Damage / Buff calculations based on animation is problematic.

[Altena]

snip.

The argument is aesthetics vs. gameplay.

Nothing "lazy" about it.. It's about priorities..

Do you want a responsive, fluid gameplay - or a pretty one?

On top of this, pushing calculations at the start of the animations for most things do not actually effect aesthetics to begin with. For example swiftcast - does it really matter if the little orb things connect with your player in the animation before the buff is applied? Nope.

What matters is not having to wait for the entirety of the animation, just to actually gain the benefit.

Same story with Cure... Does the little sparkly powder actually have to spray out and land on the target before giving them HP? No. Does it truly make the game "prettier"? Not really (subjective of course). Does it make the game feel unresponsive and laggy? Definitely.

GIT GUD and NOTHING IS WRONG THIS GAME IS PERFECT! GAWD! WUTS WRONG WIT U?

Just kidding lol! Yeah I can attest to the BLM fire starter proc. it's better to ride out your cast and hit the proc after, rather than cancel; however, this should not even be an issue as the proc, IMO, should be based off of the cast not the hit. Basically saying what you did in a nutshell. That's not really an animation thing though I don't think.

Well that's just it, the firestarter proc is based off the animation of Fire.

You will notice it actually procs when the little fireball from Fire 1 lands on the target (graphically). In which case you are already into your next Fire (as you mentioned).

As you said - it should be based entirely off the cast. Once the cast is successful (ie, the cast bar hits 100%) then it determines whether or not Firestarter procs or not.

This just makes the game feel like the UI is constantly behind schedule.