Fast

Fast is a Boss Modifier that spawns on Champions, Bosses, and their minions. Fast enemies get a 40% bonus to their movement speed, as well as 20% faster attack speed and 10% faster casting rate. This makes the monsters much quicker to attack, boosts their damage with more attacks per second, and can totally change the gameplay by removing the ability of characters to simply run to safety, as they can do against the majority of enemies.

While the faster attack rate and casting rate is dangerous, this modifier is most deadly to ranged attackers and other characters who are not built to survive toe to toe battles. A Monk or Barbarian will notice that they're being hit more often, while a DH, Wiz, or WD might find the Fast pack almost invariably lethal, as the monsters will run them down so quickly they can not escape.

Fast

• Monster Level Minimum: 31 (Nightmare and later.)
• Available to: Champions, Bosses, and boss minions.
• Damage Type: N/A.
• Additional Resistances: None

Strategy

Fast Molten Horde destroys a Barbarian.

Fast is a deceptively dangerous modifier. While it's just annoying on Nightmare, it becomes one of the nastiest on the higher difficulties, where most characters are balanced and built to be just strong enough to survive the typical battles. Characters, especially those doing Hardcore, often need to kite during battles, moving around and staying out of range while they regenerate life or resources, or wait for cooldowns on their skills to expire.

Fast makes this difficult or impossible, as it prevents players from running away and avoiding damage. It's especially nasty when the monsters have rapid movement to begin with, as those enemies with the Fast modifier are often quicker than character. This can make them truly lethal, since they will hit you as you run, never giving you any chance to achieve separation to rest or heal or launch a counter attack. Picture a pack of wolves running down a caribou and exhausting it by never letting it rest. In Diablo III you're the caribou, and the wolves are more like velociraptors. Good luck.

Another problem if when mods like Molten or Fire Chains occur with Fast, since the monsters move around so quickly that even melee tanks can find it impossible to stay on the safe side of the enemies. The screenshot to the right shows a pack of Mage Constructs that a Barbarian had no chance against, since their projectiles came in perpetually, and their rapid foot speed made their Molten property horribly effective.

Crowd control effects are essential against Fast bosses. Slow them, confuse them, freeze them, stun them, root them... use all of the above and more -- anything to slow them down and give yourself time to fight.

Media

Fast has to be seen in videos to be truly appreciated, since the movement is what makes the difference. In screenshots it's just a hover tag. During the beta test Fast could spawn on monsters very early in the game. This is not the case in the final game, with Fast carrying a level 31+ requirement, and thus never appearing before Nightmare.

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  Skeletal Archer.

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  Skeletal Archer.