I haven't really been following the discussion here but I figured I'd pipe in to try and alleviate any confusion. Some people seem to have it right, some are a little confused.
Archon works in a similar manner to all channeled spells, namely that higher APS leads to more frequent damage tics, not to be confused with displayed tics. Displayed tics are every 0.5s and are a total of all the damage tics done over that 0.5s. In the case of Archon beam, if you have X char sheet dps, then you double your attack speed while keeping your other dps stats the same, you will double your damage tic rate. The net result is you'll see approximately double the damage for each displayed tic.
In short, Archon dps scales directly with char sheet dps, so IAS directly increases Archon beam dps.
If anyone is curious about exactly how often the damage tics are performed, it's supposedly 3xAPS per second. You can read a bit more about Archon and other similar spells here: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5208511084
@Loroese, the question really boils down to how IAS affects CM while in Archon mode
The above link should explain it. It should be the same as LoH in terms of how often the damage tics occur. Without delving into examining breakpoints like with WW, the basic idea is 3xAPS tics per second occur, and the coefficient is 0.10 for each tic. Again, these are the damage tics, not the displayed tics. So if you have 2APS you have 6 damage tics every second, so each displayed tic is actually a total of 3 damage tics.
It's possible that the beam also has breakpoints like WW, but as far as I know there hasn't been any extensive testing for that, and I don't have any plans to test it myself. In general, the higher your APS the more often you should get CM procs, especially if you're talking about 1 APS vs 2 APS.
Wow, thanks Loroese. This is an eye-opener for me, I had it all wrong. I wonder if this makes IAS indeed more important for Archon... not because of LoH ticks (LS seems to be better in most cases), but CM procs for getting more explosions and, if you are using the rune, more teleports. Hm. I still think that one can save lots of money by not focusing too much on IAS for Archon ;-)
But it's indeed more helpful than I thought. Thanks again.
Teleport in Archon form is unaffected by CM for some reason (probably a bug).
The explosion is another matter, since you can look at it from a couple different angles. On one side, to farm efficiently you should be 1 shotting mobs with your beam, so explosion is mostly just used for elites, which you shouldn't really be fighting for more than a couple seconds. Alternatively, if you can 1 shot mobs with the explosion (via slow 2h, or severely outgearing the content, like 200-300k dps on MP0), then I can see being able to refresh it faster could lead to some increase in farming speed, but it's probably minimal since you have to use your beam to refresh it anyway.
I don't think IAS is any more important than the other DPS stats, provided you don't spend lots of time outside of Archon form and need to refresh it with WW or something similar. In that case you should probably be at a lower MP anyway.
Archon works in a similar manner to all channeled spells, namely that higher APS leads to more frequent damage tics, not to be confused with displayed tics. Displayed tics are every 0.5s and are a total of all the damage tics done over that 0.5s. In the case of Archon beam, if you have X char sheet dps, then you double your attack speed while keeping your other dps stats the same, you will double your damage tic rate. The net result is you'll see approximately double the damage for each displayed tic.
In short, Archon dps scales directly with char sheet dps, so IAS directly increases Archon beam dps.
If anyone is curious about exactly how often the damage tics are performed, it's supposedly 3xAPS per second. You can read a bit more about Archon and other similar spells here: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5208511084
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
The above link should explain it. It should be the same as LoH in terms of how often the damage tics occur. Without delving into examining breakpoints like with WW, the basic idea is 3xAPS tics per second occur, and the coefficient is 0.10 for each tic. Again, these are the damage tics, not the displayed tics. So if you have 2APS you have 6 damage tics every second, so each displayed tic is actually a total of 3 damage tics.
It's possible that the beam also has breakpoints like WW, but as far as I know there hasn't been any extensive testing for that, and I don't have any plans to test it myself. In general, the higher your APS the more often you should get CM procs, especially if you're talking about 1 APS vs 2 APS.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard
But it's indeed more helpful than I thought. Thanks again.
The explosion is another matter, since you can look at it from a couple different angles. On one side, to farm efficiently you should be 1 shotting mobs with your beam, so explosion is mostly just used for elites, which you shouldn't really be fighting for more than a couple seconds. Alternatively, if you can 1 shot mobs with the explosion (via slow 2h, or severely outgearing the content, like 200-300k dps on MP0), then I can see being able to refresh it faster could lead to some increase in farming speed, but it's probably minimal since you have to use your beam to refresh it anyway.
I don't think IAS is any more important than the other DPS stats, provided you don't spend lots of time outside of Archon form and need to refresh it with WW or something similar. In that case you should probably be at a lower MP anyway.
Crusader DPS and EHP Spreadsheet, meant for Crusaders
My Wizard