CA spaming for max DPS?

Ti'iesinyo'face · 12-31-2007, 12:59 PM

A few newb questions here.

For maxing out your DPS should you spam your CA's? Or, should you leave a sec or two in between to allow the melee hits to come in?

Do you still do melee dmg when spaming CA's?

If you don't do melee dmg when spaming, wouldn't it be better to go w/ a slow delay 2-hander so you can spam CA for 2-3 secs, let a 2-hand swing go through, then spam CA 2-3 secs and repeat? Or, just go for some DW?

Thanks

Ardain · 12-31-2007, 01:08 PM

Wow first there, that totally depends on your class :P. What do you play?

Secondly, there are different opinions on this.

I'd say for an assassin: Spam them. But others suggest something else.

As a rogue, time it, but time it well. I'm no rogue, so I can't really help ya there. But you have to know your weapons' delays, a constant haste mod is also recommended (since haste affects how often you swing auto attack). etc. If your mods are not constant you have to recalculate swings for every raid/group etc.

I think there even is a rough formula like (EXAMPLE!!! I don't recall the actual numbers): with 1,5 delay weapons and 100 haste mod you wait for autoattack swing twice before throwing in the next CA.

For me tbh the whole timing thingy was too complicated, because I figured out that my system is just a little bit too old to have the game respond smooth enough to time every thing how it should be. So I stuck to the bit of peeps that say assassins just spam away ;). And besides, I'm doing pretty decent DPS with this.

Edit: A friend of mine is a guardian and he tries to max out his DPS, which works surprisingly well with the perfect achievement setup (easily done since you can switch the profiles now from tanking to something else etc) and also importantly: The right timing of auto attack.

Ardain · 12-31-2007, 01:45 PM

Sorry for double post, but edit time was over:

Quote:

Example: with 1,5 delay weapons and 100 haste mod you wait for autoattack swing twice before throwing in the next CA.

I meant 4 delay ofc. who in hell would use a 1,5 delay weapon... /selfslap

Meta · 12-31-2007, 02:28 PM

Assassins have repeated stabbing so can just spam away without a care in the world! lol (I'm just jealous).

As a troub I time my stuff between swings, unless potm is up, in which case I'm bashing buttons like a crazy man!

Ti'iesinyo'face · 12-31-2007, 05:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ardain

Wow first there, that totally depends on your class :P. What do you play?

Secondly, there are different opinions on this.

I'd say for an assassin: Spam them. But others suggest something else.

As a rogue, time it, but time it well. I'm no rogue, so I can't really help ya there. But you have to know your weapons' delays, a constant haste mod is also recommended (since haste affects how often you swing auto attack). etc. If your mods are not constant you have to recalculate swings for every raid/group etc.

I think there even is a rough formula like (EXAMPLE!!! I don't recall the actual numbers): with 1,5 delay weapons and 100 haste mod you wait for autoattack swing twice before throwing in the next CA.

For me tbh the whole timing thingy was too complicated, because I figured out that my system is just a little bit too old to have the game respond smooth enough to time every thing how it should be. So I stuck to the bit of peeps that say assassins just spam away ;). And besides, I'm doing pretty decent DPS with this.

Edit: A friend of mine is a guardian and he tries to max out his DPS, which works surprisingly well with the perfect achievement setup (easily done since you can switch the profiles now from tanking to something else etc) and also importantly: The right timing of auto attack.

Aight', i'm pretty stupid most of the time so to clarify...

Playin' a zerker for one (but going to role a Brig too)...when you spaming CA's, you don't auto-attack w/ melee? If so, then i need to slo' my role iz what u sayin'?

Thx Ardain

kyros · 12-31-2007, 08:13 PM

your autoattacks will swing during the recovery time between CAs or spells.

Ti'iesinyo'face · 01-01-2008, 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kyros

your autoattacks will swing during the recovery time between CAs or spells.

Even when spamming other CA's at the same time? ...member', i'm sloooo'

Ardain · 01-01-2008, 06:33 AM

I thought the auto attack that would be due while you cast a CA kinda "chains up" and is "released" after your CA got through. At least this is what I heared :P.

I think this only works for one swing, not multiple ones, but I am just assuming that, haven't tested it and can't test it at the moment (still at home for holidays and I can only play solitaire or BG2 on my laptop :P ).

So yes, while yo're CAing, you don't auto attack. Only between the CAs. As a zerker or brigand you definitely have to take this into consideration.

firamas · 01-01-2008, 05:08 PM

yes, autoattacks will go off in between CA's. the autoattack queues up and "hits" as soon as the CA recovery time is over. for a class with no casting/recovery haste, this means every CA takes the normal 1.0 second (0.5 cast + 0.5 recovery).

most melee scouts just spam the shit out of their CA's. unless you have the exact same raid and same group every night its too hard to determine what melee haste and casting haste you'll have. there's too many buffs and temp buffs that alter this for most people to even care. the issue of "losing" melee DPS comes when your autoattack would have been ready to hit, say, 0.2 seconds into the casting of your current CA. that means it stays queued for another 0.8 seconds until it can fire, effectively slowing the delay of your weapon by that amount for that swing. when you're staying close to 100% haste and using ~4sec weapons, that can be significant.

the optimal situation is to have your post-haste weapon delay be exactly equal to your CA cast+recovery time. i.e. as close to any multiple of 1.0 sec without going over the multiple. (or for rogues with sailwind, multiple of 0.8)

bottom line: spamming works best in most cases, don't worry about it. worry about your cast order more.

Arch0n · 01-02-2008, 11:16 AM

Zerkers are a problematic class when it comes to CA's, because at end-game, their bread-and-butter abilities greatly enhance their autoattack + ripose + parry, etc etc. CA's get in the way. So unless you know your weapon delay very well, it's hard to get really efficient DPS.

My suggestion in that case would be to use a very slow weapon (Nathsar Shortsword) and toss in a couple hard-hitting (or your best mastered) CA's when you know you've got a delay.

As for scouts? Yah, spam them.