Weaving/AC help for a noob: Explain it like I'm 5

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architekt
architekt
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I've tried reading about this stuff and watching videos and I see a lot of stuff that confuses me. Here's what I know and am able to do very easily:
Light Attack->Immediately hit skill so that I don't wait for my LA animation to fully play out. That's super easy, I got that. I even enjoy it.

What I don't get is all the other advice on bar swapping or blocking/dodging to cancel my skill animation. The reason being, from what I gather, there's a GCD and I can't cast say 2 instant spells within 1 single GCD, nor 2 LA in one GCD. I tried as a test on my templar casting Channeled Focus (instant), bar swap, Harness Magicka (instant) and obviously since I did it so fast HM didn't go off as I was still within the skill GCD window. I also tried LA->CF->Bar swap->HM as fast as I could, same thing, because I was doing it faster than the skill GCD window (although obviously the LA->CF->Bar Swap part worked as expected)

So what's the point of bar swapping/blocking to cancel your instant spell if you can't cast another spell before the GCD is up? I also tried doing LA->CF->Bar Swap->LA->HM but the second LA didn't go off, guessing due to being within another GCD window again (or maybe that's a L2P issue I'm not noticing?). Like, what would I do after I perform say LA->Skill->Bar swap? I don't seem to be able to get out another LA or skill in that super fast window.

I'm trying to level up my combat abilities to tackle harder content and I guess I'm just not seeing info presented in a way that's making sense to me. So if anyone could be so kind as to use the skills I mentioned above in an example and I guess just write the order out so that it's easy to parse, I would be really appreciative. Thanks!
  • DrSlaughtr
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    Every skill (except channels) have a one second cooldown, meaning that no matter what you cannot fire more than one skill per second.

    Light attacks have a cooldown also. It's slightly less than 1 second.

    So here's an example.

    On my nightblade I start by hitting Surprise Attack and immediately follow with a light attack. The LA cancels the animation of the skill and fires to hit the target. I can then hit Surprise Attack again at the one second mark, followed by another LA.

    Blocking and bar swapping can do the same thing the light attack does with the exception that they have no cooldown. Some people like to use those for that reason. I personally stick with LAs. Either way you cannot fire the skill any faster. I've been told by some they other block cancelling dawnbreaker because they think it works better than a LA for that skill.

    Get yourself a metronome and set it to 60 bpm. Every click you hit a skill and immediately a LA.
    I drink and I stream things.
  • El_Borracho
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    You hit the button to start a light attack. After the animation for that light attack starts but well before it ends, you hit the button for the skill you want. When the skill animation ends, you hit the button for light attack again, rinse repeat.

    You are cancelling the animation for the light attack, NOT the skill. If you go too fast, you run the risk of cancelling the first skill you want with the second skill, especially if its channeled or not an instant cast.

    Here's a good video for PC: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9PqSAFgYFk
  • architekt
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    So that's really it then? It's nothing really that much more complex than LA->Skill to interrupt the LA animation like I've already been doing? I don't have to do like a whole bunch of bar swapping dodging blocking all at the same time as LA->Skill etc. (unless of course I have to actually dodge or swap for a valid reason)? That's a way easier explanation.

    I was under the impression, based on all the stuff I've read/watched, that LA->Skill was just the first step and that I had to on top of that also be doing bar swaps, dodges, blocks, all interweaved on top of that as well and I was like this sounds over my head, I don't get how I'm doing more than the GCD allows. The heartbeat/metronome analogy is a good one. Thanks for the info and video. The next step would be for me to tighten up my timing of this so that I'm doing it as fast as I'm able to.
  • WrathOfInnos
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    Yep sounds like you've got it all correct. It's pretty simple, people just tend to exaggerate about the complexity and benefits of animation canceling.

    For bar swap "canceling", there's nothing crazy going on to break the GCD. It just means swapping to the other weapon immediately after the skill cast registers, so that 1s later you are already on the other bar and ready for the next light attack + skill there. It's just a term for making sure you don't waste time waiting for animations to play before performing the weapon swap, which would lead to more than 1s between casts. The missed light attack you observed was probably just a little too early.
  • James-Wayne
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    Also note your ping will determine how fast you can weave (something I never see people talking about), anything over 200 ping and you will need to always go slow which will lower your DPS as the game server wont register your clicks fast enough.
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  • architekt
    architekt
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    For bar swap "canceling", there's nothing crazy going on to break the GCD. It just means swapping to the other weapon immediately after the skill cast registers, so that 1s later you are already on the other bar and ready for the next light attack + skill there.

    Ahhhh that makes a lot more sense then in terms of what I read about the purpose of bar swapping. I guess I was intuitively doing that anyway.

    Regarding ping, I can see how that would totally affect things.
  • WrathOfInnos
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    Also note your ping will determine how fast you can weave (something I never see people talking about), anything over 200 ping and you will need to always go slow which will lower your DPS as the game server wont register your clicks fast enough.

    It's not a high ping issue. I know Australian players with 250-300 ping and a near perfect weave on the GCD. I've been told the window for weaving is actually more forgiving on high ping.

    I think you may be experiencing variable ping. If it changes even between 50 and 150 that is enough to ruin skill timing. Completely unplayable IMO, and yes the only solution is to slow down by whatever the range is on ping spikes.
  • fred4
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    architekt wrote: »
    So what's the point of bar swapping/blocking to cancel your instant spell if you can't cast another spell before the GCD is up?
    People have historically confused me with this as well. More in the context of PvP. It felt like superstition at times.

    What I do know is that your GCD is best thought of as beginning with the light attack, then a skill, then bar swap or dodge roll or bash (or block cancel). This sequence, light attack -> skill -> something else, is relevant. It allows you to perform 3 actions within a single GCD, whereas if you use the wrong sequence, for example if you tried skill -> light attack -> bar swap, that does not work. The light attack would not fire.

    While you can block during a skill, if the skill is not a channel, PvPers have also been telling me that skills, such as shields, get enacted faster, if you block right after casting the skill. However this does not increase your throughput. You won't do more damage as a PvEer with your damage dealing skills. You can still only cast one skill per second, but animation canceling may alter the exact timing of the skill within the GCD. It appears that way on the client. It may, in fact, alter the timing of the skill server side as well. For example a skill like the magblade's execute, Impale, is a projectile that has a travel time. I believe that, at least in older patches, block canceling Impale would cut out that travel time. Thus, if you canceled the skill against a player who was just about to line-of-sight you by running around a corner, you had a better chance of still hitting them via block-canceling.
    Edited by fred4 on March 16, 2022 3:40AM
    PC EU: Magblade (PvP main), DK (PvE Tank), Sorc (PvP and PvE), Magden (PvE Healer), Magplar (PvP and PvE DD), Arcanist (PvE DD)
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  • El_Borracho
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    @architekt Its complex in that its a rhythm thing. When first doing it, you will go too fast as the inherent thought is "faster means more attacks which means more DPS." Its slower than you'd expect. In fact, you will see your DPS go up once you slow down and find the right speed. Its counter-intuitive.

    Then there is the process of moving from a dummy parse to doing it in the game. Again, the tendency is to go too fast once the dummy fights back, you take damage, and have to block, roll dodge, and move in the middle of your rotation.

    That video I posted above is one of the better ones to explain how to do it. There are others that show you what a light attack weave looks like. I found once I saw it, I could copy it.
  • architekt
    architekt
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    Ya I can see that, and there's been times where I've definitely noticed I got too excited I suppose and things didn't pan out as I expected. But that's a lot easier for me to learn and practice and get used to than what I originally erroneously assumed about the entire thing. Thanks for all the info, it's been a lot easier to understand just from everyone's replies than the other sources I was looking at.
  • Oreyn_Bearclaw
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    Skills have a global cooldown (GCD) of 1 second. So if you press a skill 10 times a second, it will still only cast once per second. Light attacks, Heavy attacks, Dodge Roll, Block, Bar Swap, Potion Use, Synergy Use, (probably missing something) are not tied to the same one second cooldown, so as a general rule, those can be layered on top of your basic LA rotation.

    Light Attack Weaving:
    This is straight forward and you seem to have a handle one it. Because light attacks are not on the same GCD as skills, you can cast both a light attack and a skill in that once second window. The most important part is that the skill is firing as close to the one second pace as possible. You have more of a window than most people realize to cast your LA (channel skills are an exception). I think of a heart beat. Bump bump...bump bump...bump bump... LA>Skill... LA>Skill... LA>Skill...

    Practically, it may make more sense to think of the LAs being one second apart, and this works just fine as long as the time between your LA and Skill is consistent, but technically, its the Skills that are on the GCD.

    In combat, you should weave essentially every skill you cast, there is almost never a reason not to. Weaving barely amounts to animation canceling. Your light attack animation completes for the most part unless playing in very high ping. (High Ping doesn't mean you cant weave and maintain a 1second GCD, inconsistent ping can certainly affect it).

    Heavy Attack Weaving:
    HAs take longer than 1 second, so by definition, you are going to lose pace when you heavy attack. That said, if you do need to heavy attack for sustain, no reason not to weave a skill after it. While charging a heavy attack, you can spam the skill button a few times and it will fire immediately after the HA once the HA reaches critical mass. You can actually do a HA rotation with your finger basically glued to the HA button and just tap the next skill 2-3 times between each HA.

    Swap Cancelling:
    This is when you bar swap immediately after a skill. If just looking at a dummy parse, this is certainly the most egregious offender of actually clipping or cancelling animations. Swap canceling allows you to go from one bar to another and not lose the 1 second pace of your GCD, but you should not swap cancel if you don't need to. If your rotation calls for 3 consecutive front bar skills, there is no reason to swap between them just to do it. That said, if you do need to swap to a back bar skill, you should be able to do so and not lose pace as long as the skill is still in the one second pace.

    There are actually two ways you can do this. You can go LA>Skill>Swap>LA>Skill or you can actually go LA>Skill>LA>Swap>Skill. As long as the skills are one second apart, the order of the swap and light attack in between doesn't really matter. That said, I think practically it makes sense to do it the first way most of the time, and put your bar swap slightly ahead of where you would normally start your next LA. Swap cancelling allows you to play very dynamic rotations and go from one bar to another while maintaining pace. This is worth practicing, and practicing a lot. Some skills like AOE ground DOTs feel a little different than others, but as long as your skill pace is on the 1 second pace, you should be good.

    Block Canceling:
    There is never a reason to block cancel a skill for the purposes of DPS. Certainly, if you need to block, then block at any time, but it will NEVER increase your DPS. Its a myth, don't listen to anyone that says difference. Block canceling allows you to react to damage that is incoming, but doesn't help DPS. It will certainly cancel/clip the animation.

    Dodge Canceling:
    This is practically the same thing as block canceling. Dodge roll if/when you need to, but it's not going to increase your DPS (unless of course it keeps you from Dying).

    Bash Canceling:
    You can bash cancel a skill for more DPS, but it is a very niche thing to do, and the vast majority of players will simply not see an improvement in their damage. Typically it just slows them down and drains their stamina. I only recommend bash canceling if you are north of 100k DPS on a trial dummy and are just looking to squeeze a bit more out of a parse. In live content, you really need to know the fight, because if your stamina gets too low, it can mean death if you need to roll or break free. I only ever bash cancel in real content during a stack and burn execute phase, and even then, I typically don't bother. That said, you can go LA>Skill>Bash>LA>Skill and keep those skills on the one second GCD pace.

    Channel Skills:
    These are sort of their own animal. Skills like Templar Jabs or a Sorc's Hard Cast Frags can be cast within the 1 second GCD, but they cant be cancelled while still getting full damage because they need to run their course. There are two issues. One, the window to weave is much tighter. If you have a .8 second channel, that means you have a .2 second window to cast your LA and your next skill or you lose pace. Because you cant cancel, it also means that you cant effectively swap cancel. In other words, if you need to hard cast frags, and then swap to your back bar to cast a skill, you will lose pace because you simply wont get the Swap, LA and Skill done in that 0.2 second window. Its not the end of the world, but its something to be aware of. If you play a class with a channel skill, I highly recommend a channel timer addon. If you simply try to do it via watching the animation, you will be slow. You also generally want to plan your rotation so that a bar swap doesn't come after a channel whenever possible.

    That's about all I got.

    Edited by Oreyn_Bearclaw on March 18, 2022 3:21PM
  • architekt
    architekt
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    This whole thread has been one of the most insightful and easiest to understand explanations of this mechanic and has also taught me that it's not as overly complex as I assumed it to be. Much appreciated.
  • Oreyn_Bearclaw
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    architekt wrote: »
    This whole thread has been one of the most insightful and easiest to understand explanations of this mechanic and has also taught me that it's not as overly complex as I assumed it to be. Much appreciated.

    That's great to hear. I dont want to turn this thread into a debate about whether Weaving and Animation Canceling should be part of the game, but I think a lot of those debates and arguments come from a place of misinformation.

    The reality is that ZOS could probably do a better job explaining how their game works. It's also true that LA weaving barely constitutes Animation Canceling, and that the vast majority of the player base Animation Cancels without even realizing it every time the react to damage in combat (blocking and dodge rolling). ESOs fluid and dynamic combat simply wouldnt be possible without these, and IMO, its what separates ESO from every other MMO I have experienced.

    Keep at it. Practice makes perfect. Before long, it will all be second nature.
  • Oreyn_Bearclaw
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    fred4 wrote: »
    People have historically confused me with this as well. More in the context of PvP. It felt like superstition at times.

    What I do know is that your GCD is best thought of as beginning with the light attack, then a skill, then bar swap or dodge roll or bash (or block cancel). This sequence, light attack -> skill -> something else, is relevant. It allows you to perform 3 actions within a single GCD, whereas if you use the wrong sequence, for example if you tried skill -> light attack -> bar swap, that does not work. The light attack would not fire.

    While you can block during a skill, if the skill is not a channel, PvPers have also been telling me that skills, such as shields, get enacted faster, if you block right after casting the skill. However this does not increase your throughput. You won't do more damage as a PvEer with your damage dealing skills. You can still only cast one skill per second, but animation canceling may alter the exact timing of the skill within the GCD. It appears that way on the client. It may, in fact, alter the timing of the skill server side as well. For example a skill like the magblade's execute, Impale, is a projectile that has a travel time. I believe that, at least in older patches, block canceling Impale would cut out that travel time. Thus, if you canceled the skill against a player who was just about to line-of-sight you by running around a corner, you had a better chance of still hitting them via block-canceling.

    @fred4

    FYI, this is not true. The timing is a little different, but you can go Skill>LA>Bar Swap>Skill and maintain pace. Now you cant go Skill>LA>Bar Swap>LA>Skill, but as long as its only one LA, it does work.

    This was a pretty common move on stam setups a while back with DW/Bow builds. A lot of stam rotations were fairly static and didnt require much bar swapping, as you would pretty much run through most of your back bar skills all at the same time, basically a 14 second static rotation with only two bar swaps.

    It actually made sense to squeeze in that extra LA on your front bar before you swapped to your back bar because a DW LA did more damage than with a bow. It also seemed to be a little more fluid when you were swapping to your back bar to cast a ground DOT like Endless Hail (ground DOTs are always a little wonky). So you would often go, LA>Front Bar Skill>LA>Bar Swap>Endless hail. Its a pretty niche thing these days and I would never advise it on any type of dynamic rotation, but it can be done.


  • fizl101
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    One thing i would add to above - if you are using a channel like jabs, and you are using a metronome try setting it to about 56 rather than 60, 60 you have to be perfect on your LA, 56 ish gives you a little wiggle room
    Soupy twist
  • Oreyn_Bearclaw
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    @fred4

    FYI, this is not true. The timing is a little different, but you can go Skill>LA>Bar Swap>Skill and maintain pace. Now you cant go Skill>LA>Bar Swap>LA>Skill, but as long as its only one LA, it does work.

    This was a pretty common move on stam setups a while back with DW/Bow builds. A lot of stam rotations were fairly static and didnt require much bar swapping, as you would pretty much run through most of your back bar skills all at the same time, basically a 14 second static rotation with only two bar swaps.

    It actually made sense to squeeze in that extra LA on your front bar before you swapped to your back bar because a DW LA did more damage than with a bow. It also seemed to be a little more fluid when you were swapping to your back bar to cast a ground DOT like Endless Hail (ground DOTs are always a little wonky). So you would often go, LA>Front Bar Skill>LA>Bar Swap>Endless hail. Its a pretty niche thing these days and I would never advise it on any type of dynamic rotation, but it can be done.


    I think somewhere in the mid to high 50s on a metronome is probably good advice across the board if you plan to use one, and you should probably start around 50 and slowly increase. I used one a long while back, once I set it above about 57-58, I found that my missed LAs started to increase. You need to be a robot to play exactly at 60 BPM. Haha

    Its kind of like the price is right. You want to get as close to 60 without going over, and without missing LAs.
  • Bitter_Apple21
    architekt wrote: »
    This whole thread has been one of the most insightful and easiest to understand explanations of this mechanic and has also taught me that it's not as overly complex as I assumed it to be. Much appreciated.

    Agreed
  • LalMirchi
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    architekt wrote: »
    This whole thread has been one of the most insightful and easiest to understand explanations of this mechanic and has also taught me that it's not as overly complex as I assumed it to be. Much appreciated.

    Yes, this thread cleared up a lot of questions for me. Setting the metronome to 56 was very useful, as were the other suggestions.
  • Thecompton73
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    Doing a light attack weave with any 1 skill is very easy to do. And doing it with just a spammable in PvP is super effective.

    But the complexity comes into play when you're doing a Vet HM and trying to keep that rhythm of weaving the light attacks in between each of your different skills while dodging one shots and AOE's for anywhere between 3 and 10 minutes. Alternating the LA every single time while perfectly timing the recast of your dot abilities just before they expire, doing the same with buffs, working in your ulti's at the right time and then using your spammable as often as possible in the rotation without making mistakes takes practice and nifty fingers.
    Edited by Thecompton73 on March 29, 2022 6:02AM
  • krachall
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    I didn't read the whole thread so sorry if this is a repeat.

    But the entire concept of increasing DPS is built around NOT wasting time. Maybe a better way to say it is that weaving is filling dps downtime with additional damage. Skills have a global cooldown. Light attacks have a global cooldown. But they are independent.

    So while you are "waiting" for your skill cooldown to expire, you throw in a LA. While waiting for the LA cooldown to expire, you cast a skill. It's that simple.

    Animation canceling just does that faster by not waiting for the full LA animation to finish before casting the skill.

    So low DPS would be:

    Skill > (1 second) > Skill > (1 second) > Skill > (1 second)

    Weaving DPS would be:

    Skill > LA > (.75 seconds) > skill > LA > (.75 seconds) > or something like that. Basically shortening the "downtime."

    Weaving with AC might be:

    LA > Skill > LA > Skill > LA > Skill > LA > Skill with very small delays between each.

    The whole trick to LA weaving and AC is to build muscle memory as to when to fire the skill. Too soon and the LA never hits. Too late and you've added a .25 to .75 or so second gap each time.

    then you add bar swaps, potions, ultimates, etc. to get really good. It's all practice.

    I'm not a great DPS even though it's all I play. But after 2 years off, I returned to the game and parsed a dummy for the first time in ages. 55k DPS. But with very few gear and skill changes but a TON of practice, I recently parsed 91.6k. Not great by any means but a major improvement that was 90% due to practice.

    EDITED: The OP made the statement that I think is a common misconception: "...as fast as I could." That's not it. It's "...as close to the expiration of the GCD as possible...but not before."
    Edited by krachall on March 31, 2022 6:30PM
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