Swiftbrand Support

Why is the quality bonus such low value? (0.25% increased activation frequency per quality)

Isn't activation frequency just straight up worse than cast speed because it is the same thing (additive with) in terms of damage (hit rate), but doesn't improve brand deployment speed?

Because there is no other source of increase activation frequency anymore. So this tiny bit of "% increased" is a "more" multiplier.

I mean isn't activation frequency just additive with cast speed?

It might just be rounding error in the case of the tooltip but here is what i mean:


When filling empty sockets with:

with +324 inc cast speed, +0% inc activation frequency, tooltip says 0.16s

with +310 inc cast speed, +14% inc activation frequency, tooltip also says 0.16s

if it really were 14% more then there should be a larger discrepency

to check if its rounding/missing figures

No activation frequency modifier:
1*1.45*4.24 = 6.148 activation/s
reciprocal for period: 0.1625

14% activation frequency modifier and 14% reduced cast speed:
1*1.45*4.1*1.14 = 6.7773 activation/s
reciprocal for period: 0.14755

definitely a discrepancy if it were multiplicative.

Also to make sure that the tooltip reflects the activation frequency modifier, i swap out just arcanist bramd quality and compare.

Maybe it was intended for activation frequency to be a multiplier but I'm pretty sure since it's inception, it has always just worked as cast speed, but worse. Perhaps it should have been like ailment damage where the scope is less useful but value on tree/gear should have been higher? But on this gem the value is just very low.

Character for reference: Thelema_Room (this character doesn't actually use swiftbrand, just swapped it in for reference and testing)