Attack speed

Attack speed in Terraria is handled in a somewhat unusual fashion compared to the accepted "norms" of other games featuring this combat model. While attack speed items do stack together, the actual bonus derived is different than a player would expect based on the in-game description.

The descriptions presented on items themselves are inaccurate. A description could say "10% melee attack speed" when the actual bonus is closer to 11.1%. This is because the bonus actually reduces the time to attack to 0.9 of base and ((1 / 0.9) - 1) * 100 = 11.11%.

Bonuses are multiplicative so to find your total bonus you must multiply the reductions together. For instance if you have three Feral Claws equipped the total bonus would be 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 = 0.729 or a 37.17% increase.

Furthermore, the attack speed bonus through gear is capped at 42.86% or 0.7 of base. You can reach this a cap using a combination of:


 * Shadow Armor and two Feral Claws ~ (0.85 * 0.9 * 0.9 = 0.6885)
 * Any other armor and four Feral Claws ~ (0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 * 0.9 = 0.6561)
 * Note that as of 1.0.6 you can no longer equip more than one of the same accessory.

Melee Attack Speed
Melee attack speed affects the swing speed of almost all melee items. This includes swords, pickaxes, hammers and other tools. However, improving your melee attack speed won't improve the speed of mining. It also has no effect on spear type weapons.