The problem with "Instant OFF GCD" abilities makes combat feel less rewarding.

[Kanzer]

It's hard to believe that people are actually defending this. Even as a staunch supporter of SE and a huge fan of FF, it should be patently obvious to anyone with any sense of logic that the system is not functioning as it should be.

Instant abilities on the whole are designed to be reactive. Prime examples are skills like Benediction, Swiftcast and any interrupt. If they don't take effect immediately they are almost pointless, especially when you factor in short enemy cast times and RNG spike damage for example

I don't think every instant should be off the GCD, but even when they aren't, stopping a cast time spell and then firing off an instant is simply far too unresponsive to be useful most of the time. If a skill like an interrupt is designed to actually trigger after a 1 sec animation, then it should have a 1 sec cast time.

As stated previously, as things are, a lot of the difficulty is simply fighting the interface rather than actual meaningful game difficulty.

Please share with me a specific scenario where it's impossible to interrupt an ability with either an off GCD stun or Silence due to the animation lock. I'd love to hear it. And whatever you come up with (if anything) I can assure you I can give you advice on how to make it work.

Also share an example of RNG spike damage that's impossible to anticipate and results in a death purely because your benediction didn't go off the exact nano-second you pressed it and not because a tank didn't use a cool down or the ball was simply dropped healing wise somewhere.

[Rivienne]

Animations block the use of certain skills. If I want to use Atherflow + Lustrate (two instant cast abilities) to heal the tank I have to wait for the animation of Atherflow to finish before I can use Lustrate. Since just about everything has an animation this is effectively a GCD for all abilities even for non-GCD ones.

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. Every skill performed takes effect after an animation of the skill being performed. That is, the enemy doesn't receive damage from an axe blow until after the axe visually is seen to hit the enemy. I just am not sure I understand why people equate having to wait for the blow to land in the first place before being able to trigger another, with a post-effect cooldown.

This isn't technically a global cooldown, because a cooldown takes place after the action has already taken effect, and the effect isn't taking place until the animation finishes. The reason you cannot stack as quickly is simply because you cannot trigger one action, until the previous action takes effect. You aren't waiting for the animation, you are waiting for the effect itself, which is dependent on the action being performed, which is in this case tied to the visual representation, or animation.

I think this makes the most sense personally. Sure I would love if I could re-actively hit buttons and have them take instant effect, but then I wouldn't see any visual representation of the actions, it would simply be instant effect, or it would be a delayed animation which would stack strange since you could strike a killing blow, but then not see the blow until after the enemy dies. Which detracts from the immersion of the fights. Either you get real time animation, at the cost of waiting for the animation before the effect, or you get no animation, or you get a lagged animation which would be detrimental to the quality of the overall visuals.

Not trying to be argumentative here, I simply don't see a problem. I am looking at this from both the immersion perspective, and the implementation perspective, and I would prefer having consistent visuals with consistent effect time, over instant attacks with inconsistent or non-existent visual effects.

Not true, on ADS the second i hit blunt arrow the cast bar for high voltage stops, not stops when the animation is done. just because there is a delay to when you see the number (client side) and when you hit the skill, does not mean there is a delay on the server side. If it worked the way you say it does then there would be many more issues with stuns in game then there are.

Hmm. That is very interesting, I would have to see it in action to understand what you are trying to say, but I have not myself seen anything like you describe as Archer, Conjurer, or Arcanist (I haven't spent enough time on the other classes to feel I can speak to them). At a guess, there may be secondary issues relating to a) the general issues people have with drawing priority and b) server client lag, muddying the waters here. Because this has truly been absolutely consistent for me barring the occasional lag spike rubber-banding. I spent awhile playing with Virus and with Fluid Aura when I first acquired them to understand how to make use of them, and I have never seen this inconsistency you are speaking of.

[KogaDrake]

I'm fairly sure you don't play healing classes.

I dont, I play tank and DPS, but i am very close with my healers and we have discussed how this effects healing many of times, and i summarized our conclusions.

Please share with me a specific scenario where it's impossible to interrupt an ability with either an off GCD stun or Silence due to the animation lock. I'd love to hear it. And whatever you come up with (if anything) I can assure you I can give you advice on how to make it work.

Also share an example of RNG spike damage that's impossible to anticipate and results in a death purely because your benediction didn't go off the exact nano-second you pressed it and not because a tank didn't use a cool down or the ball was simply dropped healing wise somewhere.

^^ this exactly. EVERY fight is scripted, the order of abilities used is FIXES, and thus the healer AND tank know when big moves are coming and need to adjust accordingly. Need to stun, well the cast is long enough for the animation lock as it is factored in when deciding on cast times, and once again, scripted so you know when it is coming, so even if it was too short with animation lock you skip 1 or max 2 gcd to stun/silence (and any fight like this has no enrage timer, so there is no rush).

I think you misunderstood what I was getting at. Every skill performed takes effect after an animation of the skill being performed. That is, the enemy doesn't receive damage from an axe blow until after the axe visually is seen to hit the enemy. I just am not sure I understand why people equate having to wait for the blow to land in the first place before being able to trigger another, with a post-effect cooldown.

Not true, on ADS the second i hit blunt arrow the cast bar for high voltage stops, not stops when the animation is done. just because there is a delay to when you see the number (client side) and when you hit the skill, does not mean there is a delay on the server side. If it worked the way you say it does then there would be many more issues with stuns in game then there are.

[Blimbeard]

Please share with me a specific scenario where it's impossible to interrupt an ability with either an off GCD stun or Silence due to the animation lock. I'd love to hear it. And whatever you come up with (if anything) I can assure you I can give you advice on how to make it work.

Also share an example of RNG spike damage that's impossible to anticipate and results in a death purely because your benediction didn't go off the exact nano-second you pressed it and not because a tank didn't use a cool down or the ball was simply dropped healing wise somewhere.

You're missing the point completely. Instants such as those mentioned are by design reactive emergency abilities. Making it so that success is dependent on predicting scripted encounters through repetition is simply boring and uninspired when compared to being genuinely based on fast reactions during a dangerous moment

If this is intended, It's a very dull design.

[KogaDrake]

You're missing the point completely. Instants such as those mentioned are by design reactive emergency abilities. Making it so that success is dependent on predicting scripted encounters through repetition is simply boring and uninspired when compared to being genuinely based on fast reactions during a dangerous moment

If this is intended, It's a very dull design.

scripted nature makes it easier to not mess up, but the point is that you have enough time (scripted or not scripted fight) to use a skill at the start of these casts and wait for the animation to end and then use your offGCD skill to stun/interrupt. They are still reactive/emergency skills, but you cant spam them making it more realistic.

If they made a change so instant offGCD skills fire off the second they are hit (i.e., no animation lock) then they would need to rebalanced every encounter that requires these skills to be used which means less reaction time and harder hitting boss moves since you can now double heal. This would be ok with the hardcore raiders who are more skilled, better isp, better computer and likely faster twitch reactions, but would hurt most of the game population, so don't expect to see it done (plus the sheer amount of rebalancing of content to ensure its not too easy now would itself be too much work at this stage)

[Kanzer]

You're missing the point completely. Instants such as those mentioned are by design reactive emergency abilities. Making it so that success is dependent on predicting scripted encounters through repetition is simply boring and uninspired when compared to being genuinely based on fast reactions during a dangerous moment

If this is intended, It's a very dull design.

Or maybe you're missing the point, since a SE rep has even posted in this very thread telling you that your perception of how these abilities should work is INCORRECT and does not fall in line with their design.

The problem is you're just too hard headed to accept that and want it to work exactly how you want it to, instead of simply adjusting to it and bettering yourself to handle these situations that are giving you trouble.

The problem lies with you, not with the design of the game.

Edit: Also, still waiting for those specific examples mentioned in the above post. Stop dodging and actually back up your claims.

[M4Fade]

What on earth are you talking about? Lets just accept every bad developer design decision for any game ever made because clearly the players just couldn't "adjust" to the developers vision. The clunky combat system is the worst part of the game and is the only thing keeping it from reaching greatness. Stop being a fanboy and realize that Yoshi and his crew did some really awesome things to turn the game around but they still missed the mark on some important things. Combat is not "minor stuff" and is probably one of the most important things to get right in an MMO. Most of the people complaining are MMO veterans and are familiar with every MMO combat system under the sun. There isn't some grand complexity that people are not understanding.

Hear, hear!

Good post MomoOG.

[Raymeo]

I don't see anything wrong with it :s As warrior it lets me use a GCD attack and before being able to use the next part of the combo I can use 1 of the various buffs then rinse/repeat and yes it flows nicely, not sure if you notice but yes you cannot use the instant ones in an instant but during them you can break the animation forcing the next move (if that makes sense). Idk im not arguing but thats how its been for marauder/warrior, also Ive been trying gladiator

Do it all the time on my 34 PLD. It's called weaving, you should give it a shot.

Fast Blade > weave in Rampart (or Bulwark if you prefer, makes no difference) > Savage blade > Weave in Fight or Flight > Rage of Halone > Weave in Blood bath.

I have them all up in a single combo and didn't miss a beat.

You're right, you didn't miss a beat. You only missed half of the potential duration of their stacked effects.

I'm not arguing that they can't be stacked. I am simply pointing out that this "breaking of animations" when using off-GCD abilities is non-existent. When you have two or more 15 second effects that you'd like to stack, and the GCD for abilities is 2.5 seconds, you would expect to be able to stack the desired effects and perform 5-6 attacks within their stacked duration. If these "instant" abilities broke animations as Benjamen claimed, then this would certainly be how things played out. However as things currently are, you pretty much sacrifice an attack from being included in that 15 second duration for each effect that you try to stack, due to all of the variable animations and ability delays. So stacking effects is actually detrimental to a player's effectiveness, forcing players to ignore their abilities instead of using them. Being forced to ignore your abilities instead of being encouraged to use them is what we call boring gameplay.

I haven't been having much trouble on DRG. Most of the time my off GCD abilities are triggerable about halfway thru GCD

No trouble? Look at your own words!

If you want to button mash, then that's fine, but maybe this game isn't for you.

It's like you haven't even played this game. Button mashing is rampant. We DON'T want to button mash. We are SICK of having to button mash in order to get a supposedly instant ability to trigger. That's the whole point of this thread. Have you even read it?

[JadeDragonMeli]

IDK, maybe it's because I play SF, KOF, etc and am used to learning timing for animation frames? I don't really see this as a problem. I play BRD and am fully aware that some attacks have a longer animation than others, and I use that when determining my skill rotation. Combat in no way feels slow to me, I can time my instants pretty well.

[Kanzer]

Do it all the time on my 34 PLD. It's called weaving, you should give it a shot.

Fast Blade > weave in Rampart (or Bulwark if you prefer, makes no difference) > Savage blade > Weave in Fight or Flight > Rage of Halone > Weave in Blood bath.

I have them all up in a single combo and didn't miss a beat.

It's not difficult. It doesn't even have to be in that order!

And if tanking multiple mobs, you can even tab between them and hit them with the different abilities to build threat more equally while weaving. Maybe even throw in a flash every now and then.