Breakpoints

This page lists breakpoint and threshold values, and covers changes relative to the vanilla game.

Changes
Most breakpoint values haven't changed, and all threshold values remain unchanged. There is a new advanced character info page within the game which displays all breakpoints for your character.

Cast Rate
 * Frozen Orb now uses "slow" sorc FCR frames
 * Lightning now uses "normal" sorc FCR frames

Attack Rate
 * Strafe has additional high-end breakpoints since its missiles no longer cause next-hit-delay
 * Blade Fury is now affected by attack speed (same breakpoints as other traps)
 * Dragon Tail attack speed penalty reduced to -20 (was -40)
 * Fists of Fire, Claws of Thunder, and Blades of Ice now use standard breakpoints (same as other single-hit martial arts skills)
 * Whirlwind no longer benefits from attack speed - it hits once every 5 frames when using a single weapon or twice every 6 frames when dual-wielding (each weapon hits simultaneously)
 * the Assassin-only version on Chaos (now called Blade Dance) was similarly changed, but hits 1 frame faster
 * Dual-wielding attack speed breakpoints are now based on the faster weapon (determined via WSM) rather than taking both weapon speeds into account
 * if both weapons have the same WSM, the attacks are based on the primary weapon (unconfirmed)
 * applies to all dual-wielding attacks, even single-hit martial arts skills that don't alternate weapons - for those attacks, a faster weapon can be equipped as an offhand to bypass the inherent speed of the attacking weapon (may be unintended behavior and changed in the future)
 * Berserk is now a dual-wielding attack and uses the same breakpoints as Frenzy

Note: Several multi-hit attacks (Fend, Strafe, Dragon Talon, Zeal, Fury) are now limited to 3 or 5 hits per attack - this reduces the number of intermediate hits, but doesn't change the breakpoints for those hits. Since intermediate hits use the same breakpoints as each other and there's still at least 1 intermediate hit per attack, this change doesn't affect breakpoints. While the total frames per attack will be lower for these skills, this difference is taken into consideration when they are balanced.

Breakpoints
Diablo 2 runs at 25 frames per second and events cannot occur in timeframes smaller than a single frame, so improvements to animation speeds (from FCR, FHR, FBR, or IAS) are only realized in intervals of 1 frame or more. These intervals are called breakpoints.

For example, a Sorceress with +100% FCR will cast "normal" spells in 9 frames (9/25 = 0.36 seconds). In order to cast those spells faster, she will need +5% more FCR for a total of +105% FCR, at which point she will cast those spells in 8 frames (8/25 = 0.32 seconds) instead.

Weapon Types
 * Thrusting Weapons: spears, javelins, daggers, throwing knives
 * Swinging Weapons: all other non-ranged weapons (except claws which have their own category)


 * The only sorceress spells that use "slow" frames are Chain Lightning and Frozen Orb - all other sorceress spells use "normal" frames


 * Act 5 Barbarian does not have a hit recovery animation, so he cannot be put into hit recovery or knocked back


 * Act 3 Iron Wolf does not have a blocking animation, so he cannot block even though he can equip shields

 Total Attack Speed Breakpoints 

Most attacks use standard Total Attack Speed (TAS) breakpoints which are listed in the first table below. Some attacks (multi-hit attacks & wereform attacks) use other breakpoints which are listed in separate tables. Note that these breakpoints are not the same as IAS breakpoints shown by many Attack Speed Calculators, although those can be derived from the values here by referencing the IAS thresholds further below.

Total Attack Speed = Effective Item IAS + Skill IAS - WSM
 * The Weapon Speed Modifier (WSM) is subtracted instead of added because its sign is flipped (it stores higher speeds as negatives)
 * Skill IAS: Burst of Speed, Increased Speed, Frenzy, Werewolf, Fanaticism (enemies may apply Decrepify & Holy Freeze)

If both WSM and Skill IAS are 0, Total Attack Speed and Effective Item IAS are equal. In this case, the IAS breakpoints can be immediately found from the IAS thresholds table by converting the TAS breakpoints into Item IAS. If either WSM or Skill IAS are non-zero, you'll first need to remove them from the TAS values - whatever is leftover will be the Effective Item IAS, which can be converted in the same way to find the IAS breakpoints.


 * Negative total attack speed values are possible due to "slow" weapons with WSM values above zero - the negative values are colored gray in each chart to help improve readability
 * Breakpoints aren't shown for unarmed attacks, the slowest spear animations for some characters, or act 3 mercenaries (they cast spells instead of attacking)


 * Rows with multiple hits refer to the breakpoints for each individual hit (they'll last more frames when combined)
 * Breakpoints with multiple speeds listed (Fend & Strafe) are due to some hits getting faster, then slower, then faster again (in terms of animation frames) as the Total Attack Speed rises. Usually this coincides with the frame count of other hits moving in the opposite direction, so the overall speed either remains the same or increases.


 * Wereform Weapon Threshold = Weapon IAS - WSM
 * The Wereform Weapon Threshold (WWT) demonstrates how wereform attacks rely so heavily on Weapon IAS compared to other attacks
 * Weapon IAS excludes any IAS gained from non-weapon items - it refers to item IAS (not effective item IAS) so it cannot be added/subtracted from Total Attack Speed (TAS) values which the rest of the chart uses
 * Many of the worst breakpoints (those for slow spears that lack IAS) are not shown
 * Values are only listed for possible breakpoints
 * Rows at the bottom of each chart have fewer possible breakpoints - Weapon IAS applies to both WWT and TAS, so higher WWT means higher TAS
 * Werewolf adds a minimum of 20 speed, which counteracts even the slowest WSM speeds and prevents negative TAS values (at higher levels, only the fastest breakpoints per row will be possible)

Oskill breakpoints are incomplete - for missing breakpoints, use an Attack Speed Calculator

Thresholds
Similar to how breakpoints emerge due to animation frames being tied to discrete intervals of time, thresholds emerge due to formula values being rounded when those formulas have parts which increase at different rates from each other. In other words, thresholds refer to the values resulting from formulas with diminishing returns.


 * Effective Item IAS = [120 * Item IAS / (120 + Item IAS)]


 * Effective Item FRW = [150 * Item FRW / (150 + Item FRW)]


 * Effective MF (Magic) = MF (no diminishing returns)
 * Effective MF (Rare) = [600 * MF / (600 + MF)]
 * Effective MF (Set) = [500 * MF / (500 + MF)]
 * Effective MF (Unique) = [250 * MF / (250 + MF)]

You can use the above table to determine how much clearspeed would be equivalent to a certain amount of MF for finding uniques, which can be useful for determining whether more clearspeed or MF would be better for a particular character.



If you have 0 MF and want to determine how many more uniques you'll find with more MF, you can lookup the amount directly in the table. Suppose you want to compare 0 MF vs 130 MF - you'll see 130 MF is equal to 85 effective MF for uniques, so you'll find 85% more uniques on average. In other words, you'll find 85% more than the standard amount (100%) of uniques, or 185% of the standard amount. A character with 130 MF (85% effective MF) would find the same amount of uniques as a character with 0 MF who was clearing 85% faster.

When comparing MF values and one of them is 0 MF, part of the comparison is simplified since all MF values are equal to eachother at that point: 0 MF is the same as 0 effective MF. In the previous comparison of 0 MF vs 130 MF, 100% of the standard amount is compared against 185% of the standard amount, so the new value is 1.85 (185/100) times greater, or 185% (1.85*100%) of the standard amount, or 85% (185%-100%) more.


 * (85+100) / (0+100) * 100% - 100% = 85%

Suppose you have 130 MF (which is 85 effective MF for uniques) and are trying to decide whether a new item with an extra 50 MF would be worth it. From the table, we can see 180 MF (130 + 50) would be 104 effective MF for uniques. Plugging in the effective MF amounts:


 * (104+100) / (85+100) * 100% - 100% = 10.3%

That's an extra 10.3% unique items. If using the 50 MF item doesn't result in your clearspeed dropping by 10.3%, then you'll find more uniques with it than without it.

Keep in mind that these comparisons only apply to items which can have different rarities and are thus affected by MF - they won't apply to other items such as runes. If those other items make up a large fraction of the value you find among items, the overall usefulness of the MF will drop by however large that fraction is. For example, if 1/3 of the value you find is within other items, then the above examples would be 1/3 less for the purposes of comparing MF and clearspeed: 56.7% instead of 85% and 6.8% instead of 10.3%.