Weapons & Equip Flails and melee speed prefixes

[ballista rod]

The 1.4.0.1 overhaul to flails also made them be affected by melee speed, increasing their range.
It'd be neat if you could roll flail prefixes that affect speed now, like Light and Heavy.

 

[J Bame]

Speed modifiers aren't the same as Melee Speed increases. Speed modifiers lower the weapon's use time, Melee Speed lowers useAnimation (in a layman's terms, sword/spear/whip swing speed) and increases velocity.

Due to how Flail mechanics work lowering their Use Time doesn't actually do anything, which is why they can't get Speed modifiers in the first place. The "range increase" they get from melee speed is caused by their velocity increasing, which means they travel more distance in the same amount of time.

It would also be weird if an attack speed modifier affected velocity when that is already a stat Modifiers can affect.

 

[ballista rod]

Speed modifiers aren't the same as Melee Speed increases. Speed modifiers lower the weapon's use time, Melee Speed lowers useAnimation (in a layman's terms, sword/spear/whip swing speed) and increases velocity.

Due to how Flail mechanics work lowering their Use Time doesn't actually do anything, which is why they can't get Speed modifiers in the first place. The "range increase" they get from melee speed is caused by their velocity increasing, which means they travel more distance in the same amount of time.

It would also be weird if an attack speed modifier affected velocity when that is already a stat Modifiers can affect.

Ah, I see. So to get what I was talking about, it'd have to be new modifiers that increase melee speed?

I get that use speed and animation time are two different things, but does the game really have stats that affect one of them without the other? If you had a really slow swing speed but fast use time, for example, wouldn't you get multiple copies of the weapon at the same time, since you could use the weapon again before the previous swing completes?

I think increasing melee speed also slightly increased the distance the ball could be away from you before automatically retracting, but I'm not 100% sure.

 

[J Bame]

I get that use speed and animation time are two different things, but does the game really have stats that affect one of them without the other? If you had a really slow swing speed but fast use time, for example, wouldn't you get multiple copies of the weapon at the same time, since you could use the weapon again before the previous swing completes?

Actually yes, the game does have instances of Use Time and Use Animation being offsync. Projectile swords are the biggest example: a Beam Sword has use Time 60 but use Animation 20, so the sword gets to swing 3 times before firing another projectile. Melee speed lowers the useAnimation even further, which means they'll be even more off sync. Since the projectile can't be fired in the middle of a swing, lowering Use Animation can actually make the Sword shoot slower as a result, if the swings are offsync with the Use Time. For example if you lower your useAnimation to 18, by frame 60 you'll be 6 frames into your fourth swing, so you'll have to wait 12 more until that's over to fire again.

I think increasing melee speed also slightly increased the distance the ball could be away from you before automatically retracting, but I'm not 100% sure.

It does, Melee Speed also affects velocity, so the ball travels more distance in the same amount of time.

 

[ballista rod]

Update: I ended up finding a Legendary flail from a 10th anniversary seed just to check if the speed modifier does anything, and there is no increase in range.
So yeah, this post ended up being pointless then I suppose, though it would be cool if they could have modifiers that affected their range one way or another.
At least I have a Legendary Sunfury now.