Speed (brand)

Version 0.16: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Attacks with this weapon are significantly faster.

Attacks made with speed branded weapons take only 66% as long as normal. This leads to a theoretical increase in irresistible damage output of +50%. Regardless, it is a large increase in irresistible damage output, making it a very desirable weapon brand, particularly for characters who have found significant amounts of slaying bonus.

The speed brand can normally be found on:

• Daggers
• Short swords
• Cutlasses
• Quarterstaves
• Lajatangs
• Various artefact weapons, both melee and ranged:
  • The captain's cutlass
  • Arga
  • Finisher
  • Skullcrusher
  • Sharnga
• Randart blowguns will always be speed branded. Randart quick blades will never be.

Rounding

If a weapon's normal speed can't divide cleanly into thirds, then the speed of each attack will be rounded up or down to the nearest integer. Assume an attack with your lajatang normally takes 7 auts to complete. 66% of that would leave you with 4.66 auts, and the game would implement this by having each attack take either 4 auts (33% of the time) or 5 auts (67%).

History

Prior to 0.14, melee weapons with the speed brand dealt only 90% damage but their attack speed was 50% of normal.

Prior to 0.9, melee weapons of speed dealt full damage. Also, ranged weapons attack speed was 50% of normal.

Prior to 0.8, all weapons of speed reduced attack speed to 50% of normal (though this calculation was then rounded up, leaving some weapons attacking slightly slower).