Sentinel's biggest problem: Ability Stuttering

[Solohobbit]

I have this problem all the time and specifically with the ability Master Strike. My animation will start but only go about half way and then stop as if I did nothing and I am not on cd. Ihit it again and the same thing happens. It always works on the third try.....I do not understand that. Bioware please respond to the players in THIS thread and let us at least know something about OUR situation. This is a Jedi Sent/Gurd secific issue and needs and answer asap please.

[sabresandiego]

Ability Stuttering is purely a function of abilities with range requirements and special conditions.

 

Other classes do experience this, however the Jedi Knight classes suffer from it the most. Scoundrels/Operatives I've spoken to have the same issue with their melee range abilities.

 

For a class like Mercenary, you're rarely going to meet the conditions that cause it to happen, and different animations make a big difference - for instance, I've heard that Force Scream doesn't suffer from Blade-Storm's problems, but our animation has a windup.

 

I'd imagine a heavy-rocket puncher might come across this, on the other hand, but again because of the speed of their animation it may not be as big of an issue.

 

This is not true. The stuttering is especially bad on sweep, which has no target requirements at all. Half the time I try to sweep my character jumps 2-3 times in place, then does nothing, afterwhich the sweep finally works 2 seconds later once everyone has cleared the area.

 

Ability stuttering is so bad in this game that it is enough to make people unsub.

[EdratLightindark]

I did not have this problem until patch 1.02c. Now I have noticed it everytime im in combat. This definately needs to be fixed.

[Naroga]

While I experience it in both PvE and PvP, it's most noticeable in PvP. While PvP'ing, I often hit a button multiple times due to Focus starvation, which causes an ability to wind up multiple times before it does the full animation and effect.

 

This is particularly annoying when I am chasing somebody and trying to get the 50% move speed debuff on them.

[Vegathegreat]

I have to agree, this is the SINGLE most important fix that needs to be made, nothing worse in an MMO than a broken class due to gameplay mechanics.

 

BIOWARE : "We want to have ranked warzones"

 

CUSTOMER (ME) : "How can you even remotely think about even talking about ranked warzones if i have abilities that wont fire 100% of the time if done correctly"

 

TEAM : "Hey vega why didnt you interupt that cast, we lost cuz of that"

 

ME : "oh you know, got flamed by crappy class mechanics again, i pressed the button 5 times and nothing happened, my toon just kept spazzing like an epilectic"

Edited January 13, 2012 by Vegathegreat

[Jahar]

It's gamebreaking, I'm close to quitting my sentinel because of this. I can't imagine how they couldn't possibly be aware of the problem, its obvious to anyone who's played this class. Do other classes suffer from this too? Sometimes I talk to people about it and they have no idea what I'm talking about.

 

If this were fixed it would help out sentinels greatly.

 

My Sith Warrior experiences this.

[RamzaBehoulve]

Rarely happens in PvE, but happens in every single warzone match at least 2-3 times.

[Renlotho]

As much as it sucks to read, this thread made me feel sooo much better. I was going nuts. The worst for me is Merciless Slash (or w/e, the high tier watchman ability) that thing NEVER fires when I want it to in PvP I've given up on using it and do the little damage focus builders instead since they almost always fire. Good to read I'm not the only one, hopefully they will fix it soon.

[Obi-Rev]

I rolled a new Jedi Knight Alt at the start of he week as I was finding the game a bit awkward with my Guardian and wanted to try Sentinel to see if that made things a bit easier going, I found that the Sentinel was more suited to my play style, I have never come across this so called bug in over 40 hours of gameplay with my character, I press the button for the attack and she performs the action, carries out the attack and does damage as she is supposed to. It is possible guys that the problem could be with your computers and not with the game itself as surely if the problem was with the game then I and many more people would be experiencing it as well.

 

troll...get the **** out....

[AeetesSixFive]

This problem is so big to us, literally kills our rotation so kills our dps. I notice it less with my instant casts and most with Master Strike. Push my hotkey and go through a 3 sec cast up to 4 times with no way to cancel it no matter how far away the mob is. If this problem was fixed it would help melee everywhere, it must be apparent to BW so I'm just hoping it's fixed sometime soon...But I know that's unlikely sadly.

[ErisktheRed]

This problem is so big to us, literally kills our rotation so kills our dps. I notice it less with my instant casts and most with Master Strike. Push my hotkey and go through a 3 sec cast up to 4 times with no way to cancel it no matter how far away the mob is. If this problem was fixed it would help melee everywhere, it must be apparent to BW so I'm just hoping it's fixed sometime soon...But I know that's unlikely sadly.

 

They know: http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=141027

 

When it's fixed, I don't know, hopefully sooner than later...

[AeetesSixFive]

I was more leaning towards that, I assumed they knew but it doesn't sound like its gonna be fixed anytime soon.

[Ninjachado]

For my two cents, copy/paste the issues in this thread. For a while, I figured I must have been doing something wrong (I.e.: Hitting buttons too fast, or interrupting the command line to make it cast because I hit something else), since my computer isn't the best, and so I figured it was just a delayed graphics thing like most of my game experienced.

 

I am extremely pleased about the fact that this isn't my pc, however. One less thing I have to blame it on (datacron hunting is a nightmare on my unresponsive thing). Most importantly for me, above all: The interrupts. On a damage dealing attack, I can just mash the button a few times and then it gets cast, no real harm done except that my dps drops some. But interrupts are crucial to my survival, especially against some elites and storyline bosses. Being unable to force kick when I press it means I have to try and predict the computer's ai in order to land the kick and interrupt channeled casts. Then add that force kick has a pretty hefty cooldown to wait through, and if i misfire or don't fire correctly, not only will the ability succeed and hit me, but its unusable for my next attempt. As few as two botched force kicks/stasis can spell death for our glass-canon sentinel asses.

[FobManX]

Almost got me killed vs. the last boss in HM Maelstrom today. Pulled aggro on some mobs that were dropping me and I had to mash my Force Camo like 5 times before it would apply.

 

Zealous Striking after Force Leap lands is becoming an adventure too. Quite a few times I have to hit it 2-3 times. Argh...

[AASmirnov]

Just for the record - I have the very same problem.

It's very obvious in pvp, where a lot of buttons are pressed, well, let's say, very fast. I noticed that this stuttering occurs if you press any ability button before the previous ability finished. So now I have to be not precise in what order I press the buttons, but also be precise not to press any buttons before the animation ends and the hit lands.

And did I mention that I love the way that when ability animation is almost done, I get suddenly interrupted, but the ability used is already on the cooldown?

[SunwindIon]

Is this what you are talking about?

 

When I try to use an ability, click it, and then click it again, it gets stuck in the starting animation for it and takes like 3 clicks before it actually goes through and does the ability?

[Cancrizans]

Yep I experience this a LOT. Between the delay, the arbitrary additional animations that slow down skill delivery(thread on wind up animations on this forum), and having to use a skill several times to get it to activate, we are i serious trouble here.

 

This is definitely gamebreaking stuff folks, I hope Bioware is paying attention because if this isn't fixed soon...

[sexysolo]

I experience this a lot as well.

 

It seems to really affect my Overload Saber, Slash and Cauterize. Sometimes I've hit OS at least 3-5 times before it activates.

[coldmiser]

Yeah, this problem is usually the deciding factor in fights with Elites. And THAT'S when I notice it the most.

I'll have about a significant amount of health left, mob will be down to one or two hits, and BAM! I'm dead.

Then it's that *** moment and I look back and realize my chain never exicuted.

And it almost has that look of "lag" where I'm pushing a button and nothing happens, then all of a sudden I'm dead and mob is back at full health. It's not lag though, everytime it's happened I've looked at my network traffic and it's steady and a good connection, it's almost like when the game is calculating "rolls" it has a brain fart and can't decided what to do. If that makes sense.

[Blazehound]

Yeah, stuttering is annoying, especially when using instants.

[SDell]

I have personally never experienced this but appreciate it's happening to all of you.

 

I'm wondering if the in Preferences under Controls then the very bottom there is Ability Action Que setting that may help. Adjusting this is supposed to allow for how long in advance you can hit a skill and have it activate so to que it up. Has anyone tried adjusting this to see if it solves the issues? Seems by description the issue may be the programs ability to recognize the action selected against the action completing or being supercedded by a following action. Almost as if it thinks another action has been activated to prevent the first action from completing. Just throwing ideas around.

[Aikagi]

It definitely does happen on my Sith Juggernaut, and it isn't good when you're a tank. It's amazing I don't lose aggro thanks to it sometimes, because I've had it happen to all my presses in a space of 5-10 seconds. I always thought it was because another animation interrupted the move, like I've noticed a deflect interrupts it(I don't think it's part of the GCD issue because the GCD doesn't actually reset in this case, unlike sometimes when it does).

 

I have personally never experienced this but appreciate it's happening to all of you.

 

I'm wondering if the in Preferences under Controls then the very bottom there is Ability Action Que setting that may help. Adjusting this is supposed to allow for how long in advance you can hit a skill and have it activate so to que it up. Has anyone tried adjusting this to see if it solves the issues? Seems by description the issue may be the programs ability to recognize the action selected against the action completing or being supercedded by a following action. Almost as if it thinks another action has been activated to prevent the first action from completing. Just throwing ideas around.

 

Nope, doesn't fix it.

Edited January 14, 2012 by Aikagi

[Covinous]

I hate this. It doesn't happen on my Scoundrel or Commando, but it was frustrating as heck on my Sentinel.

 

I do notice that if I press my hotkey one time instead of spamming it until the ability goes off, that the stutter is a lot less likely to happen.

[Logisitcs]

For example, we are certainly aware that the Marauder and Sentinel are very gameplay intensive classes with some of the most complex rotations in the game. While we are currently looking at quality of life and usability improvements to increase the class' playability without compromising the unique aspects of the class, we don't have anything specific to announce just yet. We do however anticipate that some of the combat responsiveness improvements (AKA 'ability delay' - more on that here) being worked on by our engineering team will specifically aid both Marauder and Sentinel.

 

http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?p=1435443#edit1435443

 

Happens a crap tons for me in warzones when spamming, not so much in PvE though

Edited January 14, 2012 by Logisitcs

[ProfessorWalsh]

Yes, this a million times yes, the number of times my abilities don't work is staggering. If they acted when I hit the button then I imagine my DPS would go through the roof. When that day comes there will be many shocked faces as the Sentinels jump in combat performance.