Get 100% MORE damage by animation cancelling

Merforum

Every discussion regarding DPS (damage per second) and how to get it as high as possible inevitably end up talking about Light Attack Weaving but not much is said about WHY it offers such insanely high damage. So let's see why that is. If X represents light attack damage and Y represents 'average skill' damage, if you do a perfect Anim Cancel for 10 seconds it looks like this,

X+Y + X+Y + X+Y + X+Y + X+Y + X+Y + X+Y + X+Y + X+Y + X+Y = 10X + 10Y

LA Weave without Anim Cancel looks like this

X + Y + X + Y + X + Y + X + Y + X + Y = 5X + 5Y

It becomes very apparent that a perfect LA weave does 100% more damage than a LA weave without animation canceling because by doing AC you get TWO actions/second while not doing it you only get ONE action/sec. And if most of your skills are DOTs/AOEs it is even more than 100% because they are UP longer and triggered sooner.

Now in real life most 'elite' players get only 90% AC so let's call it 9X+10Y, and most people who try AC but don't succeed get maybe 10% so 6X+5Y, but you can see no matter what you do to change the X LA damage or Y skill damage there will still be a huge difference, if we plug in X=1K, Y=2K, we get elite 29K, normal 16K. IRL the numbers have much more disparity that this so this is probably just one issue.

There is actually 2 ways to fix this if you are really concerned about (raising the floor/lowering the ceiling) or balancing.

1. Make it much easier to animation cancel by buffering button pushes so if someone pushes LA, then a skill within 1 second it will register more often. Instead of the way it is now where even the best of the best can only do it 90% of the time and that is on a dummy, in real content I bet they don't get that much. If it was easy enough so literally everyone could do it 75% of time and elite 100% that would really help.

2. Make LA use same GCD as everything else, ie don't allow 2 actions per second only 1 action. Still allow block, roll, bash etc to cancel animation but it should cancel the ACTION also not just the Animation, that way people won't feel the need to use this as a combat tactic.

Personally I prefer the second option because with all the lag and disparity of ping/FPS on systems, some people having high end rigs, video, KBM, etc, more than one action per second seems to be literally too fast for ESO system to handle and probably causing some of the lag. Action would still be super fast just not too fast for the servers and everyone playing to react to. Sorry this is a whole separate problem but related to why some people no matter how hard they try can't do AC very well.

carlos424

100% more damage? Yikes. You are assuming people use a light attack instead of an actual skill. I think it would be more accurate to assume people would either light attack weave or just use skills with no light attacks. If you are someone who is actually light attacking instead of using skills (as in the second equation), you would get way more damage by just leaving out light attacks altogether and just using skills. While light attacks comprise a large portion of damage for those who light attack weave (since you are doing one along with each skill), they are quite weak if you use them in place of a skill.

FangOfTheTwoMoons

Weather ZOS admits it or not; LA weaving is intended at this point. A few sets would be rendered usless.

LA sharing the same GCD as skills would also make light attacks usless in general. No one would ever use them again.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

100% more damage is not accurate as a light attack does not do the damage of a skill. Typically LA damage amounts to about 18-20% of Single Target damage at the extreme end of things (far less in AOE situations). So at the outset, your premised is flawed. In fact, if you look at it from the perspective that doubling your APMs (actions per minute) only leads to at most a 20% damage increase, you realize very quickly that it is not nearly as powerful as people make it out to be.

To your proposals:

1. You might be able to increase the tolerances in game, I really dont know, but for most insta cast skills, they are already fairly loose. Perhaps this would be an option across the board. There are some skills, crystal frags for example, with a .8 sec cast time. These can be weaved within the GCD of 1 second, but the timing does need to be more precise. These could certainly be looked at on a skill by skill basis to make it a bit easier to weave them, or more accurately, swap cancel away from.

2. Absolutely not. This would gut combat and LAs would become useless. Why would I ever light attack if I could cast a skill with the same opportunity cost. The answer is that you would not. The game would need completely rebalanced and would be a massive undertaking.

That is the beauty of combat in this game. There are many layers to a min/maxed damage rotation and it requires player skill, developed through practice, to juggle them all. Nothing requires you to attempt any of it other than Veteran HMs and Trifectas, or high end PVP. PVP without AC would be a nightmare. Your ability to react to your opponent would be all but eliminated.

There are only three relevant types of animation canceling to a damage parse.

1. The light attack weave, which frankly takes practice. This is what allows for a second lawyer of damage in the space of a Global CoolDown. It has been baked into the game at this point and aint going anywhere. Even that said, would not a master swordsman in this fantasy world we all share not sprinkle in light attacks between his harder hitting abilities? Of course they would. Even from an RP perspective it fits.

2. Swap canceling. This is where you swap after a skill. This allows you to maintain the 1 second GCD pace of a rotation when you swap between bars. Dynamic rotations would be extremely limited if you were not able to do this. Again, it is certainly a skill barrier, but there are plenty of static rotations available that pull sufficient damage, if this is out of your wheelhouse, making swap canceling less impactful. Practice and Skill should be rewarded with more DPS.

3. Bash Canceling. Allowing you a third damage source (LA, Skill, Bash) in the space of a 1 second GCD. This has frankly already been nerfed into oblivion. Not sure how it stacks up in the new CP system if you have the points to max out bash damage, but other than really high end stam players that do it for monster set procs, its barely used by anyone at this point.

Merforum

carlos424 wrote: »

100% more damage? Yikes. You are assuming people use a light attack instead of an actual skill. I think it would be more accurate to assume people would either light attack weave or just use skills with no light attacks. If you are someone who is actually light attacking instead of using skills (as in the second equation), you would get way more damage by just leaving out light attacks altogether and just using skills. While light attacks comprise a large portion of damage for those who light attack weave (since you are doing one along with each skill), they are quite weak if you use them in place of a skill.

Actually with literally everyone in the world telling everyone they have to light attack in between each skill, everyone is at least trying to do it. But that actually makes it even worse because when you are doing LA too fast it doesn't even register and sometimes the skill doesn't register. I usually lose DPS when I play that way. I found with my playstyle on basically all builds, I am better off doing 3-4 skills with Heavy and repeat.

What you are pointing out is the reason WHY they need to fix this, it is creating more of a disparity that even my example shows by telling everyone to do this but it being so hard that only few people can or want to do it.

Ippokrates

I would say it is little bit more complicated and if you are able to use 10 skills (including buffs & debuffs) in 10 sec instead of 5, then you can get far more than additional 100%

But still, it is part, an important one, of ESO and a goal that people can pursue, instead of depending on more & more powerful items.

Fortunately, there are other games that do not allows weaving. Sword & Sandals series is my favorite one

Merforum

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

100% more damage is not accurate as a light attack does not do the damage of a skill. Typically LA damage amounts to about 18-20% of Single Target damage at the extreme end of things (far less in AOE situations). So at the outset, your premised is flawed. In fact, if you look at it from the perspective that doubling your APMs (actions per minute) only leads to at most a 20% damage increase, you realize very quickly that it is not nearly as powerful as people make it out to be.

To your proposals:

1. You might be able to increase the tolerances in game, I really dont know, but for most insta cast skills, they are already fairly loose. Perhaps this would be an option across the board. There are some skills, crystal frags for example, with a .8 sec cast time. These can be weaved within the GCD of 1 second, but the timing does need to be more precise. These could certainly be looked at on a skill by skill basis to make it a bit easier to weave them, or more accurately, swap cancel away from.

2. Absolutely not. This would gut combat and LAs would become useless. Why would I ever light attack if I could cast a skill with the same opportunity cost. The answer is that you would not. The game would need completely rebalanced and would be a massive undertaking.

That is the beauty of combat in this game. There are many layers to a min/maxed damage rotation and it requires player skill, developed through practice, to juggle them all. Nothing requires you to attempt any of it other than Veteran HMs and Trifectas.

There are only three relevant types of animation canceling to a damage parse.

1. The light attack weave, which frankly takes practice. This is what allows for a second lawyer of damage in the space of a Global CoolDown. It has been baked into the game at this point and aint going anywhere. Even that said, would not a master swordsman in this fantasy world we all share not sprinkle in light attacks between his harder hitting abilities? Of course they would. Even from an RP perspective it fits.

2. Swap canceling. This is where you swap after a skill. This allows you to maintain the 1 second GCD pace of a rotation when you swap between bars. Dynamic rotations would be extremely limited if you were not able to do this. Again, it is certainly a skill barrier, but there are plenty of static rotations available that pull sufficient damage, if this is out of your wheelhouse, making swap canceling less impactful. Practice and Skill should be rewarded with more DPS.

3. Bash Canceling. Allowing you a third damage source (LA, Skill, Bash) in the space of a 1 second GCD. This has frankly already been nerfed into oblivion. Not sure how it stacks up in the new CP system if you have the points to max out bash damage, but other than really high end stam players that do it for monster set procs, its barely used by anyone at this point.

As my example shows it is not the amount of damage that LA does that is added per second but the fact that you can do 2 actions per second that is causing the discrepancy. And anyone who fails to do AC perfectly is losing massively. ZOS actually knows this is a big problem and tried to fix it by taking damage away from LA and added resource return. The problem with that is it just gave people similar amount of damage and increased sustain, because it isn't the extra damage of LA per sec, the problem is it is FREE. If 90% of players get 1 action per second and 10% get 2 actions per second that is a problem. And it isn't about SKILL because with a lag of 100-500ms at all times most people will never be able to hit the 100ms window often enough.

BTW the fact that many people think changing this is so game breaking is more about them losing a huge advantage over others rather than anything actually bad for game. They could literally remove LA and just have medium/heavy and everything would be perfectly fine.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

100% more damage? Yikes. You are assuming people use a light attack instead of an actual skill. I think it would be more accurate to assume people would either light attack weave or just use skills with no light attacks. If you are someone who is actually light attacking instead of using skills (as in the second equation), you would get way more damage by just leaving out light attacks altogether and just using skills. While light attacks comprise a large portion of damage for those who light attack weave (since you are doing one along with each skill), they are quite weak if you use them in place of a skill.

Actually with literally everyone in the world telling everyone they have to light attack in between each skill, everyone is at least trying to do it. But that actually makes it even worse because when you are doing LA too fast it doesn't even register and sometimes the skill doesn't register. I usually lose DPS when I play that way. I found with my playstyle on basically all builds, I am better off doing 3-4 skills with Heavy and repeat.

What you are pointing out is the reason WHY they need to fix this, it is creating more of a disparity that even my example shows by telling everyone to do this but it being so hard that only few people can or want to do it.

Please don't say literally when you mean figuratively. Plenty of people play this game without a LA weave. If you want min/maxed damage, then yes, you should weave EVERY skill. To be candid, it sounds like you need practice and your APMs are very low. You can complete all content save a few achievements with a heavy attack rotation as you described. Plenty of people do it.

But why should we balance a skill game with MANY levels of difficulty around the lowest common denominator? In my opinion, we should not.

Merforum

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

100% more damage? Yikes. You are assuming people use a light attack instead of an actual skill. I think it would be more accurate to assume people would either light attack weave or just use skills with no light attacks. If you are someone who is actually light attacking instead of using skills (as in the second equation), you would get way more damage by just leaving out light attacks altogether and just using skills. While light attacks comprise a large portion of damage for those who light attack weave (since you are doing one along with each skill), they are quite weak if you use them in place of a skill.

Actually with literally everyone in the world telling everyone they have to light attack in between each skill, everyone is at least trying to do it. But that actually makes it even worse because when you are doing LA too fast it doesn't even register and sometimes the skill doesn't register. I usually lose DPS when I play that way. I found with my playstyle on basically all builds, I am better off doing 3-4 skills with Heavy and repeat.

What you are pointing out is the reason WHY they need to fix this, it is creating more of a disparity that even my example shows by telling everyone to do this but it being so hard that only few people can or want to do it.

Please don't say literally when you mean figuratively. Plenty of people play this game without a LA weave. If you want min/maxed damage, then yes, you should weave EVERY skill. To be candid, it sounds like you need practice and your APMs are very low. You can complete all content save a few achievements with a heavy attack rotation as you described. Plenty of people do it.

But why should we balance a skill game with MANY levels of difficulty around the lowest common denominator? In my opinion, we should not.

Actually in this case I mean LITERALLY, everyone is saying to do AC to raise DPS. I think I am the only one saying NOT to do it, it is actually worse for your DPS unless you can do it at a high frequency. This isn't really SKILL, it is luck with 100-500ms pings and lag and with perfect system/connection it is braindead tedious button mashing. Getting rid of this issue would not have any adverse effects on the game but would instantly 'raise the floor/reduce the ceiling' which is what ZOS says they want, but to be more clear it isn't really the FLOOR that people are worried about it is the discrepancy between the average mid level and the ceiling that this will fix.

Merforum

Ippokrates wrote: »

I would say it is little bit more complicated and if you are able to use 10 skills (including buffs & debuffs) in 10 sec instead of 5, then you can get far more than additional 100%

But still, it is part, an important one, of ESO and a goal that people can pursue, instead of depending on more & more powerful items.

Fortunately, there are other games that do not allows weaving. Sword & Sandals series is my favorite one

Yes exactly right. My example is just to illustrate the insane nature of this problem, that it gives LA PLUS another action EACH SECOND. Compared to everyone who doesn't do it having to CHOOSE only ONE action per second. If every other game doesn't allow this, how can we say this is a good thing? And if every other game can be popular without this, how can we say ESO won't be?

Ippokrates

Merforum wrote: »

Yes exactly right. My example is just to illustrate the insane nature of this problem, that it gives LA PLUS another action EACH SECOND. Compared to everyone who doesn't do it having to CHOOSE only ONE action per second. If every other game doesn't allow this, how can we say this is a good thing? And if every other game can be popular without this, how can we say ESO won't be?

With DPS coming down from 80k to 30k? Definitely a good chunk of meta players will quit and go somewhere else, to the place when the will be able to use their personal skills instead of items only, which is typical for games p2w.

Merforum

Ippokrates wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

Yes exactly right. My example is just to illustrate the insane nature of this problem, that it gives LA PLUS another action EACH SECOND. Compared to everyone who doesn't do it having to CHOOSE only ONE action per second. If every other game doesn't allow this, how can we say this is a good thing? And if every other game can be popular without this, how can we say ESO won't be?

With DPS coming down from 80k to 30k? Definitely a good chunk of meta players will quit and go somewhere else, to the place when the will be able to use their personal skills instead of items only, which is typical for games p2w.

So ZOS would gain thousands of players and make the game more fun but lose a handful of elitists, sounds like a no brainer.

One thing for sure though it they keep the AC the way it is, they must make sure our companions can do it too.

Merforum

Merforum wrote: »

Ippokrates wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

Yes exactly right. My example is just to illustrate the insane nature of this problem, that it gives LA PLUS another action EACH SECOND. Compared to everyone who doesn't do it having to CHOOSE only ONE action per second. If every other game doesn't allow this, how can we say this is a good thing? And if every other game can be popular without this, how can we say ESO won't be?

With DPS coming down from 80k to 30k? Definitely a good chunk of meta players will quit and go somewhere else, to the place when the will be able to use their personal skills instead of items only, which is typical for games p2w.

So ZOS would gain thousands of players and make the game more fun but lose a handful of elitists, sounds like a no brainer.

One thing for sure though it they keep the AC the way it is, they must make sure our companions can do it too.

To be honest, I think really good players will adapt and overcome any changes. Only people who would quit are people who need exploits to gain advantage.

VaranisArano

FangOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

Weather ZOS admits it or not; LA weaving is intended at this point. A few sets would be rendered usless.

LA sharing the same GCD as skills would also make light attacks usless in general. No one would ever use them again.

ZOS admits it.

In game Source:


Out of Game:
Here's ZOS discussing Light Attack Weaving and its place in High APM combat pretty extensively in the context of trying to change how it worked.
In the follow-up below, ZOS chose not to make any changes based on a variety of feedback.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/517545/pts-patch-notes-testing-ideas-for-light-heavy-attacks-in-combat

Animation Canceling, according to Eric Wrobel on ESO Live:
"Animation canceling is a part of the game and we want people to be doing it."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ThZtwhYkKSs

Merforum

FangOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

Weather ZOS admits it or not; LA weaving is intended at this point. A few sets would be rendered usless.

LA sharing the same GCD as skills would also make light attacks usless in general. No one would ever use them again.

Rendering a few sets useless has never been any concern of ZOS, 99% are already useless. Also if they completely removed LA from game it would only be better.

BTW look in the patch notes, one new set says

5 – Dealing damage with a Light or Medium Attack heals you for 318 Health and restores 318 Stamina and Magicka. Dealing damage with a fully-charged Heavy Attack heals you for 636 Health and restores 636 Stamina and Magicka.

This is a great sign to me because if they are now specifying 'Light or Medium' will do X, if they decide to remove LA from game, all those sets will still work. Wow what an improvement that would be.

Runefang

As far as strawman arguments go it’s pretty bad. If you couldn’t LA weave you would do a light attack as often as needed to get ultimate gen up and that’s it. You would not do it every second action like in your OP.

carlos424

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

100% more damage? Yikes. You are assuming people use a light attack instead of an actual skill. I think it would be more accurate to assume people would either light attack weave or just use skills with no light attacks. If you are someone who is actually light attacking instead of using skills (as in the second equation), you would get way more damage by just leaving out light attacks altogether and just using skills. While light attacks comprise a large portion of damage for those who light attack weave (since you are doing one along with each skill), they are quite weak if you use them in place of a skill.

Actually with literally everyone in the world telling everyone they have to light attack in between each skill, everyone is at least trying to do it. But that actually makes it even worse because when you are doing LA too fast it doesn't even register and sometimes the skill doesn't register. I usually lose DPS when I play that way. I found with my playstyle on basically all builds, I am better off doing 3-4 skills with Heavy and repeat.

What you are pointing out is the reason WHY they need to fix this, it is creating more of a disparity that even my example shows by telling everyone to do this but it being so hard that only few people can or want to do it.

It’s one of those things that seems hard at first but once you figure it out you wonder what all the fuss was about. I think people try to go to fast. You can only use a light attack/skill every second. So just start counting one one thousand, two one thousand ....
Thats how fast you do it. If you go too fast, you’re right the light attack won’t register, but the skill should always work-well if the server allows it...lol but not your fault

MudcrabAttack

The buffering idea makes sense, or maybe something like attack memory. Currently if a skill is qued before the light attack has a chance to happen, it overwrites the light attack. They shouldn't drop the light attack, but rather let both happen. Block/ bash and dodge roll still should overwrite both. This would do nothing to help people who don't already weave, but it would alleviate some of the frustration from those in the middle.

carlos424

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

100% more damage? Yikes. You are assuming people use a light attack instead of an actual skill. I think it would be more accurate to assume people would either light attack weave or just use skills with no light attacks. If you are someone who is actually light attacking instead of using skills (as in the second equation), you would get way more damage by just leaving out light attacks altogether and just using skills. While light attacks comprise a large portion of damage for those who light attack weave (since you are doing one along with each skill), they are quite weak if you use them in place of a skill.

Actually with literally everyone in the world telling everyone they have to light attack in between each skill, everyone is at least trying to do it. But that actually makes it even worse because when you are doing LA too fast it doesn't even register and sometimes the skill doesn't register. I usually lose DPS when I play that way. I found with my playstyle on basically all builds, I am better off doing 3-4 skills with Heavy and repeat.

What you are pointing out is the reason WHY they need to fix this, it is creating more of a disparity that even my example shows by telling everyone to do this but it being so hard that only few people can or want to do it.

Please don't say literally when you mean figuratively. Plenty of people play this game without a LA weave. If you want min/maxed damage, then yes, you should weave EVERY skill. To be candid, it sounds like you need practice and your APMs are very low. You can complete all content save a few achievements with a heavy attack rotation as you described. Plenty of people do it.

But why should we balance a skill game with MANY levels of difficulty around the lowest common denominator? In my opinion, we should not.

Exactly. Light attacks account for...what...20% of damage give or take? And that’s with someone perfectly weaving. So if you just do a skill every second you should still be able to do adequate damage. Maybe as much as 70-80k on the 21m dummy. Ultimate regen might be an issue but sprinkle in some heavies.

Merforum

carlos424 wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

100% more damage? Yikes. You are assuming people use a light attack instead of an actual skill. I think it would be more accurate to assume people would either light attack weave or just use skills with no light attacks. If you are someone who is actually light attacking instead of using skills (as in the second equation), you would get way more damage by just leaving out light attacks altogether and just using skills. While light attacks comprise a large portion of damage for those who light attack weave (since you are doing one along with each skill), they are quite weak if you use them in place of a skill.

Actually with literally everyone in the world telling everyone they have to light attack in between each skill, everyone is at least trying to do it. But that actually makes it even worse because when you are doing LA too fast it doesn't even register and sometimes the skill doesn't register. I usually lose DPS when I play that way. I found with my playstyle on basically all builds, I am better off doing 3-4 skills with Heavy and repeat.

What you are pointing out is the reason WHY they need to fix this, it is creating more of a disparity that even my example shows by telling everyone to do this but it being so hard that only few people can or want to do it.

It’s one of those things that seems hard at first but once you figure it out you wonder what all the fuss was about. I think people try to go to fast. You can only use a light attack/skill every second. So just start counting one one thousand, two one thousand ....
Thats how fast you do it. If you go too fast, you’re right the light attack won’t register, but the skill should always work-well if the server allows it...lol but not your fault

I actually have 13 toons, a stam/mag for each class and one extra magsorc crafter. When I play I tend to use 5-13 different setups in each day. Unlike others I don't just stay on ONE build for months on end. So since LA weave is different each toon and build (bow it is easier to AC than staff, maybe because it is quicker), I am not trying to master one toon & doing this is not really feasible and very much not fun. I am very happy with occasion LA, 3-4 skills, heavy type rotation with 15-30K DPS, much more fun and easier to use.

I actually don't know if ZOS will fix this or not but that isn't my whole intention with this thread. I am hoping people who find it too difficult or boring to do AC, will realize that it might actually be making their DPS worse. And rather than giving everyone the blanket advise to do this or nothing, let people know there are other options for decent rotations.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Merforum wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

Ippokrates wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

Yes exactly right. My example is just to illustrate the insane nature of this problem, that it gives LA PLUS another action EACH SECOND. Compared to everyone who doesn't do it having to CHOOSE only ONE action per second. If every other game doesn't allow this, how can we say this is a good thing? And if every other game can be popular without this, how can we say ESO won't be?

With DPS coming down from 80k to 30k? Definitely a good chunk of meta players will quit and go somewhere else, to the place when the will be able to use their personal skills instead of items only, which is typical for games p2w.

So ZOS would gain thousands of players and make the game more fun but lose a handful of elitists, sounds like a no brainer.

One thing for sure though it they keep the AC the way it is, they must make sure our companions can do it too.

To be honest, I think really good players will adapt and overcome any changes. Only people who would quit are people who need exploits to gain advantage.

Really good players would get bored and leave the game that just had to be rebalanced from the ground up after their combat experience was gutted. Thankfully, I am not remotely worried about this happening. Considering you dont need to weave anywhere outside of HM vet content, the notion that thousands of new players would come to the game with this proposed change is a fallacy.

Also, it is absolutely skill based, which is certainly a good thing. Games, especially MMOs, should reward people that put the effort in to master the combat system. Plenty of people with high ping pull insane amounts of damage, so not a valid excuse either. It looks a bit like a slide show, but the damage is there. Calling LA weaving an exploit is just a garbage response. It has been baked into the game for 7 years. Content, gear sets, skills, enemy health, the list goes on, have all been balanced around it. Calling it an exploit is ignorant, and frankly comes, across as whining TBH.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Merforum wrote: »

FangOfTheTwoMoons wrote: »

Weather ZOS admits it or not; LA weaving is intended at this point. A few sets would be rendered usless.

LA sharing the same GCD as skills would also make light attacks usless in general. No one would ever use them again.

Rendering a few sets useless has never been any concern of ZOS, 99% are already useless. Also if they completely removed LA from game it would only be better.

BTW look in the patch notes, one new set says

5 – Dealing damage with a Light or Medium Attack heals you for 318 Health and restores 318 Stamina and Magicka. Dealing damage with a fully-charged Heavy Attack heals you for 636 Health and restores 636 Stamina and Magicka.

This is a great sign to me because if they are now specifying 'Light or Medium' will do X, if they decide to remove LA from game, all those sets will still work. Wow what an improvement that would be.

Actually it means they want both playstyles to be useful. That way a set is useful for someone doing a LA weave, or for less skilled players that want to relay a heavy attack rotation. Not the first time they have differentiated like this. Certainly not a sign that there is any intention to remove LAs or the ability to weave.

Merforum

carlos424 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

100% more damage? Yikes. You are assuming people use a light attack instead of an actual skill. I think it would be more accurate to assume people would either light attack weave or just use skills with no light attacks. If you are someone who is actually light attacking instead of using skills (as in the second equation), you would get way more damage by just leaving out light attacks altogether and just using skills. While light attacks comprise a large portion of damage for those who light attack weave (since you are doing one along with each skill), they are quite weak if you use them in place of a skill.

Actually with literally everyone in the world telling everyone they have to light attack in between each skill, everyone is at least trying to do it. But that actually makes it even worse because when you are doing LA too fast it doesn't even register and sometimes the skill doesn't register. I usually lose DPS when I play that way. I found with my playstyle on basically all builds, I am better off doing 3-4 skills with Heavy and repeat.

What you are pointing out is the reason WHY they need to fix this, it is creating more of a disparity that even my example shows by telling everyone to do this but it being so hard that only few people can or want to do it.

Please don't say literally when you mean figuratively. Plenty of people play this game without a LA weave. If you want min/maxed damage, then yes, you should weave EVERY skill. To be candid, it sounds like you need practice and your APMs are very low. You can complete all content save a few achievements with a heavy attack rotation as you described. Plenty of people do it.

But why should we balance a skill game with MANY levels of difficulty around the lowest common denominator? In my opinion, we should not.

Exactly. Light attacks account for...what...20% of damage give or take? And that’s with someone perfectly weaving. So if you just do a skill every second you should still be able to do adequate damage. Maybe as much as 70-80k on the 21m dummy. Ultimate regen might be an issue but sprinkle in some heavies.

Instead of guessing why don't you test it. How much damage would you do if you did your rotation without AC? I bet it will be more than 50% less.

NoMoreChillies

imagine being a graphic artist, making beautiful animations for character moves and then see the end game players make your character moves twitch and not even show.

its sad and i feel for those artists.

axi

[snip]

Light attack global cooldown is 0,7 seconds ability global cooldown is 1 second. Those global cooldowns are separate from each other. Both light attacks and abilities usually have animations shorter then 1 second.

Top parses are going higher then 0,9 cast per sec , people can get somwhere between 0,95-0,98 in best parses which is 95-98% in Your math.

[snip]

[Edited to remove Baiting]

Everest_Lionheart

axi wrote: »

[snip]

Light attack global cooldown is 0,7 seconds ability global cooldown is 1 second. Those global cooldowns are separate from each other. Both light attacks and abilities usually have animations shorter then 1 second.

Top parses are going higher then 0,9 cast per sec , people can get somwhere between 0,95-0,98 in best parses which is 95-98% in Your math.

[snip]

The global cooldown actually keeps the ceiling in check. I can go quite a bit faster than that myself. I say let’s do the opposite, take the governor completely off this thing and see just how far ahead the ceiling really is. 150K parses here we come.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

100% more damage? Yikes. You are assuming people use a light attack instead of an actual skill. I think it would be more accurate to assume people would either light attack weave or just use skills with no light attacks. If you are someone who is actually light attacking instead of using skills (as in the second equation), you would get way more damage by just leaving out light attacks altogether and just using skills. While light attacks comprise a large portion of damage for those who light attack weave (since you are doing one along with each skill), they are quite weak if you use them in place of a skill.

Actually with literally everyone in the world telling everyone they have to light attack in between each skill, everyone is at least trying to do it. But that actually makes it even worse because when you are doing LA too fast it doesn't even register and sometimes the skill doesn't register. I usually lose DPS when I play that way. I found with my playstyle on basically all builds, I am better off doing 3-4 skills with Heavy and repeat.

What you are pointing out is the reason WHY they need to fix this, it is creating more of a disparity that even my example shows by telling everyone to do this but it being so hard that only few people can or want to do it.

Please don't say literally when you mean figuratively. Plenty of people play this game without a LA weave. If you want min/maxed damage, then yes, you should weave EVERY skill. To be candid, it sounds like you need practice and your APMs are very low. You can complete all content save a few achievements with a heavy attack rotation as you described. Plenty of people do it.

But why should we balance a skill game with MANY levels of difficulty around the lowest common denominator? In my opinion, we should not.

Exactly. Light attacks account for...what...20% of damage give or take? And that’s with someone perfectly weaving. So if you just do a skill every second you should still be able to do adequate damage. Maybe as much as 70-80k on the 21m dummy. Ultimate regen might be an issue but sprinkle in some heavies.

Instead of guessing why don't you test it. How much damage would you do if you did your rotation without AC? I bet it will be more than 50% less.

WRONG AGAIN

No weaving, 71k on a mag sorc with a static rotation. I did 21 light attacks, doing my best to not weave them, simply add them into the rotation solely for the purposes of trying to keep up my ultimate. Total DPS from LAs was 1300.

I could probably push it to 75k, but I was going for an easy mode static rotation that I frankly dont do very often. I am also so used to LA weaving that it frankly messed with my pace not to do it. My ulti gen was also very poor (1.8/sec, should be about 3.0), so probably could have worked in a few more attros with a few more LAs. Not really interested in practicing a useless rotation, but clearly shows that AC is not any were close to 50% of damage.

/Closethread




Edit: If anyone wants to see the info screen, skills 276, LAs 21, total 297 in a 296 second parse. I did my best to not swap cancel or weave, but probably swap canceled tad early a few times out of habit. Man its hard to parse like that. LOL

Ippokrates

Merforum wrote: »

So ZOS would gain thousands of players and make the game more fun but lose a handful of elitists, sounds like a no brainer.

One thing for sure though it they keep the AC the way it is, they must make sure our companions can do it too.

And who gonna buy ESO+? People involved in game or casual players who have plenty of other games to choose?

Merforum

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

100% more damage? Yikes. You are assuming people use a light attack instead of an actual skill. I think it would be more accurate to assume people would either light attack weave or just use skills with no light attacks. If you are someone who is actually light attacking instead of using skills (as in the second equation), you would get way more damage by just leaving out light attacks altogether and just using skills. While light attacks comprise a large portion of damage for those who light attack weave (since you are doing one along with each skill), they are quite weak if you use them in place of a skill.

Actually with literally everyone in the world telling everyone they have to light attack in between each skill, everyone is at least trying to do it. But that actually makes it even worse because when you are doing LA too fast it doesn't even register and sometimes the skill doesn't register. I usually lose DPS when I play that way. I found with my playstyle on basically all builds, I am better off doing 3-4 skills with Heavy and repeat.

What you are pointing out is the reason WHY they need to fix this, it is creating more of a disparity that even my example shows by telling everyone to do this but it being so hard that only few people can or want to do it.

Please don't say literally when you mean figuratively. Plenty of people play this game without a LA weave. If you want min/maxed damage, then yes, you should weave EVERY skill. To be candid, it sounds like you need practice and your APMs are very low. You can complete all content save a few achievements with a heavy attack rotation as you described. Plenty of people do it.

But why should we balance a skill game with MANY levels of difficulty around the lowest common denominator? In my opinion, we should not.

Exactly. Light attacks account for...what...20% of damage give or take? And that’s with someone perfectly weaving. So if you just do a skill every second you should still be able to do adequate damage. Maybe as much as 70-80k on the 21m dummy. Ultimate regen might be an issue but sprinkle in some heavies.

Instead of guessing why don't you test it. How much damage would you do if you did your rotation without AC? I bet it will be more than 50% less.

No weaving, 71k on a mag sorc with a static rotation. I did 21 light attacks, doing my best to not weave them, simply add them into the rotation solely for the purposes of trying to keep up my ultimate. Total DPS from LAs was 1300.

I could probably push it to 75k, but I was going for an easy mode static rotation that I frankly dont do very often. I am also so used to LA weaving that it frankly messed with my pace not to do it. My ulti gen was also very poor (1.8/sec, should be about 3.0), so probably could have worked in a few more attros with a few more LAs. Not really interested in practicing a useless rotation, but clearly shows that AC is not any were close to 50% of damage.

/Closethread

So AC accounts for around 30%. And you can still do 70-75?K, that can complete all content, right? I think we found the solution to lowering the ceiling without effecting anyone else. Thank you that is perfect solution.

Oreyn_Bearclaw

Merforum wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Merforum wrote: »

carlos424 wrote: »

100% more damage? Yikes. You are assuming people use a light attack instead of an actual skill. I think it would be more accurate to assume people would either light attack weave or just use skills with no light attacks. If you are someone who is actually light attacking instead of using skills (as in the second equation), you would get way more damage by just leaving out light attacks altogether and just using skills. While light attacks comprise a large portion of damage for those who light attack weave (since you are doing one along with each skill), they are quite weak if you use them in place of a skill.

Actually with literally everyone in the world telling everyone they have to light attack in between each skill, everyone is at least trying to do it. But that actually makes it even worse because when you are doing LA too fast it doesn't even register and sometimes the skill doesn't register. I usually lose DPS when I play that way. I found with my playstyle on basically all builds, I am better off doing 3-4 skills with Heavy and repeat.

What you are pointing out is the reason WHY they need to fix this, it is creating more of a disparity that even my example shows by telling everyone to do this but it being so hard that only few people can or want to do it.

Please don't say literally when you mean figuratively. Plenty of people play this game without a LA weave. If you want min/maxed damage, then yes, you should weave EVERY skill. To be candid, it sounds like you need practice and your APMs are very low. You can complete all content save a few achievements with a heavy attack rotation as you described. Plenty of people do it.

But why should we balance a skill game with MANY levels of difficulty around the lowest common denominator? In my opinion, we should not.

Exactly. Light attacks account for...what...20% of damage give or take? And that’s with someone perfectly weaving. So if you just do a skill every second you should still be able to do adequate damage. Maybe as much as 70-80k on the 21m dummy. Ultimate regen might be an issue but sprinkle in some heavies.

Instead of guessing why don't you test it. How much damage would you do if you did your rotation without AC? I bet it will be more than 50% less.

No weaving, 71k on a mag sorc with a static rotation. I did 21 light attacks, doing my best to not weave them, simply add them into the rotation solely for the purposes of trying to keep up my ultimate. Total DPS from LAs was 1300.

I could probably push it to 75k, but I was going for an easy mode static rotation that I frankly dont do very often. I am also so used to LA weaving that it frankly messed with my pace not to do it. My ulti gen was also very poor (1.8/sec, should be about 3.0), so probably could have worked in a few more attros with a few more LAs. Not really interested in practicing a useless rotation, but clearly shows that AC is not any were close to 50% of damage.

/Closethread

So AC accounts for around 30%. And you can still do 70-75?K, that can complete all content, right? I think we found the solution to lowering the ceiling without effecting anyone else. Thank you that is perfect solution.

Less than that, I wouldn't hit 100k with a static rotation like that. That was a brain dead rotation with zero practice to show you once again that your original premise was flawed. Animation Canceling does NOT double your DPS, which is the title of your thread. Your premise is fundamentally incorrect, and all your straw man arguments don't change that.

If anything it shows that you dont need to LA weave to clear content, but if you want to push the harder achievements/titles, you need some practice, and you need to do more in your rotation. Could you clear all Vet content like that? Probably. Could you get titles like Godslayer? No way. That is an amazingly healthy balance if you ask me. This isn't little league in the 21st century. You don't get everything just by showing up.

Also, that rotation was painfully boring. You could teach a Gibbon to do that rotation. It was only slightly difficult because I had to fight 7 years of instinct. Eliminating AC would remove any skill from the game, so as solutions go, its an absolutely terrible one. The end game community would do a mass exodus.

Thankfully, its all academic. AC ain't going anywhere. I see 3 options. Find a less skill based game, embrace the fact that you will never get some of the harder titles and keep enjoying this wonderful game, or you know, actually work at getting better. That last one is not for everyone.

Merforum

Oreyn_Bearclaw wrote: »

Less than that, I wouldn't hit 100k with a static rotation like that. That was a brain dead rotation with zero practice to show you once again that your original premise was flawed. Animation Canceling does NOT double your DPS, which is the title of your thread. Your premise is fundamentally incorrect, and all your straw man arguments don't change that.

If anything it shows that you dont need to LA weave to clear content, but if you want to push the harder achievements/titles, you need some practice, and you need to do more in your rotation. Could you clear all Vet content like that? Probably. Could you get titles like Godslayer? No way. That is an amazingly healthy balance if you ask me. This isn't little league in the 21st century. You don't get everything just by showing up.

Also, that rotation was painfully boring. You could teach a Gibbon to do that rotation. It was only slightly difficult because I had to fight 7 years of instinct. Eliminating AC would remove any skill from the game, so as solutions go, its an absolutely terrible one. The end game community would do a mass exodus.

Thankfully, its all academic. AC ain't going anywhere. I see 3 options. Find a less skill based game, embrace the fact that you will never get some of the harder titles and keep enjoying this wonderful game, or you know, actually work at getting better. That last one is not for everyone.

The title is partially sarcastic, but I did go from 8K DPS to 16K when I started playing by doing LA weaving with AC about 30%. Then I tried a Heavy attack build that was much easier and consistently higher DPS.

But unsarcastically you have proven that

1. players don't need to do AC to get great DPS, literally the opposite of many who say fixing it would ruin game, so ZOS should consider that (IF reducing ceiling is a real goal)
2. instead of telling everyone at mid level the only way to get better is AC, you could share the great build and rotation that you say anyone can do

No lie, if there is an easier way for me to go from 30K to 70K DPS with different gear/rotation WITHOUT AC, I would be greatly appreciative and I think many others would too.