As a Mace Rogue (omg Rogue's can use maces!?!?!?) I was very intrigued to see the attack speed proc on the crafted Macesmith hammer. My attention was piqued further when I noticed a blue off-hand mace with a similar proc. It got the old cob-webbed gears in the brain moving, and I decided to see just how low of an attack speed someone could get in TBC. The Rogue has far more abilities to increase their attack speed than most classes, so much of the items and abilities lean towards that assumption. My math could very easily be wrong. I make no claims to being a math genius of any kind -- I'm an art intern by day, and wow player by night. So if you see anything that may be wrong, or should be clarified please feel free to correct me. This may not be deserving of its' own thread -- I was going to post it in the TBC Rogue thread, but that threat was labeled as being for discussion of Abilities and Talents, my apologies if this is belongs in an already-existing thread.


Weapons
Drakefist Hammer : 16.5%
Blackout Truncheon : 12.7%


Trinkets
Abacus of Violent Odds : 16.5%
Kiss of the Spider : 12.6%


Enchants
Enchant Weapon: Mongoose : 3.0%*
Enchant Weapon: Mongoose : 3.0% **
Arcanum of Rapidity : 0.6%

* Found this number being tossed around on this forum, so I'm going to assume this is the correct percentage.

** Putting this down twice, as I assume it's stackable.


Consumables
Juju Flurry : 3.0%
Haste Potion : 25.3%


Buffs & Abilities
Slice and Dice : 30%
Blade Flurry : 20%
Bloodlust : 30%
Troll Berserking : 30%*
Warchief's Blessing : 15.0%**
Drums of Batle : 5.1%

* Thottbot lists this as having a maximum increase of 10%. Liar. Using the maximum attainable value for more awesome numbers.

** Now changed to the correct value of 15%.



Things to note
- As attack speeds are added, you receive a greater boost to your increase in attack speed. I.E. A 20% and a 30% attack speed increase, will yield an increase closer to 56%, rather than the expected 50%. I'm not well versed in mathematical grammar, so I suppose you could label attack speed "inverse multiplicative" in nature.

- Increasing your attack speed only DECREASES the time in between your auto-attacks.

- Increasing attack speed results in roughly 1:1 ratio of increased attack speed to AUTO-ATTACK dps. Increasing your attack speed by 20% yields a 20% increase in WHITE dps (read: you will swing more often, NOT hit harder). Due to the stacking nature of attack speed, after more than one attack speed increase, you will see at least a 1:1 ratio of white dps to percentage of attack speed increased.


Formulas
@ lvl 60: 1% haste -> 10 Haste Rating
@ lvl 70: 1% haste -> 15.8 Haste Rating

Attack Speed = "current attack speed" / ("Percent increase or decrease" / 100 + 1 )*

DPS = [(Min weapon damage + Max weapon damage)/2] / Weapon Speed*

Attacks Per Second = 1/"current attack speed"

*source: Wowwiki.com


Results
Base weapon speeds and DPS (from the list above):
MH Speed: 2.7 (0.37 attacks per second)
MH DPS: 81.1

OH Speed: 1.5 (0.67 attacks per second)
OH DPS: 69.7



Assuming all buffs at maximum, at the same time:
Total added percentage of all attack speed increases - 212.2%

Main Hand
New speed: 0.4 (2.5 attacks per second)
New DPS: 547.5
Atk Speed Increase: 575%
DPS Increase: 575%

Off Hand
New speed: 0.22 (4.5 attacks per second)
New DPS: 475.0
Atk Speed Increase: 581%
DPS Increase: 581%


Basing these percentages on "Blizzard Math". That is to say that 2.7 -> 0.4 is 675%, but if there were an item in-game, it would need only 575% to yield the same results. "Normal" percentages work out to being +100 higher.


For a non-troll we would get:
Total added percentage of all attack speed increases - 180.1%

Main Hand
New speed: 0.51 (2.0 attacks per second)
New DPS: 429.0
Atk Speed Increase: 429%
DPS Increase: 429%

Off Hand
New speed: 0.29 (3.4 attacks per second)
New DPS: 360.3
Atk Speed Increase: 417%
DPS Increase: 417%




A more reasonable assumption [Both weapon procs, one Mongoose proc, SND, BF, Bloodlust, Abacus(trinket), Haste pot, Battle Drums]:
Total added percentage of all attack speed increases - 142.9%

Main Hand
New speed: 0.69 (1.4 attacks per second)
New DPS: 317.4
Atk Speed Increase: 291%
DPS Increase: 291%

Off Hand
New speed: 0.38 (2.6 attacks per second)
New DPS: 275.0
Atk Speed Increase: 295%
DPS Increase: 295%




My thoughts
These maces are certainly not required to reach such ridiculous attack speeds, though due to the nature at which attack speed stacks, more is certainly better. Also interesting to note is that with the talent Combat Potency, a Rogue has the potential of generating 450 energy-per-minute with a "reasonable" amount of haste effects -- with a maximum potential of 900 energy-per-minute (albeit with a very very low chance of every happening - these numbers also assume every off hand swing lands). Trolls certainly have a "leg up" on everybody else, with a free 10% attack speed increase, at the minimum. This becomes significantly better when stacked with other haste effects.


Experiences
Finally got my Drakefist crafted today, so I figure I can start shedding some light on real-world experience. The proc rate seems to be right around the same frequency as Crusader, which is still pretty good. Thus far, stacking the proc, Slice and Dice, and Blade Flurry matches all of the theoretical data, and is quite entertaining to watch to say the least. I'm almost afraid to see what it's like to party with a Shaman for Windfury. IMO Blizzard definitely made mace spec competitive to Sword and Fist spec with the haste proc on Drakefist -- which essentially is a built-in mini sword spec. Toss in the +maces from mace spec (laughable but still useful nontheless) and the chance to stun, and Mace spec is really quite attractive now.

Bloodlust is a 30% haste buff.

Drums of Battle, Use: Increases attack and casting speed rating on nearby party members by 80. Lasts 30 sec.

Might stack?

I would tend to think warriors would benefit even more from haste buffs like this than rogues due to the mechanics of rage. Even with the rage normalization a DW warrior still gets more rage per second while hasted than he would unhasted doesn't he? Also the fact that we have "on next swing" attacks like Heroic Strike. Meaning we can increase our yellow damage while hasted unlike rogues.

I have to assume that there is a hard limit on how much your weapon speed can be reduced because with all these haste buffs people will make haste gear sets (0.4 speed MH/OH swings? yes please!) and just be blenders =)

Hunter's, with all of our attack speed inscreases, have not found one yet. Also, everything stacks.

But hunters with rapid fire, berserking and imp aspect of the hawk I thought were only hitting 0.83 speed or something? Not sure, if hunters are getting down to 0.4 speeds as well.. OUCH =/.

I would also expect it to get a nerf if people can realistically get attack speeds like that and keep them that fast consistantly.

All of that stacked up comes out to ~98% haste unless my math is incorrect. Seems like after a certain point it's a pretty big waste of a consumable like Juju Flurry for such a small gain due to it being multiplied and actually only coming out to ~1% haste or so(maybe less).

So you're looking at 1.36 speed, 161 dps on the Drakefist Hammer.

Warchief's is 15% haste.

I would assume lower than that. I can get to .85 with the HWL Recurve, Rapid Fire and Berserking.

To test if there's a cap you can always bring a priest to Dire Maul and MC one of the mages there, they can cast a 60% bloodlust, or atleast they used to be able to a patch or so ago. I know the ones in LBRS can cast a 30% bloodlust or so. It'd also be fun to see how this would affect mages, mind quickening gem, bloodlust, anything else? Frostbolt spamming on a whoole new level.

GM Bow: Serpents Swiftness, Berserking, Rapid Fire, Quick Shots, Quiver: 1.8 / 1.2 / 1.3 / 1.4 / 1.15 / 1.15 = 0.62. We can get even faster with KotS, the Hakkar buff, and say the Hurricane, yes hunters can get down to below 0.5 second attack speed. Like I said, everything stacks.

In a word, "No".

More to come in a post later today.

I can only imagine how fast that eats through the arrows.

Correct, rage generation is now calculated at the weapon's hasted speed. You do more damage in a lesser period of time but gain less rage per damage than if you are unhasted.

16 slot quiver, 200 arrows per slot, 1600 seconds or 26 minutes and 40 seconds, not counting special shots.

The reason for the haste rating stat is so a level 45 item with 10% haste is no longer 10% haste at level 70. It has nothing at all to do with changing them from being multiplicative.

There's also Windsor's Frenzy for alliance during the jailbreak part of the onyxia key quest. Difficult to keep on you, cause once you leave the 10 yard radius, it goes away and doesn't come back, but it's excellent for theorycrafting type stuff like this.

With windsor's frenzy, slice&dice, and blade flurry, my core hound tooth was hitting at a 0.6 speed.

Incorrect. As Blizzard has already done the converting/normalizing in the latest patch. At level 70, 15.8 Haste Rating is equal to 1% haste, it holds then that anything with a haste rating can be converted to %haste. Anything with a %haste (such as Slice and Dice) can be converted into a Haste Rating if you so desire, though the Blizzard formula (which has been tested and it quite accurate) uses percentages. I.E. a 2.9 speed HWL/GM weapon, when using Slice and Dice (30% attack speed), will be reduced to a 2.23 speed weapon using the formula: 2.9/1.3 = 2.23. Adding in Blade Flurry (20% haste) we get: 2.23/1.2= 1.86. I can provide screenshots if necessary to prove that this is actually how the attack speed is calculated, in-game.

It is also impossible to "sum" the ratings, as it will yield worse results. To prove this, if we convert 30% haste (from Slice and Dice) into Attack Speed Rating we get 474. If we then convert 20% haste (from Blade Flurry) into Attack Speed Rating we get 316. Added together we get a total of 790Attack Speed Rating, which when converted back into percentages we very obviously get 50% haste. Plugging this total into the formula we get the following: 2.9/1.5 = 1.93 which is our new attack speed. This deviates from the observed results, so we can safely assume that summation of ratings will yield incorrect results.

That, while incorrect, isn't exactly the point I was trying to make. There is, at the moment, no hardcap on haste. With enough stacking bonuses, notice I did not include the haste potion, hakkar, bloodlust, or kots to get to 0.62, you can get down to 0.1 theoretically and attack 10 times every second.

That's more or less what I've observed. So far I have yet to see any kind of cap on Attack Speed, and to be honest I don't think Blizzard has put one in place, as items, skills, and abilities that are currently in-game do not have the potential, like the items coming in TBC, to approach "Ludicrous Speed".

I wasn't thinking about the fixed percentage boosters such as SnD and Blade Flurry. What I meant was that abilities that added to haste rating likely aren't multiplicative in effect. It seems odd there would be a 'Haste rating' field in the display if this wasn't the case. Admittedly I haven't seen research on the haste rating items, but the field for Haste Rating doesn't seem very useful if it's not additive.