New player struggling with ground targeting abilities

[Amrath.3704]

Hi guys.

I am a new player who recently asked here some questions about classes without animations and following your recommandations, I decided to continue my warrior with axe/axe and level up a guardian too. As I played with these characters a little more and also experimented with their elite specializations and other weapons, I started to understand a little more what was bugging me in the first place with animations and the culprit seems to be ground targeting animations. Many of the ground targeting abilities that I use simply don't seem to connect. As I played different classes, but mostly with my warrior, I can't seem to figure out how to properly use my ground targeting abilities. It might be just being stupid but I decided to ask you hoping that's maybe not the case 😄

Some of the skills that are confusing me the most are GS 3 and Hammer F1 for Warrior. Explaining my experience with words might make this post longer than it needs to be so I uploaded screenshots taken before using each skill at a different distance, my character being stationary, with a description of whether the skill actually hit or not: https://imgur.com/a/FTERBWt

My initial thought was that my latency (200ms) was the bad guy behind this, but my experience ended up being the same against the stationary golems of the mists, though trying to activate these two skills while running towards the golem required a distance even shorter that the one on the screenshots for the skills to actually connect. My second thought, after reading the Hammer F1 skill and seeing that it has a 240 radius, was that skills' circle and arrow do not necessarily represent the area of effect of these abilities, but I couldn't find any conclusive information regarding that idea, which is the reason why I am here asking you.

Is there something that I am doing wrong with these ground targeting abilities? Having a hard time finding any information about this, I have the strong feeling that this is mostly a "me" problem but I seem to be unable to figure out what I am missing.

Edit: just a note to say that any other skill that is not ground targeting sucessfully hits as long as there is no red bar under the icon.

Edited May 8, 2023 by Amrath.3704

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Try other Ground Targeting options?

Ground Targeting — Normally, ground-targeted skills require one click or key press to activate the skill's target overlay, allowing you to select the target area by moving the mouse cursor, and finally a second click or key press to activate the skill at the targeted location. The second option (Fast with Range Indicator) requires only one click or key press, but only activates on release, allowing access to the range indicator while the button or key is still pressed. The third option (Instant) condenses the function into a single click or key press, selecting the target location from the current location of the mouse cursor, instantly on click or key press.

[Jukhy.2431]

As Inculpatus Cedo suggested I'd try the other options. I used normal targeting mode for a long time but after I switched to instant mode the combat feels a lot more fluid. It did take bit of learning to remember that the AoE is now cast at where the mouse cursor is. 

There's also an option called "Snap Ground Target to Current Target" which might help esp with the leap skills.

[SoftFootpaws.9134]

You're taking your latency into account, but you're likely not taking the cast time of the skill into account. The actual cast times of skills will often be several times your latency--sometimes even measured in seconds. The skill usually goes off at around 40-60% of the total cast time, but it varies from skill to skill.

 

On top of this, many skills have long aftercasts that make them feel "sluggish" if not cancelled.

 

What you're likely falling prey to is inexperience with the timings of the class. You need to predict your enemy's movement not only for your latency but also the time it takes the skill to actually go off, and over time this develops into muscle memory but to accomplish that you need a lot of practice.

 

This becomes even more complicated if the skill has some kind of movement factor, and both the skills you used as examples are known for being "clunky" due to the forced movement.

 

Using fast ground targeting will help but won't completely solve the problem.

 

I recommend playing something more fluid, and seeing if that works better for you. For example, shout builds often have little or no cast times or targeting, and some weapon sets like axe/axe have little to no targeting or anything else to hinder their movement even during channeled skills (like Warrior axe #5).

Edited May 9, 2023 by SoftFootpaws.9134

[Amrath.3704]

Thank you for your answers.

Regarding the Ground Targeting options, I was initially using the setting Fast with Range Indicator but I didn't get more success with the two other options unfortunately. Actually, the Instant setting made things even worse with my character always ending up on far on the right side of the target for some strange reason.

However, through additional testing today, I realized that I hadn't been paying much attention to the range of these abilities and could pinpoint the source of my confusion a little bit better: the green targeted area actually goes far beyond the actual range of these abilities. For example, Earthshaker has a 600 range but if I stand at 900, the target is still within the green area but the ability doesn't connect, presumably because it is out of range, while the visual indicator makes me believe that it should hit. Standing at exactly 600 (by checking the red indicator under the Hammer 3 spell) and trying to use Earthshaker as far as possible, the target ends up exactly at the center of the green ground visual indicator and the ability connects.

As mentioned by the previous person, cast time, and also the latency, probably make the green area on the ground an even worse and thruthless indicator of whether an ability can actually hit or not. Understanding this already made a difference and I have been focusing on making sure that my target is at the very center of the green circle or at least between its center and my character, and this has allowed me to hit way more often.

That said, GS 3 seems to be on a whole other level. The tooltip says range 450 but the arrow allows to target up to 600, and even when standing at 450, the ability never hits, despite my character landing exactly on the target. For comparison, Stomp (also range 450) hit every single time from the same distance. Moving closer to 300, it still did not hit a single time out of twenty tries, despite my character ending up exactly 150 behind the target. When using the ability under 300, I finally saw the first damage numbers, but in real world fights with latency and the cast time, this translated to being an extremely clunky and unreliable ability that only works at very close range despite the tooltip and visual indicators indicating otherwise.

In the end, I understand how these skills work a little bit better and practice is the way to go as I remain a very unexperienced player, but my warrior will probably stay away from greatswords and prioritize axes and hammers.

[Khisanth.2948]

Just checked in game and Earthshaker(hammer F1) is only traveling ~567 instead of the listed 600 so that would be part of the issue. To make things worst the radius is only ~210 instead of 240.

On the other hand GS3 actually travels farther than the listed value. ~546 instead of 450. It does not work the way its animation and description might lead you to believe. It hits 4 times for the duration of the skill so it is something like: PBAoE attack at the start, 250ms delay, PBAoE, 250ms, PBAoE, 250ms, PBAoE, finish the rest of the movement but it won't be hitting anything at this point.

 

[Amrath.3704]

Thank you for taking the time to test this and for sharing the results here.

Indeed, after trying again, it seems like Earthshaker's values are actually a little smaller than the listed ones. That said, knowing this helps me a bit and I've started getting used to this skill.

As for GS 3, your explanation make things a lot clearer. I've been thinking of this skill as a gap closer with damage only on arrival and I've been testing from max range on single targets believing that the damage should occur at the end of the movement and getting frustrated because it never did. I'll try using it while making sure that the targets I want to hit are in the first two thirds of the distance I am trying to cover, not past the point where the AoE happens but the animation continues.

Overall, it seems like I have been wrongfully believing that the green circle and the arrow are visual indicators of whether skills can hit or not when they simply seem to be about the travelling distance my character can cover, with the damaging distance being for me figure out through practice. 

Edited May 9, 2023 by Amrath.3704

[Urud.4925]

The tooltip of GS3 is quite condensed for space limitation, but that skill tries to hit enemies while you spin to the end of its path ("slashing foes along your path.") , so if the enemy is at the very end of the range, you don't hit it. Also the number of hits are quite variable, as the wiki says:

• "Whirlwind Attack will try to hit 4 times on its path.
  • A stationary enemy in its path will be hit 2-4 times depending on their size and distance from the starting point. Starting in melee range (130 units), player characters and smaller enemies will be hit 2-3 times, while bigger creatures will be hit all 4 times. The size of a creature usually matches their selection circle.
  • Used against an obstacle in an angle that prevents advance or while immobilized will allow you to deliver all 4 hits to enemies in range."

It's indeed a gap closer (or a way to escape), rather than a skill used to damage. Kudos for finding that the values in the tooltip are wrong though. I never noticed it.