title says it all.

I know that for the melee classes, attack speed is a must.

but i've noticed that for the 3 ranged characters. once you reach a certian point with attack speed. it doenst seem to have much effect because the characters have to swing weapons or there's a recoil or specific animation for the skills.

so my question is this. how much of an attack speed boost do i need before it loses its effect?

i'm mainly asking so i can plan out what i want on certain gear for rerolls

We need more details. What character and build are you using? They don't all benefit the same from attack speed. More often than not most builds require your gloves/jewelry to have crit damage and crit chance first. After that, then you determine whether or not attack speed, area damage, or cooldown reduction is more valuable than your main stat.

It's skill specific, so we need to know what build you are trying out.

Attacks are broken up in to breakpoints in Diablo 3. The servers run at 60fps, and your attack takes a certain number of frames to happen. The attack speed is not calculated dynamically, it only goes faster when you hit a "breakpoint" that reduces the number of frames for the skill you're using to need to attack. For example, here's the breakpoints for the Barbarian skill Hammer of the Ancients:

Frames Attack speed

56 1.008928571
55 1.027272727
54 1.046296296
53 1.066037736
52 1.086538462
51 1.107843137
50 1.13
49 1.153061224
48 1.177083333
47 1.20212766
46 1.22826087
45 1.255555556
44 1.284090909
43 1.313953488
42 1.345238095
41 1.37804878
40 1.4125
39 1.448717949
38 1.486842105
37 1.527027027
36 1.569444444
35 1.614285714
34 1.661764706
33 1.712121212
32 1.765625
31 1.822580645
30 1.883333333
29 1.948275862
28 2.017857143
27 2.092592593
26 2.173076923
25 2.26
24 2.354166667
23 2.456521739
22 2.568181818
21 2.69047619
20 2.825
19 2.973684211
18 3.138888889
17 3.323529412


If my attack speed is 1.13 and I'm using HOTA, I will have a 50 frame attack speed. This means each attack takes 5/6 of a second, since the server runs the game at 60fps. If I get a tiny bit more attack speed for 1.14, I haven't reached the next breakpoint, so still am attacking at the same speed of 50 frames per attack. I need to hit a little over 1.15 to actually hit the next breakpoint and reduce the attack to 49 frames.

This breakpoint list can be different for different skills, so it's something you have to look up by googling whatever skill you want to use, followed by "breakpoints". Also, like ericswanson said, attack speed may not even be the right choice for the build anyways.