Quote Originally Posted by erkhardt View Post
Valid points guys, so it's in the design of the rotation that makes it difficult to dodge while in the heat of things. Just trying to understand it a bit, ya know? Maybe I should play it a bit myself to further understand it's inner workings as well!
Not just the rotation, what the last guy was saying is there's an animation lock for a brief moment in NIN's version of Mercy Stroke. If you hit that and right after an aoe indicator pops up, you're likely to get hit by it.

(Although there's a brief point in that animation lock where things will miss you like you're not there. It's more when that's passed and then the aoe goes off you get hit.)