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I recently upgraded from a Dagger to a Javelin on my monk - and suddenly, it feels like it takes a lot longer to use my abilities.

I checked, and found that the Dagger has 1.5 attacks per second compared to the Javelin's 1.2 -- does this actually effect the animation time of the abilities? Abilities already base damage off of weapon DPS (instead of Max/Min damage), presumably to normalize the difference between fast and slow weapons.

But if faster weapons yield faster animations, they're clearly superior, even with slightly inferior DPS.

Does weapon speed actually effect this? (In my case, neither weapon is enchanted)

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  • "Animation speed" makes it sound (to me at least) like you're just talking about how things appear on the screen. To be clear, weapon speed DOES affect the speed with which you can actually use your abilities.
    – bwarner
    Commented Feb 9, 2012 at 16:41
  • Animation speed = the time you're stuck performing the ability. Faster animation = less time between abilities.
    – Raven Dreamer
    Commented Feb 9, 2012 at 17:10

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All spells and abilities use both the attack speed and damage of weapons into consideration. Take for example the Wizard, spells cast faster with a faster weapon and hit harder with a sharper blade.

The monk works under the same principle.

Also, I don't think damage is based on "DPS", but rather on the minimum and maximum damage of the weapon. The "DPS" should give an approximate value of your abilities damage before modifiers.

So in summary, higher min/max damage = more damage per ability usage and faster attack speed = more ability uses per second.

See this summary and the attached blue post: http://www.diablowiki.net/Spells

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  • Looks like the info there's a little dated (so some of it may have changed), but overall, it does soundly answer the question. My assumption was a given 1-h and a given 2-h had equivalent DPS if they're of similar level. (They aren't. 2H will have more)
    – Raven Dreamer
    Commented Feb 9, 2012 at 8:10
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    @raven a slower weapon is probably more beneficial if you like to use attacks with cool downs often, makes those cool downs hit harder
    – Resorath
    Commented Feb 9, 2012 at 16:18
  • @Raven 2H should definitely have higher DPS at an equivalent item level, since you are giving up the benefit of using a shield or other off-hand item.
    – bwarner
    Commented Feb 9, 2012 at 16:38
  • @bwarner some games give 2-handers same DPS but double stats (Torchlight, for one), so it's good to know that Diablo doesn't work like this.
    – Raven Dreamer
    Commented Feb 9, 2012 at 17:17
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    Slower weapons are also beneficial if you are resource limited. If two weapons have the same DPS but different attack speeds, the slower weapon will use less of your resource for channeling spells. Fast weapons will proc more though (which is why windup wizards often use daggers).
    – Brythan
    Commented Jul 15, 2013 at 10:06

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