This is my video, so I wanted to chime in here a bit. As I think the video shows, farming with a skorn can be very effective, but the standard WW is not really optimal for it.
Beyond that, the downside to Skorn is just the lower fury generation from the slower attack speed. If your character sheet lists a higher DPS with the skorn than with DW, you WILL do more DPS with the skorn than with DW IF you can maintain your fury. I have a pair of 1 handers but since buying a lifesteal skorn I only use them on the ZK/siegebreaker fight where maintaining fury is difficult. For key farming and for any of the other ubers I just use by Skorn with the standard WW spec, because its more damage and I don't have any trouble keeping fury up in the other two fights.
Anybody saying that you do more dps with DW and a lower character sheet damage because of the faster attack speed are wrong. The only difference is fury generation, which is much slower with the 2hander. If you don't believe me, check the "true DPS" calculator here http://www.d3rawr.com/d with both item sets. It's explained here: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6864416737?page=1 and its a formula that account for the tick speed of the sprint tornadoes and whirlwind.
Also, "bmiha" posting above who said he guarantees he does more damage with his DW setup: You're using a 1200 DPS 1hander. If you're going to compare that you a skorn, you need to compare it to one of relative value, i.e. 1500dps+. Also, I do MP10 ubers and I don't die, because I have 8.4% Lifesteal without having to use bloodthirst.
That comes out to a little over 71m XP/hour. To get to 80m XP/hour you would need to shave the run time down 15-30 seconds and end up with 8.5mil XP. I think this is doable, but probably not consistently. My personal average is pretty close to 70, but I've been tracking it manually. I'm going to start using that tool you posted since it will be more accurate. Thanks for making that.
2Hander/Cleave barbs are fun but they are also slow. What makes a WW barb so fast is that they can run and run and run. Where as a Cleave barb you are going to spend more time killing and moving on to the next group.
How slow are we talking? I dont wanna spend an hour just to do an Alkaizer run.
I've been using a 2H build lately and I actually did an Alkaizer run the other day with a build using Cleave. It's not as fast as using Whirlwind but it wasn't completely terrible. I was able to do a standard Alkaizer run in 13 minutes, netting 9.44 million XP, which would be about 43.5mil XP per hour. Here are the screenshots:
Now this build is clearly suboptimal compared to WW. With the same gear using my 2h WW build I can pull in over 65mil xp/hour, i.e. about 50% more XP. You can see that build and my gear on my profile: http://us.battle.net...5/hero/19237630 However, if your goal is just to use a cleave build without it being TOO bad, I think the answer is you can do that. 45mil/hour isn't terrible.
Got the idea this weekend to put together a budget wizard. Gave it a shot and the results were encouraging so I thought I would share in case it helps anybody who's new to the game or just looking to build a wizard on a budget.
I set a limit at 100k per item and I needed to fill all 13 slots. I bought 12 of the items and the topaz gems for a total of 1,229,002. I already had the andariel's visage and the star emerald, but a search of the AH shows that you can buy an equivalent Andy's for only 30k. (http://i.imgur.com/QaW3S.jpg and http://i.imgur.com/bvF3Y.jpg). Star emerald's are selling for 650k. That brings the total to 1,909,002. Of that, obviously a third is the star emerald and you could save another several hundred thousand gold by just using a slightly worse gem. I doubt it would make much difference.
This run is pretty representative. Over a few runs I was finishing them in about 12-13 minutes and netting over 7mil XP, for a total of around 33-35mil XP per hour. Keep in mind this is without a ruby.
General goals:
Defense - I needed enough EHP for force armor to reduce most/all hits on MP0 to no more than 35% of my life. That is only about 75k EHP for MP0 (http://www.diablofan...nd-breakpoints/). I ended up with 108k, which is overkill obviously and means my gear would have been plenty even if I was paragon level 0.
Movement speed - 24% was non-negotiable for efficient farming and maintaining Archon.
Offense - After the previous goals were reached, the rest of the gear was focused on maximizing DPS. However, that also needed to include substantial crit chance so that I could reset Archon with energy twister if it fell off.
Goals for each slot:
Helm: Andy's was the obvious choice here. Nothing else affordable gives that kind of offensive firepower in this slot.
Shoulders: These can't carry any offensive stat besides int so I devoted this slot basically to defense with a lot of vit and some resists.
Amulet: This is a big DPS slot. Crit chance and int were mandatory, but attack speed and crit damage were too expensive. So I got a combination of int, crit chance and +dmg, which was very cost effective.
Gloves: Another big dps slot, so defensive stats were ignored here. Just focused on the most int, crit chance, and crit damage that could be had under 100k.
Chest: This is a good slot to pick up vit, since it naturally spawns high on this slot. 3 sockets were non-negotiable, but I got lucky with a little MF.
Bracers: Lacunis were non-negotiable because 24% movement speed was a priority. But I was able to find some with 9% IAS and a decent bit of int.
Rings: Like the amulet, crit chance was necessary and crit damage and IAS were too expensive, so these had a combination of int, crit chance, and +dmg.
Belt: Int and vit proved too expensive, so I picked up one with decent int and a bunch of strength and some resists. The strength provides armor which is boosted by energy armor.
Pants: Like the chest, a good slot to pick up your vit, and sockets are non-negotiable. Found a pair with some resists as well.
Boots: 12% movement speed was non-negotiable, and I wanted a decent bit of int. The firewalkers turned out to be a good deal, and the fire effect is nice for breaking stuff like doors in Archon.
Weapon: This needed to have lifesteal, because that's necessary for Archon, as well as a socket and natural crit damage to take advantage of all the crit chance on the other slots. So I just searched with those parameters and a max buyout of 100k
Offhand: Triumvirate was the obvious choice here, even without a black weapon. Naturally high int and crit chance combined with the large boost from the +ele damage which benefits from the +dmg on my jewelry. It blew the comparable rares out of the water.
It's actually slightly better than this, because the +5-6% lightning damage on it converts your physical damage attacks to lightning damage. Any barb who uses a cold damage SOJ can tell you this, since that item makes all your attacks chill enemies. That means that the base damage of sweeping winds is also doing lightning damage and getting multiplied as well.
As for what the +5-6% lightning damage does, it adds that % of your physical damage. So it works on the base damage of the won khim lau, but not the lightning damage, the physical damage of your other weapon (either just the base damage on an elemental weapon or all of it on a black weapon) and any bonus damage you might have on jewelry.
dont bother with 5 pieces of IK set, with 400mil you have barely enough for good chest (and perhaps head, not sure what the prices are on US AH) so the only way to get 5 pieces with that amount of money is to buy the crappy rolled ones and at that point you can get a lot better stats by investing those 400mil into rare items
For about 100mil you can get ones with about 140 str and 100 vit. 300mil gets ones that's about 150 str and 150 vit, so I guess that's what you mean by a good rolled one?
This is the one slot where it doesn't seem like you can find rares that really compare. When I search for chest pieces with say 120+ str, 90+vit, 70+ all resist and 3 sockets the only ones that come up are IK chests. When I go the other way and search 90+str, 120+ vit, 70 AR and 3 sockets I get some blackthorne's surcoats for like 50mil or so, but still no rares.
1) I think there's 2 options here, either go with 2 or 5 pieces of IK gear. I don't think the 3-set bonus is worth going for. 5-set is awesome tho, I like the fact that I don't lose fury overtime.
2) I'd go with mace/axe, due to 10% crit. When you're spinning on bosses / packs in MP10, you gain more fury than you spend, which drops your WotB. You can also spam sprint / battlerage to spend fury, which helps you have the infinite WotB when you have mobs around you. With mace, IK 5-set and 50,5% crit, I didn't drop WotB on uberbosses / key wardens (1 target).
3) IK chest all the way. Tyrael's Might has low bonus dmg against elites. If you want to get bonus dmg against elites, get a 30% SoJ with something like WW or frenzy. And since the mobs take longer to kill, I don't personally value 24% MS that much.
Anyways, on MP10, I don't have any trouble surviving with following stats: 6kish armor, 600ish AR, 400 LoH, 8% LS and around 100k dps with SoJ. Playing with overpower with reflect rune and no warcry. Only problem is that packs take couple minutes to kill :<
Thanks for the input, it's very helpful. Good point about the movement speed being less important on high monster power.
I've played a wizard since release, but I recently decided that I wanted a change of pace and that I was going to switch over to my barb. I sold all my wizard's gear and now have around 400mil in the bank to upgrade. I want to spend it efficiently though, so I'm probably going to wait until after the patch when prices should come down. That said, I'm trying to plan out what I want to buy to upgrade the most efficiently, and I have some questions.
Right now, I am not having any trouble farming act 3 with this current gear... I'm able to do an alkaizer run in about 12-15 minutes, which is kind of slow due to my lowish DPS but its not too bad, getting about 30mil xp/hour. Obviously, I'm going to want to upgrade nearly all of my gear after the patch though.
Questions:
1) Is more than 2 pc IK worth it? I think upgrading by boots and chest to IK pieces would be worthwhile, as I'd get a large strength and resist all boost, but after that I'm not so sure. My current rare belt is basically as good as a cheap IK belt, at least to the point that it wouldnt be a huge upgrade, and the gloves and helm are absurdly expensive if you want all resist, to the point that it really seems like getting rares in those slots would be more worthwhile. My only question though is whether the reduced melee damage stat on the gloves/helm/3pc bonus is strong enough to make it worth losing that all resist.
2) Mighty weapon vs axe/mace. I know this is kind of an eternal debate. Right now I am using the mighty weapon because it makes it easier for me to keep WOTB up 100% of the time on live, but based on the little I've played on the PTR I won't be able to do that anymore even with the mighty weapon. If 100% WOTB uptime is no longer possible, is using an axe/mace just a better choice now? Is 100% WOTB uptime possible with 50%+ crit AND a mighty weapon?
3) Tyrael's might. Any thoughts on using this over the IK chest, which would make it much easier to pick up full crit and all resist on the bracers? Obviously it loses some strength due to the lack of sockets, but wouldn't the increased damage to demons and elites make up for it?
Any other advise, thoughts, issues etc that I ought to be aware of?
Well my Meteor - Star Pact results are in, and it behaves exactly as expected. The blast and resulting damage tics are unaffected by attack speed. The LoH returns from the blast and tics are also unaffected by attack speed, with the coefficients being 0.25 for blast and tics but with the first tic occuring at the same time as the blast. Note that this proc is being reduced to 0.10625 or 17/160.
Since I don't really have anything to do tonight, I'll probably throw together a rough CM simulator to compare WW and Meteor in the next patch to see if I can determine any sweet spots in terms of attack speed, APoC, etc. I think it will also be interesting to cacluate the theoretical dps output of each build for say a 60s solo fight, i.e., MP10 keywarden type fight. Is the AP cost of Star Pact still 35 on the ptr? If so, I might also look at the other runes since they only cost 50 AP, based on the PTR notes. Liquify in particular looks like a decent possiblity. With 50% crit the average duration is something like 5.5s or 6.5 total procs, compared to the 4 of star pact. The AP cost is only 43% higher but the proc rate would be 62.5% higher, so it seems like it might be worth trying.
I'm very interested to see the calculator. All of the other meteor runes are in fact 50 AP, and I think it is agreed that Liquify and Star Pact are the two best options for meteor.
actually people are talking about a sweetspot on act 1 and MP3-4
At MP1 and higher there is no difficulty difference between Act 1 and Act 3. MP3 on Act 1 is the same mob HP/damage as MP3 on Act 3. The mob density in Act 1 is just very low compared to Act 3. There is no equivalent to Keep Depths 2, or the Craters, or Fields of Slaughter + Rakkis. So I don't see how an Act 1 MP3-4 could even come remotely close.
Also, I don't know if some people already knew but the green numbers does not appears every 0.5 second like some people tested it on 1.02. Instead the game adapt the green number timing on your life on hit. I learned it the hard way and I don't want people to struggle like I did so I am saying it anyway.
About that strange green number timing : I am currently retesting arc lighting... I might lack sleep because the cast animation (cosmetic) speed appears to be at max on 1.2 attacks per second then suddenly decrease at 1.3... But i have seen green numbers pops between cosmetic cast with 1.3 attacks per second and damage seems to be dealt properly. The tick speed coef appears to be near 2.5. There is really something we don't know about this spell !
I'm having trouble following exactly what he's saying, but I think it might explain the disparity in your results re: IAS changing the LOH healing but not the damage.
Are there any free vid recording software programs that people use for D3?
Bandicam is free and I use it for all my D3 videos. The only limitation on the free version (that I am aware of) is that it puts a "www.Bandicam.com" banner on the top of your video and it can only record a video of up to 10 mins. I havn't had any problem with either of those restrictions, so I'd recommend it. It's also pretty lighweight.
Thanks for doing this testing, it's important information. Especially since I think anybody who wants to farm rings in the patch will need to be CM.
Regarding meteor, I am pretty sure you are going to find that IAS has no effect on the spell (aside from actually decreasing the casting animation, which is something), but by all means please do the testing to confirm. My basis for this hypothesis is that IAS was demonstrated, long ago, to have no effect on Blizzard, and essentially these spells operate in the same way: they have an AP cost and no cooldown. I would have guessed the same result for WW, frankly, but a lot of people have been saying that IAS has an effect. I guess it turns out it works on LOH but not damage, which is a bizarre result.
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http://i.imgur.com/DJX2w.jpg
Can anybody help me out with a PC on this? I can't find anything too close on the AH. Thanks
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This is my video, so I wanted to chime in here a bit. As I think the video shows, farming with a skorn can be very effective, but the standard WW is not really optimal for it.
Beyond that, the downside to Skorn is just the lower fury generation from the slower attack speed. If your character sheet lists a higher DPS with the skorn than with DW, you WILL do more DPS with the skorn than with DW IF you can maintain your fury. I have a pair of 1 handers but since buying a lifesteal skorn I only use them on the ZK/siegebreaker fight where maintaining fury is difficult. For key farming and for any of the other ubers I just use by Skorn with the standard WW spec, because its more damage and I don't have any trouble keeping fury up in the other two fights.
Anybody saying that you do more dps with DW and a lower character sheet damage because of the faster attack speed are wrong. The only difference is fury generation, which is much slower with the 2hander. If you don't believe me, check the "true DPS" calculator here http://www.d3rawr.com/d with both item sets. It's explained here: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6864416737?page=1 and its a formula that account for the tick speed of the sprint tornadoes and whirlwind.
Also, "bmiha" posting above who said he guarantees he does more damage with his DW setup: You're using a 1200 DPS 1hander. If you're going to compare that you a skorn, you need to compare it to one of relative value, i.e. 1500dps+. Also, I do MP10 ubers and I don't die, because I have 8.4% Lifesteal without having to use bloodthirst.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXPHVIorv4g&feature=plcp
That comes out to a little over 71m XP/hour. To get to 80m XP/hour you would need to shave the run time down 15-30 seconds and end up with 8.5mil XP. I think this is doable, but probably not consistently. My personal average is pretty close to 70, but I've been tracking it manually. I'm going to start using that tool you posted since it will be more accurate. Thanks for making that.
BTW here is the variant I use: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#chXSUR!ZYh!bZYZZY
Here's my profile: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Morphos-1475/hero/19237630
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I've been using a 2H build lately and I actually did an Alkaizer run the other day with a build using Cleave. It's not as fast as using Whirlwind but it wasn't completely terrible. I was able to do a standard Alkaizer run in 13 minutes, netting 9.44 million XP, which would be about 43.5mil XP per hour. Here are the screenshots:
http://i.imgur.com/DfRfb.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/NVS32.jpg
Here is the build: http://us.battle.net...XSUR!ZYW!aZYZbY
Now this build is clearly suboptimal compared to WW. With the same gear using my 2h WW build I can pull in over 65mil xp/hour, i.e. about 50% more XP. You can see that build and my gear on my profile: http://us.battle.net...5/hero/19237630 However, if your goal is just to use a cleave build without it being TOO bad, I think the answer is you can do that. 45mil/hour isn't terrible.
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It's on the US. I got all the gear with buyouts in about 20-30 minutes, so it definitely should be possible to replicate.
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I set a limit at 100k per item and I needed to fill all 13 slots. I bought 12 of the items and the topaz gems for a total of 1,229,002. I already had the andariel's visage and the star emerald, but a search of the AH shows that you can buy an equivalent Andy's for only 30k. (http://i.imgur.com/QaW3S.jpg and http://i.imgur.com/bvF3Y.jpg). Star emerald's are selling for 650k. That brings the total to 1,909,002. Of that, obviously a third is the star emerald and you could save another several hundred thousand gold by just using a slightly worse gem. I doubt it would make much difference.
Here is the character: http://us.battle.net...-1475/hero/1467
Here is a screenshot showing stats: http://i.imgur.com/4xGBO.jpg
Here is the screenshot of the AH page showing all the items and their prices: http://i.imgur.com/T4WCT.jpg
Here is the two part video showing an Alkaizer run:
Part 1 - https://www.youtube....h?v=CxklfGpq3mU
Part 2 - https://www.youtube....h?v=23mxZR5AToY
This run is pretty representative. Over a few runs I was finishing them in about 12-13 minutes and netting over 7mil XP, for a total of around 33-35mil XP per hour. Keep in mind this is without a ruby.
General goals:
Defense - I needed enough EHP for force armor to reduce most/all hits on MP0 to no more than 35% of my life. That is only about 75k EHP for MP0 (http://www.diablofan...nd-breakpoints/). I ended up with 108k, which is overkill obviously and means my gear would have been plenty even if I was paragon level 0.
Movement speed - 24% was non-negotiable for efficient farming and maintaining Archon.
Offense - After the previous goals were reached, the rest of the gear was focused on maximizing DPS. However, that also needed to include substantial crit chance so that I could reset Archon with energy twister if it fell off.
Goals for each slot:
Helm: Andy's was the obvious choice here. Nothing else affordable gives that kind of offensive firepower in this slot.
Shoulders: These can't carry any offensive stat besides int so I devoted this slot basically to defense with a lot of vit and some resists.
Amulet: This is a big DPS slot. Crit chance and int were mandatory, but attack speed and crit damage were too expensive. So I got a combination of int, crit chance and +dmg, which was very cost effective.
Gloves: Another big dps slot, so defensive stats were ignored here. Just focused on the most int, crit chance, and crit damage that could be had under 100k.
Chest: This is a good slot to pick up vit, since it naturally spawns high on this slot. 3 sockets were non-negotiable, but I got lucky with a little MF.
Bracers: Lacunis were non-negotiable because 24% movement speed was a priority. But I was able to find some with 9% IAS and a decent bit of int.
Rings: Like the amulet, crit chance was necessary and crit damage and IAS were too expensive, so these had a combination of int, crit chance, and +dmg.
Belt: Int and vit proved too expensive, so I picked up one with decent int and a bunch of strength and some resists. The strength provides armor which is boosted by energy armor.
Pants: Like the chest, a good slot to pick up your vit, and sockets are non-negotiable. Found a pair with some resists as well.
Boots: 12% movement speed was non-negotiable, and I wanted a decent bit of int. The firewalkers turned out to be a good deal, and the fire effect is nice for breaking stuff like doors in Archon.
Weapon: This needed to have lifesteal, because that's necessary for Archon, as well as a socket and natural crit damage to take advantage of all the crit chance on the other slots. So I just searched with those parameters and a max buyout of 100k
Offhand: Triumvirate was the obvious choice here, even without a black weapon. Naturally high int and crit chance combined with the large boost from the +ele damage which benefits from the +dmg on my jewelry. It blew the comparable rares out of the water.
Hopefully somebody finds all of this helpful!
(FYI this is a crosspost that I also made on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/12mlt7/budget_guide_archon_wizard_for_under_2mil_gold/)
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As for what the +5-6% lightning damage does, it adds that % of your physical damage. So it works on the base damage of the won khim lau, but not the lightning damage, the physical damage of your other weapon (either just the base damage on an elemental weapon or all of it on a black weapon) and any bonus damage you might have on jewelry.
0
For about 100mil you can get ones with about 140 str and 100 vit. 300mil gets ones that's about 150 str and 150 vit, so I guess that's what you mean by a good rolled one?
This is the one slot where it doesn't seem like you can find rares that really compare. When I search for chest pieces with say 120+ str, 90+vit, 70+ all resist and 3 sockets the only ones that come up are IK chests. When I go the other way and search 90+str, 120+ vit, 70 AR and 3 sockets I get some blackthorne's surcoats for like 50mil or so, but still no rares.
Is there something I'm missing here?
0
Thanks for the input, it's very helpful. Good point about the movement speed being less important on high monster power.
0
First off, for reference, this is my barb's current gear: http://us.battle.net...5/hero/19237630
Right now, I am not having any trouble farming act 3 with this current gear... I'm able to do an alkaizer run in about 12-15 minutes, which is kind of slow due to my lowish DPS but its not too bad, getting about 30mil xp/hour. Obviously, I'm going to want to upgrade nearly all of my gear after the patch though.
Questions:
1) Is more than 2 pc IK worth it? I think upgrading by boots and chest to IK pieces would be worthwhile, as I'd get a large strength and resist all boost, but after that I'm not so sure. My current rare belt is basically as good as a cheap IK belt, at least to the point that it wouldnt be a huge upgrade, and the gloves and helm are absurdly expensive if you want all resist, to the point that it really seems like getting rares in those slots would be more worthwhile. My only question though is whether the reduced melee damage stat on the gloves/helm/3pc bonus is strong enough to make it worth losing that all resist.
2) Mighty weapon vs axe/mace. I know this is kind of an eternal debate. Right now I am using the mighty weapon because it makes it easier for me to keep WOTB up 100% of the time on live, but based on the little I've played on the PTR I won't be able to do that anymore even with the mighty weapon. If 100% WOTB uptime is no longer possible, is using an axe/mace just a better choice now? Is 100% WOTB uptime possible with 50%+ crit AND a mighty weapon?
3) Tyrael's might. Any thoughts on using this over the IK chest, which would make it much easier to pick up full crit and all resist on the bracers? Obviously it loses some strength due to the lack of sockets, but wouldn't the increased damage to demons and elites make up for it?
Any other advise, thoughts, issues etc that I ought to be aware of?
Thanks very much for the help!
0
I'm very interested to see the calculator. All of the other meteor runes are in fact 50 AP, and I think it is agreed that Liquify and Star Pact are the two best options for meteor.
0
Yes, but the coefficient is .1 so it's pretty much worthless compared to lifesteal.
0
At MP1 and higher there is no difficulty difference between Act 1 and Act 3. MP3 on Act 1 is the same mob HP/damage as MP3 on Act 3. The mob density in Act 1 is just very low compared to Act 3. There is no equivalent to Keep Depths 2, or the Craters, or Fields of Slaughter + Rakkis. So I don't see how an Act 1 MP3-4 could even come remotely close.
0
I'm having trouble following exactly what he's saying, but I think it might explain the disparity in your results re: IAS changing the LOH healing but not the damage.
0
Bandicam is free and I use it for all my D3 videos. The only limitation on the free version (that I am aware of) is that it puts a "www.Bandicam.com" banner on the top of your video and it can only record a video of up to 10 mins. I havn't had any problem with either of those restrictions, so I'd recommend it. It's also pretty lighweight.
Thanks for doing this testing, it's important information. Especially since I think anybody who wants to farm rings in the patch will need to be CM.
Regarding meteor, I am pretty sure you are going to find that IAS has no effect on the spell (aside from actually decreasing the casting animation, which is something), but by all means please do the testing to confirm. My basis for this hypothesis is that IAS was demonstrated, long ago, to have no effect on Blizzard, and essentially these spells operate in the same way: they have an AP cost and no cooldown. I would have guessed the same result for WW, frankly, but a lot of people have been saying that IAS has an effect. I guess it turns out it works on LOH but not damage, which is a bizarre result.
Also, take a look at this thread, although you might already be aware of all the information: http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo3Strategy/comments/yz2jn/wizard_104_comprehensive_proc_ratios/
http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5208511084
The proc coefficients are common knowledge, but the interesting data are the cast speed and tick speed coefficients.