Many people believe that overall damage is decreased when their quickness is increased. This is because damage done each hit from styles DOES decrease. However, increased quickness has a positive effect on overall damage, and no effect on style damage over time.
For an example, let’s assume that unbuffed Bob has a sword with a delay of 5 seconds, and that he does an average of 100 normal damage per swing, and 50 from styles. Over 20 seconds, his damage would look like:
100 + 50
100 + 50
100 + 50
100 + 50
100 + 50
For a total of 750 damage. Remember that the first attack is at 0 seconds, so he gets one more attack within the 20 seconds than the simple 20/5.

Now, some friendly caster casts a haste spell, or a buffer casts a Quickness buff, on Bob. Bob now has a delay of 4 seconds between attacks. Bob’s damage will now look like this:
100 + 40
100 + 40
100 + 40
100 + 40
100 + 40
100 + 40
The styled damage dropped because styles do a set DPS, and with increased speed comes decreased damage per hit. However, despite the fact that each of Bob’s attacks is doing 10 less damage, his total damage is now 840.

Clearly, then, over time a Quickness or Haste buff will help you. If you are attempting to one-shot someone, then yes, a stronger first hit will be most important to you; however, in other cases, you may as well get that buff, if someone is willing to give it.

Thanks go to Guyemelf for both the inspiration and the example for this one. If you have a misconception you’d like to see addressed, feel free to email it to