Attack Speed

Attack speed is a property of every weapon that sets how quickly its basic attacks and weapon-based skills play out. A quicker weapon lands more swings, stabs, or shots in the same span of time, so attack speed is one of the largest hidden contributors to a character's damage over time, even though it never shows up as a number on the character sheet. A weapon carries its speed as a named rating on its tooltip, and that rating never changes no matter how the weapon is scrolled or upgraded.

Speed ratings

A weapon's tooltip shows one of seven speed labels. From quickest to slowest they are Fastest, Faster, Fast, Normal, Slow, Slower, and Slowest. A quicker label means the weapon attacks more often, so two weapons with the same Weapon Attack still differ in real output when their labels differ.

Behind each label sits a finer speed tier, a whole number that runs from 0 (quickest) to 12 (slowest). Lower is faster. The tooltip groups neighboring tiers under one word, which is why two weapons can both read Fast yet attack at slightly different rates: a tier 4 weapon is a touch quicker than a tier 5 weapon even though both say Fast. Equipment and shop tables on this wiki show the exact tier in parentheses after the label, for example Fast (4), so weapons can be compared precisely.

In normal play only the middle of that scale appears. A Classic World weapon's base speed runs from Faster (tier 2) down to Slow (tier 8). Fastest is reached only when a Booster is active on an already-quick weapon such as a claw or dagger. Slower and Slowest show up only when a slowing effect is stacked onto an already-slow weapon, and the very ends of the scale (tier 0 and tiers 11 to 12) are defined but not used by any weapon yet.

Speed by weapon class

Every weapon class occupies a narrow band of tiers, and most span two, so the choice within a class matters as much as the choice between classes. This table covers the 162 weapons documented on this wiki that carry a speed.

Two classes offer no choice at all. Every wand sits at tier 6 and every staff at tier 7, so a magician's attack speed is decided entirely by which of the two they carry, and a wand is always exactly one step faster than a staff. At the other end, spears and polearms are the slowest weapons in the game, and seven of the eight polearms sit at the bottom tier.

How the tiers are spread

Tier 4 alone holds a third of every weapon that carries a speed, and the whole range sits inside seven of the thirteen defined tiers. That compression is why a single step is worth so much: there is no such thing as a small speed difference.

One weapon stands alone at tier 2, a full step ahead of every dagger and claw: the Wizet Secret Agent Suitcase. It is a one-handed blunt weapon, a class that otherwise starts at tier 4.

Animation and cast time

Speed tiers turn into real timing through the weapon's animation. Every melee weapon alternates two basic-attack animations, a swing and a stab. The swing always runs about 800 milliseconds. One-handed weapons stab in that same 800 milliseconds, so they have a single speed. Two-handed weapons (two-handed sword, two-handed axe, two-handed blunt weapon, spear, and pole arm) stab a little quicker, around 750 milliseconds, so a two-handed weapon alternates between its slower swing and its quicker stab as it attacks. Bows shoot at the 800 millisecond swing length, and crossbows shoot a touch slower at about 820 milliseconds.

The speed tier then scales that animation into a fixed cast time, the gap between one attack starting and the next being allowed to start. The table lists the cast time at each commonly reached tier. Lower tiers (quicker) come from a Booster or fast weapons; higher tiers come from slow weapons or slowing effects.

Skill choice does not change these times. Power Strike, Slash Blast, Lucky Seven, and a basic attack all fire on the same cast time for the same weapon at the same tier; only the visual effect differs. The engine also snaps every cast to a 30 millisecond step, so a single stopwatch reading can land one step off the table, but a long session averages to these values. The numbers above describe the reachable tiers 1 to 8; if a slowing effect ever pushes a weapon further, the one-handed cast time continues at 960, 1020, 1050, and 1110 milliseconds for tiers 9 through 12.

Magician spells

Spell casting uses the same idea, with its own animation lengths. Offensive spells such as Magic Claw, Energy Bolt, and Fire Arrow play the longer animation, while Heal and the buff spells play a shorter one and so cast noticeably faster. A Cleric grinding undead with Heal works on a much shorter cycle than a Magician casting Fire Arrow, and that gap is built into the skills rather than something a player can change.

A wand reads as Normal and most staves read as Slow, so a staff casts a little slower than a wand. The difference is small, and a staff with stronger Magic Attack, INT, or scroll slots is usually the better pick despite the slower label. Magicians have no Booster for wands or staves in first and second job, so a mage's casting speed comes from the weapon alone until later advancements.

Booster skills

Most weapon classes have a matching Booster skill that shifts a held weapon two tiers quicker for as long as the buff lasts: a Fast (tier 4) weapon performs as Faster (tier 2), and a Normal (tier 6) weapon performs as Fast (tier 4). Warriors use Sword Booster, Axe Booster, Blunt Weapon Booster, Spear Booster, and Polearm Booster; bowmen use Bow Booster and Crossbow Booster; thieves use Dagger Booster and Claw Booster.

The two-tier shift is the same at every skill level. Higher levels make the buff last longer and cost less, growing from about 100 seconds at level 1 to about 300 seconds at level 20, but they never make the shift larger. A Booster only works on the weapon family it is named for, so Sword Booster does nothing for an axe, and the warrior classes that can wield two weapon types learn two Boosters to cover both. A Booster also requires its weapon mastery skill first, so it comes online a couple of levels into second job rather than the moment a character advances. Magicians have no Booster for wands or staves at this stage of the game.

Skills that break the pattern

Two skills run their own animation length instead of the standard one. Heal casts faster than other spells, as noted above. Savage Blow casts on a longer base than a normal dagger strike, about 20 percent slower per hit than Double Stab on the same weapon, which is the trade for striking six times in one cast.

What does not change attack speed

A common point of confusion is Haste. Haste, speed potions, and other movement effects raise walking and jumping speed only, and do nothing to how quickly a weapon attacks. Pet items and cosmetic outfits never affect it either. As covered above, the attack skill you use does not change the rate. A matching Booster is the one reliable way to make a weapon swing faster.

Comparing weapons by damage per hour

Because a quicker weapon attacks more often, attack speed acts as a multiplier on everything else. To compare two weapons fairly, multiply the damage of a single attack by 3600 divided by the cast time in seconds; the result is damage per hour of nonstop attacking. A Fast (tier 4) one-handed weapon fires every 720 milliseconds, about 5,000 attacks per hour, and a Booster drops that to 600 milliseconds, about 20 percent more attacks for no extra damage per hit.

Slower weapon classes usually carry a higher base Weapon Attack to make up for swinging less often, so the choice between a fast and a slow weapon comes down to whether the extra damage per hit outweighs the lost hits per hour. Faster weapons are also more forgiving while training, since landing the first hit sooner can interrupt a monster before it reaches you.

Accuracy of these figures

The per-class table and the tier distribution are generated from the weapon data published on this wiki, so they can be checked against any individual weapon article. The cast times are drawn from the game's own animation data. The one-handed swing and stab timings and the Booster shift are also confirmed against gameplay. The two-handed stab, crossbow, and magician spell figures are still being validated and may shift slightly. Older speed tables from earlier eras of MapleStory do not apply, since Classic World retuned several skills.

See also

• Weapon Attack: the other half of damage per hour
• Damage: what each of those hits is worth
• Equipment and Scrolling: neither changes a weapon's speed
• Haste: raises movement speed, not attack speed