Speed (brand)

Version 0.30: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Attacks with this weapon are significantly faster.

The speed brand does the following:

• Reduces time to attack by ×66%, e.g. making attacks +50% faster, or dealing an irresistible +50% damage/turn.

Useful Info

• Speed's weapon delay happens after skill, but before shield or armour encumbrance. So speed weapons are somewhat more impacted by encumbrance penalties than usual: 0.5 -> 0.6 (-16.7%) is a bigger penalty than 0.75 -> 0.85 (-11.8%).
• Speed is not particularly worse against AC. Speed increases your post-AC damage by +50% against all enemies. For reference, brands like flaming or freezing multiply your post-AC damage by average +25%. If you dealt 10 damage, and enemy AC reduces it by 5:
  • Speed: (10 - 5) damage * 3/2 attacks = 7.5 damage/turn
  • Flaming: (10 - 5) damage * 1.25 multiplier = 6.25 damage/turn

Heavy is especially good against AC, and 'flat' brands like electrocution ignore AC completely. These are benefits of the aforementioned brands, and not a weakness of speed itself.

• As usual, non-integer aut delays are rounded in a weighted manner. For example, if a weapon had 0.7 decaAut delay before speed, you'd have a 0.467 delay after speed. This equates to a 67% chance (per turn) to attack at 0.5 decaAut, and a 33% chance to attack at 0.4 decaAut.
• Unlike every other weapon brand in the game, speed improves auxiliary attacks, since aux attacks are performed faster.

Sources

The speed brand cannot be obtained via a scroll of brand weapon. It can normally be found on Short Blades, quarterstaves, and lajatangs. However, quick blades cannot have the speed brand. Various artefact weapons may also come with this brand:

• The captain's cutlass
• Arga
• Finisher
• Skullcrusher
• Zephyr

Strategy

Speed is one of the best 'percentage' brands in the game - it's irresistible and provides a large, consistent increase to damage output independent of enemy AC. It's objectively better than flaming or freezing, which are already good enough for a 3-rune game. A hand axe of speed isn't an endgame weapon, but Arga is one of the strongest one-handed weapons almost purely because of this brand.

• Holy wrath is usually better for extended, but does nothing if the target isn't undead/demonic.
• Spectral offers a stronger (+70%) damage boost, but the spectral weapon needs to be positioned correctly, and it can cause you to take extra damage from AOE attacks.

Also, since weak weapons like daggers and short swords have such low base damage, 'flat' brands (e.g. venom, electrocution) can end up being stronger in the early-game.

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).