ZoS, please explain how weaving works

AdricEdwistyr

Frankly, the more I dig into the matter of weaving, the more confusing and unintelligible it seems.
Some say there is no GCD in ESO. Apparently that's what the developers said when the game was initially released (ha ha).
Some speak about animation lock. Some say there are different GCDs for skills and other actions like light attacks. Others that all of these actions share the same GCD. It is also said that there is a queue for abilities...
This confusion could explain why some players have a very negative opinion of ESO's combat system. Myself I have known a certain number of new players (coming from WoW among others) who gave up very quickly because of this byzantinism and lack of transparency.
Some players probably don't mind fumbling around and testing mechanics empirically for hours. Others (including myself) want to know the precise rules. After all this is a video game. There's already the real life for staying in the dark!
So I think that at this point ZoS have to give official, precise and complet explanation on how their combat system actually works.
p.s.: don't tell me it's obvious and try to explain me how it works. I won't take your word for it. I want official statements from the devs or solid evidence.

phaneub17_ESO

Then you'll never get an answer.

If you try to hit multiple abilities in a row or use the same ability multiple times you'll notice there is a 1 second delay between casts its meant to stop you from over-writing the same ability so you aren't clipping or over-spending resources. It's also designed to prevent you from casting direct damage abilities in rapid succession doing insane damage that way. Players found they can manually attack in between casting animations circumventing the 1 second delay so right after casting an ability you hit the Light Attack then another ability and Light Attack again, repeat.

At the time this was considered a bug, an unintentional function in the game. Manual attacking was not supposed to fire earlier than the 1 second casting delay and they tried multiple times throughout ESO's history to correct the problem. At some point they gave up trying to fix it and accepted it as part of the game, but don't promote it as a proper mechanic.

If you want to find evidence they have posted on it before, you'll have to scrounge through YEARS of past posts.

Didgerion

It's obvious! you do the light attack and a skill right after.

Like playing the drum with 2 hands, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum

Now do the same but with the fingers....da-dum, da-dum, da-dum

Now do the same but with the mouse click and the skill button.... cli-click, cli-click, cli-click.

There you go!

AdricEdwistyr

If it was that simple it wouldn't be a big deal... Is the delay between two abilities exactly one second? Is it the same for all abilities ? Above all, what happens if you start by activating an ability and then fire a light attack and an another ability before the end of the cooldown? What happens when you swap bar?
In my opinion, the lack of precision is what makes many players unable to weave effectively and sometimes training for hours without progressing or even understanding what they are doing wrong.
I remember a friend who played for years on console before coming to PC. I helped him install WeaveDelays and we did a test. He didn't miss any light attacks but his weaving wasn't nearly as fast as it could be.
So you invest in a game for a long period of time and the developers give you no explanation of a key mechanic nor any tools to progress. Am I the only one who doesn't think this is normal?

Dragonredux

Technically they vaguely tell you in a level up tip but don't call it weaving. Somewhere around the level 40-50 range, you get something along the lines of "To maximize damage use a light attack in between your skills". But it's never brought up again and easily forgettable to a new player.

AdricEdwistyr

Dragonredux wrote: »

Technically they vaguely tell you in a level up tip but don't call it weaving. Somewhere around the level 40-50 range, you get something along the lines of "To maximize damage use a light attack in between your skills". But it's never brought up again and easily forgettable to a new player.

I know, but this is not weaving. This is just light attacking.

AdricEdwistyr

Fortunately the devs recently gave us a definition of weaving (for 1st time as far as I know) : "the act of squeezing multiple actions into the global cooldown window".
So you see, it's not just about light attacking between skills.

Amphithoe

I'd say AC and weaving seems like a very discriminating game mechanic.

AdricEdwistyr

What if they lower the GCD to 0.5 sec and apply the same cooldown to all in-game actions?

Didgerion

AdricEdwistyr wrote: »

If it was that simple it wouldn't be a big deal... Is the delay between two abilities exactly one second? Is it the same for all abilities ? Above all, what happens if you start by activating an ability and then fire a light attack and an another ability before the end of the cooldown? What happens when you swap bar?
In my opinion, the lack of precision is what makes many players unable to weave effectively and sometimes training for hours without progressing or even understanding what they are doing wrong.
I remember a friend who played for years on console before coming to PC. I helped him install WeaveDelays and we did a test. He didn't miss any light attacks but his weaving wasn't nearly as fast as it could be.
So you invest in a game for a long period of time and the developers give you no explanation of a key mechanic nor any tools to progress. Am I the only one who doesn't think this is normal?

You can feel the delay, you won't be able to click the skill until 1 second cooldown is over.
But you can do a light attack while you wait.

Same goes for the light attacks. You won't be able to do the second light attack while 1 second cooldown is over but you can do a skill while you wait.

I like the later more., my brain understands it better.

Tigertron

Players like Masel have documented it in the past and I believe some of that is still here.

There is a GCD. (Global. As in all abilities. LA is an ability) It’s 1 second. You can queue up one more skill to fire off after the GCD ends. It is the last skill you hit before about 800ms from the skill that started the GCD. (200 ms to queue it and other delays. Hitting it after this time will just start it with its own GCD)

Hit LA. GCD starts
~500ms to 800ms later hit a skill ability
Skill Ability is queued to fire after GCD ends of the LA.
200-500ms later your skill ability fires starting a new GCD.
500ms later queue a LA to fire after skill.
Repeat.

Congratulations. You are weaving LA and skill. This give you a bigger DPS than just LA or just skill. As long as the skill is spamable. Meaning it’s instant cast.

If you are on PC you can use combat metrics log to prove all this yourself. Mesel had a fantastic YouTube video showing how it worked exactly. He took it down as it was old and some of it was no longer relevant which I guess would cause confusion.

TPishek

Honestly the best way to figure it out and practice it is to try weaving things. You don't need to do it on a dummy, I typically practiced while just walking around and doing writs. Spam something cheap or free that you don't need a target for, like Restoring Aura or Elemental Weapon and just practice getting the timing down. Then you can practice swapping between the skills without missing in between, then you can try hitting the attacks between bar swaps. It'll just become muscle memory after a while.

TPishek

They do need to add a tutorial for it in game though, and the fact that they are so adamantly against doing so makes me worried they want to eventually phase it out.

Yakidafi

AdricEdwistyr wrote: »

If it was that simple it wouldn't be a big deal... Is the delay between two abilities exactly one second? Is it the same for all abilities ? Above all, what happens if you start by activating an ability and then fire a light attack and an another ability before the end of the cooldown? What happens when you swap bar?
In my opinion, the lack of precision is what makes many players unable to weave effectively and sometimes training for hours without progressing or even understanding what they are doing wrong.
I remember a friend who played for years on console before coming to PC. I helped him install WeaveDelays and we did a test. He didn't miss any light attacks but his weaving wasn't nearly as fast as it could be.
So you invest in a game for a long period of time and the developers give you no explanation of a key mechanic nor any tools to progress. Am I the only one who doesn't think this is normal?

It is this simple. Weaving is literally, you use a skill then light attack use skill light attack repeating this over and over. Only thing that should be confusing for some players is that some skills visual animation are longer than the skill itself like templars jabs for example, which will be changed now so it matches the skill.

Animation canceling which is not really as big of a deal nowadays sadly since they changed ultimates to have a cast time and skills in general also seem to be slower since I came back a few months ago. It is when you cast a skill and instantly barswap/block/bash/roll dodge. Used to work very well with block/bash or roll dodge. Its only function is that it make the skill be casted a little bit faster, the gcd stay the same until you can cast the next skill.

To me this is basic stuff and part of the game, I found out after a few years that what alot of players were upset about on the forum saying players are cheating with animation canceling and weaving/macro are what I found to be a natural mechanic.

Kristofereso explained it very well in this video about 6 years ago.
https://youtu.be/wWHMCNFC4F0

ccfeeling

What if they tell you , it is a BUG ?

WrathOfInnos

Yakidafi wrote: »

AdricEdwistyr wrote: »

If it was that simple it wouldn't be a big deal... Is the delay between two abilities exactly one second? Is it the same for all abilities ? Above all, what happens if you start by activating an ability and then fire a light attack and an another ability before the end of the cooldown? What happens when you swap bar?
In my opinion, the lack of precision is what makes many players unable to weave effectively and sometimes training for hours without progressing or even understanding what they are doing wrong.
I remember a friend who played for years on console before coming to PC. I helped him install WeaveDelays and we did a test. He didn't miss any light attacks but his weaving wasn't nearly as fast as it could be.
So you invest in a game for a long period of time and the developers give you no explanation of a key mechanic nor any tools to progress. Am I the only one who doesn't think this is normal?

It is this simple. Weaving is literally, you use a skill then light attack use skill light attack repeating this over and over. Only thing that should be confusing for some players is that some skills visual animation are longer than the skill itself like templars jabs for example, which will be changed now so it matches the skill.

Animation canceling which is not really as big of a deal nowadays sadly since they changed ultimates to have a cast time and skills in general also seem to be slower since I came back a few months ago. It is when you cast a skill and instantly barswap/block/bash/roll dodge. Used to work very well with block/bash or roll dodge. Its only function is that it make the skill be casted a little bit faster, the gcd stay the same until you can cast the next skill.

To me this is basic stuff and part of the game, I found out after a few years that what alot of players were upset about on the forum saying players are cheating with animation canceling and weaving/macro are what I found to be a natural mechanic.

Kristofereso explained it very well in this video about 6 years ago.
https://youtu.be/wWHMCNFC4F0

That video is 1/3 informative, 1/3 outdated, and 1/3 wrong. Animation canceling has never allowed casting abilities "faster", they have always been limited by the 1s GCD. There was a time when blocking canceled the animation, but you still needed to wait 1s before using the next ability. Similar story with light attacks, the animation would overwrite, but you could only perform 1 skill + 1 light attack within a 1s window.

Much of this was fixed a few years back. Now blocking is independent from skill animations. You can hold block and watch your character play full animations, that's why we have a fake glowing shield in front to indicate blocking. Light attacks were also changed to animate while weaving between skills, it's an accelerated "twitchy" animation, but they are not fully canceled like they were years ago. Possibly the only exception to this was Templar jabs, which had a longer animation than its channel time, and could truly hide light attack animations. This was fixed on PTS with a new shorter animation (which is getting mixed feedback).

Yakidafi

Ye, was this not what I wrote? Or I worded it poorly? Faster as in for example dawnbreaker landed before the full animation were played out.

I still like the video, also mentioned it is 6 years ago.

WrathOfInnos

Yakidafi wrote: »

Ye, was this not what I wrote? Or I worded it poorly? Faster as in for example dawnbreaker landed before the full animation were played out.

I still like the video, also mentioned it is 6 years ago.

Your words were fine, I just disagree with some of the things said in the video. It is quite an old video.

AdricEdwistyr

Tigertron wrote: »

There is a GCD. (Global. As in all abilities. LA is an ability) It’s 1 second.

See here is the confusion I have pointed out.
Unless I'm misunderstanding, you'r saying that skills and light attacks share the same cooldown. However, most players pretending that each has a separate cooldown. From what you'r saying (again, if I read you correctly) it's not possible to fire a skill and a light attack within the same GCD. You can simply trigger an action and queue another to fire at the end of the GCD. Again this is not what is said everywhere and even what the developers said when they recently gave us their definition of weaving.
They said: "squeezing *multiple* actions into the global cooldown window"

kringled_1

Your takeaway is incorrect, although Tigertrons post is confusingly worded. Most ability casts share the 1s GCD. Light attacks have their own separate cool down.

AdricEdwistyr

Isn't it possible to test all this precisely using a lua script? I found this function in the API: GetSlotCooldownInfo(). But I don't feel like it's useful for light attacks.

Sync01

A lot of information in here is wrong, or just misunderstood.

Light attack weaving is not using a skill -> light attack. It's the other way around.
You light attack and then use the skill to interrupt the animation of the light attack.

Since it is LA -> skill -> LA -> skill I understand how it would make sense that you can technically also do skill -> LA, but it's not quite how it works.

AdricEdwistyr

Sync01 wrote: »

A lot of information in here is wrong, or just misunderstood.

Light attack weaving is not using a skill -> light attack. It's the other way around.
You light attack and then use the skill to interrupt the animation of the light attack.

Since it is LA -> skill -> LA -> skill I understand how it would make sense that you can technically also do skill -> LA, but it's not quite how it works.

I don't think animation cancelling (or speeding) is the actual point. This seems to be the visual result of triggering a LA and a skill within a certain time window. But how can we be sure and know the exact timing if the devs don't give us a precise and complet explanation?

This video explains that it's not a matter of canceling animations but a matter of timing: https://youtu.be/FUEio_xwc2U
But once again, I can't assure that what is said is true.

Sync01

Animation cancelling is pretty much the point. Light attacks regenerate ultimate and is free damage (doesn't cost anything) so doing more light attacks in the same time frame is good.

Weaving can be more than LA -> skill though. Players who are pushing really high dps also cancel the animation of their skills with for example block or bar swap, so it would be LA -> skill -> block. I find that most people who talk about light attack weaving are referring to just interrupting the light attack with a skill though.

The devs rarely give us information, most of it comes from the community having tried things out themselves and gone through logs etc. If you want more info on la weaving here are some guides.
https://youtu.be/x9PqSAFgYFk
https://eso-u.com/articles/guide_to_weaving_and_animation_canceling

Vex.1337

As a new ESO player, I also find this very confusing and I wish it would be fully explained and supported by the game tutorial and interface.

To do it properly I think you need an addon that tracks your global cooldown and as soon as you're off the GCD you do a light attack which needs to be immediately followed by an instant ability, at least that's how I understand it works.

Now my question is why aren't light attacks on the 1-second global cooldown?

GetAgrippa

Vex.1337 wrote: »

To do it properly I think you need an addon that tracks your global cooldown and as soon as you're off the GCD you do a light attack which needs to be immediately followed by an instant ability, at least that's how I understand it works.

Console players do not have add ons and we weave just fine. It's really simple. Press light attack, press skill, repeat. That's it. That's all there is to it.

TPishek

Vex.1337 wrote: »

Now my question is why aren't light attacks on the 1-second global cooldown?

Because it's 1000x more interesting this way.

Vevvev

Vex.1337 wrote: »

Now my question is why aren't light attacks on the 1-second global cooldown?

Much more interesting, and if they were put on the global cooldown nobody in their right minds would use them unless they got super massive buffs. And then you'd only use them if they somehow overpowered an ability, and if they overpowered an ability that ability shouldn't even exist.

AdricEdwistyr

Vex.1337 wrote: »

Console players do not have add ons and we weave just fine. It's really simple. Press light attack, press skill, repeat. That's it. That's all there is to it.

Actually it's far from being that simple.
If you do it too fast the light attacks just don't fire at all. If you do it too slow you end up with bad damage output.
Console players practice this in the dark. When some come to PC and test themselves with addons they often have surprises.

AdricEdwistyr

Vevvev wrote: »

Vex.1337 wrote: »

Now my question is why aren't light attacks on the 1-second global cooldown?

Much more interesting, and if they were put on the global cooldown nobody in their right minds would use them unless they got super massive buffs. And then you'd only use them if they somehow overpowered an ability, and if they overpowered an ability that ability shouldn't even exist.

I'm not sure. Don't forget that LA proc weapon enchantments and build up ultimates.

AdricEdwistyr

Sync01 wrote: »

Animation cancelling is pretty much the point.

By saying such it's like the action of cancelling the animation of a light attack is what allows you to activate a skill before the end of the ingoing GCD.
As far as I know that's not truly what happens.
Either you can fire a light attack and a skill within the same GCD window or they have separate but overlapping GCDs and as a visual result you see the LA's animation being cancelled.