Speed is good. The benefit of speed is threefold. First, more speed means more damage dished out in the same amount of time. Second, more speed means less likely enemy retaliation, since you rapid attacks put them on recovery animation. Well, at least for most enemies. Thirdly, it’s fun, fun, fun.

So, how fast it is? The speed depends on two things: the base speed of your weapon, and the amount of Increased Attack Speed (IAS) you have. You can get IAS from various parts of your equipment, most notably your weapon, your gloves, and in some cases your armor, helm and belt. In addition, Jewels of Fervor grant 15% IAS, and are socketable wherever sockets exist. Second mods are possible in your Jewels of Fervor, and desirable second mods (enhanced damage, prismatic resists, single resists, maximum/minimum damage) may drive a single jewel’s price to ridiculous levels. Also, the Shael rune gives you 20% IAS in weapon . . . however, this is not applicable if you’re using javelins, since you can’t socket javelins. I suppose that’s because Larzuk simply can’t break a Shael rune into that many pieces.

These speed tables apply only to javelins. There is a separate speed table for spears. For your convenience, I will include both to give you comparison on the speed difference between javelins and their bigger cousins. Props to Aurikan for the Fend tables, and the dii.net’s calculator for the Throwing tables.

Javelin Fend Table

(by Aurikan - experimental data)

* = predicted at 60, but experiment indicated 65
() = theoretical values

Spear Fend Table

(by Aurikan - experimental data)

Javelin Throw Table

(from the Diabloii.net speed calculator - theoretical calculations)

Sorry, you can’t throw spears, even though I’d imagine it would be extremely painful.

Javelin Jab/Impale Table

(by Kyrene - experimental data)

Sorry, no Fanaticism data available. Seems like good Pallies are never around when they're most needed.

So, how do you interpret those tables? The speed is given in frames, which is Diablo-II term for time. The conversion factor is approximately 25 frames for every second. There are two frame numbers in the Fend Table: the first number indicates speed of initial thrust, the second number indicates speed of all other subsequent thrusts. The other numbers are the total number of IAS required to reach that particular speed.

The type of javelin/spear determines which column you look up:

Javelins

Spears

In general, inherently slower weapons have better average damage than their faster counterparts.

If you’re more technically inclined, the formula for calculating the breakpoints above stemmed from the speed formula as discovered by Dagni from LurkerLounge:

EIAS is determined by the amount of IAS and base speed of weapon:

Speed Factor is capped at 75%; this gives the maximum attack speed for each type of attack. Oh, and Base Attack is determined from the attack type, which are:

I don’t have the data on One-Handed Fend or Two-Handed Fend yet. Seems that the figures are obtained using a different formula.