Help me understand AOE markers

I'm obviously missing something, but from where I'm sitting it goes like this -

Enemy targets me with AOE
I move a good way outside the AOE marker (sometimes not even stopping just so I can get as far away as possible)
AOE marker disappears
Enemy starts AOE attack animation
I then get hit by the AOE

Now sometimes it's simply that I'm not fast enough - that's OK. But there still seem to be a lot of times where I'm left scratching my head about it :confused:

Coming at this problem (probably of my own making) as a WHM by the way - what can I do to improve?

Well certain moves if it targets you specifically you won't be able to dodge, like the green dragon in Brayflox when he targets you with that spit even if you move it still hits you so you might be dealing with some of those.

You need to move instantg. Due to latency the marker appears before you actually see it and disappears before it disappears on your screen.

It's a bug, I still get hit even when I'm out of the aoes circles/beams :

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...aving-red-zone


This is nasty, people get mad at me in dungeons, I don't want to go into dungeons anymore T_T

I think the main issue with red circles isn't lag, but the way they work.

Most people don't seem to realize that what counts is your position the moment the cast bar is finished, not when the attack is executed.
Let's say you spot a red circle, start running out of it, but the moment the enemy finished his cast bar, you were still slightly inside the red circle. Not paying attention to this you proceed to run out of the red circle and run quite a bit away from where it was spotted and then suddenly you get hit by the enemy attack.
So unless you're completely out of the red circle when the cast bar is finished, you are going to get hit regardless if you were on the other side of the map. Just remember there is always latency to take into account as well, if you feel like you just BARELY were outside the red circle when the cast bar finished, you could have pretty much been INSIDE the red circle on the server because of the delay between your computer commands and the server.

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Originally Posted by KimimiAvesta

Coming at this problem (probably of my own making) as a WHM by the way - what can I do to improve?

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The one thing you need to understand is the attack checks your position when the casting bar reaches 100%. It doesn't matter if the AoE marker lingers for a bit longer, if you're inside it when the game finishes casting, you're getting hit. The best way to help alleviate this is geometry, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. Don't try to strafe out of the AoE or anything fancy like that, just run out. Unless you're doing emergency healing, cancel your spell. If you're fighting a boss who uses multiple AoEs at once, if you aren't positive you can get out of all of them, run so you only get hit by one of them, its better than almost getting out of and getting hit twice and dieing.

Thank you for all the replies so far!

Ryuni - as a WHM that's almost looking at the party rather than targeting an enemy, where do I see the cast bar? It's something I've heard of but I'm not familiar with, sorry.

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Originally Posted by KimimiAvesta

Thank you for all the replies so far!

Ryuni - as a WHM that's almost looking at the party rather than targeting an enemy, where do I see the cast bar? It's something I've heard of but I'm not familiar with, sorry.

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It'll be above the mob's health bar, you have to have it targeted to see the progress. Don't worry about it, that's more important if you're trying to stun or something. Knowing that the mob is almost done casting isn't going to help you run faster. But you can have a /ac "cure" <tt> macro to let you idle on the mob when you aren't capping off the DDs but that's another slot on your hotbar and something for you to get used to.

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Originally Posted by Zetonegi

It'll be above the mob's health bar, you have to have it targeted to see the progress. Don't worry about it, that's more important if you're trying to stun or something. Knowing that the mob is almost done casting isn't going to help you run faster. But you can have a /ac "cure" <tt> macro to let you idle on the mob when you aren't capping off the DDs but that's another slot on your hotbar and something for you to get used to.

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I appreciate the suggestion, thank you!

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Originally Posted by KimimiAvesta

Thank you for all the replies so far!

Ryuni - as a WHM that's almost looking at the party rather than targeting an enemy, where do I see the cast bar? It's something I've heard of but I'm not familiar with, sorry.

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I'm not quite sure since I haven't tested, but I think focused targets get a cast bar as well. So if you set the boss/enemy as focused target (I think CTRL+F is default), then you get an extra little bar somewhere on your screen (depends on how you modified your UI), this might display a cast bar when they use spells so you don't have to switch targets when healing.

Fantastic! I'll give that a go next time I log in and if it doesn't work I guess Zetonegi's macro will give me a bit of help - thank you!

Well for me and guildies (and some pugs I talked with in dungeons) it's most likely the lag to Canada from EU. I can be literally half a boss room away and still get hit...aka move as soon as I see a circle and still get hit. It's annoying as hell. Which is bad, I'm used to 35-50ms ping...but here...sometimes it seems like 500ms. I just hope some of it is the crappy servers fault. WTB EU servers :/

Heh worse was when I did Titan. I was behind him and still got hit from his frontal AOE and knocked down. And I wasn't alone. I can see I'll have to install fraps so I can show people that I always avoid red stuff :). And no, I don't lag from crappy computer...I just laugh when ppl say Svara laaaag.

I'm in the EU... but I play on a JP server. The thing is I also play PSO2, a game that's waaaayyyyy more action-orientated than FFXIV on JP servers and I get nothing like this there :/

Edit: I must say though it's comforting to hear that it's not just me - especially with Titan! I'm dreading the hard version of that fight D:

I'd say it is very likely down to the various problems with the duty finder servers. I know that I for one suffer from terrible lag in duty finder instances compared to open world content. Hopefully this will be addressed in the upcoming maintenance. If not then certainly put in a response on the feedback/bugs section of the forum.

I detailed this information in this thread, it's not just the red markers, and yes, it's related to server-side latency / poor implementation :)

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-everybody%29

you have to move before the red aoe ring is gone
or youll be hit no matter where you are.

countless times i see people sit in the aoe ring for too long and the complain that they got hit.

MOVE FASTER.

You can also make the boss your focus, and the focus bar will have the cast bar above it. Target the boss and press SHIFT+F and it'll keep the thing you targeted as your focus.

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Originally Posted by MrSeco

you have to move before the red aoe ring is gone
or youll be hit no matter where you are.

countless times i see people sit in the aoe ring for too long and the complain that they got hit.

MOVE FASTER.

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Oh yeah, explain this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5g4TM1fkCg

This is from the other thread about this same thing.

Also, if you have less than 333ms lag you are not lagging out, the server checks your location 3 times a second (very slow).

The problem is this. On the server side, the markers appear first, then on your client, by the time you see the market, you are already late. By the time you react, you are already at the end of the casting.

This doesn't seem to apply to the cast bar. So, it is better to see the mob casting bar, rather than rely on the aoe marker.

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Originally Posted by HamHam

The problem is this. On the server side, the markers appear first, then on your client, by the time you see the market, you are already late. By the time you react, you are already at the end of the casting.

This doesn't seem to apply to the cast bar. So, it is better to see the mob casting bar, rather than rely on the aoe marker.

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As a healer I am not watching the enemy cast bar, I rely on visual cues from the boss. This is unacceptable for the lag time to be this long, I have never played a game that is this bad with the lag. My ping to their server is like <50ms and no matter how fast I get out sometimes I get hit.

Does anyone know a way to do focus target? That way I could focus the tank and still see the enemy cast bar. I vaguely recall there was another game that had that option and it was great, just cant remember which one right now.

SE has accepted this as a bug:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-everybody%29

Not sure if they are doing anything about it yet but at least they are aware.

Thank you for letting me know! I'm happy to hear it's not simply a case of "move faster" or "pay more attention" - means I'm not going mad XD

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Originally Posted by LeoGreenwood

It's a bug, I still get hit even when I'm out of the aoes circles/beams :

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...aving-red-zone


This is nasty, people get mad at me in dungeons, I don't want to go into dungeons anymore T_T

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I wouldn't go around calling it a "bug" because that implies that it would some day be fixed.

This is not something that can be "fixed". It is a characteristic of the netcode which can have various degrees of severity due to connection quality.

As someone said, move immediately. And after the red AOE area has disappeared, you may move back to your previous position... the attack animation can't "hit" you.

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Originally Posted by Z3M0G

I wouldn't go around calling it a "bug" because that implies that it would some day be fixed.

This is not something that can be "fixed". It is a characteristic of the netcode which can have various degrees of severity due to connection quality.

As someone said, move immediately. And after the red AOE area has disappeared, you may move back to your previous position... the attack animation can't "hit" you.

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Umm... check this link - http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...s-everybody%29

...and note that it's been moved to Bug Reports>Accepted Bugs

The devs say this is a bug. Which means it's definitely not just people failing to react in time.

Ok it isn't exactly a bug, its what is called server lag. You see what happens is the server sends your system a message, your system pops up the aoe box, you move, your system tells the server you moved and the server goes thats nice but the aoe actually went off when the attack bar was at around 50% so too bad. It is really bad in XIV, also sucks when trying to stun. How much you wanna bet SE claims they are working on it for the next 10 years or so without doing a thing about it.