Attack Speed

 is an attribute and mechanic in Outward which determines the animation speed of Melee Weapons.

The higher a weapon's attack speed value, the faster it hits. However, each weapon class has its own base animation speed, so weapons with the same attack speed stat of different classes will not have the same actual speed.

Animations
For each type of weapon, there are 5 main animations which form the foundation of all attacks and combos:


 * Standard Attacks: a two-attack combo which can be strung together into an endless stream of hits. Also known as the "light combo".
 * Special Attack: a powerful attack which is used by initiating a combo with the special attack button.
 * Combos: Most classes have two main combos, seen by performing a standard attack and then a special attack, or two standards and one special. Can also sometimes be used in others ways such as pressing the special attack button twice, or by attacking while sprinting.

Attack Speed is a direct speed modifier on these animations. It has no effects on Weapon Skill animations.

Increasing Attack Speed
Currently, the only way to increase attack speed in Outward is with the skill Infuse Wind, or the enchantments Rainbow Hex, Favorable Wind or Weightless.

Animation Speeds
Each weapon class has it's own "base speed" - the default length of the attack animations. These tables list weapons in order of fastest to slowest (lower number means faster).

Standard Combo
The table below focuses only on the standard combo (two standard attacks, or four for Gauntlets).

Each column represents the possible default Attack Speed values in Outward, which range from 0.8 to 1.2.

* The light combo is actually 4 hits, not 2, so this weapon is much faster per-hit compared to Swords.

''Note: when repeatedly attacking, there is sometimes a small delay of 50-100ms (0.05 to 0.1 seconds) between combos. It seems particularly common with Polearms.''

An example of a 'standard combo':

 The standard combo for a 1.0-Speed, 1H Sword 

Special and Combo Attacks
As mentioned above, each weapon has more than just a light attack combo, there are at least 3 other separate animations players can make use of, as well as strings of combos.

In the tables below:
 * # of Attacks is the number of hits your character will perform from the attack input, not the number of button presses.
 * Avg. Multiplier is the average damage multiplier per hit from the entire combo
 * Time (inc. Wind-Down) is the total time of the combo in seconds, including the "wind-down" (the time until you can start a new combo)

Note: for more special combo times and multipliers, see the "Animations" section on each Melee Weapon Class page.

Collision
Collision is an aspect of melee combat which slows down character animations when weapons hit a target. Upon colliding, the attacker is slowed down for approximately 120ms to 300ms, depending on the radius of the receiver's model (larger models will result in a longer delay).

The following table is a rough guide on estimating the collision delay for enemies of various sizes: However, keep in mind that this seems to be a manual value that Nine Dots set, not the actual real size of the model, so certain enemies may not have the delay you would expect compared to other enemies. Some of these enemies include:


 * All Giants (0.4, lower than expected)
 * All Ghosts (0.64, higher than expected)

Notes:
 * The delay is per hit. If using the tables above, take note of the amount of hits per combo, the delay will occur as many times as there are hits in the combo. Light combos are a two-attack combo.
 * There is a fairly large degree of randomness to each hit (+/- 30ms), it is unknown what causes this. It is possible that the angle and direction of the hit is the cause.
 * The delay is not greatly affected by the impact or damage of the weapon used. In fact it seems that it is not affected whatsoever by this.