Latency and Cooldown Resolution

[Phenidate]

Too the point:
Healer A is low on HP. Healer A uses Benediction. Healer A dies.
Combat log says Healer A healed 'All Hp'.
Combat Log also says Healer took 1k damage.
Healer died from that damage. Healer has more than 1k max HP.
Benediction is on cooldown.
Benediction should not be on cooldown.

Caster B uses LB centered on Player C.
Player C runs out of the LB.
Player C is not hit.

Player C casts LB centered on Caster B.
Caster B runs out of the LB.
Caster B dies too LB.

Benedictions and LBs are not the only things suffering from such conflicts of latency. Hallowed Ground and Benediction are big ones since they're death prevention skills that go off; either on what the server considers to be dead players or what the game later decides should be a dead player and doesn't retcon the skill cooldown.

Thoughts?

[Fenseven]

I noticed this with LB, happened to me earlier today. I was almost 10 yalms out of the LB circle when it went away yet i still died. It's like back before they increased the server response time for dungeons.

[Vudus]

I noticed this with LB, happened to me earlier today. I was almost 10 yalms out of the LB circle when it went away yet i still died. It's like back before they increased the server response time for dungeons.

This happened to me with a sleep. I was way too far from my party and still get CC'd.

Also holmgam has the same problem.

[Ninix]

*Everything* in this game has an inherent delay built into it because of the way the combat system is designed. Skills choose their targets and perform all combat rolls and calculations (hit, dodge, miss, how much damage should be dealt) at the time of activation (either a cast finishing, or the server learning that you pushed the button for instant cast skills). However, they do not actually apply these effects or deal damage until after an animation has played. This leads to a disconnect between providing input to the combat system and receiving a response that stacks on top of the inherent delay caused by Internet latency.

The most obvious with abilities that have long animations. Titan, for example, uses Earthen Fury after the heart phase, where he charges up and explodes after a couple seconds. This is actually an instant cast ability, and the server decides who to hit and how much damage to apply based on their state *before* Titan begins his animation. This is why you can pop Manaward, get a Stoneskin/Adlo, or pop Sentinel while he's charging, and yet you will still take full damage even though there's still another three seconds before the big explosion occurs. Another example is Twintania's Death Sentence. The game decides how much damage to hit for when she finishes casting it. Say the attack rolls for a 5000 hit, and the tank has 5500 HP. You will hear the limit break "SHING!" signalling that someone almost died *before* Twin actually stabs the tank with her tail and removes the HP, which can be used to a healer's advantage to quickly cast Lustrate and get the tank back up to a stable HP level instantly.

This delay affects EVERYTHING. When a BLM finished casting Sleep, at that very moment you were within 5 yalms or whatever the range is on Deep Sleep. No matter where you go or how far you move after that point, you will be slept, even though there's still another half-second of animation delay before the server starts applying the Sleep status effect to anyone who was in the radius at the time the spell finished casting.

This applies to movement and casting interruption as well. You cannot round a corner to LoS a Bard and immediately start casting, because any heavy shots or auto attacks that were "queued up" by the Bard while you were in LoS are guaranteed to hit you, even though at the time the animation actually finishes and applies the damage to you, you have been out of LoS for at least half a second. Casting Surecast or putting Adloquium on myself on my SCH works the same way. I still take damage (and am thus interrupted) from any abilities that were initiated *before* I received the effect of Surecast/Adloquium, even though they hit me after I receive those effects. This is why Paladins and Warriors can still take damage and die for a brief moment after using HG or Holmgang and receiving the status effect.

In PvP, this issue is twice as bad as it is in PvE, because you're dealing with your latency to the server when dealing with position as well as the OTHER person's lag. Let's say you move around a corner at timestamp 100ms. It takes 100ms to get to the server, so at 200ms you're around the corner on the server. But then the server has to tell the Bard chasing you that you're running around the corner, which takes another 100ms. So at 300ms, you finally round the corner on the other person's screen. This ignores that the server only updates positions every 100ms to begin with.

Basically, it results in a combat system that simply does not feel good in PvP situations. Frontline is still fun, but you have to learn to ignore these kinds of things when playing PvP in this game or it'll drive you mad.

[Sen_Terrechant]

I noticed this with LB, happened to me earlier today. I was almost 10 yalms out of the LB circle when it went away yet i still died. It's like back before they increased the server response time for dungeons.

Caster LB1 will always hit if you were in that cirlce when it was cast.

LB2 can be dodged out of.

[Phenidate]

That is a very long post, and I'll just say this.

Skills that go off, such as Benediction or Hallowed Ground - if they go off and then the player dies due to something else happening at the same time, these skills should not be on cooldown.

If anything else, dying when Hallowed Ground had gone off should be impossible for the next 10 seconds.

[Stormrider]

Limit breaks seem to be almost unavoidable when you are in a big scrap. That said popping attunement seems to work faster then moving. Also foacalisation is also faster. So the skills seem to be working at the same speed. But movement is not.

[Gor]

This is old news and unfortunately all intentional in SE's design. I actually made a rant thread about this back sometime last year when PVP first opened. All this "delay" you guys are mentioning here has been going on since day 1 since PVP's inception (actually since the game launched for PVE content as you have seen with Benediction and Hallowed Ground but happens more often in PVP because ALL the PVP skills have unnecessary, cutesy, carebear animations to appease the eye-candy kids) of it in December of 2013. It's just that since you guys are just getting into PVP, you're seeing the fail of SE's location engine and animation delays for the first time in fast, high-paced action situations all in its abysmal, failing glory. it is a slow-responsive game trying to deal with fast-paced player reactions. It is not latency, it is a delay caused by stupid animations that 9 times out of 10, no one even sees, and you die in the animation which makes your spell go on cd AFTER you're already dead.

My only suggestion is to cast your spells early. DO NOT wait until you are near dead to cast them because you will die in the middle of doing your stupid kung fu animation and your skill will still activate after your corpse is already rotting on the ground and will go on cd. PVP Skills that are affected worst by this delay because they are "OSHIT" (I'm getting pain-trained) skills are Attunement, Purify and Equanimity, PVE spells that already had this delay since game launch are Benediction and Hallowed Ground. These skills are most adversely affected by this delay because they have "long" animations and are mostly used in emergency high damage situations where you or your target are more likely to die if you don't use them. It is not something SE is going to "fix" because in their eyes it's not broken. it is all in the game's design intentionally and it sucks because other PVP games I play, when I press a spell, it happens, instantly, asap, and there is no delay like there is in this game. Fail.