am currently traveling at this "Rate" of "Speed"

You're reading too deeply - they aren't words that mean the exact same thing, they're just both terms that refer to processes that have units of per second. They are used differently as parts of speech - I wasn't trying to make that distinction as I was not an english major. =)

Peace,
-CxE

I may be the wife tells me I am too literal all the time , However the thing that gets me is the description for this skill is vague.

Description: For 5 seconds, your attack rate is increased, but you deal less damage.

It neither tells you how much of an increase in "Rate" you receive or how much of a decrease in "Damage" you receive.

[QUOTE=Rellok]Yes yes, the 1.33 secs dont go up in 5 seconds (Flurry duration). However, we must assume that flurry adds a round figure to hitting in 5 seconds, else the maths get too ugly for our posting. We cant assume 0.83223 hits and then compare it with 100 blades can we?? Thus 1 or 2 hits extra per 5 seconds, for comparison. I have no doubt somebody will time Flurry for a whole minute to get exact figures. It is hardly any work to do.

Why dont some Alphas do that??

You administrators, is there a possibility you link relevant threads to the skills? Say the large threads on some skills, cant you add a link to that thread when we look at the skill. For all I know its like that already