Talk:Attack speed/@comment-5878487-20140917064657/@comment-4091261-20141115214153

I guess the calculations are dependant on how long the duel is expected to last. While attack speed is definitely much more gold efficient than attack damage, the situation itself is important to understand.

1) Attack damage is better on AD casters, no questions asked. Utilizing these spells means undergoing an animation that prevents the champion from attacking. The less time used attacking, the less useful attack speed is.

2) The duration of the fight determines the usefulness of attack speed. If the fight is so short, that you can only pull off one attack on the enemy, then attack speed looses purpose. However, attack speed significantly reduces the time between attacks allowing you to have a shorter time window to make two attacks, which can be worthwhile by itself.

I've learned this in my experience with Starcraft. The light units such as Zealots and Zerglings have such massive dps and heavily surpass some heavy units like Seige Tanks and Tempests. What makes these heavy units so advanced then? Well, some do splash damage and they all do massive damage in one hit. That is usually the case with spells marksman and AD assassins in this game has as well. Some spells do others do.

3) On-hit effects increase the effectiveness of attack speed. On-hit effects can only occur when a hit occurs, no amount of attack damage can change that. Whenever a person autoattacks, the damage should be thought of as 100% AD + Critical Strike Chance * Bonus Critical Strike Damage + On-hit effect. Increasing attack speed allows this to occur more often. Looking at what you get whenever you do autoattack shows just how significant autoattacks are. If these autoattacks are significant enough, it can offset the cost of buying the attack speed. This is why crit/attack speed builds somehow works on all champions. Of course, some champions pull it off better than others and it is easily countered, though it still works on every champion because of how well critcal strikes synergize with autoattacks.

Looking at these three things, it's not that difficult to figure out whether or not attack speed or attack damage is better for your champion. I would say the best way to compare is to calculate how many attacks are done with the attack speed compared to without. Actually, that is the only way to compare them. With as an example, at level 1 with 28.8% attack speed runes, he would have an attack speed of .805 attacks per second. Normally has .625 attacks per second at level 1. With that extra attack speed, he would be able to pull off 2 attacks in 2.48 seconds. This means if the duel lasts only that amount of time, then attack speeds becomes more worth the attack damage. However, if the duel takes 3.2 seconds then attack damage wins because they break even and the one with more attack damage pulls off, well, more damage because it would take 3.73 seconds to make a third autoattack with the extra attack speed. So there is a very slim difference between attack speed and attack damage, which is why people don't choose attack speed too often. If the duel is like, 10 seconds though, then 8 attacks is definitely worth more than 6 attacks and the difference would only grow in attack speeds favor if time increases.

TL;DR You gonna man up? Get attack speed. You gonna be a pansy? Get attack damage.