how to get attack speed on a staff templar

Things I have tried:
- Blood rage (supported by very high regen)
- IAS support gem

Things I still need to try: Haste aura (currently run Vita, was an experiment for blood rage)

Things that aren't options: Frenzy (staff templar cmon :)

The blood rage experiment almost works, but there are some troubles with it. First off, since more than two-thirds of my damage is elemental I don't get the leech benefit. %physi LL makes my duelist feel safe, makes my templar feel squishy. I actually clear areas faster WITHOUT the %as from bloodrage just because I feel safer having 5% regen than 0% and attacking faster.

I really want to make this staff LS templar build work, but 1.1 APS is simply unacceptable. I need to retain some amount of the tankiness I get from my 5-endurance build, and still add in some attack speed. Suggestions, please!

attack speed support seems like a very strong option, but I'm about fed up trying to roll 2green on str-aligned items. Ugh.

Another possibility: ditch the manaleech gem and use Clarity aura + attack speed support? Might be an improvement on Vitality's 1.4% life-regen, and allows a 3 red / 2 blue / 1 green combo (which should be easy to get). This option is interesting, it might give me a chance to try my voll's out and make this into a discharger build. Although overall I still feel Voll's is more of a handicap :(

Your inputs please! Current build is here.

get 13% IAS gloves, and potentially a ring (but the rings aren't really worth it compared to other mods unless you're lucky and get both)

Blood rage works good. I used to use it with avatar of fire which is ZERO percent physical damage and ZERO percent leech, so I don't know WTF you would complain about it only partially leeching.

That said, how the heck are you dealing 3/4 of your damage as elemental? As a 2-handed user, it's rather important to get high +physical damage% because that's one of the primary ways to get good damage.

I'm thinking that you're using a skill like infernal blow or glacial hammer if you're dealing that much elemental damage? That or a low-IPD staff, with lots of added elemental damage from aura and items. If the 2nd scenario is your situation, I'd recommend using a 1-handed weapon build instead of a 2-handed, because it makes more sense when most of your damage comes from + damage.

I'd recommend trying to use ground slam. Aside from it being AoE, it attacks faster than most staff/maces tend to attack at.

Lastly, it won't change your DPS, or change attack speed by much, but choosing a faster staff type is also a very logical choice if you want to attack faster.


Overall attack speed is difficult to get as a marauder or templar, and with their slow weapons it makes for a certain mechanic of attacking slow but hitting hard. I had absolutely no issues with that, since that's the style of the weapon and class. You should be choosing a different build if you want to be a fast-attacking user — not everyone needs to attack fast.

My staff templar dealt absolutely ridiculous amounts of damage (back when AoF was around and elemental damage wasn't nerfed as much) at various points — well over 30k. Just because he/they attack slow doesn't mean they can't deal excellent damage — keep that in mind!



That all said, the complete mutilation of the old passive tree into this new one really removes some old possibilities, such as one which I did at one point where my staff templar would actually be deep deep into the ranger area and get some frenzy charges. This was back when frenzy charges were stronger though — it wouldn't be at all worth it now even if it was "possible".

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Xapti wrote:

Blood rage works good. I used to use it with avatar of fire which is ZERO percent physical damage and ZERO percent leech, so I don't know WTF you would complain about it only partially leeching.

It's not really a complaint, just an observation - I don't get nearly as much out of bloodrage on my templar as I did on my duelist. The notable difference is that 5% LL on a duelist keeps my healthbar filling at a very fast clip - faster than the 4% regen I trade off for it. Giving up regen for leech is very noticeable on the templar, enough so that I have to be much more cautious, and I don't actually gain much farm speed from bloodrage.

As I mentioned, it's because of LS. I don't have enough physical damage to make bloodrage work.

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Xapti wrote:

That said, how the heck are you dealing 3/4 of your damage as elemental? As a 2-handed user, it's rather important to get high +physical damage% because that's one of the primary ways to get good damage.

First off, I said 2/3. My staff doesn't have amazing stats, I'm only level 52 and haven't really gotten into the grind to roll out a really high %IPD weapon. ATM: 97% physi. Lightning strike is supported by added fire damage, melee physical damage (to be swapped for weapon elemental when my mana can support).

Tooltip says:
Fires 3 projectiles
Main hand does
10-21 cold damage
101-289 fire damage
172-516 lightning damage
134-396 physical damage

Average is: 555 elemental, 265 physical, total - 820. 32% physical, 68% elemental.
Adding more %IPD wouldn't skew this significantly, the way damage conversion abilities work. If anything my %elem will be higher later on, because I'll be able to afford supporting with weapon elemental dmg (over physi)

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I'm thinking that you're using a skill like infernal blow or glacial hammer if you're dealing that much elemental damage?

LS for multi target, GH for single target.

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I'd recommend trying to use ground slam. Aside from it being AoE, it attacks faster than most staff/maces tend to attack at.

hm, very good thought here. But my 70% +elemental build is at odds with anything but an elemental-conversion ability. Leaves me LS/GH because I don't like infernal blow.

Thanks very much for your input. Right now I'm going to put together a set that will let me support LS/GH with +attackspeed, then run Clarity so I only need 1 green socket per (no manaleech). I may return to bloodrage, I really like it. Especially since I think my current build has quite a lot of potential as a Discharger, and I've got a 12% discharge collecting dust here.... With bloodrage going I can let go of a discharge and immediately have 3 new frenzy stacks, and finish a cast of enduring cry (restoring 3 or more endurance) before anything even recovers from the stun. Proliferation is really cool in this scenario (EW/discharge right after a LS crit....)

And I have a voll's standing by, too, but voll's feels like such a huge defensive handicap.