Pre-renewal, Lex Aeterna has the same cast time as 150+ DEX Arrow Vulcan and the animation delay for Arrow Vulcan is about the same as the after cast delay on Lex Aeterna, so your effective damage is 9600% over the course of twelve seconds. Post-renewal, you'd be extremely lucky if you pulled off three Arrow Vulcans in the same time frame, so 7200% over the course of twelve seconds. Renewal mechanics basically nerf the skill to 75% of its pre-renewal capability, and that's not even considering the fact that you have to phen switch or default orleans gown in order to use it effectively.
As for Double Strafe, I'm not sure why you think most minstrels or gypsies with DEX will have over 180 ASPD. Sure, you could certainly build them that way (just as you can make a low-str crit battle priest in pre-renewal mechanics), but it's fairly uncommon. ASPD will actually be closer to 170 with concentration potions since people will be using the more standard DEX/VIT builds on gypsies and minstrels. If we're generous and say 172 ASPD, that's 1.8 hits per second. Over the course of twelve seconds, that's 17 hits unlexed and 4 hits lexed for 9500%.
So pre-renewal, Arrow Vulcan outdamages Double Strafe once you factor in the fact that four slot instruments and whips have higher attack power than four slot composite bows, and also allows for use of a shield. Post-renewal you'd be stupid to use it at all.
All that said, we're comparing a first class skill with a transcendent class skill and we're finding that the first class skill completely outclasses the transcendent class skill in terms of damage. It's like arguing that skills like Rapid Smiting and Clashing Spiral should deal less damage than Bash. I imagine you're the only person who thinks implementing a cast time formula that fails to fix the underlying issue is a valid solution to the problem, especially given that it's a formula that makes no logical sense when you try to explain it to new players. "Oh, why does it work that way? To solve some random metagame problem."
My example did
not include lex aeterna. And second, I was not comparing post renewal with pre-renewal. But seriously, it was a simple scenario.
The issue is really simple: even with zero cast time, arrow vulcan is
easily outdamaged by double strafe once you start investing in AGI. 4800% damage over 12 seconds for AV, and even with just 175 aspd, that is 9120% damage. Obviously when you are SOLOING AND DON'T HAVE LEX, which has been mentioned a lot by Jayed, you will do more dps with double strafe. WOW, OH EM GEE, does this mean there is some sort of a problem?
Do you understand the
real issue which you are blaming as some sort of problem? No matter how much you want to whine and moan about having some cast time on Arrow Vulcan, you simply just AREN'T going to up its DPS enough anyway by completely removing it simply by virtue of the fact that DS DPS is reliant on your attack speed! I know, the current renewal cast time is still completely BS, but you are still unsatisfied with AV cast times of .2-.4 seconds?
Come on! Attack speed was ALSO lowered in renewal, you know...
Finally, let's get around to mentioning lex anyway:
Once you DO throw lex in (which, by the way, I did mention but got yelled at for telling jayed "how to play her class"), assuming you time everything perfectly and do not have to wait for it at all, it turns into 9600% damage with AV and 10,640%. If you have at least 150 dex, your base attack is at least 375. Composite bow has 29 attack, and rope has 45 attack. Seriously, the rope only gives about 4% extra damage.
Of course, if you had no base agi, the DPS of DS would be much lower. HMMM... So MAYBE the thing is,
the optimal skill to use heavily depends on your build!
![:)](http://forums.warpportal.com/public/style_emoticons/default/tongue.png)
Wow, who woulda thought?
The other thing to mention is that, even if AV had slightly lower DPS than DS, the key feature about it is that it has significant BURST damage. A squishy char (even with reductions) may not be killed by you spamming DS with 175 aspd because they are constantly spamming pots. Say all it would take to kill them is 3 DS, but of course, your target can drink a white potion like 2-3 times for every DS you make.
Now, if you simply AV'd, that would one-shot them, thus killing them and giving no time to use potions. And as mentioned, AV goes really well with lex in any sort of team play, considering its burst damage nature.
So, I'm just going to summarize like this: yes, renewal horribly screwed the casting over and not only put the DPS in the toilet, but made it mostly unusable. But no, you do not need, nor deserve instant cast time. DS, for agi/dex builds, will always have a higher DPS. That is just tough, considering that AV was probably designed for support chars with little agi in mind. However, AV is already significantly improved by the constant use of lex aeterna, and whether to use DS or AV, for hybrid builds is entirely situational.
holatuwol, THIS is the underlying issue, and the formula makes perfect logical sense.