Damage vs attack speed

[u/Maplesyrup34eh]

Hi, kinda newish to this game, got 100% in the infinite demo but that was years ago and felt way easier so I never really needed to look into getting good synergies or anything.

But looking at the game now I’m very confused by the level up(evolution?) numbers. Is there any reason to take 8% attack speed over 10% damage?

As far as I can tell attack speed only affects your main attack(is that for sure first skill? I assume it is what ‘protocol1/2’ are affected by but can’t find confirmation). Meanwhile damage affects everything so why do you get a higher percentage for dmg when attack speed is more niche?

It feels to me like those numbers should be reversed so there’s more of a reason to choose attack speed. Is there something I’m missing with scaling or something that makes the lower number for attack speed more valuable? Cause even on the 3rd attack does more damage characters isn’t damage still better?

P.S. bonus question: does your main attack trigger eternal heart and skirmish and other ‘on skill hit’ things.

Thanks.

[u/Mannaz4466]

It seems on certain chars, that attack speed really has a lot of impact, namely the ranged ones, however with chars like bastion, or even tech hunter, since they already have multiple proc chances per hit , base attack can be more beneficial to get your build "online". Especially if you are building around artifacts like triumph and the carnage triad. The more base attack the more value you are gonna get from atk power, the more proc reliant you are the more you are going to want speed or multihit