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I am a Wizard trying to gear up for Act 2 of Inferno. My preferred damage spell is Disintegrate (used in conjunction with Magic Weapon and Venom Hydra and Archon). I have been reading up on weapon speed (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/3424908246).

From this I gather that Disintegrate is one of the few spells that benefit from a faster weapon speed. (On a side note, if I am wrong about that please explain why.) It is unclear to me why exactly this is true. (And if anyone can succinctly explain that, it would be nice.)

My current DPS with Magic Weapon and a two hander with 0.9 attacks per second is 24,312.

Which stat on a 1 hander should I be primarily interested in besides DPS? Does 1.35 attacks per second matter much over 1.30 attacks per second? Would getting a weapon with 10% attack speed be a huge bonus if it had the same DPS as another weapon?

Thanks for your advice.

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  • On a side note: you shouldn't be using disintegrate at all with your low dps. Use something like arcane orb for good spike damage while you kite, not a channeled spell.
    – Ed S.
    Jul 10, 2012 at 20:30

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On the contrary, Disintegrate is one of the spells that is best with a slow weapon.

When using Disintegrate as your primary damage source, you are arcane power constrained - that is to say, your DPS suffers every time you run out of arcane power and have to stop disintegrate-ing.

The advantage a slower weapon brings, is that they consume less arcane power per second. Arcane Power is used every "tick", and since slower weapons have more time between ticks, you wind up with less arcane power per second, even though your DPS isn't affected. (Many small ticks vs. several larger ticks will give the same damage).

The general theory is "Pick the weapon with the highest Damage stat", and that should be your primary consideration. Weapon speed is useful to optimize for, but shouldn't be the primary consideration when picking weapons.

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  • The important thing to note here is that, at the end of the day, weapon speed is still a minor consideration - while it matters, you shouldn't sacrafice much in order to use a slower weapon.
    – LessPop_MoreFizz
    Jun 16, 2012 at 0:16
  • So I can just stick with my two hander then? That makes me happy because it was scary spending all my cash on a 1 hander and orb and just hoping my dps went up.
    – EddieC
    Jun 16, 2012 at 4:06

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