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hey what's up folks today I want to show
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you what the absolute limit of attacks
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looks like and for some of you this is
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affecting your damage and you might not
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realize it because it renders fine and I
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don't mean you just stop getting extra
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damage I mean you are actively doing
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less damage than a build with lower
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attack speed and I can prove it to you
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the server limits are not that hard to
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hit particularly for crossbows and
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quarter staves I'm going to go over my
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testing methodology some examples I'll
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show you some bugs that can scuff your
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damage even worse than missing a break
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point and then I'm also going to update
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the P2 Wiki cuz were sort of all in this
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discovery phase together there are
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chapters in the description if you want
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to jump around so my goal is to explain
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why this character on the right is
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actually doing a lot less damage than
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the character on the left even though
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everything about them is identical and
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in fact the sheet DPS is much higher for
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the character on the right I'm going to
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do the same for crossbows which in
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certain break points this has an even
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bigger effect and finally the same
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experiment for bow builds a little over
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a week ago I made a video where I went
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accuracy stacking to see how many
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grenades I could sustain and that led me
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down another path which was what are the
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limits in Path of Exile 2 so in Path of
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Exile 1 we know it's been extensively
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tested the server frame length is 33
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milliseconds uh normally a player can
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only do one skill per frame that's like
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an actual rule um is uh there are the
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server runs at 30 frames a second and
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you can only do 30 skills a second in
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order for the numbers to make sense in
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this video I need to lay some quick
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ground work let's start with a frame in
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pee there are numerous concurrent
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systems all resolving at different times
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this can be extremely chaotic with
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hundreds of projectiles triggers hit
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test monster AI spells Etc to reduce
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some of the compute complexity the
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server will bucket and resolve groups of
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events in chunks of time called a frame
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similar to the job the compositor does
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on your computer to actually render the
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game but the information in a server
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frame is all context not graphics and
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it's the atomic unit of time in Path of
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Exile if something was scheduled to
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happen in the middle of a frame let's
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say at 50 milliseconds it would get
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batched with the other things that also
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need resolving in the same frame and
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actually resolve at 66 milliseconds as
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part of the second frame now enter Path
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of Exile 2 and we have a new game engine
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and new skills and some of them are
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insane like rapid shot which has a 550%
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of base attack speed multiplier making
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extremely high attacks per second very
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re or shock burst rounds which has 450%
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in fact with about 5 to 10 divines worth
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of gear you can hit these limits and
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probably many of you are so the two
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questions I set out to answer concretely
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are what are the new limits for attacks
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and what happens when you go over it
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to answer these I designed tests for
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each of the weapon types I thought I
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could reasonably push and here's where I
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ended up for quarter staves I used
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pillar and Ice strike and push the
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attacks all the way up to 42 per second
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for normal strikes for crossbows I use
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both shock burst and rapid shot and I
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tested it in intervals up to an eye
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watering 125 attacks per second unbuffed
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in my Hideout and for bow I use a quill
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rain and tornado shot which has the
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highest effective attack speed for bow
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skills at
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120% now measuring the attacks for non-
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crossbows is a bit more challenging so I
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removed all sources of Life regen and I
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linked the lowest possible level of
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skill to life tap which allowed me to
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measure my attacks over time i' measure
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the duration between the first frame of
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the attacks animation to the first frame
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where the insufficient life icon popped
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above my head now in this test I have
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2435 life a casting cost of8 life and
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I'm expecting 203 normal strikes and 101
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third strikes which take about twice as
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long as the normals for a total time of
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13.35 M seconds now every value below
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30.3 works perfectly fine I tested
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several of those but look at what
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happens above it in every interval I
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tested above 30.3 there was a damage
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loss and it wasn't a nominal amount and
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to be clear I'm talking about a damage
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loss versus if you had hit 30.3
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precisely the expected damage loss
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numbers are quite a bit higher if the
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serage side limitations weren't in place
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if we perform a similar test but this
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time with crossbows a slightly different
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but more dramatic finding holds true if
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you hold perfectly still with no mouse
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or character movement you're able to
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attack at 30.3 without server frame loss
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but almost no one does this any Mouse
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movement that rotates your character
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more than about 45° or any type of
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actual character movement and you lose
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huge amounts of damage even just over
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the action cap it still takes us about
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19% longer to empty a full clip most
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players hitting this threshold will be
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in the low 30s somewhere and losing
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large chunks of damage and probably not
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realizing it is my guess now you could
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reduce your attack speed by socketing
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scatter shot shot however scattershot is
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probably the worst support for high clip
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ammunition crossbow skills because of
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the way it works that is scattershot
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sequentially adds bolts to your crossbow
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without spending a bolt it doesn't fire
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three at the same time and that means
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you're spending more for a single cast
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to generate them reducing your effective
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attack speed further as they don't
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shotgun the game client will render
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multiple projectiles triggered in the
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same frame together so sometimes you'll
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see two of them exit the crossbow but
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this is also true for the single
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projectile case if you see a PO with
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shock burst multiplied by three you
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should remove it it's not how the
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support works and more than that it's
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easy to empirically test and I recommend
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you try this if you're currently using
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it first we're going to get a Baseline
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and use a six link without scattershot
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I'm going to trade Primal Armament for
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scattershot here in just a
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second same thing we drop Primal
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Armament picked up
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scattershot and then this time I'm going
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to do it again but with four supports
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I'm just going to entirely remove
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scatter for completeness I performed the
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same experiments with bows and came to
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the same results as I did with quarter
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saves though to be honest I'm not sure
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any actual builds will be hitting the
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limits with bows as it required a very
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specific Quil rain and tornado shot
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setup more than anything it served to
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validate my findings and I expect many
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people running into it with quarter
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staves and likely a huge number r with
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crossbows now to recap if you're using
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attacks at more than 30.3 attacks per
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second I outside of channeling you're
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almost certainly scuffing your damage
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output and buy a lot reducing your
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attacks and investing those resources
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instead into hit damage or quality of
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life stats should have an excellent
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return for your build all right that's
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all I got for this video this was
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originally a section in the Witch Hunter
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Zero to Hero project I'm working on but
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it felt important enough to warant a
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separate video like And subscribe to
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something that was useful or informative
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and I'll catch you all in the next one
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take care
