IAS Choices

We all know there are several choices we can use for increased attack speed as warriors, both in and out of our proffesion, but how do we determine which is the "best" for each of us? I'm curious as to which skills people use and why.

Also, to those of you who use Tiger's Fury: do you use any other ranger skills?

Iway - tiger's fury (or nothing)
IW mesmer - flurry
any kind of warrior - frenzy + sprint/cancel stance...

frenzy is by far the best for quick damage spikes and adrenaline gathering...

For any kind of Warrior, Frenzy/Sprint, or for a Charge: Frenzy/Hex Breaker.

Frenzy is God.

im not enough to use frenzy so i dont use one when weilding sword or axe and flurry with my hammer

As of the 20060914 update, Tiger's Fury is no longer a viable IAS stance. It has far too many limitations for a mere 25% speed increase. Prior to the update, TF was *the* PvE IAS stance, as it allowed you to maintain 33% IAS 90% of the time with few real disadvantages. IMHO it was worth it to take /R just for Tiger's Fury, it was that good.

At this point you have few real choices for IAS in PvE. Frenzy is suicide, Flurry comes with a damage penalty, Tiger Stance has excessive recharge, Lightning Reflexes is unusable. Flurry is probably your best bet.

In PvP, Frenzy has always been, and may always be, the only real choice for IAS outside of IWAY builds.

Also, while Flurry does decrease your damage, it still ends up as a total DPS output from the IAS, not to mention you build up Adrenaline faster.

I say Tiger Stance for president. True, it has a serious recharge but with enough Strength (my build has that) it becomes negligable... And given that most people use Frenzy for spikes, I'd say it doesn't really matter if you can keep up Tiger Stance forever; it's not like you can spike forever anyway.

Flurry is one of my favourites, but the damage decrease IS a little much in PvP I'll admit that. But if you're merely trying to gain adrenaline for a spike or keep up your speed for some other reason, it's fine in my opinion.

I'm with ya on that one.

Tiger Stance rocks for PvE [I'm with Frenzy for PvP, sprint cancel foe's spike ftw].

It has a good strength rating [9str is what I usually carry or 8 at the least for most things] and if you carry 2 stances, any +dmg stance weapon [my collector's axe+sword] is pretty much set...

Using Tiger's Stance and Bonetti's Defense [usually for energy consumption, Cyclone Axe + Triple Chop eat energy like candy] I can be in stance about... oh... 18 seconds during a battle... 2s. only for recharging and junk...

Good shtuff....

If you're using Cyclone and Triple Chop you should have a zealous weapon.

Tiger Stance lasts for ~9s, and has a recharge of 20s. Plus, it ends prematurely if you ever fail to hit. That makes it close to useless in my book.

You shouldn't be 'spiking' in PvE. PvE is all about DPS, so you want an IAS stance you can keep up for pretty much 100% of the time. Having IAS less than half the time with Tiger Stance doesn't cut it.

Frenzy is the end-all, be-all IAS stance for PvP.

Quote: Originally Posted by Rera

Quote: Originally Posted by Gigashadow

Quote: Originally Posted by Rancour

Quote: Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

Quote: Originally Posted by Thom Bangalter

what does IAS mean?

or UAX?

IAS = Increased Attack Speed. Generally used to charge adrenal skills faster.

PVP= FRENZY + VIPERS DEFENCE
PVE= FRENZY + DASH

heheh

UAS means "unlock all skills" and UAX means "unlock all X", where X includes skills, runes and mods.

As for blind etc., in PvE when PUGing, I would run a W/N with plague touch now, as W/R isn't worth it any more for Tiger's Fury. If you're using henchies, though, you don't need to bring your own condition removal, as they do a good job at removing.

Flurry vs. Tiger Stance ... hmm ... well, let's run some numbers:

Flurry = 1.5x attack rate, 0.75x damage, active 100% of the time.
Flurry effective damage on normal attacks: 1.5*0.75*1.0=1.125

Tiger Stance = 1.5x attack rate, 1.0x damage, active 50% of the time (let's be generous and assume you never miss)
Tiger Stance effective damage on normal attacks: 1.5*1*0.5+1.0*0.5 = 0.75+0.5 = 1.25

So for normal attacks Tiger Stance results in higher net damage.

A few other things to keep in mind:
Flurry adrenal gain: 1.5x
Tiger Stance adrenal gain: 1.25x
Flurry damage penalty does not apply to bonus damage from attack skills.

So take a typical skill combo: Galrath Slash, Silverwing Slash, Dragon Slash

Attack progression for this 3-skill combo is:
8 hits -> Galrath -> Silverwing -> 2 hits -> Dragon Slash -> Galrath -> Silverwing -> 4 hits -> DS -> Gal -> Sil -> 4 hits -> DS -> Gal -> Sil, etc.

With Flurry, the damage is decribed by the following formula, where x is the damage of a normal hit:

8*0.75x + 2*(0.75x+43) + 2*0.75x + [0.75x+42 + 2*(0.75x+43) + 4*0.75x] + [0.75x+42 + 2*(0.75x+43) + 4*0.75x] + ...

Since each hit takes 0.8778s to execute under 33% IAS, the time it takes to do this damage is given by:

12*0.8778 + 7*0.8778 + 7*0.8778 + ...

The damage formula for Tiger Stance is much simpler:

8x + 2*(x+43) + 2x + [x+42 + 2*(x+43) + 4x] + [x+42 + 2*(x+43) + 4x] + ...

The time it takes to do this damage is slightly more complicated. Tiger Stance lasts for 10/0.8778 = 11.39 strikes (rounded to 12, since a strike that starts while the stance is active will retain the speed increase). It then takes an additional 10/1.33 = 7.52 strikes to recharge (rounded to 8).

The time formula is then:
12*0.8778 + 8*1.33 + 12*0.8778 + 8*1.33 + 12*0.8778 + ...

So in 20s (one iteration of Tiger Stance), let's compare the damage Flurry and TS do:
-----
Flurry:
Strikes: 20/0.8778 = 23 strikes
Damage: 8*0.75x + 2*(0.75x+43) + 2*0.75x + 0.75x+42 + 2*(0.75x+43) + 4*0.75x + 0.75x+42 + 2*(0.75x+43) + 0.75x = 23*0.75x + 6*43 + 2*42 = 17.25x + 342

Tiger Stance:
Strikes: 12+8 = 20 strikes
Damage: 8x + 2*(x+43) + 2x + x+42 + 2*(x+43) + 4x + x+42 = 20x + 2*42 + 4*43 = 20x + 256

In 40s:
-----
Flurry:
Strikes: 46 strikes
Damage: 46*0.75x + 12*43 + 5*42 = 34.5x + 726 (initial 12 strikes + 4 iterations of DS loop + DS + gal + sil + 3 strikes)

Tiger Stance:
Strikes: 40 strikes
Damage: 40x + 10*43 + 4*42 = 40x + 598 (initial 12 strikes + exactly 4 iterations of DS loop)

As we can see, which stance results in more damage depends on the value of x, or normal attack damage. So, we look at the equilibrium cases:

20s: 17.25x + 342 = 20x + 256, 2.75x = 86, x = 31.27.
40s: 34.50x + 726 = 40x + 598, 5.50x = 128, x = 23.27.

For values of x above the equilibrium value, Tiger Stance results in more damage, and vice versa.

So what affects the cutoff value of x?
- Time. The longer the time period, the higher the ratio of normal attacks to special attacks, and the lower the value of x, and the easier it is for Tiger Stance to net more damage than Flurry. The reason for this is because Tiger Stance nets higher damage when considering only normal attacks, and Flurry is only competitive because it allows you to use special attacks more often.
- Bonus damage. As an extension of the argument above, the more bonus damage you have, the more attractive Flurry becomes. You can increase your damage by using skills that enhance your attacks, or simply by using more attack skills with +damage.

The bottom line: Flurry essentially nets 3 more attacks than Tiger Stance for every 20s period. Whether this is worth the damage penalty depends on how much bonus damage you have, and what your normal attack damage is. The more bonus damage and the lower your normal damage, the more effective Flurry is compared to Tiger Stance.

*NOTE: This analysis, besides possibly containing mathematical errors (please check for me!), involves a number of simplifications. However, I believe that the end result is still valid, even if the numbers may not be exactly accurate.