Guild Wars 2

I am lost out his boon called Quickness.
It say it increase attack rate.

But how would that effect combat beyond auto attack since most skills are on Cooldown anyway?

I know I am missing something. Explain please.

any channeled skill is activated in about half its duration rather than the full time it takes to activate and any movement skill that you activate is faster than it usually is.

…http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Quickness

for some reason I read that title as something like “quickly explain quickness plz” and started laughing.
all skills have several timers.
casting time = time it takes the skill to cast.
cooldown = after the skill is cast, this is how long before you can cast it again.
quickness decreases the casting time of skills by 50% (used to be 100%, just in case you find an out-of-date explanation elsewhere)
auto-attack swing a sword? sword swings 50% faster. auto-attacks typically have 0 cooldown, relying only on casting time to limit them. other skills usually have like 1/2 sec casting time and 5 sec cooldown, so they are much less affected.
one example I’ll use is the mesmer’s phantasmal defender. (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Phantasmal_Defender)
1-1/2 sec casting time, 30 sec cooldown.
when you press the key, your character raises her hand then drops it, then a phantasm appears. that process takes 1-1/2 seconds. If you have quickness, she will do that in 1 second instead, and still have to wait 30 sec before it can be used again.

the math for how that is 50%:
1.5 sec delay = 0.666 per sec
100% faster = x2 = 1.333 per sec
50% faster = x1.5 = 1 per sec
1.333 per sec = 0.75 sec delay (100% faster = 1/2 the time required)
1 per sec = 1 sec delay (50% faster = 2/3 the time required)

Basically, with Quickness, time passes faster for your character. Cooldowns finish sooner, ability animations are quicker.

In general, you will do 40-50% more damage with Quickness up than without it, regardless of your profession, build, gear, or whatnot. This isn’t a perfect statement, but is usually true.

Quickness looks very cool with the flamethrower is all I have to say.

Big ouchies tho if you hit something with retaliation!

Sylentir.8913:

Basically, with Quickness, time passes faster for your character. Cooldowns finish sooner, ability animations are quicker.

In general, you will do 40-50% more damage with Quickness up than without it, regardless of your profession, build, gear, or whatnot. This isn’t a perfect statement, but is usually true.

Ya.. cooldowns are NOT faster, they are the exact same only channel times/animations are changed.

Delay.6908:

Sylentir.8913:

Basically, with Quickness, time passes faster for your character. Cooldowns finish sooner, ability animations are quicker.

In general, you will do 40-50% more damage with Quickness up than without it, regardless of your profession, build, gear, or whatnot. This isn’t a perfect statement, but is usually true.

Ya.. cooldowns are NOT faster, they are the exact same only channel times/animations are changed.

if cast time is 3 seconds, cooldown 30 sec, then normaly one can use it every 33 seconds – because cooldown starts after casting finishes

so if casted with quickness 3 seconds cast speeds up to 2 seconds, therefor total time to next cast is 32seconds

I know what ya’ll are trying to say… but the cooldown still remains the same. It doesn’t lower the cooldown what so ever. It simply increases the speed of your casts.

Overall it’s mostly an auto attack buff, although other things do benefit. It’s best used when you have a bunch of might/vuln so that you can hit it more often within that time period (or if the boss has a limited window when you can hurt him etc.).

The numerical cooldown stays the same, but the time ticks faster for finishing it. It’s like a reverse chill. Test it out, you’ll find that skills come off cooldown faster with quickness.