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• https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/683901
let's talk about proper animation cancelling
Muttsmutt
✭✭✭✭✭
weaving is one thing- simply fire a LA before every skill & cancel it by casting the skill.
LAs consistently cancel (this patch release excluded lol) upon pressing a skill.
it's straightforward to learn & practice. simple.
but animation cancelling the actual skills? now this is where it gets murky for me.
watching an experienced player do their rotation is like watching somebody have a seizure.
they cancel pretty much every skill's animation. i'd like to learn more about what goes into that.
now, i know there's three major ways to cancel them- block, dodge roll, and bar swap.
i've mostly been relying on bar swapping to cancel my animations &
i guess what i'd like to know is whether that is how the experienced players do it, or nah.
how bar-configuration dependent is it, then?
are you expected to cancel every skill with a bar swap, or should some be canceled with a block?
what about spammables?
you can't bar swap after every cast of them. do you not cancel them, or block cancel?
figures, cause every skill has a unique animation therefore they all have a unique most efficient way to cancel it.
if only there was a spreadsheet or something with all this info...
Edited by Muttsmutt on November 8, 2020 11:15AM LAs consistently cancel (this patch release excluded lol) upon pressing a skill.
it's straightforward to learn & practice. simple.
but animation cancelling the actual skills? now this is where it gets murky for me.
watching an experienced player do their rotation is like watching somebody have a seizure.
they cancel pretty much every skill's animation. i'd like to learn more about what goes into that.
now, i know there's three major ways to cancel them- block, dodge roll, and bar swap.
i've mostly been relying on bar swapping to cancel my animations &
i guess what i'd like to know is whether that is how the experienced players do it, or nah.
how bar-configuration dependent is it, then?
are you expected to cancel every skill with a bar swap, or should some be canceled with a block?
what about spammables?
you can't bar swap after every cast of them. do you not cancel them, or block cancel?
figures, cause every skill has a unique animation therefore they all have a unique most efficient way to cancel it.
if only there was a spreadsheet or something with all this info...
PC-EU // UNDEAD
0
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MaleAmazon✭✭✭✭✭
✭AFAIK the 1-second global cooldown still applies, so a DPS increase comes from a 1-key-press bash. Well, I suppose something like Eternal Hunt could work with constant dodge roll, havent tested it.
I don´t see the need for constant bar-swap or what it would be good for. barswapping once in a rotation, sure.
TBH I don´t care about absolutely maxing DPS though, so... I just do LA weave or HA weave, and try to max out passives and prebuffs. Still strong, and more relaxing.
[snip]
[Edited to remove Inappropriate Content]Edited by ZOS_ConnorG on November 15, 2020 11:04AM5 -
zvavi✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I don't understand why people call it animation canceling. All I do is try to use the skills within the global skill cooldown of 1 second. The animation is usually playing fully (excluding barswap and this patch)5 -
Juhasow✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭One other way to cancel animations is bash cancelling. However with latest changes ZoS did to AC , both block and bash cancelling are now way more clunky then they were and in some cases pointless to use (You can use block but in many cases it wont cancel the actual animation of the ability). When it comes to PvE You don't have to cancel animations of Your skills with bash or block. You just need to weave lighty attacks and skills fast and refresh every temporal ability as precise as You can while keeping fluid rotation.
So as I already said the key to maximiże Your DPS is to weave la+skill as fast as possible , preferably once every ~1 sec , playing mini game that each class have perfectly (for example nb's grim focus , sorcs crystal fragment or bound armaments etc) and keeping uptimes of temporal abilities (like blockade , hail , skeletal mage/archer etc) on perfect uptimes without messing the rotation with too early or too late refreshings and filling the remaining gaps with spammable abilities.Edited by Juhasow on November 8, 2020 12:57PM6 -
Naftal✭✭✭✭✭Canceling skill animations doesn't help your dps. Only reason to cancel them is because you NEED to dodge, block, barswap or bash.10
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OlumoGarbag✭✭✭✭✭
✭^what Others said. You don't really need any types of animation cancels anymore (besides roll, block, dodge when you actually need to)
There are only very few skills that have a long animation where you would actually safe any time during your 1 sec cooldown.
Before they made animation cancling ckunky and inconsistent the main form of cancling was by doing light attacks + skill + short block.
But with the changes to blocking, animations and serverside calculations. It's hard for new players to get into which skills to cancel and which you don't even need to try. I think the intention was to make it easier for new players, but now the whole animation cancling thing is more difficult to understand then ever.class representative for the working class, non-cp, bwb and Trolling2 -
Muttsmutt✭✭✭✭✭OlumoGarbag wrote: »^what Others said. You don't really need any types of animation cancels anymore (besides roll, block, dodge when you actually need to)
oh, huh. guess things have changed in the two years i've been away. good to know.PC-EU // UNDEAD0 -
Juhasow✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭OlumoGarbag wrote: »^what Others said. You don't really need any types of animation cancels anymore (besides roll, block, dodge when you actually need to)
oh, huh. guess things have changed in the two years i've been away. good to know.
Things havn't changed. If You were thinking two years ago that in PvE block cancelling is needed to noticeably increase Your DPS then You were wrong.6 -
MudcrabAttack✭✭✭✭✭While a skill cancels a light attack animation, in some cases the next light attack will cancel a skill animation if it lasts longer than a second. There are some exceptions, like snipe lasting 1.2 seconds or endless hail taking around 1.3.
A lot of people finally figured out that the 1.0 second deadly cloak on a dual wield back bar can shave off wasted time, and raise effective dps compared to bow back bar.0 -
eKsDee✭✭✭✭✭
Because skills still adhere to the 1 second GCD, so the only cases where cancelling the skill animation can help is when the animation exceeds the GCD, which is only the case for some skills. If you cancel a skill animation that is still within the GCD, you still can't do anything until the GCD refreshes.1 -
Kory✭✭✭✭
Yes animation canceling does help with damage depending on the skills that are being used in the rotation. It depends, for example are you canceling Vigor or Uppercut? You can cancel uppercut's excess animation into executioner for the kill. I do it all the time. I've seen very "skilled" players even cancel executioner (it's usually a bar swap though I notice).
With vigor I usually roll dodge out of that animation, and as a stamblade I need to roll dodge anyway
0 -
SshadowSscale✭✭✭✭✭Honestly most animation canceling comes from canceling your light attacks(wich causes the weird animations if done)... bar swap canceling is only used when it is time to bar swap otherwise you end up hurting yourself way too much if you try to do it after every skill + la weaving.... as others stated block and bash canceling is in most cases not worth the effort due to changes made and dodge canceling(my fav) is normally used in combination of a defense ability aka you just took a massive hit and see the next one incoming so you cancle your vigor for example with a dodge to get back to full hp and to dodge the incoming hit. The only other cases is when an abilitys animation is longer than the 1sec gcd in wich case you can do a combo like this: la ability la where you cancle the first light via ability and then if the ability has a 1. 2 sec animation you can cancle the 0. 2 seconds via light attack but it does not happen that often(too be fair I am too lazy to edit the top but now thinking about it this might be the weird animations you are talking about lol) other than that there is not much more to animation canceling except for practise.... and if you really are willing to try it and mess around you can easily learn it in a day and master it in a week.... I know overland is easy but try forcing yourself to animation cancle against these mobs and bosses because that will eventually lead it to become muscle memory.
Edited by SshadowSscale on November 10, 2020 8:42AM0 -
eovogtb16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭I parse 110k this patch and the only animations I am canceling is light attacks. I don't understand what you're getting at? I honestly never seen a good parser who cuts off their animations to skills. Like its not necessary. Cutting skill animations wont let you fire off more skills than the GCD allows.6
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Muttsmutt✭✭✭✭✭
You can cancel uppercut's excess animation into executioner for the kill.
there we go yeah, it's stuff like this that i'm referring to. "excess animation" over the global cooldown.eovogtb16_ESO wrote: »I parse 110k this patch
how are these numbers achieved, besides having a BIS min-maxed build?
PC-EU // UNDEAD0 -
eovogtb16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭Just a lot of practice on a training dummy and a lot of raiding
Of course gear helps, but now with the sticker book thing its even easiar to get your gear for each toon you have and the best gear isnt even in the hardest content, so getting it is only time.
A perfect rotation with 1 skill 1 LA per second (or close in my case). It's now easier than ever to do very high damage, with some practice.
Of course you will never be able to do high DPS if you never ever actually put in the effort.
Also to do any content in the game even the hardest trifectas like Godslayer there isn't even a need for doing anymore than ~90k DPS, sure its great if you can but its not even necessary.Edited by eovogtb16_ESO on November 10, 2020 1:27PM0 -
Muttsmutt✭✭✭✭✭eovogtb16_ESO wrote: »A perfect rotation with 1 skill 1 LA per second
am i to conclude that this is, essentially, the goal one who wishes to practice DPS is to try and achieve?
regardless of class, build, or content they wish to do- this would be the ideal metric which one should strive for?
of course, cancelling excess animations in whatever fashion one finds fitting, so long as that 1S1LA is met.PC-EU // UNDEAD0 -
eovogtb16_ESO✭✭✭✭✭That would be ideal for doing the most damage sure, even in pvp that's the goal. Just a little hard to do right now due to the game performance when you're actually not on a dummy and trying to play it.0
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Muttsmutt✭✭✭✭✭eovogtb16_ESO wrote: »That would be ideal for doing the most damage sure, even in pvp that's the goal. Just a little hard to do right now due to the game performance when you're actually not on a dummy and trying to play it.
yeah this ain't a good time to practice DPSing, lol.
thank you for the info, that gives me a very clear target as to what i should aim for when learning this role.)PC-EU // UNDEAD0 -
StaticWave✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭weaving is one thing- simply fire a LA before every skill & cancel it by casting the skill.
LAs consistently cancel (this patch release excluded lol) upon pressing a skill.
it's straightforward to learn & practice. simple.
but animation cancelling the actual skills? now this is where it gets murky for me.
watching an experienced player do their rotation is like watching somebody have a seizure.
they cancel pretty much every skill's animation. i'd like to learn more about what goes into that.
now, i know there's three major ways to cancel them- block, dodge roll, and bar swap.
i've mostly been relying on bar swapping to cancel my animations &
i guess what i'd like to know is whether that is how the experienced players do it, or nah.
how bar-configuration dependent is it, then?
are you expected to cancel every skill with a bar swap, or should some be canceled with a block?
what about spammables?
you can't bar swap after every cast of them. do you not cancel them, or block cancel?
figures, cause every skill has a unique animation therefore they all have a unique most efficient way to cancel it.
if only there was a spreadsheet or something with all this info...
There are 2 and only 2 purposes of animation canceling skills:
1) Be defensive while on the offense - Due to how ZOS coded their game, the damage of instant cast abilities is registered the moment you hit that skill button, and will go through despite the animation being completely cut off. This is why you can still do damage with abilities like Surprise Attack while using defensive maneuvers. It does not work on channeling abilities, since they require the full animation to play before the damage is registered at the end of the animation. This is a major reason why people animation cancel instant cast skills, because it lets them stay on the offense while taking defensive actions.
2) It saves time - Some skill animations are actually longer than the global cool down (GCD) because they have a post skill animation as well. Take endless hail for example. If you let the full animation play out, you will notice that it is longer than the GCD, and thus wasting valuable time that could have been used to cast another skill. GCD management is very important in high level gameplay, so any extra milliseconds that you can shave off gives an advantage over your opponent.
With that cleared up, we can start answering your questions.
1) How do experienced players do it?
They activate defensive maneuvers when necessary. This comes with more game time as you will know when and what kind of animation canceling technique should be used.
2) How bar-configuration dependent is animation canceling?
Not very dependent. Generally you have your offensive bar and defensive bar, with the occasional mixed bars that have both defensive and offensive skills. The only time when animation canceling becomes bar-configuration dependent is when you have a mixed bar, which means you need to bar swap cancel all the time. Other than that, animation canceling is usually independent of bar-configuration.
3) Are you expected to cancel every skill with a bar swap, or should some be canceled with a block?
As stated above, you only need to bar swap cancel when you want to get to a skill on your other bar faster. Doing that all the time will slow down your offense and reduce build efficiency. For example, if you cancel every skill with a bar swap, then you would most likely recast buffs when not necessary, or have an inefficient skill configuration (i.e mixed bars, which spreads out your stats instead of focusing them into a single bar, such as stacking all offense on main bar and all defense on back bar). What you should be doing most of the time when you animation cancel is to block tap. This will also cut off the animation of most instant cast abilities, while also allowing you to block their damage. You will cut off your stam regen if you hold block for too long, so only tap the block for a split second.
4) What about spammables? You can't bar swap after every cast of them. do you not cancel them, or block cancel?
You simply don't. It is not necessary to cancel every spammable as most of them do not have a long post-skill animation. Occasionally you might want to cancel them with defensive maneuvers, but what you should be doing most of the time is light attack weaving.
Generally, most skills can be efficiently canceled with any animation cancelling technique. However, some skills do have the most efficient way of being canceled. Abilities such as endless hail, rending slashes, crystal weapon, crushing weapons cannot be block canceled, so it is more efficient to dodge roll or bar swap cancel them. You will figure out more as you play the game.
Hope this helpsEdited by StaticWave on November 10, 2020 3:28PM1 -
Muttsmutt✭✭✭✭✭StaticWave wrote: »What you should be doing most of the time when you animation cancel is to block tap.
Abilities such as endless hail, rending slashes, crystal weapon, crushing weapons cannot be block canceled, so it is more efficient to dodge roll or bar swap cancel them.
there we go! that's the most straight-forward answer to the questions i had, and the least confusing (as some people have said statements that contradict this). i wasn't very clear to begin with, but i just needed confirmation of this information.
thank you for your thorough reply.) that lets me know what i needed to know.
and then some more insight from the other replies.
good thread thanks.
(except for the passive-aggressive people you can tone that down fellas)PC-EU // UNDEAD0 -
WrathOfInnos✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭StaticWave wrote: »What you should be doing most of the time when you animation cancel is to block tap.
Abilities such as endless hail, rending slashes, crystal weapon, crushing weapons cannot be block canceled, so it is more efficient to dodge roll or bar swap cancel them.
there we go! that's the most straight-forward answer to the questions i had, and the least confusing (as some people have said statements that contradict this). i wasn't very clear to begin with, but i just needed confirmation of this information.
thank you for your thorough reply.) that lets me know what i needed to know.
and then some more insight from the other replies.
good thread thanks.
(except for the passive-aggressive people you can tone that down fellas)
But that post is wrong. Tapping block to cancel skill animations has no effect. In fact, blocking is completely independent from casting instant skills. You can do any of the following:
- Hold block continuously and cast skills
- Never touch block and cast skills
- Tap block whenever you want during or between skills
and all 3 of these results in the same 1 skill per second, capped by the global cooldown, and damage is the same.
Edit: Just be aware that you cannot light or heavy attack while blocking, so holding block continuously will prevent weaving and reduce DPS.Edited by WrathOfInnos on November 10, 2020 9:42PM0 -
SirAndy✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭... proper ...
I don't think "proper" is the correct term for a bug that ZOS couldn't figure out how to fix and then simply declared it a "feature".
If you go back far enough on these forums, you'll find some interesting discussions on the subject around the time the player base found animation canceling and ZOS's struggle to go from "bug" to "feature".
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MentalxHammer✭✭✭✭✭
✭StaticWave wrote: »weaving is one thing- simply fire a LA before every skill & cancel it by casting the skill.
LAs consistently cancel (this patch release excluded lol) upon pressing a skill.
it's straightforward to learn & practice. simple.
but animation cancelling the actual skills? now this is where it gets murky for me.
watching an experienced player do their rotation is like watching somebody have a seizure.
they cancel pretty much every skill's animation. i'd like to learn more about what goes into that.
now, i know there's three major ways to cancel them- block, dodge roll, and bar swap.
i've mostly been relying on bar swapping to cancel my animations &
i guess what i'd like to know is whether that is how the experienced players do it, or nah.
how bar-configuration dependent is it, then?
are you expected to cancel every skill with a bar swap, or should some be canceled with a block?
what about spammables?
you can't bar swap after every cast of them. do you not cancel them, or block cancel?
figures, cause every skill has a unique animation therefore they all have a unique most efficient way to cancel it.
if only there was a spreadsheet or something with all this info...
There are 2 and only 2 purposes of animation canceling skills:
1) Be defensive while on the offense - Due to how ZOS coded their game, the damage of instant cast abilities is registered the moment you hit that skill button, and will go through despite the animation being completely cut off. This is why you can still do damage with abilities like Surprise Attack while using defensive maneuvers. It does not work on channeling abilities, since they require the full animation to play before the damage is registered at the end of the animation. This is a major reason why people animation cancel instant cast skills, because it lets them stay on the offense while taking defensive actions.
2) It saves time - Some skill animations are actually longer than the global cool down (GCD) because they have a post skill animation as well. Take endless hail for example. If you let the full animation play out, you will notice that it is longer than the GCD, and thus wasting valuable time that could have been used to cast another skill. GCD management is very important in high level gameplay, so any extra milliseconds that you can shave off gives an advantage over your opponent.
With that cleared up, we can start answering your questions.
1) How do experienced players do it?
They activate defensive maneuvers when necessary. This comes with more game time as you will know when and what kind of animation canceling technique should be used.
2) How bar-configuration dependent is animation canceling?
Not very dependent. Generally you have your offensive bar and defensive bar, with the occasional mixed bars that have both defensive and offensive skills. The only time when animation canceling becomes bar-configuration dependent is when you have a mixed bar, which means you need to bar swap cancel all the time. Other than that, animation canceling is usually independent of bar-configuration.
3) Are you expected to cancel every skill with a bar swap, or should some be canceled with a block?
As stated above, you only need to bar swap cancel when you want to get to a skill on your other bar faster. Doing that all the time will slow down your offense and reduce build efficiency. For example, if you cancel every skill with a bar swap, then you would most likely recast buffs when not necessary, or have an inefficient skill configuration (i.e mixed bars, which spreads out your stats instead of focusing them into a single bar, such as stacking all offense on main bar and all defense on back bar). What you should be doing most of the time when you animation cancel is to block tap. This will also cut off the animation of most instant cast abilities, while also allowing you to block their damage. You will cut off your stam regen if you hold block for too long, so only tap the block for a split second.
4) What about spammables? You can't bar swap after every cast of them. do you not cancel them, or block cancel?
You simply don't. It is not necessary to cancel every spammable as most of them do not have a long post-skill animation. Occasionally you might want to cancel them with defensive maneuvers, but what you should be doing most of the time is light attack weaving.
Generally, most skills can be efficiently canceled with any animation cancelling technique. However, some skills do have the most efficient way of being canceled. Abilities such as endless hail, rending slashes, crystal weapon, crushing weapons cannot be block canceled, so it is more efficient to dodge roll or bar swap cancel them. You will figure out more as you play the game.
Hope this helps
This is well written and well informed. I would like to add that there is one additional utility offered by animation cancelling. When using direct damage attacks, the damage check does not happen instantly, but briefly after the animation starts. You'll notice this when comparing executes, killers blade has a much faster animation than executioner, the damage from killers blade will land a few milliseconds before executioner.
When a direct damage skill is animation cancelled, the damage check is forced out instantly. That's why it's common to see executioner bash or swap cancelled, because it forces the damage check out, and the execution is snappier.0 -
Muttsmutt✭✭✭✭✭MentalxHammer wrote: »StaticWave wrote: »
This is well written and well informed. I would like to add that there is one additional utility offered by animation cancelling. When using direct damage attacks, the damage check does not happen instantly, but briefly after the animation starts. You'll notice this when comparing executes, killers blade has a much faster animation than executioner, the damage from killers blade will land a few milliseconds before executioner.
When a direct damage skill is animation cancelled, the damage check is forced out instantly. That's why it's common to see executioner bash or swap cancelled, because it forces the damage check out, and the execution is snappier.
this is exactly what i was talking about, thank you!
PC-EU // UNDEAD0 -
SodanTok✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭MentalxHammer wrote: »StaticWave wrote: »
This is well written and well informed. I would like to add that there is one additional utility offered by animation cancelling. When using direct damage attacks, the damage check does not happen instantly, but briefly after the animation starts. You'll notice this when comparing executes, killers blade has a much faster animation than executioner, the damage from killers blade will land a few milliseconds before executioner.
When a direct damage skill is animation cancelled, the damage check is forced out instantly. That's why it's common to see executioner bash or swap cancelled, because it forces the damage check out, and the execution is snappier.
this is exactly what i was talking about, thank you!
What the poster of the quote says is merely visual *feeling*. Instant skills hit instantly, skills programmed to not hit instantly (like minimum travel time on ranged attacks) still hit that required time. People (notably in PVP) love their anim canceling placebo.Edited by SodanTok on November 12, 2020 8:21PM1 -
Juhasow✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭... proper ...
I don't think "proper" is the correct term for a bug that ZOS couldn't figure out how to fix and then simply declared it a "feature".
If you go back far enough on these forums, you'll find some interesting discussions on the subject around the time the player base found animation canceling and ZOS's struggle to go from "bug" to "feature".
Can You link said discussions ? As far as I rememeber it was never called a bug by ZOS but only by playerbase whos opinion on that subject never mattered really. Some people were calling it a bug or cheat others were saying it's a feature. ZoS said since early days post release it's not a cheat or a bug. The only thing they've said is that they didn't quite expect outcome of it.
It really isn't. There is lot of incorrect and misleading informations in said post.MentalxHammer wrote: »StaticWave wrote: »weaving is one thing- simply fire a LA before every skill & cancel it by casting the skill.
LAs consistently cancel (this patch release excluded lol) upon pressing a skill.
it's straightforward to learn & practice. simple.
but animation cancelling the actual skills? now this is where it gets murky for me.
watching an experienced player do their rotation is like watching somebody have a seizure.
they cancel pretty much every skill's animation. i'd like to learn more about what goes into that.
now, i know there's three major ways to cancel them- block, dodge roll, and bar swap.
i've mostly been relying on bar swapping to cancel my animations &
i guess what i'd like to know is whether that is how the experienced players do it, or nah.
how bar-configuration dependent is it, then?
are you expected to cancel every skill with a bar swap, or should some be canceled with a block?
what about spammables?
you can't bar swap after every cast of them. do you not cancel them, or block cancel?
figures, cause every skill has a unique animation therefore they all have a unique most efficient way to cancel it.
if only there was a spreadsheet or something with all this info...
There are 2 and only 2 purposes of animation canceling skills:
1) Be defensive while on the offense - Due to how ZOS coded their game, the damage of instant cast abilities is registered the moment you hit that skill button, and will go through despite the animation being completely cut off. This is why you can still do damage with abilities like Surprise Attack while using defensive maneuvers. It does not work on channeling abilities, since they require the full animation to play before the damage is registered at the end of the animation. This is a major reason why people animation cancel instant cast skills, because it lets them stay on the offense while taking defensive actions.
2) It saves time - Some skill animations are actually longer than the global cool down (GCD) because they have a post skill animation as well. Take endless hail for example. If you let the full animation play out, you will notice that it is longer than the GCD, and thus wasting valuable time that could have been used to cast another skill. GCD management is very important in high level gameplay, so any extra milliseconds that you can shave off gives an advantage over your opponent.
With that cleared up, we can start answering your questions.
1) How do experienced players do it?
They activate defensive maneuvers when necessary. This comes with more game time as you will know when and what kind of animation canceling technique should be used.
2) How bar-configuration dependent is animation canceling?
Not very dependent. Generally you have your offensive bar and defensive bar, with the occasional mixed bars that have both defensive and offensive skills. The only time when animation canceling becomes bar-configuration dependent is when you have a mixed bar, which means you need to bar swap cancel all the time. Other than that, animation canceling is usually independent of bar-configuration.
3) Are you expected to cancel every skill with a bar swap, or should some be canceled with a block?
As stated above, you only need to bar swap cancel when you want to get to a skill on your other bar faster. Doing that all the time will slow down your offense and reduce build efficiency. For example, if you cancel every skill with a bar swap, then you would most likely recast buffs when not necessary, or have an inefficient skill configuration (i.e mixed bars, which spreads out your stats instead of focusing them into a single bar, such as stacking all offense on main bar and all defense on back bar). What you should be doing most of the time when you animation cancel is to block tap. This will also cut off the animation of most instant cast abilities, while also allowing you to block their damage. You will cut off your stam regen if you hold block for too long, so only tap the block for a split second.
4) What about spammables? You can't bar swap after every cast of them. do you not cancel them, or block cancel?
You simply don't. It is not necessary to cancel every spammable as most of them do not have a long post-skill animation. Occasionally you might want to cancel them with defensive maneuvers, but what you should be doing most of the time is light attack weaving.
Generally, most skills can be efficiently canceled with any animation cancelling technique. However, some skills do have the most efficient way of being canceled. Abilities such as endless hail, rending slashes, crystal weapon, crushing weapons cannot be block canceled, so it is more efficient to dodge roll or bar swap cancel them. You will figure out more as you play the game.
Hope this helps
This is well written and well informed. I would like to add that there is one additional utility offered by animation cancelling. When using direct damage attacks, the damage check does not happen instantly, but briefly after the animation starts. You'll notice this when comparing executes, killers blade has a much faster animation than executioner, the damage from killers blade will land a few milliseconds before executioner.
When a direct damage skill is animation cancelled, the damage check is forced out instantly. That's why it's common to see executioner bash or swap cancelled, because it forces the damage check out, and the execution is snappier.
Edited by Juhasow on November 15, 2020 10:29AM0 -
Juhasow✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭MentalxHammer wrote: »StaticWave wrote: »
This is well written and well informed. I would like to add that there is one additional utility offered by animation cancelling. When using direct damage attacks, the damage check does not happen instantly, but briefly after the animation starts. You'll notice this when comparing executes, killers blade has a much faster animation than executioner, the damage from killers blade will land a few milliseconds before executioner.
When a direct damage skill is animation cancelled, the damage check is forced out instantly. That's why it's common to see executioner bash or swap cancelled, because it forces the damage check out, and the execution is snappier.
this is exactly what i was talking about, thank you!
What the poster of the quote says is merely visual *feeling*. Instant skills hit instantly, skills programmed to not hit instantly (like minimum travel time on ranged attacks) still hit that required time. People (notably in PVP) love their anim canceling placebo.
In PvP it was not a placebo for a long time. It changed at the beggining of 2020.0 -
Muttsmutt✭✭✭✭✭MentalxHammer wrote: »StaticWave wrote: »
This is well written and well informed. I would like to add that there is one additional utility offered by animation cancelling. When using direct damage attacks, the damage check does not happen instantly, but briefly after the animation starts. You'll notice this when comparing executes, killers blade has a much faster animation than executioner, the damage from killers blade will land a few milliseconds before executioner.
When a direct damage skill is animation cancelled, the damage check is forced out instantly. That's why it's common to see executioner bash or swap cancelled, because it forces the damage check out, and the execution is snappier.
this is exactly what i was talking about, thank you!
What the poster of the quote says is merely visual *feeling*. Instant skills hit instantly, skills programmed to not hit instantly (like minimum travel time on ranged attacks) still hit that required time. People (notably in PVP) love their anim canceling placebo.
i don't see how it can be merely a visual feeling if you are able to activate the next ability faster when you cancel the excess animation of the previous one.PC-EU // UNDEAD0 -
Varana✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭You cannot activate the next ability faster by cancelling the animation. (Repeat that three times...)
(Exception: the few skills that have an animation longer than the global cooldown.)
What they're talking about here is dealing with server delay for instant actions.
At 0:00 seconds, you hit an ability.
Ability 1 will run a damage check at 0.05 seconds.
Ability 2 will run a damage check at 0.10 seconds, giving your opponent like a tenth of a second to do something.
Cancelling the animation of the ability would force their damage check immediately, i.e. you can force the ability to check earlier. It's still instant, it's still going through whether someone cancels the animation or not.
Assuming it ever worked, that's not the case anymore anyway, afaik.
In both cases, you will be able to cast the next ability at 1.00 seconds. That is in no way affected by cancelling an animation or not.Edited by Varana on November 15, 2020 12:48PM0