Animation lock was absolute shit, I don't even understand how anyone could defend it's usefulness. Immersion is not an excuse for a poor design that inhibits players so greatly. You can not have a battle that requires mobility with very quick reaction times and then have players locked into animations for 3 seconds. It's absolutely asinine.

The arguments that it made for tactical gameplay are completely wrong and simply white knighting a terrible terrible terrible system. The only way you could possibly defend it, is if the battle was a stationary battle and moving was not required but timing of attacks was. This is not how the game was designed however and so the animation lock system was absolute garbage and that is why we won't be seeing it in ARR. Animation lock + Mobility Fights = Full retard Battle System.

It's gone for good and the game is 100% better because of it.