Crystal Fragment mechanic bugged?

Exstazik

Dear ZOS,i was waiting 2 weeks for your answer and didn't get anything.
So just put it here.Hope you will see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIYnjQ_Z6r4

Moonshadow66

Unfortunately, the instant cast has only a slight chance to appear..
This is what I absolutely don't like, because as a morph, it should be always instant imho. Stonefist (DK class skill) knocks down immediately when it's not even morphed.

Exstazik

Raygee
Unfortunately normal cast 2.15 and instant (when CF proc)is 1,98 sec.
And ZOS have no reaction.They can't explain this mechanic not to me (almost 2+weeks) not to my friend (he was testing it).
I don't want to make CF really instant because if it will proc 2 times in a row than the DMG ( LA+CS+CF+LA+CS+CF) will be OP.But seems ZOS think that instant cast should give only ~0,17 sec reduction cast time.

So my thoughts:
1)It's an issue in the description.
2)it's an issue in animation cast time.It's happens because of the delay:
LA+animation cancelling with CS+delay before next skill spam+CF


So since they can't change delay ZOS need one of the following:

1. Improve CF damage
2. Reduce CF cast time (as they do with Lethal Arrow skill from the bow)
3. Change description.

Moonshadow66

I'm not sure if I understand everything, but when I cast CF with all my Sorcs which have it on the bar, it's really instant, no delay (if it is instant, the chance is not very high). It sounds like it's a bug on your end then.

But you may have a point when you say it'd be OP if it's always instant, I didn't consider the additional damage which f.e Stonefist does NOT have.

And, there's an issue in a lot of descriptions

Dracane

This is indeed annoying. But you're only waiting for 2 weeks many people (including me) are waiting since 8 months. I have deleted Crystal shard from all my damage bars. Because each instant cast will drastically decrease your DPS. It is better to simply use crushing shock+light attack, than waving in instant crystal shards.

Black_Wolf88

Dracane wrote: »

This is indeed annoying. But you're only waiting for 2 weeks many people (including me) are waiting since 8 months. I have deleted Crystal shard from all my damage bars. Because each instant cast will drastically decrease your DPS. It is better to simply use crushing shock+light attack, than waving in instant crystal shards.

completely agree. due to teh instant cast takes 2 seconds to cast the 1100 dmg you can do with this skill goes down to 550 dmg pr second. due to this low dps its not worth using in dungeons and trials where dps is needed.

guybrushtb16_ESO

Exstazik wrote: »

Dear ZOS,i was waiting 2 weeks for your answer and didn't get anything.
So just put it here.Hope you will see
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIYnjQ_Z6r4

This is correct. One of the "hidden gems" of ESO's combat system is that many skills have a different animation time (=time it takes for the effect to apply) and lockout time (=time you can't use other abilities), as illustrated here as well.

In this particular case, the proc for crystal fragments does decrease the animation time to instant, but you still have to wait for the lockout before you can do anything else, which makes the proc morph useless for sustained dps.

The underlying problem here is that again ZOS desperately tried to innovate without providing an adequate solution for the original issue. For whatever reason, they wanted to say "we don't have a global cooldown", but they didn't solve the problem a global cooldown solves, i.e. providing a baseline speed for the use of instant abilities vs. cast times, so we are stuck with a very awkward middle ground solution.

Dracane

Even worse, animation cancelling doesn't work for instant crystal shards or at least it doesn't bringt any benefits.

You normally can block, to cancel the animation of a spell. But this is not possible with the instant crystal shard.

Exstazik

So already 3 weeks of waiting.No answer and no reaction.Even something like "We will looking for this issue".

Layenem

Raygee wrote: »

I'm not sure if I understand everything, but when I cast CF with all my Sorcs which have it on the bar, it's really instant, no delay (if it is instant, the chance is not very high). It sounds like it's a bug on your end then.

We're not talking about the cast time alone here. We're talking about the forced combat delay that follows the cast of CF "instant" proc. Though the cast timer is gone, the animation forces you to wait an extended amount of time before using ANY other form of ability or attack. That's absurd.

Definitely not just on his end.

Merlin13KAGL

Instant in the regard that the shard goes out immediately ~ there is no visual that it's 'incoming,' like there is with the normal cast.

Instant in the regard that it fires immediately - it is not cancel-able or interruptable, like the standard cast.

The big thing with the morph is the 50% reduction in cost.

Otherwise, it's like every other 'instant' cast, in that with the animation, it's only instant in regard to received damage. The animation somatic component gives it a cast time without explicitly saying so.

Aeratus

"Instant cast" only means that it's a non-interruptable cast duration. (i.e., there is no duration in the skill's move during which it can be interrupted by interrupts such as block-bash, venom arrow, and crushing shock). "Instant cast" means nothing more, and says nothing about the actual animation length.

Different instant-cast skills have different animation time-length properties, including different cast times (the time it takes for attack to go off), and different skill-cool-down times.

Example of an instant-cast skill with fast animation length: Crushing shock

Example of an instant-cast skill with a slow cast: Crippling Grasp

Example of an instant-cast skill with a slow cast and a slow cooldown: CF instant-proc