New difficult content coming -- brutal programming going to rear its ugly head again

Hallowed Ground still doesn't activate for a few seconds.

Benediction is the same.

Sacred Soil buff doesn't actually apply until 2-3 seconds after the bubble has been placed (waiting until Titan jumps to casting Sacred Soil? Waste of Aetherflow stack.)

Succor buff doesn't take effect until at 26-27 seconds left on duration.

Virus has a ~10 second duration, but doesn't take effect on the target until has been affected by virus for a good 2 seconds (e.g. Casting virus on Ultima during tank purge cast - no effect. Predicting when Ultima will cast Tank Purge - significant reduction of AoE damage.)


I'm preparing myself for many tears as I'm going to have to once again strategize how to preemptively prep my abilities for every single encounter in order to survive.

http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploa...07/Dr.-Who.gif

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Succor buff doesn't take effect until at 26-27 seconds left on duration.

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That is a Lie sir.

Please look forward to it.

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Originally Posted by Synapse

That is a Lie sir.

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Try casting Adloquium right before a mountain buster or Succor right before a Geocrush. You need to cast them 2-3 seconds before the actual ability hits or it won't absorb.

All true, also when an enemy is moving around and you want to do a positional attack sometimes it goes off properly when you think it shouldn't, or it doesn't go off when you think it should, because even though the enemy is in a position on your screen the server disagrees

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Originally Posted by reality_check

Try casting Adloquium right before a mountain buster or Succor right before a Geocrush. You need to cast them 2-3 seconds before the actual ability hits or it won't absorb.

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You have to cast it before the cast timer ends, preferably at least half a second before, it's nothing to do with the abilities having a delay, more to do with how the game registers damage and healing and damage prevention, which is to say, it's all done on a first come first served basis, IE, the ability is registered as hitting first by the server? The damage goes through then the healing and shield gets applied, it has nothing to do with the ability itself.

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Originally Posted by Muzy

You have to cast it before the cast timer ends, preferably at least half a second before, it's nothing to do with the abilities having a delay, more to do with how the game registers damage and healing and damage prevention, which is to say, it's all done on a first come first served basis, IE, the ability is registered as hitting first by the server? The damage goes through then the healing and shield gets applied, it has nothing to do with the ability itself.

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That's a nice long explanation to basically say "it's still a problem"

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Originally Posted by reality_check

Try casting Adloquium right before a mountain buster or Succor right before a Geocrush. You need to cast them 2-3 seconds before the actual ability hits or it won't absorb.

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Not really. Here's how it works.

PLAYER spells such as Adloquium or Stoneskin are calculated as being in effect generally when their animation ends. Same with Benediction or Hallowed Ground.

However, ENEMY spells are calculated THE MOMENT the spell reaches 100%, but the damage is not SHOWN until the animation of the enemy attack finishes. That means that even if my Adloquium goes off before Death Sentence reaches 100%, if that animation does not finish before it reaches 100%, it will not absorb the damage.

So, some short examples:

Cast Adloquium before 100%, animation finishes AFTER 100%, you take full damage, but damage will be shown AFTER you gain the effect of Galvanize (enemy damage was calculated BEFORE Galvanize was applied).
Cast Adloquium before 100%, animation finishes BEFORE 100%, you take decreased damage (enemy damage was calculated AFTER Galvanize was applied).
Cast Hallowed Ground before 100%, animation finishes AFTER 100%, I still take damage, even though it shows Hallowed Ground is in effect (enemy damage was calculated BEFORE Hallowed Ground resolved).

etc.

Yes it's stupid. But you just need to get used too it for now, because that's how it's designed. Hope that helps.

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Originally Posted by Ricky

That's a nice long explanation to basically say "it's still a problem"

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Yes and no, it's an issue for those that aren't used to it, it's a mild annoyance for those that are.

Hallowed Ground, Benediction and believe it or not, Lustrate, yeah, those ones are a bit of a problem(Not sure if Holmgang belongs on that list, I always forget since I tend to use it pre-emptively).

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Originally Posted by Zaft

Not really. Here's how it works.

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Why on earth would they program a delay like that into a spell? It's just server delay like everything else. Step into a Sacred Soil, you don't get the damage reduction buff for a good two seconds.

Whatever the reasoning behind it, it's not intuitive and it requires you to strategize your most effective abilities to cater each fight which is a head ache.

It also means you have to do a fight at least a dozen times before you can effectively use abilities like Virus and Sacred Soil, as you have to cast them way before the enemy ability goes off.

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Originally Posted by reality_check

Whatever the reasoning behind it, it's not intuitive and it requires you to strategize your most effective abilities to cater each fight which is a head ache.

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No argument there, but you do adapt, not saying it couldn't be better, but it could be a whole lot worse.

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Originally Posted by Muzy

No argument there, but you do adapt, not saying it couldn't be better, but it could be a whole lot worse.

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Tacking on "it could be a whole lot worse" does not instantly make anything better.

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Originally Posted by necrosis

Tacking on "it could be a whole lot worse" does not instantly make anything better.

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Not saying it does, but at least this system does let us adapt to it.

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Originally Posted by reality_check

Why on earth would they program a delay like that into a spell? It's just server delay like everything else. Step into a Sacred Soil, you don't get the damage reduction buff for a good two seconds.

Whatever the reasoning behind it, it's not intuitive and it requires you to strategize your most effective abilities to cater each fight which is a head ache.

It also means you have to do a fight at least a dozen times before you can effectively use abilities like Virus and Sacred Soil, as you have to cast them way before the enemy ability goes off.

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It's really not. They've straight up admitted that this was the way it was designed on the forums once. I'd have to go scrounging to find it though.

There's no reason to program it as they did, but the fact is that they did, and it's just something we have to deal with until/if they fix it. Every fight in the game is choreographed, so it's pretty easy to determine when something is going to come (IE: Twintania does a plummet every 3 auto attacks, does a death sentence every 3 plummets).

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Originally Posted by Zaft

Not really. Here's how it works.

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However, ENEMY spells are calculated THE MOMENT the spell reaches 100%, but the damage is not SHOWN until the animation of the enemy attack finishes. That means that even if my Adloquium goes off before Death Sentence reaches 100%, if that animation does not finish before it reaches 100%, it will not absorb the damage.

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There are some very, very minor exceptions to the rule of "enemy cast bar = calculations done". Off the top of my head, KB's meteor in CT has the hit/miss check done about when the meteor physically hits the ground. Not knowing this, I stepped out as soon as the cast bar finished and still got whomped :P (Edit: Also to a lesser extent, if you kill an enemy before their animation finished [or rather, before the damage registers] you can still cancel it that way).

But for the most part, yeah it's not a crippling issue. Mind-meld with the enemy AI better. Not like it's going to change anytime soon. Think inside the box.