Poll: Damage vs attack speed

[Magicman10893]

I prefer the "slow, but powerful" approach in most games. I like the ability to kill things in as little attacks as possible. It makes me feel truly powerful. However, in Kingdoms of Amalur (which shall forever be known as "Kingdoms of Stunlock: Staggering") fast is always the way to go. I mostly use Greatswords and Chakrams and I got my ass handed to me until I was able to craft the "I Win" armor and get skills that prevent stunning and staggering. Fortunately I don't use Hammers or else I would have rage-quitted the day I got the game.

 

[Joccaren]

Easily fast attacks.

Heavy hitting but slower attacks can be good for Micro on a ranger, but generally they're not as good.
Miss one Heavy hitting attack, you miss 50 damage and have to wait another 3 seconds before your next attack to make it up.
If you attack twice as fast but hit half as hard, you'd only lose 25 damage and made that up in 1.5 seconds.
In addition, it works very well with passive abilities.
25% chance to stun for 3 seconds?
On average you'll have to wait 12 seconds for that with the 3 second attack, whilst with the 1.5 second you get it around about every 6 seconds or so.
5 HP lifesteal on attack? You'll get 20 HP in 12 seconds with the heavy attacks, 40 with the fast.
Of course, percentage lifesteal, and percentage critical hits and this are largely immune to such because the damage scales with the damage you deal.

This is largely speaking from personal experience too. Every time I play an RPG, RTS with heroes or MOBA, my friend always picks a speed oriented character. I'll hit harder than him, but I'm generally permastunned by his abilities, and he just dishes out DPS like there's no tomorrow.

 

[dangoball]

Depends on my enemy. Is he using some long and heavy hitting weapon, like halbert of 2H maul? Time to roll in his face and put a dagger in his eye socket. Is he jumping around with twin blades being all "can't touch this!"? Then my answer is "hammer time!"
Why? Because fights like these are more fun for everyone, rather than two identical builds dishing it out. That's just booooring.

 

[CoS_Dorian]

I generally prefer faster attacking speed over damages when battling against bosses as it increases the chance of having critical damages and thus dishes out more damages in the long run (in a well-balanced game). However, if changing weapons during the battle is allowed I'll change to powerful weapons right before using powerful abilities with long cool-downs and then change back to fast weapons.

 

[kevinsux909]

Most RPGs I go for a rouge, fast daggers and all.

 

[dimensional]

As others have said it depends on the game and mechanics at work if fast and weak far outclasses slow but powerful I will go for that but if things arent heavily weighted in favour of one side or the other I generally gravitate towards slow but powerful as I tend to play a punishing game rather than a pure rushdown game i.e wait for them to make a mistake then destroy them.

 

[Lonely Swordsman]

For gunplay I prefer rate of fire over stopping power because it just feels fantastic to unleash a hail of bullets on an enemy, I don't even care if I hit anything I just love the sound of gunfire.
For melee I'm all about precision though. Anyone can just flail around with a light weapon like a monkey with a handful of poo, a good fighter makes every hit count.

 

[Bitcoon]

When I must melee, and I'm not too busy stealthing about as usual (I'm a shadows and sneaky weapons guy in most ways) I like to swing around the biggest thing I can get my hands on. When it comes to doling out damage in head-on fights I want to carry the slowest, most powerful thing. Because when that hits, it hits HARD.

It's kind of like with guns. Ordinarily pistols are my go-to favorite. But in those military shooters when they have all different kinds of assault rifles and such, my choice for ranged is always bolt-action over semi-auto. Like with a large and heavy melee weapon, you have to make each hit count, and there's more pressure to get it right the first time rather than spam and hope you hit more than you miss.

 

[Zack Alklazaris]

DPS
Damage Per Second.

That's what counts.

This.

I prefer a mix of the two. You cast your abilities too fast you'll run out of energy and then your useless till you get it back. You want a nice blend that keeps you attacking, but not running into that danger mark of draining yourself.

 

[scw55]

In Heroes of Newerth, Play Martyr. Stack attack speed.
Chuck books at people stupidly fast.

 

[Soods]

Damage, if the game is balanced well. Low attack speed usually requires less clicking and I get to see bigger numbers.

 

[Chronologist]

Slow but Powerful has a large advantage over Fast and Weak attacks - damage resistance. Compare a short sword that does 10 damage per hit and hits 3 times per second, compared to a warhammer that does 30 damage per hit and hits once per second. Both weapons have identical DPS, but what if the enemy has the ability to resist the first 5 damage per attack inflicted upon him? The short sword will inflict 15 damage per second after resistance, while the warhammer will inflict 25 damage per second after resistance. Naturally, if the damage resistance is percentage based, this no longer applies, but in certain circumstances it's a deciding factor.

You can also take into account additional elemental damage per hit, which would apply more often for fast weapons, giving them an advantage. To counterbalance, fast but slow weapons consume less ammunition.

Overall, I consider the slow and powerful weapons to be superior.

 

[Winthrop]

I feel like slow attacks tend to get larger range or some form of AoE or Conic damage. I love killing multiple things in one swing, so I went slow and powerful. Plus the second character I roll is always a Barbarian so I've grown very fond of hammers and great axes.

 

[cojo965]

Damage whore here! Every first character I make always reaches for the greatswords.

 

[conmag9]

Varies by game of course. I find speed is less critical than FLOW. I've seen smooth but slow attacks utterly CRUSH fast attacks (even fast and strong attacks) with bad flow.

Jade Empire, for example. It's "slow but week" attack style was leagues better than it's quick but weak style because of how utterly terrible the flow was for the latter. One of the balanced styles had superb flow and was the ideal.

 

[fish iron4]

You really want a balance, but Ill always just settle for a good strong Mace

 

[randomsix]

The problem with strong attacks (DPS being equal) is that every point of damage in overkill is wasted.

 

[soren7550]

Usually, I go for the fast attacks.

 

[Bertylicious]

I guess if all games come down to three basic principles of awareness, focus and timing then it really just comes down to which one you're best at. I blow at timing and I'm pretty stupid so my awareness is weak but my focusing isn't so bad once I've figured out what I'm going for. I tend to prefer middle of the road affairs.

 

[TheCrapMaster]

Damage heavy stuff, gives more satisfaction when you get hits in. Anyone can hit anything with loads of attack speed, but slow and powerfull you have to make hits/shots count. Melee games i get the brutes with big two handers or that pummel around with sheilds and swords. Shooters, semi-automatics but mostly shotguns...tho i hate snipers, they are for people that cant strafe/move.