Guild Wars 2

One of the most annoying things in WvW is trying to intercept/open with Ride the lightning and having it stop short of the target and just sit there. It’s like the awkward pause when you fart while publically speaking. That and it screws up my whole rotation of pain toward my target.

I agree, RTL needs it’s pathing fixed, but I imagine this isn’t exactly the easiest bug to correct. Pathing in a game with as many obstacles, elevation changes, and potential hang-ups such as this is incredibly difficult (from my perspective, with modest coding experience).

I anticipate that this will be one of the last major bugs we get fixed for this very reason. Others (such as windborne dagger not giving a speed boost, cantrips mastery not effecting mist form, healing rain not lasting 9 seconds, armor of earth not breaking stuns, etc.) will hopefully get done far sooner as these seem like mindlessly easy fixes.

mindlessly easy yet we get LW to hit 3 targets now!!!!

Been asking for this since BW#2 so Im sure they are aware of it and working on it, but no doubt its a complex thing to fix and there are probably more important things on their list.

Just hang tight.

I don’t think it would be hard at all. Essentially they would only have to match the pathing of Teleport. Basically if we can see it we can go there, with some variations. That would give us two very similar skills, except that Teleport takes up a very valuable skill slot.

Have they agreed this is a bug?

Unless it’s completely flat terrain, i always get hung up. Weird thing is, if i just RTL to travel faster, i never get hung up. It’s always when I have someone targeted and RTL to them.

Have they agreed this is a bug?

I have not seen it stated explicitly, but there is no reason to think they do not consider it to be a bug (or at the very least, an underperforming skill).

I don’t think it would be hard at all. Essentially they would only have to match the pathing of Teleport. Basically if we can see it we can go there, with some variations. That would give us two very similar skills, except that Teleport takes up a very valuable skill slot.

But RTL and lightning flash work very differently.
Lightning flash just moves you to new coordinates (checking to make sure it’s not up a wall, through a wall, across a large ravine, etc.) This code is fairly simple, which is why this skill doesn’t bug out as bad as RTL. Yes, it still has problems, especially when changing elevation, but it’s far better than RTL.

RTL, on the other hand, tries to intercept your targets trajectory (from what I understand). If your target is running directly away from you, or directly towards you, determining the trajectory on impact (which is some time from when the skill starts, dependent upon the speed you move and the distance from target) is pretty easy, and the skill rarely bugs out. This is also why being closer to your target makes it bug less; if you’re 10 yards away and gonna hit in 0.1 seconds, the code essentially says “just go to target and explode.” This is why I suggest using RTL while in moderate to close range if possible, rather than at full range (because it bugs far less). On strafing or erratically moving targets, the trajectory prediction is pretty kitten poor, and the skill bugs out a lot. Making it teleport to your target (like LF) won’t fix this because it still has to make a prediction (and/or choose the targets coordinates at cast time, making it miss A LOT on any moving target).

The way I would try to fix it, if given the task, would be to loosen the pathing restrictions on the skill (to prevent hangups on rats, textures, small elevatoin changes, and things like that) and then make it move faster (it is lightning by the way). By making it move faster, it makes the trajectory calculation easier simply because the target has less time to move out of the way (the prediction doesn’t have to look so far into the “future.”), but it could still be dodged (making it teleport removes the targets ability to dodge it basically). This might make the skill nearly never miss, but I don’t see that as a huge problem given the fact that Ele’s aren’t exactly burning up the world out there…

{Note, I am by no means and expert here, just throwing in my 2 copper given this discussion. I may be wrong on some stuff, feel free to correctly me if you know more about this than I.}

Eicherjw.3926:

mindlessly easy yet we get LW to hit 3 targets now!!!!

Yeah, I was a bit disappointed to see some of our easier bug fixes not get any attention, but I’m optimistic they will come.

That being said, don’t take away my AOE lightning whip. I love that thing (and making it small aoe is far easier than fixing RTL, which is why it got done quickly).

Oh, I love LW, i hits for 1500 and 2500 crit

I like launching backwards with ride the lightning too. Kind of like how the dagger #1 attack used to fire backwards and it looked like you were farting fire.