Comments

Comment by 39856

It's a +31.20 swing speed increase to a level 13, this may prove to be a deadly twink item for the 10-19 BG - Only reason nobody knows about it yet is the fact nobody makes them.

On a side note, this is a very cheap and fun way to speed up low-level leveling, especially when combined with Seal of the Crusader!

Comment by Nifty01

The counterweight is great for low levels because the % increase scales with levels. It is very effective in low levels while diminishing in higher levels. Twinks or just low levels using 2hers in general, I would suggest getting one of these attached if you find a nice blue. This will make a noticeable difference in speed for grinding.

Comment by Thottbot

Hmm, it seems you guys have forgotten one thing....

for enchantments, extra damage per second would be:
enchantment / attack speed. Nice and simple. and WEAK!

weak i say? yes, weak. Here is the info to back it up.

You seem to believe that for iron counterweight the math for extra damage would be:

weapon dps x 1.03

this is wrong. Try this instead:

extra damage:
(weapon dps x 1.03) + (attack power dps add x 1.03)

Translated: you don't get a bonus to your weapon, you get a bonus to overall damage you can do, including stats, buffs, strength pots, scrolls, and so on and so forth.

Conclusion: as a lev40 paladin, using imp might and a slow 2h weapon, with 5 pts in 2h weapon spec talent, i managed to boost my total DPS by 7.2 points. if you have a weapon that swings slower than once every second, you'd be hard pressed to beat that with an enchantment.

Comment by Thottbot

FACT: counterweight does not change the damage done by the weapon, even though it increases weapon speed. The attack power damage modification formula uses the BASE weapon speed.

FACT: Even a 2h paladin at level 60 does more than 100DPS, whereas a +9 enchant on a slow weapon adds 2-3DPS

Iron counterweight increases the number of swings per minute by 3%, and as far as I have acertained all formulas that use weapon speed use the BASE weapon speed, so it increases basic melee DPS by 3%.

This worked out to an extra 3-4DPS for a 2h paladin at level 60, making it better than a +9 enchant on any slow weapon, for super cheap, but not anywhere near as good as crusader.

Comment by Thottbot

at level 60, +9 adds at most 3-4DPS and that's if you're spamming mortal strike or using seal of command.

Fact: There is no damage per hit reduction whatsoever from installing the counterweight, because all formulas that use weapon speed, like attack power and seal of command proc rate, use the base weapon speed.

So you get 3% more hits and 3% more seal of command procs for the usual amount of damage, resulting in 3% increase in overall DPS for a retrib pally, which is around 4 dps, making it equivalent to the 2h +9 but a hell of a lot cheaper.

Comment by Thottbot

A lot of people seem to fail to realize that most damage done by warriors is coming from their instant attacks (MS is the biggest example) and by using a counterweight their effective damage they produce with each MS/instant attack is not increased. By using a +9 damage instead, each time they use one of these instant attacks +9 damage is also added to the equation and most likely outdamaging the counterweight as a result. However, counterweights are far cheaper and are the better option for people that need their money for other things as the damage enchants add is pretty minimal and only used in an optimised gear.

Comment by Thottbot

When this is applied to a melee weapon, it affects a druid's feral form attack speeds. Currently in cat form I attack at .97 speed. Nothing huge, but a curiousity.

Comment by Thottbot

I'm gonna wack one on my Earthshaker as a Shaman.

Why you ask?

1) It's practically free, my alt had the mats my friend has the plans.
2) Procs are everything to a shaman. I want to proc windfury as much as possible, I want to proc the stun effect.

"But Talsigore, procs work on PPM!"
And PPM is determined by base weapon speed. So using that logic, I can proc 3% more per minute than I can without it! The increased speed also gets me faster swings, which convert to more windfuries.

Yes crusader is better but the price difference is much larger than the effect difference. I'll save crusader for when I get a different weapon.

Comment by Thottbot

Base weapon speed is surely the speed before any spells or effects - therefor including the counterweight.
Judgements such as light and wisdom on the other I do not beleive are calculated this way since the effect is on an enemy, not yourself (and certainly it seems this way in my experience) so for a holy palla this is an advantage (all be it small).

Comment by Thottbot

Four little things that haven't been pointed out yet:

It actually lets you do 3.1% (300/97%, to be precise) more attacks, not 3% more attacks. Not a big difference, but when trying to optimize your character the extra accuracy (accuracy to a couple more decimal places, not weapon accuracy, lol) might help you decide.

Many people do not factor buffs in correctly - I'm fairly sure some buffs/debuffs are calculated before taking the counterweight in consideration while others are calculated after calculating the 3% speed bonus. And even if I'm mistaken here, just like Kindgott said, you have to factor in stat modifiers that you normally have on such as MoTW.

Arms warriors are most dependant on in order to do damage, while Fury warriors tend to be more dependant on overall damage and other stats, for instance, some fury warriors pump their crit chance so that their Flurry is almost constantly activated - Flurry increases their attack speed by a huge 30% for the next three strikes. This means they get their three strikes off in the timespan of two strikes (well, 2.1 strikes to be exact). Basically, some warriors would find a +damage or a +str or even a +agi most desirable for their build.

For hunters or other classes who can use 2h-ers but rarely use them, it might be a much better idea to get a +stat enchant, as you can definitely find a +stat that affects your main style of combat as well. Like with hunters, you can get +agi or +str to further boost the +17.5 dps from Thorium Shells. And speaking of Thorium Shells... who cares about Iron Counterweights when you can get cheap Thorium Shells (and Delicate Arcanite Converters) from Cannibalism on Uldum ;)

Comment by Thottbot

This actually works in bear/cat form too.

Comment by Thottbot

My lvl 42 warrior wields a whirlwind axe for 82.3 dps, including 130 AP from Battle Shout and +6 damage from a sharpening stone.

A counterweight increases his dps by 82.3 x .03 = 2.469

Meanwhile a +7 enchant should increase my dps by +7 / 3.3 = 2.12. I divided 7 by 3.3 because 3.3 is the "normalized" weapon speed for a 2 hander (patch 1.8). A Whirlwind Axe's speed is actually 3.6 so the real bonus may be even lower.

In my situation, a counterweight is at least 16% better than a FAR more expensive enchantment.

Note that a counterweight also allows warrior rage to build faster but contributes nothing to abilities like Overpower, Retaliation, and Mortal Strike.

Because a counterweight effectively scales base damage, it's just as effective for high level players as for lowbies. By contrast, enchantments give a flat bonus, and more expensive enchants must be employed to provide proportional benefit at higher levels.

Comment by Thottbot

Now it only provides a haste rating increase (2% at level 60, perhaps even less at higher levels).

I hope Blizzard comes out with a better counterweight.

Comment by Thottbot

I for one intend to go with the enchant.

Just going off the math. yea the counterweight is better. but that only really applies if you just standing there wailing on some boss with loads of hp.

in your avrage battle 3% is not going to be enough to get you an extra hit. i use whirlwind axe and i only get off about 4 to 5 normal hits off in fighting the avrage mob... you can get a better bonus than 3% with one carfully placed slam attack. and if you are spamming slam. then that 3% is doing nothing for you. add to that for a warrior that the enchant will give bonus damage to MS and overpower and slam. and if you are arms spec overpower will crit lots and your crits will be better.

i can see how 3% might be better for a proc based class. but even then i would rather increase the damage i am doing in every battle than reduce the speed it takes me to do the damage i already do.

Comment by Thottbot

This thing is obviously not balanced for lower levels.

My 10 level warrior has this in his mace (just testing) and it brings his 3.3 attack speed down to 1.85!

crazy

Comment by Allakhazam

Anyone know how 20 haste rating affects a level 19 or 29?

Comment by Allakhazam

You can only attach one

Comment by Allakhazam

When it refers to "a two-handed sword, mace, axe or polearm..." does the two-handed refer to swords, maces and axes; or just swords? (meaning that you could attach this to any mace or axe)

Comment by Allakhazam

For 2H Weapons less than lvl 60 Epics (blues like Arcanite Reaper), Crusader, Lifesteal, Fiery are much better.

For lvl 60 epic 2Hers, the Counterweight is slightly worse than Crusader, Lifesteal, Fiery for DPS.

For Rank 14 2H Weapons, the counterweight is about even for DPS.

The reason is, the lesser weapons proc the enchants the same amount no matter the quality. It's basically like adding a certain amount of DPS.

The counterweight increases by a percent. The result is bigger, with bigger numbers. Say, Crusader and Lifesteal account for 6 DPS. This Counterweight only affects auto-attack, but if you do 300 average DPS, 180 being auto attack. 3% increase on 180 DPS is 5.4 DPS. It would take a HWL weapon to do this DPS... an Arcanite Reaper would get about 225 average DPS with 135 DPS from auto attack. 3% increase would give it a 4 DPS increase. Not nearly as good, but great for it's cost.

Comment by Allakhazam

Mainly on Thottbot. What i got out of it, is that this counterweight is overall better than typical enchants.

Comment by Allakhazam

Do u need to be a blacksmith to fit it on, or do u also to a blacksmith to use the weapon when fited?

Comment by Allakhazam

does hit go to onehands and I heard blacksmith enchants stack with other enchants is that true?

Comment by Allakhazam

A guy on our server has one of these on his Ashkandi. Just about everyone on the server thinks he is taking the piss, but he really beleves its the best enchant.

3.5 weapon speed will give you 0.105 speed increase. I think thats safe to say, its pretty damn rubbish, compaired to +9 damage, +15 strength or crusader.

If you add it to a crappy weapon like a shadowstrike, your looking at around 0.093% speed increase.

Comment by Allakhazam

good for under 55 druids IMO though, yes it does work in feral forms :D

Comment by carwik149

Does not affect attack speed of druid while shapeshifted.

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Iron Counterweight

Item Level 33

Requires Blacksmithing (165)
Use: Attaches a counterweight to a two-handed sword, mace, axe or polearm making it 3% faster.

Max Stack: 5

Sell Price: 5

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Blacksmithing Guide Feral Druid Tank Phase 4 Best in Slot (BiS) Gear Guide

Iron Counterweight

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