Thread: Healers and 6.0; What we can learn from AST and what I'd like to see going forward

Originally Posted by Kyeria

I hate to sound stupid, but can someone explain to me what "Clipping" means in terms of gameplay mechanics? People keep saying that the clipping for healers is bad but I'm not following lol.

I'm assuming we're not talking about graphical clipping...right?

All actions have animation lock.

Think of your GCD as a box that's somewhat filled. That's the GCD's animation lock.

[XX ----]

if the GCD is instant cast, that empty space can be filled with OGCDs without impacting your ability to do another GCD action.

[XX ZZZ] Where Z is the space your OGCD animation lock takes.

Clipping refers to the inability to work around an Action's animation lock without impacting your ability to do another GCD.

[XX ----][XX ----][XX ----][XX ----] You want it to look like this, or

[XX ZZZ][XX ZZZ][XX ZZZ][XX ZZZ]

For casters, who have both a cast time and an animation lock, the length of the cast time directly impacts their ability to use off-GCDs without impacting their next GCD.

[XXXXX Z]ZZ

Each time you clip, your next GCD is delayed, and over time, you end up "losing" the benefit of that particular GCD.

[XXX ZZZ] [XXX ZZZ] [XXX ZZZ] [XX ZZZ] - Ideal, compared to
[XXXXX Z]ZZ [XXXXX Z]ZZ [XXXXX Z]ZZ