Purpose of Cast speed.

[BadMedium]

I've yet to play a "caster" build, but between rogue, ranger and warrior I can't see any use for cast speed, even though rogue has a +cast speed per stack skill in their kit. Does it increase the speed of the cast animation? Fan of Knives (and every other ability across those three characters) comes out almost instantaneously, so what is the purpose of cast speed?

[TuxRox]

cast speed is how fast each cast animation goes.
cooldown is the time it takes for an ability to be cast again.

If you want to spam abilities you want both.

[Madmansam]

Originally posted by TuxRox:

cast speed is how fast each cast animation goes.
cooldown is the time it takes for an ability to be cast again.

If you want to spam abilities you want both.

100% many abilities have some decent hang time stopping attacks or other abilities. Cast speed helps mitigate this.

[DeadBeMyDignity]

Cast speed also work on weapon skill, allowing you to chain auto atk whit some skill easier

[Revalopod]

It helps a bit, but cooldown reduction is waaay more important.

[Leonardo]

I understand how cast speed works, but it is almost useless since most skills either cast instantly or they simply do not benefit from cast speed. Warlock's whip is a perfect example. Same animation speed with +0 or +30% cast speed

This game feels unfinished sometimes, really weird. Still having a blast, though, can't deny it.

[DW420]

Originally posted by Leonardo:

I understand how cast speed works, but it is almost useless since most skills either cast instantly or they simply do not benefit from cast speed. Warlock's whip is a perfect example. Same animation speed with +0 or +30% cast speed

This game feels unfinished sometimes, really weird. Still having a blast, though, can't deny it.

The animation not changing doesn't necessitate the window of opportunity being the same.

If your toon needs to wait X time in order to queue up the next action..and the animation is a lot less than X...why would the animation speed up?

From my (limited) experience:
Chaining spells/abilities is dependant on 3 things..animation, cool down & recovery time. "Cast speed" affects recovery time and adjusts animation speed if needed.

edit: One way to test this for yourself is to hold a button in town and measure the time between casts.

[Dreaming Prince]

Originally posted by Leonardo:

This game feels unfinished sometimes, really weird.

its definately half baked and the whole game is not very well thought out.

[Ruebeus]

Originally posted by DeadBeMyDignity:

Cast speed also work on weapon skill, allowing you to chain auto atk whit some skill easier

This is false. Weapon Speed increase auto attack. Cast speed does not affect the weapon skills. Only abilities.

[whatgoat]

Once you remove a skill's cooldown completely, the speed limiter is now your cast speed. Several classes have skills they want to spam as rapidly as possible and they have subclass passives or skill orb selections that signpost you into that direction.

It's most noticeable with Rogue's fan of knives and Sorcerer's discharge, but you can definitely see it with Evocation wizards also

[Curse]

On the rogue your fan of knives will turn rapid fire with your cast speed stacked high. If you have high mana regen and/or other mana gain synergies you just spam your knives anytime a group is in front of you or for focus firing a boss.

[Fengtorin]

I agree that the game is half baked and needs a lot of work, but cast speed is not one of these situations.

Play wizard and you'll see exactly what cast speed is doing. Magic missile with good cooldown can cast quickly, but add some cast speed and it becomes a machine gun. The cast time animation to get the missiles out can easily take longer than the cooldown so you're waiting on the animation before you can cast again even though the cooldown is ready for another cast. Rogue fan of knives can quickly be put in a similar situation, though it wouldn't be as readily noticeable compared to wizard magic missile due to its already fast cast speed.

[DeadBeMyDignity]

Originally posted by BadMedium:

I've yet to play a "caster" build, but between rogue, ranger and warrior I can't see any use for cast speed, even though rogue has a +cast speed per stack skill in their kit. Does it increase the speed of the cast animation? Fan of Knives (and every other ability across those three characters) comes out almost instantaneously, so what is the purpose of cast speed?

Simply put, yes it does increase the speed of your animation, that about it. Still very usefull since it goes for weapon skill as well. Scale well whit 2h axe for reference

[Laho]

Having a high cast speed lets you cast abilities without interupting your attacks. That's the place you can most easily notice it.

[Revalopod]

Originally posted by DeadBeMyDignity:

Originally posted by BadMedium:

I've yet to play a "caster" build, but between rogue, ranger and warrior I can't see any use for cast speed, even though rogue has a +cast speed per stack skill in their kit. Does it increase the speed of the cast animation? Fan of Knives (and every other ability across those three characters) comes out almost instantaneously, so what is the purpose of cast speed?

Simply put, yes it does increase the speed of your animation, that about it. Still very usefull since it goes for weapon skill as well. Scale well whit 2h axe for reference

No I don't think cast speed affects weapon skills, since weapon/attack speed is what affects weapon skills such as whirlwind.

[jp1477]

There is a lot of incorrect information here. Cast speed absolutely reduces spell cooldowns. I understand why a lot of people are saying it doesn't...it doesn't sound like it should, and "cooldown reduction" is a different stat for some reason. This is easily testable in town.

I'm standing here with my evocation wizard. Meteor shower lists a 20 second cooldown. Just using the stop watch on my phone, with no gear on, I hit cast and started the stop watch simultaneously.

I got ~21 seconds twice in a row (I assume because there's a 1 second casting animation?).

Now I put on gear with 70% cast speed and zero "cooldown reduction".

I got ~12.5 seconds twice in a row.

I have no idea if this is intended, but it absolutely works. I've been stacking cast speed on most of my characters except warrior (currently have all of them in NG+3) and their long cooldown abilities have very short cooldowns or 100% uptime in the case of things like the rogue's poison cloud by the end of a run where I'm getting cast speed trinkets.