Curse

Necromas · Jun 26, 2009, 11:37 PM // 23:37

I have heard...

- With flatbows and shortbows, an IAS will get in the way of your barrage spamming, because it will cause you to fire a shot right after you use barrage but before you can use it again, forcing you to wait for a third shot to use the second barrage.

- With other bow types, an IAS will not get in the way of your barrage spamming, and it will increase your effective attack speed while spamming barrage, but not by as much as it increases your normal attack speed since barrage has a recharge.

I am wondering...

- How much of a benefit do you actually get out of a 25% or 33% IAS when using a 2.4 or 2.7 second fire rate bow? Can a ranger with a 33% IAS and a recurve bow or longbow spam barrage faster than one with no IAS and a flatbow?

- If I have a constant 33% IAS (say, in a crit barrage build), will the benefits be enough to make a hornbow the best bow for barrage spamming?

Fay Vert · Jun 27, 2009, 12:08 AM // 00:08

You can test this in the Isle of the Nameless.

Barrage is a 1 sec recharge so you can queue antoher shot with a flatbow before an auto shot will come in at 1.33 second with 33% IAS

Marverick · Jun 27, 2009, 12:47 AM // 00:47

An IAS and short/flatbows will always increase the rate at which you fire barrages because it decreases the activation time of Barrage.

I'm not 100% sure about the numbers but I think regular bow attacks have 1s activation, in which case a 33% IAS makes it 0.67s activation. So instead of every 2s you fire every 1.67s, which is 17% more Barrages.

Just hit your cancel-action key after firing Barrage (it'll be Esc if you haven't rebinded it). That'll allow you to fire your next Barrage as soon as it recharges.

If you're just going to spam barrage (kind of bad but w/e) just bind Barrage and cancel-action to two adjacent keys so you can hit one after the other.

Kendel · Jun 27, 2009, 01:52 AM // 01:52

I thought it was something like, IAS w/ Short/Flatbow makes your next Barrage get completely screwed up animation wise because it happens halfway through your next attack. Hornbows were left with the smoothest animation.

That said the introduction of Volley buggers things up slightly since you can spam the 2 of them more or less indefinatly. But i'd go with Recurve or Hornbow. The actual hits with 10% AP on crits should make up for any loss of attack speed i'd of thought just aslong as you have the IAS up all the time and Recurve has the least chance of missing without FW.

Marverick · Jun 27, 2009, 02:04 AM // 02:04

That's why you don't auto-attack after shooting a Barrage so you can start your next Barrrage right when it recharges.

Volley is a waste of a skill slot.

Chthon · Jun 27, 2009, 02:26 AM // 02:26

It is a matter of some debate whether the bow drawing animation takes longer when you interrupt an auto-attack in progress to use barrage. People have claimed empirical results both ways, and I'm not sure who is right. My experience has been that any difference cannot be much larger than natural variations caused by my ping and concentration/timing fluctuating, and is thus hard to detect.

majikmajikmajik · Jun 27, 2009, 02:58 AM // 02:58

it help alot! it basicly makes you skip your auto attack in between barrages, making barrage spamming faster.

_Nihilist_ · Jun 27, 2009, 03:11 AM // 03:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by majikmajikmajik

it help alot! it basicly makes you skip your auto attack in between barrages, making barrage spamming faster.

If you aren't auto-attacking before you use Barrage, you won't attack after Barrage. It doesn't make you "skip" anything.

Helix Dreadlock · Jun 27, 2009, 03:17 AM // 03:17

I use a longbow and I have to wait for a shot to fire before using Barrage again or I lose a shot and it cancels it, because I'm auto-attacking. Again, test on IotN.

Rhamia Darigaz · Jun 27, 2009, 03:44 AM // 03:44

it's surprising how many people seem to think they can't control their attacks beyond the space bar and number keys, as if bringing sub-par bows and carefully limited IAS were some kind of secret art that must be learned in order to become an effective barrage spammer, lest they fall victim to that incorrigible auto-attack.

WhiteAsIce · Jun 27, 2009, 07:34 AM // 07:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marverick

That's why you don't auto-attack after shooting a Barrage so you can start your next Barrrage right when it recharges.

IIRC, you auto-attack after hitting the Barrage button, even if you weren't already attacking. And you can prevent auto-attacking by tapping sidestep (Q or E).

Or is there some other more efficient way to prevent auto-attacking?

Rhamia Darigaz · Jun 27, 2009, 08:48 AM // 08:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiteAsIce

IIRC, you auto-attack after hitting the Barrage button, even if you weren't already attacking. And you can prevent auto-attacking by tapping sidestep (Q or E).

Or is there some other more efficient way to prevent auto-attacking?

the cancel action button (esc by default)

it's the same button you've been using every time you swap weapons or cancel cast to draw interrupts

Chthon · Jun 28, 2009, 02:08 AM // 02:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by WhiteAsIce

Or is there some other more efficient way to prevent auto-attacking?

I think it's more important to start with the question of whether interrupting an autoattack with barrage slows down barrage's activation. If it doesn't, there's no point in avoiding auto attacks. Thus far, I haven't seen a conclusive answer one way or the other.

Grammar · Jun 29, 2009, 05:47 PM // 17:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chthon

It is a matter of some debate whether the bow drawing animation takes longer when you interrupt an auto-attack in progress to use barrage. People have claimed empirical results both ways, and I'm not sure who is right. My experience has been that any difference cannot be much larger than natural variations caused by my ping and concentration/timing fluctuating, and is thus hard to detect.

Ah yes, this again.

I'm still in the camp that believes the animation interrupts cost you an imperceptible amount of time, if any at all, making the IAS entirely irrelevant in that situation. So I agree with you here.

For the OP:

- IAS is completely pointless when using spamming Barrage with shortbows and flatbows, and is a complete waste of a skill slot.

- IAS will slightly speed up your ability to spam Barrage when using long and recurve bows, but not nearly as much as it speeds up auto attacks. In other words, yes it will help a little, but you're not getting the full effect out of it (not even close), so it's still a waste of a skill slot IMO.

- IAS may make sense when spamming Barrage with a hornbow though, given its super slow speed. But I wouldn't know because I've never used a hornbow in PvE.

FoxBat · Jun 30, 2009, 12:02 AM // 00:02

Quote:

Originally Posted by Marverick

An IAS and short/flatbows will always increase the rate at which you fire barrages because it decreases the activation time of Barrage.

I'm not 100% sure about the numbers but I think regular bow attacks have 1s activation, in which case a 33% IAS makes it 0.67s activation. So instead of every 2s you fire every 1.67s, which is 17% more Barrages.

As far as I know, this is correct, minding that attacks execute halfway through- on an un-IASd shortbow, 1s after activating barrage, the arrow leaves your bow and barrage begins its recharge, but you're still locked in another 1s of recovery animation before you can do anything. IAS will reduce both of these components, meaning you have .33s to "do nothing" while waiting on the barrage recharge, which will result in autoattack if you don't cancel. You can pump more arrows from your bow with volley, but the ultimate value of that is debateable- aside from the skill firing fewer arrows at half damage, the 2s recharge there means you can only follow up every other barrage with it while under IAS.

Still as mentioned, IAS always helps as long as you can cancel the autoattack somehow- not as much as it would for a normal attack, but it is far from pointless.