An action is a character activity. Actions take place in a real-time environment and can be Interrupted during combat. Possible actions include: Attack, Reload, Spell cast, Item use, etc.
Barring the use of abilities or spells, no class attacks inherently faster than another. Weapons have different attack speeds (and reload speeds, for crossbows and firearms) based on their animations. Following their attack (or spell cast or item use), every character processes a proportional recovery time before they perform their next attack or action (movement simply pauses recovery time). Heavier armor increases the recovery time. Spells and abilities that speed up attacks/actions will reduce recovery times until there is no pause between attacks (this is pretty rare and I don't think it's actually possible with current bonuses). After that point, the attacks themselves speed up.[1]
If your recovery time has elapsed, selecting an action to perform will result in the character performing that action as soon as they are in range.[2] If an action is canceled before its hit frame, there's no recovery time, but you do have to start a new action from the beginning.[3]
Most melee attacks + recovery times are 2 seconds before armor Speed Factor is added in. Most spells take 3 seconds to cast and 3 seconds to recover, so 6 seconds total. A caster who begins casting within range of an auto-attacking melee opponent is likely to be attacked once or twice before their spell completes.[2]
Example[ | ]
If three characters with sabres run up to attack a target, assuming they all arrived at the same time, they would all attack simultaneously. One of the attackers wears no armor, one is in mail, and one is in plate armor. Assuming no other modifiers, the one wearing no armor will execute their next attack first, followed by the one in mail, who is in turn followed by the one in plate. If the unarmored character moves during their recovery, their recovery would be paused for the duration of their movement, meaning it's entirely possible that if they hop over to someone nearby, their next attack would wind up following the other two characters who have a statistically slower recovery.[1]
Mechanics[ | ]
It's based on the overall action time + recovery time, but the recovery time is the first thing modified so we can maintain the animation speed. If an attack takes 30 frames and the recovery takes 30 frames, a 20% slowdown will make the recovery 42 frames (30+12 from a total anim time of 60 frames increased by 20%).[4]
- No class has inherent attack/action speed bonuses.
- Both rangers and monks have abilities that can speed up their attacks. For rangers, it's a mode they enter that lowers their Accuracy as well. For monks, it's a short-duration boost that costs them Wounds (their power resource).[1]
- A character in lighter armor plays attack animations (and recovers from them) more quickly than one in heavier armor.[5]
- A character wielding two weapons is making more frequent attacks than one wielding one weapon (whether single-handed, two-handed, or with a shield).[5]