Cast time skills gutted

Toc de Malsvi · April 2019

Cast time skills were already the least used skills at top level play and ZOS nerfed them across the board. Dark Flare taking the brunt of the nerf. The only place the cast time change is realizable is without using light attacks. So ZOS took a skill that was already underperforming and primarily used by inexperienced bad players, and nerfed it to be even worse WTF.

Mayrael · April 2019

Lol what nerfs are you talking about? Cast time skills will be faster and easier to spam because of shortening cast time and removing delay after cast. Damage nerf is implemented to not overbuff them.

Darkenarlol · April 2019

if it allready was so bad that only *inexperienced bad players* were using it

why do you even care for something so bad become even worse?

or you wanted some kind of *totally fine redesign* which turned this *bad* skill

into PVP one button killer or PVE l33t dps booster?

just wondering...

Toc de Malsvi · April 2019

You obviously haven't tested, or are intentionally misleading. Cast any cast time skill plus light attacks and you spend the exact same time as live server. There is no cast time difference when light attacks are included between skills.

Only when spamming without light attacks can you see the cast time difference. Without light attacks between is always a DPS LOSS.

This means cast time skills were nerfed for any player with a modicum of experience. And cast time skills were relatively break even if you never use light attacks. Only Uppercut retains a small buff if you only spammed uppercut without light attacks before and after the changes.

Toc de Malsvi · April 2019

Darkenarlol wrote: »

if it allready was so bad that only *inexperienced bad players* were using it

why do you even care for something so bad become even worse?

or you wanted some kind of *totally fine redesign* which turned this *bad* skill

into PVP one button killer or PVE l33t dps booster?

just wondering...

Wow, almost like you have no intention of being objective. They are generally considered bad skills that only psuedo work in certain builds. Why should I care if they get gutted to being even worse?

Lets use that same logic for sets, no one uses Ashen Grip right? Why not use the next DLC to nerf the damage or CD? Or increase the damage but give it an insane CD? Thats good for the game right?

Almost like your a troll..

Narvuntien · April 2019

I have 300 ms ping so its just a nerf for me

.

Toc de Malsvi · April 2019

Mayrael wrote: »

Lol what nerfs are you talking about? Cast time skills will be faster and easier to spam because of shortening cast time and removing delay after cast. Damage nerf is implemented to not overbuff them.

This is just not true as I addressed earlier.

Toc de Malsvi · April 2019

Narvuntien wrote: »

I have 300 ms ping so its just a nerf for me .

Ping doesn't really matter here. Multiple people have tested and if you light weave you have the same delay between skills pre-PTS as on the PTS.

TumlinTheJolly · April 2019

Please revert this change. The only chaneled skill that could do with a slight damage nerf is Snipe... but even then, Snipe isn't currently particularly strong. Channeled skills SHOULD do big damage, considering how hard they are to land vs decent players. As already said, these are nerfs due to LA weave.

Mr_Nobody · April 2019

Not to mention if a player dodge rolls AT ANY TIME of you starting to cast Dark Flare till the moment it is supposed to land - its gonna be dodged. It works way differently with Snipe. If a player is standing still when its about to hit - its gonna hit. You can be finishing a dodge roll while i just start casting the Dark Flare and it will be dodged.

Logic?

ZoS logic.

John_1999 · April 2019

I tested in on PTS, the cast time feels the same like on live tbh. only the projectile speed is faster.
But.... you can interrupt the caster, while you cant interrupt dizzying swing for example.

If they want to make the same rules for all cast time skills, dizzying swing should be interruptible too.
Or revert the damage nerf.

frostz417 · April 2019

Do jabs fall in this category?

Toc de Malsvi · April 2019

frostz417 wrote: »

Do jabs fall in this category?

Supposedly has a similar issue:

Cinbri wrote: »

1. Same thing affect all casttime/channel that changed from 1.1 to 1.0 - Snipe, Dark Flare, Jabs. Jabs situation a bit different but due to channel nature it possible to notice difference in skill animation when you use it in rapid . Will show it later. But apparently it intended to not working with weaving with light attacks as patchnotes says it should affect skills used "in rapid succession"...

kojou · April 2019

So my understanding is that they removed the 200 ms cool down and shortened the cast to 1 s which is a reduction of 100 ms for dark flare and jabs/sweeps.

My interpretation of the notes is that my next light attack + skill should go off 300 ms sooner, and if I was able to get 3 jabs in a rotation off before then I should be able to get 4 off in roughly the same amount of time in PTS.

Are you saying that light attacks are still waiting for the extra 300 ms? How did you test that?

Bladerunner1 · April 2019

kojou wrote: »

So my understanding is that they removed the 200 ms cool down and shortened the cast to 1 s which is a reduction of 100 ms for dark flare and jabs/sweeps.

My interpretation of the notes is that my next light attack + skill should go off 300 ms sooner, and if I was able to get 3 jabs in a rotation off before then I should be able to get 4 off in roughly the same amount of time in PTS.

Are you saying that light attacks are still waiting for the extra 300 ms? How did you test that?

I only tried snipe and uppercut, and after testing it out a bit it the spam frequency of using LA+Skill looks about the same as on live. The test just involved hitting a target dummy and weaving light attacks as quickly as possible without skipping the light attack, then checking the combat log for time stamps.

kojou · April 2019

Bladerunner1 wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

So my understanding is that they removed the 200 ms cool down and shortened the cast to 1 s which is a reduction of 100 ms for dark flare and jabs/sweeps.

My interpretation of the notes is that my next light attack + skill should go off 300 ms sooner, and if I was able to get 3 jabs in a rotation off before then I should be able to get 4 off in roughly the same amount of time in PTS.

Are you saying that light attacks are still waiting for the extra 300 ms? How did you test that?

I only tried snipe and uppercut, and after testing it out a bit it the spam frequency of using LA+Skill looks about the same as on live. The test just involved hitting a target dummy and weaving light attacks as quickly as possible without skipping the light attack, then checking the combat log for time stamps.

Can you show the time stamps? I wanted to test my Stamplar this weekend to see how she came out with the changes.

This is kinda surprising since the cool down for light attacks should be 700 ms, and I always thought it was independent of skill cool downs.

katorga · April 2019

Trading 25-35% damage reduction for a 9% cast time improvement is a nerf.

Gilvoth · April 2019

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

... bad players ...

if people dont play the way "You" and your friends "Think" they should play does not mean they are "bad players"

kojou · April 2019

Its more like a 23% cast time reduction.

A .1 second skill cast time reduction + a .2 second cool down reduction.

Ragnaroek93 · April 2019

Mayrael wrote: »

Lol what nerfs are you talking about? Cast time skills will be faster and easier to spam because of shortening cast time and removing delay after cast. Damage nerf is implemented to not overbuff them.

Yeah, helps a lot to make them more "spammable" and nerf the damage while their only niche in which they're viable are oneshot builds...

LiquidPony · April 2019

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

You obviously haven't tested, or are intentionally misleading. Cast any cast time skill plus light attacks and you spend the exact same time as live server. There is no cast time difference when light attacks are included between skills.

Only when spamming without light attacks can you see the cast time difference. Without light attacks between is always a DPS LOSS.

This means cast time skills were nerfed for any player with a modicum of experience. And cast time skills were relatively break even if you never use light attacks. Only Uppercut retains a small buff if you only spammed uppercut without light attacks before and after the changes.

I've tested.

Wrecking Blow is much more responsive on PTS.

On Live I frequently get "stuck" in animations when weaving. As in I'll do WB + LA + WB and I sort of get stuck between a LA and WB animation and miss an entire GCD doing nothing.

Don't have that problem at all on PTS with the removal of the post-gcd cooldown and as a result my average DPS on a 2H build using Wrecking Blow has gone up significantly.

kojou · April 2019

Ragnaroek93 wrote: »

Mayrael wrote: »

Lol what nerfs are you talking about? Cast time skills will be faster and easier to spam because of shortening cast time and removing delay after cast. Damage nerf is implemented to not overbuff them.

Yeah, helps a lot to make them more "spammable" and nerf the damage while their only niche in which they're viable are oneshot builds...

I get the feeling that the developers are moving away from enabling one shot builds...

Imo it is probably best for the game. Nobody likes to get killed right out with no counter play.

kojou · April 2019

LiquidPony wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

You obviously haven't tested, or are intentionally misleading. Cast any cast time skill plus light attacks and you spend the exact same time as live server. There is no cast time difference when light attacks are included between skills.

Only when spamming without light attacks can you see the cast time difference. Without light attacks between is always a DPS LOSS.

This means cast time skills were nerfed for any player with a modicum of experience. And cast time skills were relatively break even if you never use light attacks. Only Uppercut retains a small buff if you only spammed uppercut without light attacks before and after the changes.

I've tested.

Wrecking Blow is much more responsive on PTS.

On Live I frequently get "stuck" in animations when weaving. As in I'll do WB + LA + WB and I sort of get stuck between a LA and WB animation and miss an entire GCD doing nothing.

Don't have that problem at all on PTS with the removal of the post-gcd cooldown and as a result my average DPS on a 2H build using Wrecking Blow has gone up significantly.

This is the news I was hoping for. Hopefully jabs will be the same way and I won't lose light attacks.

Bladerunner1 · April 2019

kojou wrote: »

Bladerunner1 wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

So my understanding is that they removed the 200 ms cool down and shortened the cast to 1 s which is a reduction of 100 ms for dark flare and jabs/sweeps.

My interpretation of the notes is that my next light attack + skill should go off 300 ms sooner, and if I was able to get 3 jabs in a rotation off before then I should be able to get 4 off in roughly the same amount of time in PTS.

Are you saying that light attacks are still waiting for the extra 300 ms? How did you test that?

I only tried snipe and uppercut, and after testing it out a bit it the spam frequency of using LA+Skill looks about the same as on live. The test just involved hitting a target dummy and weaving light attacks as quickly as possible without skipping the light attack, then checking the combat log for time stamps.

Can you show the time stamps? I wanted to test my Stamplar this weekend to see how she came out with the changes.

This is kinda surprising since the cool down for light attacks should be 700 ms, and I always thought it was independent of skill cool downs.

I was using combat metrics log tab

Light attack weaving with Wrecking Blow - PTS, 1.3-1.4 seconds.

Light attack weaving with Wrecking Blow, 1.3-1.4 seconds on live, same as PTS.

I noticed there's a little precision error of a few hundredths of a second in the data, which I've read in another thread may come from the communication lag with the server. And the time stamp events don't seem to line up exactly with what you see and hear in game, like the time between the wrecking blow sound and the light attack sound is a little different than what you see in the data. But the log does a decent job of giving you a time-based frequency of spam damage when you compare just the skill time stamps, or just the light attacks.

An average number taken over a longer span of time could reduce the reading error, but would increase the human error.

Wolfahm · April 2019

2h stamsorc parse was with in same range live vs pts so was bow bow on NB /shrug?

kojou · April 2019

Bladerunner1 wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

Bladerunner1 wrote: »

kojou wrote: »

So my understanding is that they removed the 200 ms cool down and shortened the cast to 1 s which is a reduction of 100 ms for dark flare and jabs/sweeps.

My interpretation of the notes is that my next light attack + skill should go off 300 ms sooner, and if I was able to get 3 jabs in a rotation off before then I should be able to get 4 off in roughly the same amount of time in PTS.

Are you saying that light attacks are still waiting for the extra 300 ms? How did you test that?

I only tried snipe and uppercut, and after testing it out a bit it the spam frequency of using LA+Skill looks about the same as on live. The test just involved hitting a target dummy and weaving light attacks as quickly as possible without skipping the light attack, then checking the combat log for time stamps.

Can you show the time stamps? I wanted to test my Stamplar this weekend to see how she came out with the changes.

This is kinda surprising since the cool down for light attacks should be 700 ms, and I always thought it was independent of skill cool downs.

I was using combat metrics log tab

Light attack weaving with Wrecking Blow - PTS, 1.3-1.4 seconds.

Light attack weaving with Wrecking Blow, 1.3-1.4 seconds on live, same as PTS.

I noticed there's a little precision error of a few hundredths of a second in the data, which I've read in another thread may come from the communication lag with the server. And the time stamp events don't seem to line up exactly with what you see and hear in game, like the time between the wrecking blow sound and the light attack sound is a little different than what you see in the data. But the log does a decent job of giving you a time-based frequency of spam damage when you compare just the skill time stamps, or just the light attacks.

An average number taken over a longer span of time could reduce the reading error, but would increase the human error.

It would be a lot cleaner if you didn't have proc sets, but I can see why you are interpreting the results that way.

I think I will have to set it up with a macro to get the best case scenario.

kalunte · April 2019

Mayrael wrote: »

Lol what nerfs are you talking about? Cast time skills will be faster and easier to spam because of shortening cast time and removing delay after cast. Damage nerf is implemented to not overbuff them.

dude, if you wave correctly your casted skill with light attacks you never get any 200ms latency thingy on live servers.

the latency issues happens if you dont use the anim-cut mechanism. in fact, all casted abilities got their dmg reduced by 14/25% for free, without any effective reason.

i tested it, try to test it to before replying

Bladerunner1 · April 2019

Wolfahm wrote: »

2h stamsorc parse was with in same range live vs pts so was bow bow on NB /shrug?

Source?

Toc de Malsvi · April 2019

LiquidPony wrote: »

Toc de Malsvi wrote: »

You obviously haven't tested, or are intentionally misleading. Cast any cast time skill plus light attacks and you spend the exact same time as live server. There is no cast time difference when light attacks are included between skills.

Only when spamming without light attacks can you see the cast time difference. Without light attacks between is always a DPS LOSS.

This means cast time skills were nerfed for any player with a modicum of experience. And cast time skills were relatively break even if you never use light attacks. Only Uppercut retains a small buff if you only spammed uppercut without light attacks before and after the changes.

I've tested.

Wrecking Blow is much more responsive on PTS.

On Live I frequently get "stuck" in animations when weaving. As in I'll do WB + LA + WB and I sort of get stuck between a LA and WB animation and miss an entire GCD doing nothing.

Don't have that problem at all on PTS with the removal of the post-gcd cooldown and as a result my average DPS on a 2H build using Wrecking Blow has gone up significantly.

I have not seen this result outside of anecdotal accounts. I tested with snipe and my results matched those provided by @Bladerunner1 , I get the same time between casts as before just with significantly reduced damage. My parses went down not up.

Admittedly I haven't tested Uppercut and mentioned broad cast time issues only based on other players given accounts.

DoonerSeraph · April 2019

Is it still the same? Are they going to leave cast time skills broken for the whole patch?

Toc de Malsvi · April 2019

DoonerSeraph wrote: »

Is it still the same? Are they going to leave cast time skills broken for the whole patch?

If they address it, it likely won't be until the 3rd PTS patch. Generally they make the bigger combat changes every other patch during the PTS.