Animation canceling to significantly improve the DPS in PvE

Nifty2g · April 2017

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO wrote: »

I was looking at a DPS chart on another thread provided by a high skilled player that does trials and I noticed that in his combat logs there were no heavy attacks and still got over 40k dps. So I was really confused as heavy attacks are more beneficial as they restore resources and do more damage.

I had heard that with a so called "animation canceling" you can improve your DPS but I believe that most of the casual players (myself inclusive) have no idea what this is about.

So I watched several youtube videos on the matter and the results were stunning as the DPS is increased significantly.

So I am making this thread for those who do not know how to animation cancel.

Basically the whole procedure is as follows:

light attack, then skill, then block (or bash, or weapon swap)

It is easy as that. The important thing to note is that you need to carefully monitor when the light attack is being fired off and use the skill immediately after that (similar to animation canceling in LOL for people that have played it, especially Riven mains).

This animation canceling not only cuts down the time that a light attack is being executed but also diminishes the 0.8 seconds that are being used by a skill to fire off. So in theory if you do animation cancelling correctly you can increase your DPS at lease by 30%

Can anyone contribute on the matter if there is anything additional we should know?

It would had been great if ZOS allowed macros so that we can bind light attack+skill+block on every skill slot, but unfortunately it is prohibited by them. So I guess practice makes perfect.

This is not true, animation cancelling does not bypass global cooldowns, you are not increasing your dps by animation cancelling. some skills actually if you animation cancel them make you attack slower.
the only real time you save is when you do it with bar swaps.

common misconception.

for what it's worth, just watch one of the best players in the game who gets some of the highest damage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFbmFDtBqyc

and another

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNDpWiAa__4
stop stressing out about animation cancelling its a dead trend these days

AcadianPaladin · April 2017

I'm enjoying learning more about this mysterious animation canceling - very informative thread.

My question is whether light attack weaving could help replenish ultimate faster? When things get hectic, my magplar healer relies much more on her abilities than her staff attacks. But it seems trying to weave in lots of light attacks with little time penalty might help build ultimate fast?

Izaki · April 2017

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

I'm enjoying learning more about this mysterious animation canceling - very informative thread.

My question is whether light attack weaving could help replenish ultimate faster? When things get hectic, my magplar healer relies much more on her abilities than her staff attacks. But it seems trying to weave in lots of light attacks with little time penalty might help build ultimate fast?

Light Attacks, Heavy Attacks and Block are all sources of standard ultimate regen which is 3 Ult every second for 9 seconds. So whenever you perform any of those 3 actions, you will start generating ultimate. So yes, light attacks between all skills do generate ultimate.

Then there are other buffs that let you build ultimate: Minor and Major Heroism. Then there are certain passives for each class that help with your ultimate generation. There are also several sets in the game which improve ultimate generation: Bloodspawn, Tava's, Werewolf Hide, etc. etc.

Healing is also a way to get ultimate. Basically if you heal someone who is gaining ultimate you will be gaining ultimate too. I'm not 100% sure how it work so I can't really detail this part much more for you

AcadianPaladin · April 2017

@IzakiBrotherSs I do have a passive to gain ultimate each time my templar casts Reflective Light or Purify. Sounds like learning to weave in some light attacks might indeed help also. I'm reluctant to use my ultimate because I tend to 'hoard' it or forget about it. Gaining ult faster might encourage me to use it more. Thanks for your insight.

Nifty2g · April 2017

AcadianPaladin wrote: »

@IzakiBrotherSs I do have a passive to gain ultimate each time my templar casts Reflective Light or Purify. Sounds like learning to weave in some light attacks might indeed help also. I'm reluctant to use my ultimate because I tend to 'hoard' it or forget about it. Gaining ult faster might encourage me to use it more. Thanks for your insight.

Ever think that you'll do more damage if you use your ultimate

Emmagoldman · April 2017

People may heavy/medium weave charge abilities such as snipe and dizzy swing. The skill will hit at the same moment as the heavy swing adding burst. Crit rush, light, fossilize, heavy + dizzyswing, dawnbreaker, execute

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO · June 2017

Thanks for the comments. Finally I get it now after additionally consulting with some top tier players.

Each "instant" skill has a 1s global cooldown, however most of them have an animation longer than 1s. Which means that you are being delayed form casing another spell until the animation ends.

But when you use bar swaps or block you can cancel the animations and use another skill after that exact 1s global cooldown.

(block is not the prefered method as your stamina regen stops for 2s when you block)

This explains a lot since I was woundering why I can cast liquid lightning and then wall of elements almost twice as fast if I bar swap between the skills.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

After learning all of that I believe that this (even though approved by ZOS) is a type of exploit in the system and needs to be corrected by making the animations of all instant skills to last exactly 1s to match their global cooldown.

This way would be the proper way of closing the gap between the top tier players and the mid tier ones without making any changes to the game itself.

theamazingx · June 2017

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO wrote: »

Thanks for the comments. Finally I get it now after additionally consulting with some top tier players.

Each "instant" skill has a 1s global cooldown, however most of them have an animation longer than 1s. Which means that you are being delayed form casing another spell until the animation ends.

But when you use bar swaps or block you can cancel the animations and use another skill after that exact 1s global cooldown.

(block is not the prefered method as your stamina regen stops for 2s when you block)

This explains a lot since I was woundering why I can cast liquid lightning and then wall of elements almost twice as fast if I bar swap between the skills.

@ZOS_GinaBruno

After learning all of that I believe that this (even though approved by ZOS) is a type of exploit in the system and needs to be corrected by making the animations of all instant skills to last exactly 1s to match their global cooldown.

This way would be the proper way of closing the gap between the top tier players and the mid tier ones without making any changes to the game itself.

Blockcancelling is worthless and barswapping takes no level of skill, so no, it will have no effect on the skillgap. It would just make combat feel less responsive for everybody.

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO · June 2017

I am not saying to remove the animation canceling, I was referring to making the instant skills animation last as long as its global cooldown, because it is now not the case for most skills. This way people will not be forced to bar swap or block cancel the skills to gain more DPS.

And it does take some practice if you want to cast all skills with bar swaps.

Izaki · June 2017

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO wrote: »

I am not saying to remove the animation canceling, I was referring to making the instant skills animation last as long as its global cooldown, because it is now not the case for most skills. This way people will not be forced to bar swap or block cancel the skills to gain more DPS.

And it does take some practice if you want to cast all skills with bar swaps.

You don't gain DPS by block canceling the follow through on your skills (because that's all block canceling is). You don't directly gain DPS from bar swap canceling either: you can't cast skills instantly after a bar swap, the only thing a bar swap cancel enables is to be on the right bar for when the GCD ended. Also, bar swaps add roughly 0.1-0.2 seconds delay.

All the animations already last 1 sec for the most part, with exceptions being channels and cast time abilities obviously. There's the preparation for the cast, the skill cast and the follow through.

Nice necro btw to whoever necro'ed the thread.

Narvuntien · June 2017

I have 300 ping is it even possible for me to animation cancel?.

Animation cancelling in this game actually doesn't look too bad as in it doesn't look glitchy like I have seen in other games with it, It seems more fluid like the character is switching skills nicely mid skill.

I think what could be done, which honestly is probably a ton of work is to create skill bridging animations where your characters animations for two different skills can blend together.

For example for 2h heavy attack into Reverse slice animation cancel creates this sort of wound up Heavy swing into reverse slide twirl and down swing

getemshauna · June 2017

Btw. Even if animation od the skill is longer than 1 sec, you can cancel it by light attack, there is no need to cancel it by block. It gives nothing.

exeeter702 · June 2017

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO wrote: »

Liofa wrote: »

Only one thing you are doing wrong and that is block . Every skill activates a global cooldown . Even if you block cancel your skill , you simply cannot use the next skill faster . Every skill has some kind of finishing point in their animations . Learn it and put your next light attack there . For example , Force Pulse finishing point is right after your character points the staff forward and the staff reaches the furthest point it gets . At that point , you can put your light attack and press the next skill you want to use . Another example , Puncturing Strikes' finishing point is when you character makes a step forward with his/her right foot . As soon as you see the foot going forward , you can start making the next light attack>skill combo . The reason I tell you is to make you understand that block cancelling not making anything faster . Everything has some kind of cooldown you cannot ignore . Most of the time as a DD , what you will be doing is light attack > skill . Using block will cancel your stamina regeneration as well which is really important in certain fights where you will be blocking , roll dodging and breaking free . And yes , you cannot use macro as it is forbidden and not recommended since you will have to break rotation at certain points in certain fights .

This information is very insightful, can you please provide more examples of other spells when their animation can be broken with light attacks so that we noobs can learn from it and practice to become better.

Thank you!

Edit: responded to an old post

f047ys3v3n · June 2017

rosendoichinoveb17_ESO wrote: »

It would had been great if ZOS allowed macros so that we can bind light attack+skill+block on every skill slot, but unfortunately it is prohibited by them. So I guess practice makes perfect.

This is a relatively common practice in endgame PVE players and binding effective "one shot" combos is even more common in PVP. Sometimes, I notice macro use on some streams or videos based on some subtle differences in how mistakes are made in the activation of skills. I few folks will cop to it, most will not. ZOS has both made public statements allowing and banning macro usage. I am really not sure where they stand but I do not know anyone, in PVE or PVP, banned for using them. They seem to be sort of grey area. Certainly, they are less harmful than the cheat engine that is also common now on PC.

From the standpoint of ZOS, macros can be rather hard to detect as well as they can be hardware based and the programs also often allow for some randomization of timings.

As for complete rotation macros, these are less common as they tend to get you killed in mechanics. They slow you even if you have a toggle on and off function. I did know some players who used full rotation macros in the past on a few specific fights to get some monster numbers but this never seems to have gotten that common. I think that these type macros were mostly written as part of build research and used as a gimmick in stack and whack fights for amusement. I don't know anybody who I even suspect of currently doing this as a regular part of competitive play.