Attack Rate on Ranged #1 Skills
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So does manually pressing 11111 make a pistol fire faster than letting the auto attack do it? or are we basically talking about #1 skill speeds in general?
No, it doesn’t. This entered the conversation somewhere and shouldn’t have, this has nothing to do with the point I’m making.
So does manually pressing 11111 make a pistol fire faster than letting the auto attack do it? or are we basically talking about #1 skill speeds in general?
No, it doesn’t. This entered the conversation somewhere and shouldn’t have, this has nothing to do with the point I’m making.
It entered because your insistence that autoattack made a difference, in that the issue only shows up when autoattack is enabled, makes it a valid question.
If the animation lengths are the same independent of the key being manually pressed or autoattack doing the pressing, then calling it a issue with autoattack obscures the real issue.
That issue being that animation length impacts the DPS of skills, making them better or worse than the tooltips suggest they should be.
So does manually pressing 11111 make a pistol fire faster than letting the auto attack do it? or are we basically talking about #1 skill speeds in general?
No, it doesn’t. This entered the conversation somewhere and shouldn’t have, this has nothing to do with the point I’m making.
It entered because your insistence that autoattack made a difference, in that the issue only shows up when autoattack is enabled, makes it a valid question.
If the animation lengths are the same independent of the key being manually pressed or autoattack doing the pressing, then calling it a issue with autoattack obscures the real issue.
I never ‘insisted’ that autoattack itself made any difference at all, I was very clearly arguing that the #1 skills, otherwise known as autoattack skills, were the major practical concern because the animation interferes with the continual activation of the skill, significantly in certain cases, which undermines their overall performance substantially. This is not as much of a balance issue for skills that have cooldowns and/or aren’t repeated continuously, which is why the ‘autoattack’ part of it is critical to mention.
I feel like we’re arguing about semantics and that just detracts from the post and the real points of concern.
Edit: I edited my original post a bit in an attempt to make what I’m saying more clear. I hope that helps.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
activation time != time in between each activation.
The activation time value represents how long it takes for the skill to cast, not how long it takes to complete. It’s a metric that gives you the window of time in which the skill can be interrupted.
GamersWithJobs [GWJ]
Northern Shiverpeaks
Northern Shiverpeaks
Thing is that you can set any skill as THE autoattack skill by ctrl+right-click (some warriors seems to have it set on a shout). And so referencing the #1 skills as autoattack skills end up distorting the message.
activation time != time in between each activation.
The activation time value represents how long it takes for the skill to cast, not how long it takes to complete. It’s a metric that gives you the window of time in which the skill can be interrupted.
… This is established. Please reread the original post.
Thing is that you can set any skill as THE autoattack skill by ctrl+right-click (some warriors seems to have it set on a shout). And so referencing the #1 skills as autoattack skills end up distorting the message.
Yes, I know this, but it doesn’t change the fact that #1 skills are the primary point of balance concern with this issue.
I would also like to add one point to the list of problems that you’ve made regarding the auto-attack.
There are some instances where my toon would auto-attack but it would always appear as out-of-range. The fact that the auto-attack is triggered tells me that the target is within range…
And then of course, there is the reverse. Mobs that are within range, yet are not triggering off the auto-attack, so you have to press 1 non-stop like a mad person….
After viewing Coffeebot’s numbers, I can say that it looks like something is wrong. It won’t affect my game at all, because I still prefer the long bow to the short bow, but yeah it looks like something is out of kilter.
Look, you’re on the wrong page somewhere, but I can’t figure out where. I think you’re just over-complicating what I’m trying to say in your head.
My original hypothesis was this and only this – the skills were weighted and balanced around their activation speeds. This is a given, otherwise that metric wouldn’t exist. And in most cases this is fine, because you aren’t using the same skill more than once every few seconds. When a skill is set to autoattack, though, (typically #1 skills) its activation speed is mostly irrelevant because it is superseded by the animation speed, which is almost always longer (the degree of difference varies from weapon to weapon). This means that many of the #1 skills (or autoattack skills) have refire rates that are slower than they should be and are therefore weaker than they were originally intended to be. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether you have the skill actually set to autoattack or are pressing 1 repeatedly, because the same animation plays out regardless; I don’t even understand where that entered the equation or why it’s being discussed.
The evidence that this is not intended and is instead an oversight is very convincing when you start looking at the data for #1 skills across weapons and professions, as I have illustrated. I don’t have the exact numbers, but it’s very easy to determine even from a cursory analysis that the DPS for both Pistols and Longbows is lacking in comparison to Rifles, etc, and that most of this deficiency comes from the #1 skill. Specifically, it comes from the fact that those skills have animation durations that are far longer than the skill’s activation speed (that would be the ‘delay’ I was referring to) when they were probably balanced around the latter.
No, I now understand what your argument is and it’s as I expected – something that actually has nothing to do with autoattack. What you should’ve said is the #1 skill. The autoattack is a feature that’s completely different from the #1 skill, and your misplaced substitution is what threw off me and a couple of others. Not to mention <reads thread title>, <stare>
You haven’t illustrated anything, especially when it comes to anything with the word “data” in it. Like I’ve said in three separate posts now (since my very first, to be exact), you lack any evidence to support your argument. And with just a cursory glance, it really isn’t much of a problem when build viability pre-limits the weapon sets anyway and the majority of players lean towards specific builds that require specific weapons and have no problem ignoring the underpowered and the underused. Unless the number of viable builds increase to call for the usage of these underpowered weapons in the first place, people won’t care if it’s underpowered or not because there are no builds to fully support the usage of it. And I had to say the same thing twice in the last sentence, just to emphasize. It also doesn’t seem like it’d be a hard problem to fix, if Anet decided it needed fixing over other priorities.
Look, you’re on the wrong page somewhere, but I can’t figure out where. I think you’re just over-complicating what I’m trying to say in your head.
My original hypothesis was this and only this – the skills were weighted and balanced around their activation speeds. This is a given, otherwise that metric wouldn’t exist. And in most cases this is fine, because you aren’t using the same skill more than once every few seconds. When a skill is set to autoattack, though, (typically #1 skills) its activation speed is mostly irrelevant because it is superseded by the animation speed, which is almost always longer (the degree of difference varies from weapon to weapon). This means that many of the #1 skills (or autoattack skills) have refire rates that are slower than they should be and are therefore weaker than they were originally intended to be. This has absolutely nothing to do with whether you have the skill actually set to autoattack or are pressing 1 repeatedly, because the same animation plays out regardless; I don’t even understand where that entered the equation or why it’s being discussed.
The evidence that this is not intended and is instead an oversight is very convincing when you start looking at the data for #1 skills across weapons and professions, as I have illustrated. I don’t have the exact numbers, but it’s very easy to determine even from a cursory analysis that the DPS for both Pistols and Longbows is lacking in comparison to Rifles, etc, and that most of this deficiency comes from the #1 skill. Specifically, it comes from the fact that those skills have animation durations that are far longer than the skill’s activation speed (that would be the ‘delay’ I was referring to) when they were probably balanced around the latter.
No, I now understand what your argument is and it’s as I expected – something that actually has nothing to do with autoattack. What you should’ve said is the #1 skill. The autoattack is a feature that’s completely different from the #1 skill, and your misplaced substitution is what threw off me and a couple of others. Not to mention <reads thread title>, <stare>
You haven’t illustrated anything, especially when it comes to anything with the word “data” in it. Like I’ve said in three separate posts now (since my very first, to be exact), you lack any evidence to support your argument. And with just a cursory glance, it really isn’t much of a problem when build viability pre-limits the weapon sets anyway and the majority of players lean towards specific builds that require specific weapons and have no problem ignoring the underpowered and the underused. Unless the number of viable builds increase to call for the usage of these underpowered weapons in the first place, people won’t care if it’s underpowered or not because there are no builds to fully support the usage of it. And I had to say the same thing twice in the last sentence, just to emphasize. It also doesn’t seem like it’d be a hard problem to fix, if Anet decided it needed fixing over other priorities.
What did you think of Coffeebot’s data, though. That seemed to imply some sort of problem.
What did you think of Coffeebot’s data, though. That seemed to imply some sort of problem.
That data is completely at odds with what OP was saying, and I’m very doubtful it is correct. That’s the type of issue that one would think would have been discovered long ago, and no question be unbalanced if true.
Well, I know Coffeebot personally, in real life, and if he says that data is correct, he tested it. What it shows, to me at least, is that the animations of certain skills disadvantage certain weapons.
Again, for me, it doesn’t make a difference. He’s been telling me the shortbow is the better of the two weapons over the longbow, but I just don’t care. I still like the longbow better.
But if what he’s saying is right, it needs to be looked at.
Meh, chalk it up to design esthetics overruling game mechanics.
Honestly i wonder if these hidden delays are why i have such issues dodging various stuff. It is like the actual evasion kicks in a half second or so after the actual animation starts…
^this.
One thing i hate is when facing the target, if i roll or get behind the target due movement , even if the target is point to other place still hits me, while some other skills (like staff or 1h sword on guardian fails atacks by itself due minimal terrain inclination).
The terrain inclination invulnerable system is the worse comncept ever made on mmo’s.
1st April joke, when gw2 receives a “balance” update.
What did you think of Coffeebot’s data, though. That seemed to imply some sort of problem.
First, I feel sorry for making him do a useless comparison between autoattacking and button smashing. And the only problem I see doesn’t have anything to do with balance.
For added laughs; over 5 seconds at long range the longbow #1 does 164 damage vs the #2 doing 170 damage over 5.5 seconds, if one takes into account that extra 0.5 seconds then the long bow #1 OUT DAMAGES the #2 over the same 5.5 second time period (assuming nothing crits).
This doesn’t actually say anything concrete but for now it shows that the damage differences are minimal. Even if the difference was significant one has to consider if, for example, power scales better with the longbow for skills #2-5 so that in the overall scheme of balance they equal out not in DPS but by utility/burst/conditions/etc. There’s nothing concrete in Coffeebot’s data that states that activation/animation delays are causing any kind of significant discrepancies between the longbow and the shortbow. The same argument can be carried over for Vital Shot vs Bleeding Shot. They’re not even of the same profession and the other #2-5 skills can easily balance the discrepancy in DPS output of those 2 skills.
So what problem do I personally see that doesn’t have to do with balance? Inconvenience. Tooltips are, again, reaffirmed to be of no help whatsoever and it feels awkward in-game when there’s a delay between your expectations and when the skill actually goes off (I mentioned in my first post).
Otherwise, a little unbalance is perfectly fine. If the longbow was so underpowered than the shortbow due to these delays, Anet can simply increase the damage of the longbow instead of fixing the delay. And it’s not like longbow users are complaining that the #1 skill is “too slow” or of the likes.
All personal opinion, as usual.
The OP is comparing various weapons to each other and pointing out that the animation duration is longer than the displayed cast time, in relation to my data, I first gave data on guardian weapons and the duration it took to kill the heavy golem, from that one can see that there is a discrepancy between the time it takes to kill the enemy and the time it SHOULD take based off of the “cast time” of the weapons #1 skill.
Case in point, the guardian scepter #1 has a “cast time” of 0.25 seconds, but an animation duration of 0.75 seconds and the animation time supersedes the “cast time” which creates a problem if damage was based off of the “cast time” rather than the animation time (where it is longer).
For the Long Bow data I looked at it first with auto-attack enabled and then spamming it to see if there was some sort of frame clipping that made manual presses do more damage, it turns out that there wasn’t any form of clipping as they both produced the same result of an animation time of 1.25 seconds, and a “cast time” of 0.75 seconds.
The problem in a nutshell is that we, as the players, don’t know if damage and effects were balanced around the displayed “cast time” or the actual animation length. I’d also like to know why there is a discrepancy between the displayed information and the actual situation.
Fornicate like you’ve never fornicated before.
I am anti-censorship, for it doesn’t make sense to pander to a minority.
I am anti-censorship, for it doesn’t make sense to pander to a minority.
In terms of difference when using an exotic weapon the shortbow scales better than the long bow but at such a slow rate it’s almost insignificant, but that just in terms of straight power and doesn’t take into account the bleed effect the shortbow can produce (which makes the short bow vastly better than the long bow).
In terms of the longbow #1 doing more damage than the #2, it still holds at all levels of tested power, but it’s a minimum of 5% more and a (tested) maximum of 5.5% more.
However because of the #2 performing more hits in the allotted time period, it has a greater variance of damage when crits are factored in, which can be good or bad.
The short Bow has an average of 6.4% more damage than the longbow over the same 1.25s period, but because this doesn’t take into account the bleed it’s a number lower than realistically plausible, given my rangers gear and spec the shortbow is producing 50% (1.5x) more base damage due to the bleed than the long bow at ranges of 1000+ and 170% (2.7x) more damage at ranges between 0-500.
Fornicate like you’ve never fornicated before.
I am anti-censorship, for it doesn’t make sense to pander to a minority.
I am anti-censorship, for it doesn’t make sense to pander to a minority.
The OP is comparing various weapons to each other and pointing out that the animation duration is longer than the displayed cast time, in relation to my data, I first gave data on guardian weapons and the duration it took to kill the heavy golem, from that one can see that there is a discrepancy between the time it takes to kill the enemy and the time it SHOULD take based off of the “cast time” of the weapons #1 skill.
Case in point, the guardian scepter #1 has a “cast time” of 0.25 seconds, but an animation duration of 0.75 seconds and the animation time supersedes the “cast time” which creates a problem if damage was based off of the “cast time” rather than the animation time (where it is longer).
For the Long Bow data I looked at it first with auto-attack enabled and then spamming it to see if there was some sort of frame clipping that made manual presses do more damage, it turns out that there wasn’t any form of clipping as they both produced the same result of an animation time of 1.25 seconds, and a “cast time” of 0.75 seconds.
The problem in a nutshell is that we, as the players, don’t know if damage and effects were balanced around the displayed “cast time” or the actual animation length. I’d also like to know why there is a discrepancy between the displayed information and the actual situation.
Thanks for testing and confirming. As for not knowing whether it’s intentional or not (and despite the insistence of one or two very obtuse people in this thread), there is at least some evidence that it is in fact not intended.
The piece of data I’m referring to is the inconsistency in activation speed. vs. animation length across various weapons. What I’d like to see is a ranking of strength based on that comparison.
For example, if I’m right, we would expect to see that the overall effectiveness of a particular #1 skill is in part dependent on how much longer its recast time is than its activation speed. Therefore, we would expect to see, in decreasing order of effectiveness:
Bleeding Shot, Crossfire, Chained (melee) skills (0.0 – 0.1 sec. difference)
Vital Shot,Trick Shot, Fireball (~0.3 sec. difference)
Long Range Shot, Dual Shot, Chain Lightning, Orb of Wrath (~0.5 sec. difference)
*Crossfire now has 0 activation speed and refires at about .3 seconds. However, it used to have a 1/4 second activation speed, which means if it was balanced around that we would expect it to work correctly now.
If my estimations are correct, this is precisely what we do actually see, which gives a lot of credence to the idea that these were initially balanced around their Activation Speeds and that the comparatively slower animation speed is resulting an unintended reduction in their potency.
(edited by Einlanzer.1627)
For historical context: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Aftercast_delay
Not sure if this is the same thing happening here as I’ve not tried to test it.
Hmm, did a quick wiki search on aftercast, and some skills have entries for such.
Also, there is a patch note of interest:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2012-12-14#Elementalist
it mentions that Rocky Blade, a elementalist underwater #1, has has its aftercast increased by 200 milliseconds.
And yes, it also shows up in the patch text here on the forum.
So it seems that ANet are actively tweaking these delays, and so it becomes less likely that it is a unforeseen side effect.
Hmm, did a quick wiki search on aftercast, and some skills have entries for such.
Also, there is a patch note of interest:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates/2012-12-14#Elementalistit mentions that Rocky Blade, a elementalist underwater #1, has has its aftercast increased by 200 milliseconds.
And yes, it also shows up in the patch text here on the forum.
So it seems that ANet are actively tweaking these delays, and so it becomes less likely that it is a unforeseen side effect.
Very interesting, so that’s a knock against my suspicion. However, I would still like to see some official information on what is going with it and why some #1 skills seem to be much weaker than they should be.
Could simply be that ANet has not bothered to put enough data into the tooltips.
I faintly recall that when i first started playing the game last year there was no activation time in the tooltips at all. While it is not solid evidence, checking the wiki entry for various skills show them gaining activation time entries around October.
Also, as part of their combat video ANet claims that combat should be about playing rather than number crunching. So it may well be that activation time was added reluctantly by ANet, and do not capture the whole picture.
It is as if ANet went out of their way to dissuade theorycrafting by withholding details and means of running proper tests (at least outside the tight confines of SPVP, where you have targets of different armoring and so on).
They seem to insist that we should play the game by the seat of our pants, not with a spreadsheet and drilled tactics. Meaning that we should go by what feels right for each individual, not what is numerically superior according the spreadsheets and tests.
@OP:
Very interesting theory and would go a long way in explaining why, after several balance passes, certain weapons remain lackluster 9 months after launch.
Also, (and this is my personal opinion, obviously) if this was intended there would be no reason for Arenanet not to jump in here and set the record straight.
As it stands, however, the more time passes without a dev response to this thread, the more likely it seems to indeed be a bug or design oversight.
Necroing this, because there’s now a topic on it in both the game bugs and Suggestions forum and this desperately needs to be addressed.
Here’s some additional info:
Weapons that are not affected:
Rifle (Warrior and Engineer)
Shortbow (Ranger only)
Greatsword (Mesmer)
The above weapons have a rate of fire very close to their original Activation speeds (Shortbow and Greatsword’s were removed early on to buff their speeds without any changes to their offensive specs). Consequently, they pack a decent punch and feel very usable in the game currently.
Weapons that are affected:
Longbow (Warrior and Ranger)
Shortbow (Thief only)
Pistol (Thief and Engineer)
Staff (Ele, Mesmer, Necro, Guardian)
Scepter (Ele, Mesmer, Necro, Guardian)
The above weapons have #1 skills that are too sluggish for their offensive stats, screwing up the usability of the whole set as the #1 skill represents the most important baseline for DPS. This needs to be fixed.
If the intention is for the #1 skills on ranged weapons to be slower/weaker than the #1 skills on melee weapons, why are first 3 weapons listed above not included?
just increase projectile travel time speed like guardian scepter #1, problem solved
just increase projectile travel time speed like guardian scepter #1, problem solved
No, it isn’t. The problem is the attack speed itself, not the projectile speed. Improving the latter has no effect on the former.
Anet replying to this is like an admission of incompetence.
So don’t hold your breath for a response. ;-)
They probably are looking at this. They will just never ever admit it.
Anet replying to this is like an admission of incompetence.
So don’t hold your breath for a response. ;-)They probably are looking at this. They will just never ever admit it.
I know, I’m mostly hoping to just keep the awareness growing in hopes they’ll eventually look into it or respond when it gets brought up enough.
And it could turn out that it’s intentional, but even if it is the tuning is off on a lot of weapons and it needs to be re-evaluated. I’d also like to know why it is ‘hidden’ in the game.
Could simply be that ANet has not bothered to put enough data into the tooltips.
I faintly recall that when i first started playing the game last year there was no activation time in the tooltips at all. While it is not solid evidence, checking the wiki entry for various skills show them gaining activation time entries around October.
Also, as part of their combat video ANet claims that combat should be about playing rather than number crunching. So it may well be that activation time was added reluctantly by ANet, and do not capture the whole picture.
It is as if ANet went out of their way to dissuade theorycrafting by withholding details and means of running proper tests (at least outside the tight confines of SPVP, where you have targets of different armoring and so on).
They seem to insist that we should play the game by the seat of our pants, not with a spreadsheet and drilled tactics. Meaning that we should go by what feels right for each individual, not what is numerically superior according the spreadsheets and tests.
Some skills are still missing activation time. Hammer on warrior and Dagger for thief comes to mind.
Engineers have been complaining about this forever. It’s a huge problem for pistols when they fire as slowly as rifles do and we all know that doesn’t really happen. We even have a problem with the jump shot where the damage doesn’t occur until AFTER the animation is completed and it’s far too slow.
Other abilities have this issue mostly belt abilities but you see my point. The damage for the hidden pistol toolbelt shock trait doesn’t go off until all of the shots from that multi-shot ability actually goes off in it’s long entirety and then finally the bolt comes out after which most of the time the thing is dead already.
Balance Team: Please Fix Mine Toolbelt Positioning!
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