Is my gear bad, or something else?

Hmm, just checked your gear again, and alternatively you could also reroll both weapons to 7% IAS so you can use the Templar instead.

Anyway, the concept of attack speed breakpoints is that the game runs at a fixed frame rate that has no "in-between" frames. That means it's possible to increase your IAS% without actually shortening the animation length of your attacks.

An attack speed breakpoint is a value of IAS that you need to reach to actually shorten your attack animation by 1 frame.

To show you what I mean:

  • Open up your D3planner.
  • Click skills and effects.
  • Scroll down, and under Flying Dragon, check "Include in stats"
  • Do the same for Seize the Initiative.
  • Scroll back up and hover over Crippling Wave > Breakpoints.
  • You'll see that the animation length of your first two swings is 6. The third swing (the one with an AoE) is 9 frames long. Note that you need 1.6% more IAS to reach the next breakpoint. If you were to reroll your weapons to 7% IAS or switch to the Enchantress follower, the animation length of your 3rd hit would decrease to 8. That would theoretically increase your actual dps by 12%.

Any time you find a piece of gear that changes your IAS, it's always a good idea to check in D3Planner to see if you're hitting or missing any breakpoints. You'll also likely be doing it again when you switch from DS + Blinding Speed to Radiance.

As for BoH, don't be afraid to use it. Eventually you'll get a feel for when you should be popping it and when you should be holding it, but until then just try to make use of it. Besides, you're running Beacon of Ytar, which should help with the cooldown.

/r/Diablo3Monks Thread Parent