Attack speed

Attack speed is displayed on the character sheet

Attack speed is the rate at which your character attacks. The base attack speed is generally the same for all races and classes, except:

• Base attack bonus - classes with full BAB attack slightly faster
• Enhancements may increase your attack speed

Attack speed and movement

Your attack speed changes if your character is moving (because your attack animation is often different while moving)

• Single Weapon Fighting has a high attack speed while moving
• Two-Weapon Fighting has a low attack speed while moving
• Ranged? ..

Twitching

While standing still, depending on your fighting style, your attack animations have different duration (see attack sequence). It is possible to interrupt the attack animation by making a tiny step (twitching) or a special attack (for example, Cleave).

Quote:

Originally Posted by J-mann Basically, the delay between swings 1 and 2 is much shorter than the delay in swings 2 and 3 and 3 and 4. By moving after swings 1 and 2 ... you reset the chain back to swings one and two instead of doing swings three and four. This nets you a few extra swings per minute, at the small cost of some to hit (swings 3 and 4 have higher to hits if I remember right, also you incur a 4 to hit penalty for moving).

See also:

• DDO Forums (2015 SWF twitching)
• YouTube twitching tutorial

In Update 45, many animations were reworked for two-handed weapons except quarterstaffs were reworked:

• All attack animations should execute in the same amount of time
• Standing attack speed has been slightly buffed, mobile speed should be exactly the same

Penalties and delays

Your character in DDO can suffer from various effects that decrease your attack speed, for example:

• Bear and Dire Bear form
• Zombie form
• Shadar-kai's Dizzying Spiked Chain attack
• Slow (spell) and similar debuffs

Special attacks that use a unique animation and interrupt your normal attack routine are not affected by attack speed - most notably Cleave attacks work nicely. Changed around update 45 - the speed of a cleave animation now depend on attack speed.

Activating an Action Boost, wielding a different weapon, or casting a spell create a delay in your attack.

• The Quick Draw feat should reduce the delays from all sources.
• Using a special attack with unique animation immediately after the action boost - for example Cleave - can reduce the delay.

Autoattack vs holding the attack button vs clicking

Depending on your combat style, there might be an attack speed difference if you're using autoattack, if you're holding the attack button, or if you are actively clicking the attack button.

• Repeating crossbows benefit from active clicking to speed up the reload animation. (tests from 2013)

(might be obsolete due to Update 25 crossbow changes.)

• Long bow tests (2015)

Ranged weapons anomaly

(section might be obsolete due to Update 25 crossbow changes.)

Ranged weapons suffer from the issue where any speed bonuses (or penalties) only apply half their stated value due to the reload animation.

• Bows are 33% firing and 67% reload for the full animation, so multiply the change in speed by 66% (a 10% bonus to ranged speed nets 6.6%).
• Thrown Weapons are 67% firing and 33% reload for the full animation, so multiply the change in speed by 83% (a 10% bonus to ranged speed nets 8.3%).
• Repeating crossbows have 3 animations: position to fire, fire, reload. Each animation has its own quirks.

The developers are aware that this issue is present. If you cast the spell Haste it grants a 15% bonus to melee attack speed (although, most melee forms actually go a little bit faster than this due to animation quirks) and a 22% bonus to ranged attack speed. (MrCow)

For throwing weapons, any ranged attack speed bonus greater than 75% is considered excess, whereas 75% Thrown Attack Speed Bonus and above perform the throw animation 42 times in a 30 second window, regardless of Haste Boost, the Epic feat Blinding Speed, or any other outside effect increasing attack speed.

Supporting data: At a Thrown Ranged Attack Speed of 60% (where the only thrown attack speed boost coming from Whirling Wrists in Shiradi Champion Epic Destiny), 40 daggers are thrown in a 30 second window. Having the +15% Enhancement Bonus to Attack Speed (equipping one item with Speed +30%, which increases attack speed by 15%), you return to 42 daggers thrown in 30 seconds. Further exploration to find the exact breakpoint for the two additional daggers was not deemed necessary, given the available increases to attack speed given at rank 30.

Increasing attack speed

Your basic attack speed depends on the animation of swings or shots and it varies for different weapons and combat styles.

• Update 44 change: The Base Attack Speed for bows and throwing weapons has been adjusted for a better experience in the Heroic levels, while keeping the current maximum attack speed at Base Attack Bonus 25 and above. This change approximately doubles the relationship between Base Attack Bonus and Attack Speed, but adjusts the per-level progression to provide less of a per-level increase. Players at all levels should experience an increase in animation smoothness and Attack Speed, with the increase tapering off as your Base Attack Bonus increases.
• Update 45 change:
  • For two-handed weapons except for quarterstaff, all attack animations now execute in the same amount of time. Standing attack speed has been slightly buffed, mobile speed should be exactly the same.
  • Base animation speed for Shortbow and Longbow attacks have been increased by 13%

Base attack bonus

Your base classes and epic levels affect your base attack bonus.

• For melee weapons, attack speed increases at BAB 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25 (MrCow)
• For bows and thrown, attack speed increases with each point of BAB, and it grows much faster than for melee. (MrCow)

Certain spells and abilities make your base attack bonus equal to character level: see list.

Class features

• Druid in wolf / winter wolf form - up to +30% (see 2019 wolf speed tests)
• Fighter/Paladin Vanguard enhancements - +20% Combat Style bonus
• Monk's Unarmed attacks about 10% faster than regular TWF
• Monk Henshin Mystic enhancements - +15% for quarterstaves
• Ranger DWS: 10% Insight Bonus to Ranged Alacrity with Longbows and Shortbows when you have Archer's Focus active
• Rogue Thief-Acrobat enhancements - +15% for quarterstaves (only while standing still)

Crossbows

Stacking attack speed for crossbows and thrown weapons:

• Rogue Mechanical Reloader - +10% with repeating crossbows and thrown weapons; +30% with non-repeating crossbows (enhancement bonus)
• Inquisitive Inquisitor's Path - +30% Alacrity with non-Repeating Crossbows

Tests: Great Crossbows / Mechanical Reloader + other sources of attack speed

Quote:

Originally Posted by SteelStar (Contribs • Message • Email • SteelStar) on July 2, 2019 In nearly all cases, if an effect or skill doesn't call out a specific Bonus Type, it is Unique and should stack with everything. The Inquisitive Alacrity is untyped and stacks with everything; weapon-specific alacrity increases do not currently appear on the character sheet, something I would like to fix someday when I can take a day of a core engineer's time.

Quote:
Originally Posted by SteelStar (Contribs • Message • Email • SteelStar) on August 7, 2023 Heavy Repeaters reload at 80% of the speed that Light Repeaters do. That gets a little murkier once other bonuses like Rapid Reload get involved, but Light Xbows generally reload faster than Heavy ones

Feats

• Quick Draw, Rapid Reload, Rapid Shot (Rapid Shot and Heavy Repeater test)
• Blinding Speed - Enhancement bonus
• Single Weapon Fighting - Combat Style bonus
• Adept of Forms, Master of Forms, Grandmaster of Forms - Enhancement bonus in Wind stance
• Shot on the Run: 10% Alacrity bonus to Shortbows and Longbows

Items

Some items can increase your attack speed. For each bonus type, only the highest bonus applies. Different bonuses stack. In general, bonuses to attack speed stack by addition. For example, 15% bonus from Haste and 30% bonus from Haste Boost stacks for a total of +45%.

Enhancement bonus

• Air Guard item enchantment: +15%
• Armor of Speed spell: 15%
• Blinding Speed feat: +15%
• Haste spell: +15%
• Melee Alacrity item enchantment: +10%
• Ranged Alacrity item enchantment: +10%
• Reconstruct spell: +15% Melee, +22% Ranged
• Speed item enchantment: +1% to +15%
• See also: Monk's wind stance also grants enhancement bonus to attack speed

Competence bonus

• Gilvaenor's Arcane Archer set
• See also Fatesinger: Bladesong (3%)

Epic Destinies

• Shiradi Champion T3 - Whirling Wrists - up to +60% Feat bonus for thrown weapons
• Fatesinger T4: Primal Hymn - +10% untyped bonus for bows and thrown (2017 tests of an older version of this ability)
• Fatesinger T5: Bladesong - 3% Competence bonus for melee

Action Boost

• Haste boost
• Endless Fusillade
• No Hold Barred
• Aasimar Scourge's Divine Form

See also

• Vanshilar's Attack Speed Index and Formulae - prime source of attack speed data (2010-2012)
• Throwing weapons info: (1), (2) (2014)
• Repeating Crossbow fire rate tests (2011)
• Interesting Attack Speed Data (2014 - 2015)
• Bear and Wolf heroic tests (2016)
• Endless Fusillade tests (2017)
• Endless Fusillade tests (2018 / U40)DDO Vault
• Inquisitive: 1, 2, 3 (Inquisitive Light Crossbow Rate of Fire)