Bug: unable to cast ground-targeted abilities

Nightingale707

Since the last Update (Elsweyr patch, monday 20/05) there has been an issue for me on all of my healers: I am at times unable to cast ground-targeted abilities (illustrious healing, budding seeds, conduit, spear shards)

I have since tried to find the reason for this and was succesfull:
- When doing a lightning staff attack, that is neither a light attack nor a fully charged heavy attack, the game seems to assume that you want to finish the heavy attack and thus 1) slows you down and 2) prevents you from casting ground-targeted abilities.
You can still: ele drain, combat prayer, send orbs; everything but aimed abilities is still possible.

Now, since it is mostly healers, that use a lightning staff backbar and use that backbar to often to non-fully charged heavy attacks it makes sense, that in my trial groups it is always both healers complaining about this issue. It is 100% reproduceable for me.

I made a point to only do light attacks or fully charged heavy attacks on my lightning staff bar and could thus successfully not trigger the bug, medium charged attacks on my restoration staff also do not bug me out.
The problem is: sometimes players need to break off heavy attacks, before they are fully charged, especially healers (since we might want to give our group members some attention and 2 secounds is a long time in some fights) and it is very punishing to not be able to cast illustrious healing, one of the strongest ground based heals used mostly in situations, where we expect high damage incoming for a limited amount of time.
Even when specifically trying to not do medium charged attacks, if you have a targeting issue when trying to light attack I still got the bug, because the game assumed I was charging up a heavy attack.

To sum up the rant:
PLEASE fix medium attacks on lightning staves! They are widely used by healers and depriving us from placing ground-targeted attacks is a big issue for us.

StormChaser3000

+1

After the update I noticed that sometimes my Sorc can't cast Lightning Flood, but couldn't figure out the reason.

Dextail

OMG YES! I was trying to spam springs in vSS the other day on my healer. It was so buggy like you described. I had to stop using it and use blessing of restoration rather than springs.

Sotha_Sil

Thank you for reporting the bug! I thought this was linked to life amid death necro skill but seems like to be an issue for all classes

Pinesy

Holy crap. I thought I was going crazy. This is the most frustrating bug as a healer.

PsychoKitteh

Same problem here.. The only way for me to deal with it now is by dodge rolling. After that I'm able to cast illustrious healing and other ground-targeted abilities for a short time before the same problem pops up again. Frustrating!!

TriangularChicken

same problem for sorc with liquid lightning/other morph

tmbrinks

Can confirm similar issues from my Templar Healer in vSS.. Illustrious Healing, Luminous Shards, and other ground target abilities would sometimes not fire. Bar swapping sometimes fixed it. Good to know a "cause" of it so I can try and prevent them... since a lot of the time, healer running IA, you only do a medium attack, rather than a full heavy attack to proc .

KappaKid83

+1 to this. Noticing the same thing on my warden that I am not seeing ground targeting skills from time to time. I have changed the setting from Auto/On/Off and back and it still bugs out from time to time which is super annoying.

Vasouris

Same problem here, yesterday and today. Really problematic when the flare or breath happens and can't cast anything...
Hadn't figured out exactly the reason but was not being able to cast, or attack multiple times in vSS. Have not checked if there problem exists outside SS.

Sotha_Sil

THIS IS A PRIORITY - HEALING IS NOT RESPONSIVE BECAUSE OF THIS @ZOS_BrianWheeler

Pinesy

Has anyone heard anything from ZOS if they're working to fix this bug?

Mercanis

I am also having this problem, but only on Templar skills. I have it mostly for healing, but I am also having problems with targeting my ulti and Blazing Spear

elocinsere

I'd like to chime in on this as well, maybe they'll actually attempt to get this fixed asap. On my templar healer at the beginning of a fight the abilities work fine but then I can't cast healing springs or shards. Alot of times I get stuck with a slowness bug on top of it in which dodge roll is a temporary fix but then it goes right back. I've also noticed similar problems on my magicka necromancer where she can't cast ground based aoes or even the ultimate sometimes! ZOS please get this fixed!!!

Mercanis

I'm having a lot more luck with inferno staff, so it seems it is most frequently a problem with lightning staves, so not good for healers! Please fix

fullheartcontainer

Had this bug too. Actually used a PvP trick to fix it - double click your sprint button and it seems to fix the issue.

Trinnnie

elocinsere wrote: »

I'd like to chime in on this as well, maybe they'll actually attempt to get this fixed asap. On my templar healer at the beginning of a fight the abilities work fine but then I can't cast healing springs or shards. Alot of times I get stuck with a slowness bug on top of it in which dodge roll is a temporary fix but then it goes right back. I've also noticed similar problems on my magicka necromancer where she can't cast ground based aoes or even the ultimate sometimes! ZOS please get this fixed!!!

Having the same problem since the update, I did report it on day 1 and this morning received this feedback



It's also mentioned here https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/475196/ground-cast-abilities-not-working-most-of-the-time#latest

crazywolfpusher

Seems like channeled abilities are working weird, you can end stuck in the animation after enemies die.

Elusiin

+1 I've had this issue as well. After dodge rolling, I can once against cast ground target AoEs.

Trinity_Is_My_Name

Yep, same problem. Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=28eC46Y9q1E

MrRudiculous

i can also confirm it isnt just magicka AoE skills, i've been having problems with caltrops/endless hail aswell. i know it is not lag because the skill is sometimes greyed out and i need to roll dodge to enable them again. Not sure if that relates but it sure hell is annoying.

Maxime

I wonder when (or if we ever get) such a message as below. I have seen a lot of reports and threads about this ground casting bug, but so far none of the reports had any reaction from the moderators. @Zos you gave us a lot of ground casting skills, but they are really no good at the momen.

We would like to have a replay like this, given to the movement (slow) bug

AsNied

This error is completely reproducible.

Any unfinished heavy attack from restoration / lighting staff, blocks the possibility of using ground target abilities.

You can either do full heavy attack or dodge roll to be able cast ground abilities again.

Suddwrath

Good gosh please tell me this will be fixed soon.

Retzee

+1 pls fix

Mercanis

Any change after today's patch?

meekmiko

Mercanis wrote: »

Any change after today's patch?

Nope. No changes, still bugged.

Nilarynpaw

meekmiko wrote: »

Mercanis wrote: »

Any change after today's patch?

Nope. No changes, still bugged.

+1
Just happened to me this again in a dungeon, stuck in combat after last boss, can't loot it, and I'm moving slower like a snail.
I guess I'll have to wait another week for testing my necro healer properly in dungeons

As a healer, this is very annoying, especially when my group mates would need some healing, and I can't put down any aoe or my ultimate even, and they die in the meantime. I know, there are other healing tools, but they're either too expensive to spam, or just affecting 2 people, etc.

Please, do something about this.

Edit: added a few more thoughts and corrected typos.

tmbrinks

Just to confirm, this is still a bug. Still a major issue, especially for healers, since we use lightning and restoration staves (and most DPS are not)

This is a game-breaking bug... and I would love to actually hear something about ZoS looking into it, even if it's a simple "Yes, we're aware and working on it" comment. Because, as of right now, we have no clue if they're even aware... and this is going to hinder progress while we are working on vSS HM with my group.

@ZOS_Finn @ZOS_BrianWheeler @ZOS_GinaBruno

(I don't really want to tag the ZOS employees, but I guess that's what it takes sometimes to get an acknowledgement of something as serious as this... they were great about the survey bug from week 1, would have hoped this gets more attention as it affects all aspects of the game, rather than just crafting)

Kainarel

Yes, it's still a bug and still makes fighting more challenging than it can be.

Plus all the lag and fps problems since patch yesterday.
Please, fix

Maxime

AsNied wrote: »

This error is completely reproducible.

Any unfinished heavy attack from restoration / lighting staff, blocks the possibility of using ground target abilities.

You can either do full heavy attack or dodge roll to be able cast ground abilities again.

This is not completely true. roll dodge for sure does not solve it. neither on templar or on warden.
Doing a heavy attack sometimes does work, but not all the time. besides try vCR+ anything in execute and tell me you have time to do a full heavy attack?